LeeSooKyung/Life-History Interview First Draft/Thursday 1-3 pm

Interview with my mom

On a peaceful weekend, I was spending restful time with my family at my home. While we with tea, I suddenly wondered my parents' childhood so they found a small photo album for me. As much time passed, the album also seemed like very old. Its every edges were worn. When I saw the photo album of our family, one picture of skinny girl caught my eyes because I couldn't imagine the girl in that picture grew into my mom! The appearance was totally different.

At the time, I thought it would be the best timing to interview about my mom's childhood and brought a list of prepared questions. She laughed. "When did you prepare these all questions? I'm not a special person as you'd think." Then I said, "Mom, you are special enough for me and please answer about my questions." My mom said, "You might be bored." "Then we should start the interview to know your answer is whether bored or not," I said.

The first question, "How was your childhood?", led her to focus on the interview. My mom was born in 1969, in Uijeongbu, the city of Gyeonggi-do. In her childhood, my mom's nickname was 'Pepero', chocolate covered pretzels. I could easily guess the reason why she called as 'Pepero' and she told me the reason as if she read my mind. She was severely thin and the color of her skin was like dark-chocolate. She said, "There were a variety of food except for our family. Eating greedily was my biggest dream in those long-ago days." She spent a tough childhood because of the poverty. My grandmother gained unsold vegetables from merchants in the market to feed her five children. She couldn't afford to buy some fresh ones. With a sad look, she said, "Your grandfather used to go out every morning so that he sold the basins made of rubber."

My mom showed that the prejudice of 'The longer a person is exposed to poverty at childhood, the worse the achievement levels become was completely wrong. She looked at me and said, "I had never missed the top of the whole school and it made me to develop a desire to be a teacher." I felt as if her heart swelled with pride. She saw my astonished eyes and continued, "However, I had no choice but to go to the commercial high school rather than an academic high school. All the while, I dreamed of someday becoming a teacher." At that moment, I saw a sense of frustration from her eyes. I understood that feeling of joy and sorrow was mingled in her face at the same time. She said, "There was no time to learn how to dress myself even I had no opportunity for it. Fortunately, I had been offered a job with one of the leading companies in Korea as soon as I graduated from the high school. It was like a turning point in my life!" After listening her answer, I thought it was natural that she could be an employee of that company because she was the most diligent person among the people I know but she thought it was just a reward by god. She continued to tell her story with a pleasant smile. "One of the biggest present I got from here was your dad." It was the first time that I heard how my mom and dad got married so I was so interesting to continue this interview. "One of my superior officers at work introduced your dad to me and I thought your dad could make me happy forever. Well…finally, you could be born!", she grinned wickedly. I asked, "Then, don't you regret what you had to give up for livelihood? Such as your dream of being a teacher." It seemed like she was lost in deep thought for a while. After a pause, she opened her mouth. "I don't think I gave up my dream, I just put my own dreams back. That's the reason why I decided to enter the university relatively and majored the department of early childhood education at a later age." It was true that she challenged to enter the university a few years ago, but I didn't notice her purpose of that challenge. She got a full scholarship for 4 years. She said, "To be frankly speaking, it was too hard for me to be an attentive mom, a thoughtful wife, and a nice student at the same time." She added, "But there's one thing that I really want to tell you. Don't live your life without your dream." She has a great zest for her life and I could feel it.

Now I understand the reason why she has lived her life so hard. It's because she has not given up her dream and she wanted to teach me the value of dream. Maybe she also didn't want that I felt frustrated in my life because of the poverty. Thanks to this interview, I realized her happiness was started from my dad, me, and her dream.