“We’re so weird.” – Sag Dong Min

This quote came from one of my favorite students; in fact he reminds me a lot of my brother. This week the class lesson has been about appearance, which according to my sister’s Facebook reply, “the order of importance is: Hair, Shoes, Clothes and then whatever we're dressing for.” She makes me so proud. The conversation at the time was about skin tones and how people can change their skin tones with things like tanning and make-up. At that point that student pointed out a common thing in the Korean language. For those who don’t know, words in Korean HAVE TO end with a vowel sound, usually some variation of the A or E sound. For example, Burger King would be Burger Kinga in Hangeul (Korean language). So the conversation went like this:

Me: People change their skin color sometimes by using tanning or make-up.
Sag Dong Min: Make-up, make-upa, make-up
Me: Make-upa, are you saying it in Korean?
Sag: Yes, we’re so weird.
(In my head bursting and bursting in laughter)
Me (realistically speaking): No you’re not, it’s just the language

And no, this doesn’t mean the Korean language is weird, I really laughed at his reaction of how he pointed out this difference. Come on, when haven’t you heard the joke about the guy ordering a Yumbo Yack from Yack in the Box? Exactly. We can’t be docking language points here.

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This week has also been about perspective to me. I’ve thought a lot about the expectations people have of one another. We expect people, based on circumstantial evidence, upbringing, background, or even socio-economic class to achieve and to do a limited array of things. This goes from the kid in the projects who is expected to drop out of high school and try to maintain a menial paying job to the trust-fund kid expected to live off of mommy and daddy’s bank account forever and ever. In either scenario, people should not expect anything from people. Many people who come from low-income upbringing use that to motivate their goals of wanting to become something grand. Many people in the trust-fund situation usually feel ashamed of being privileged and want to make their own name for themselves. The point is, don’t expect anything from anyone.

I’ve seen the person who went to the good school say things like “conversate” and “aks (instead of “ask”)” and I’ve seen the person from the slums be on the verge from being a Mensa genius. Things that I’ve personally done in my life, no one ever pressured or expected them from me, I really just expected them from myself. Whatever things I ever put myself through it’s really been because I expected them from myself, and I still do. I admire people who take those expectations others have of them, and instead are empowered by their own expectations, throwing the others into the crapper.
That’s why I surround myself in the company that I do. Many of my friends and family members have become people who have not let their environments faze them, but instead they do what they do because they want to do better and bigger things for themselves, beyond the expectations. I also love the company I’m in because it seems that my friends and family always have an “itch.” They’re either too comfortable or too uneasy about their current positions that they wish to do more. Where most people would have settled, I look at the people around me (figuratively considering that I live on the other side of the world from LA) and see that they always want to do more. They want get a better job, get a better education, travel more, learn more…all in all, have a better life. I like that. I admire that, and chances are that I admire you.