Academic Essay
matter if I’ve lived in Australia since I was two years old, it’s not an accomplishment to speak Korean. It doesn’t matter if I practiced the cello until my finger pads bled, popped, and bled again, because Asians are good at playing musical instruments. It also crushes me that I become a reflection on where I was born. As an unwilling ambassador for Korea, a friend told me that my wide nose made me look Korean. Do people have any idea how their remarks make me feel? What am I meant to do about how my skin and fat happen to form around my cartilage, anyway? I already have a twisted sense of guilt when judgments on an entire nation are made based on my actions: my personal favourite, “are all families in Korea like yours?” as my mother cooked a five course meal for my friends, scuttling back to the kitchen to whisper to my sister and using cutlery I’ve never seen before. When I think of Gallipoli, I think of sacrifice, heroism, camaraderie, bravery, life and death, the Simpson donkey – grand, sweeping notions in line with the blessings this lucky country has received, and at odds with how Australians have made “those who’ve come across the seas” to share in their “boundless plains” feel. What did those soldiers fight for? Are we living to that standard today? Australia is still far from the kind of country I’d like to live in. The waste of its true potential is only emphasised by the martyrdom of Australians of only a few generations ago.
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