Opening My Eyes to a Familiar Yet Unfamiliar World
1,200 feet above sea level and 30 miles south of Downtown Los Angeles, I woke up as the birds chirped and the sun shined straight into my face in the suburbs of Palos Verdes, California. Waking up in a house on top of an actual hill instead of an apartment on the 27th floor of a manmade building I used to live in, in Seoul, South Korea. Moving back to America after my freshman year of high school was a complete switch for me in environment both culturally and socially. It made me notice the many differences between American and Korean cultures as well as between the life at school I had switching into a public from a private school. This variation in culture and environment helped me understand others better with a more broader point of view. Not everyone grows up with similar surroundings and they are not to blame for many of the actions they express, but rather depends on the people and things around them when growing up.
The world around me had completely changed. I was so used to walking out, smelling cigarettes, coughing, and being unable to see …show more content…
Although I had lived in America for almost half my life, I didn’t know anything back then because I was too young. I was too young to notice the things that were going on around me; I just focused on having fun, leveling up my game characters, and training my Pokemon. However, moving here when I was a freshman in high school I could easily tell the differences and notice the changes much like Pico Iyer’s observations in his essay, “Where Worlds Collide”. Everything was so different. Every single thing that I re-saw got me to realize the distinctions between the two cultures. I noticed the small little details in everyday lifestyles that would throw me off and the most insignificant things that I would be uncomfortable with because of the
1,200 feet above sea level and 30 miles south of Downtown Los Angeles, I woke up as the birds chirped and the sun shined straight into my face in the suburbs of Palos Verdes, California. Waking up in a house on top of an actual hill instead of an apartment on the 27th floor of a manmade building I used to live in, in Seoul, South Korea. Moving back to America after my freshman year of high school was a complete switch for me in environment both culturally and socially. It made me notice the many differences between American and Korean cultures as well as between the life at school I had switching into a public from a private school. This variation in culture and environment helped me understand others better with a more broader point of view. Not everyone grows up with similar surroundings and they are not to blame for many of the actions they express, but rather depends on the people and things around them when growing up.
The world around me had completely changed. I was so used to walking out, smelling cigarettes, coughing, and being unable to see …show more content…
Although I had lived in America for almost half my life, I didn’t know anything back then because I was too young. I was too young to notice the things that were going on around me; I just focused on having fun, leveling up my game characters, and training my Pokemon. However, moving here when I was a freshman in high school I could easily tell the differences and notice the changes much like Pico Iyer’s observations in his essay, “Where Worlds Collide”. Everything was so different. Every single thing that I re-saw got me to realize the distinctions between the two cultures. I noticed the small little details in everyday lifestyles that would throw me off and the most insignificant things that I would be uncomfortable with because of the