Kim Young Woo 201203937 / First Draft Essay # 2 / Narrative Comp. Tues

Family Man

August 1st 1997. This was the date one father took his wife and his only son on board Korean airline to move halfway across the world. Without much knowledge nor money, he decided to chase the American dream. Against all odds, he quit his job at the Walker Hill hotel to move to a country that held no certainty. Now that I see it, he was a brave man who risked failure to provide a better life for his family. This is the story of my father.

My earliest memory of my father in America, who did not know how to speak a single word of English, woke up earlier than everyone else to go out to find work for the day to put food on the table for his family. From manual labor to appearing as extras in film, he tried all he could to get by until he was able to get a salary job. Regularly coming home late, unable to fit in some time for a decent dinner, he would come home to my mom's home cooking and drink some beer to end another day. I can only imagine how hard it was for him mentally and physically, let alone having to deal with the language barrier.

He never gave up. He finally got a job as the main chef at a Korean restaurant and began to have a regular paying job. But even then, it barely made the payments for basic living expenses and thus my mom had to begin working to help out. I can only imagine how much this hurt him, having to ask his wife to work in a foreign country while having to take care of a very young version of me. Recently, my father told me that the only reason we were able to get to where we are right now was because my mom helped him out during those hard times. As a man who never expressed any signs of weakness to his family, I knew that he appreciated my mom's help dearly.

My father, he is a very traditional Korean male figure, very conservative, didn't showing his weakness, which all amounted to more pressure to be the leader for his family. He was the backbone of our family and during these few years is when I saw what kind of person my father was. From working strenuous hours in karaokes, in numerous restaurants, and as a starting salesman, my dad was able to find a job that he was good at, talking. With only a rudimentary level English, my father began selling merchandise to convenient stores off his Chrysler mini van. This is how he strated his career as a salesmen.

I didn't know how hard my dad worked until one day when I was suspended from school. He took me out to work with him to show me how hard he was working for me and my mom. As I entered couple of the convenient stores, I saw some of the disparaging treatments from the store owners, probably due to his image, a Asian man with broken English trying to sell merchandise. At this moment, I felt a sudden rush of pain in my chest knowing that he was taking all the gestures of belittlement from these store owners. Being aware that my father was a man with great pride, his choice to swallow his ego to put food on the table and money in my pockets so that I could go out with my friends during the weekend was a very hurtful reality that was difficult to digest.

But, it was his quality of being a family man, that allowed him to persevere through all those hardships to make it in a country that put him at a very huge disadvantage. After living in a studio for five years, was able to move his family to a one bedroom townhouse, and eventually, after graduating middle school, was able to move out of the ghetto streets of Los Angeles into a nicer neighborhood in the suburbs out in the valley. Even with all the sweat and tears, my father never gave up, and eventually grew his sales business into his own successful company. Never giving up and persevering through all the hardships of being a new immigrant in an alien country, he was able to become a successful businessman in America. If anyone knows what it is like to start from the bottom, my father definitely can tell you that if you really have something to live for, in his case, his family, than anything is possible. He will always be my role model, someone I still have a million things to learn from.

Task 3.3

I believe that using metaphors in writing is very helpful to better illustrate what you are trying to say. When they are used effectively, they can show strong emotions and images to explain an event, person, or thoughts. However, in this case of this writing, Rain, the metaphors actually made the essay a lot more confusing. I think writers need to be careful when using metaphors in their essays because, without have a clear connection, the readers can get lost in the message the writer is trying to portray.

Task 3.4

His biceps are huge rocks.