아빠가 아들에게
2021년 3월 22일 지누에게 쓰다.
Thank you for sharing what you thought in the youth worship yesterday! It helped me to realize once again that sometimes when I talked to you in English about life and some stuff in relation to it with depth and width, you had difficulty in understanding, hopefully sometimes. In our recent conversations about soccer and your hesitation about you or whatever it might be, I think there are a few things I would like to express in English to help you understand my bottom line.
First, when I said, "Jinu, you were not that good! When you thought about you playing great, it could be your fantasy. I agree that you played great while playing against Minu and me. But, I have never seen you playing like that with your friends or other teams. When you cannot play what you practiced in real games, no one actually considers that you have some great ability and skills," I did not mean that you are bad. I am saying for sure that you have a great amount of potentiality in playing soccer great. You have a strong body armed with good muscle, endurance, and consistent practice. No one can improve their soccer skills dramatically like you did and showed to me last year.
Second, when I said, "You would better to reconsider playing soccer continually if you cannot play with your friends the same way you play with Minu and me," I did not mean that you need to think of whether or not to stop playing soccer. As I mentioned and emphasized a couple of times that in the US you will encounter Whites all the time in life as long as you live here, I wanted to stress, in saying this, that you need to change your mentality about how to interact with Whites. I deeply know how painful it was when your friends made fun of you, saying, "Jinu is a hobo." When you shared that with us, I was angry beyond the reach of my language. But, I tried to rethink. If their life began in the mansion-like house and their entire families live in such a living condition, it is possible that they have never experienced an apartment - particularly a family apartment on the campus of a university. Now we can talk about inequality and race difference, and racism and social justice, etc. But, my experience in Korea and the US taught me that such a language game is worth a damn. There is nothing to it when it comes to how you are carving your life. In particular, your present moment. You told me yesterday, "Daddy, I already told Minu. But, this is a really good old saying. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift from God. That is why we call it the present." When we think of and begin to talk about inequality, race difference, racism and social justice more and more, it becomes easier to forget the preciousness of the present only in which you can change your future, improving yourself. To cut a long story short, by saying, "Jinu, as long as you live in the US, you always encounter White guys, and I worry that each time you would avoid it. So, you lived your life for the past 13 years. Do not live your life anymore like that. It is useless!" I want to say that there is nothing you feel pressured from White guys. Please remember that when your friends developed their soccer skills by taking expensive tutoring, you made it by yourself, going through a constant series of trials and errors and realizing slowly what matters for having good skills. You seemed to give up a few times out of self-doubt and hesitation and despair. But, each time I saw a Phoenix within you that flew out of them as if nothing mattered to you. I want to see that over and over again within you. Why? It is because that led me to this present as an international student in the US from Korea. Without you, I could have not done what I have made from 2007 in my life.
Third, all in all, I want to say, this time very briefly, that I am happy with the fact that you are my son, that I am thankful that you are my son, that I am excited about how you are growing and how you are carving your own life and what future you are creating, and that I am proud of you as my first son and me of your father. No matter how hard I tried to find a reason for why you seem to avoid White guys who once or twice or a little continually said, "You
are different. You are not belonged here!" I find nothing. The reason is that each and every moment you proved that you are better than they thought - I am thinking how you became able to wrestle with Jason neck and neck. Jason already played wresting for years. You, you learned it for about 6 months, and you gave him a really hard time and attained respect from him.
Hey, a young man full of potentialities - I don't have any idea about where they may lead you, think big and act great, loving yourself and taking care of others. No, you, just do what you are doing now. You are already doing it well enough.
I love you, Jinu, my first son.
From KwangYu, your dad, on March 22, 2021
