<A Korean Girl Making Miracle In Australia>
Can you believe that I was on the first page of the school newspaper? Let me tell you the most memorable moment in my life that I experienced in a far, far country.
When I was 13 years old, I moved to Australia and lived there for about a year to learn English. It seems to be a very young age but my parents decided to send me alone. In Korea, a lot of parents are eager for better education so it was not strange for young children like me to go abroad and study.
I attended a local elementary school with the children of my home stay family. It was a small school with not so many students. I remember that the school building only had one floor, and there were only two or three buildings. Despite its small size, I loved the school because there was a big tree in the middle of the school so that students could rest and play around that tree.
For a 13-year-old kid, everything was so new and strange. I had trouble adapting to the new environment. Also, I was very shy and timid so it made it even harder for me to get along with the classmates at first. They were very nice, but I think felt somewhat superior than me because they spoke English way better. I didn't understand their culture and didn't know how to get closer to them.
Time passed and I managed to get along with some of the classmates, but still I didn't feel close to them. They seemed to be nice just because I was a classmate who came from a far country. It might have felt like a duty for them to be polite. Some students even ignored me and teased me just because I was an Asian. I always felt left out.
One day, my parents sent me a package from Korea. They sent some presents for my friends and my home stay family. The package also included Gongi, also known as Korean jackstones.
Gongi is a traditional children's game of Korea. 5 jacks(small sized marbles) are needed for one game. Each player throws the jacks on the floor and picks one jack and throws it into the air. Then the player has to scoop up one jack on the floor before the air-thrown jack comes down and hits the floor. If you succeed, you can move on to the next stage and this time, you have to catch two jacks on the floor before the thrown jack hits the floor. The play continues until a player drops the jack or touches the jacks on the floor unintentionally.
I was very good at Gongi because it was my favorite play and I always used to play it with my friends every break time at school in Korea. I wanted to share this tradition with my Australian friends. I thought sharing my own culture would make us closer.
The very next day, I brought Gongi to school. On the way to school, I was unusually excited. I couldn't wait to show the Korean tradition to the classmates. On one side, though, I was a little worried by the thought that my friends might not be interested. Half filled with expectation and half filled with concerns, I gasped for a moment and opened the class door.
"Hey guys, look what I got! I got something fun from Korea." I said.
"What is it? Let me see." Some friends nearby stopped chatting and came to find out what I had.
I took out the five marbles and put them on my hand to let them see.
"Wow, what are these? I like how little and cute they are."
Soon, more and more classmates gathered around me to see the new, strange thing the Korean girl has brought.
To my surprise, the classmates loved it. They were bad at playing it since it was their first time playing, but they fell in love with this unfamiliar game. They were amazed to see how good I was at playing Gongi. They thought it was really cool. Since then, my Australian friends wanted to play Gongi every recess time. They got better and better at playing the game. A friend of mine even pleaded me to borrow the jacks so that she could teach her family the Korean game Gongi.
We played in class, on the benches, and even at the playground. We played it on the weekends, too! Many students from other classes started to watch us play. Soon our game got very popular and the students in other classes wanted to play as well. Then, believe it or not, almost every girl (Gongi is usually played by girls.) was playing the game at recess time. It was weird to see foreign students playing Korean traditional game altogether. I was proud to introduce my culture to my Australian friends, and I was happy that I finally felt much closer to them. It was the power of Gongi!
One day, a journalist for my school newspaper came to me.
"Hee Sun, can I ask you something?"
I was surprised because I had never talked with her before.
"Sure, what is it?" I replied, hiding my confusion.
"If you don't mind, can I have an interview with you? I want to write an article about you and the Korean game!" She said in excitement. I guess she was one of the fans of Gongi.
"I would be glad to do that!" I replied.
Eventually, the game was reported in the school newspaper. I was so happy. Who knew that I would be on the headlines in Australia! Thanks to Gongi, I made a lot of good friends and my school life got much more fun and happier. Before playing the game, they were no more than just classmates. But as I taught them how to play and we started playing together, they seemed to open their mind without being biased about me. The race problem seemed to be impossible for me to overcome, but those little jacks helped me to break the barrier. Thanks, Gongi!
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