In Asian folklore, there’s a story of a frog that had lived all of its life at the bottom of a well. The frog’s entire world was confined by the walls of the well and the frog’s access to the world was the tiny patch of the sky above the well. Before I came to the United States, I was like that frog. I lived a comfortable and sheltered life with both my parents holding honorable positions¬¬¬ in society working as an engineer and public relations deputy manager. Money was never an issue for my parents back then. Therefore, my childhood was inundated with enrichment lessons for ballet, organ, and art. Ho Chi Minh City was the center of the universe, the well that shut the rest of the world out. When I was 8 years old, my parents made a decision that shattered the walls of the well we were living in—they decided to immigrate to United States.
The crumbling walls collapsed into the well and shocked my family and me. We lost virtually everything. The college degrees that my parents spent years acquiring were worthless in the eyes of American employers. After months of unemployment that drained the money my parents spent years saving, my parents had to swallow their pride and work at a restaurant. I felt the burden of their embarrassment and shame but could do nothing. My mom was on the verge of insanity from worrying about our family’s future, yet I could do nothing to comfort her. That first bitter winter turned even crueler when my aunt and uncle, with whom we were staying, kicked us out of their house. In my selfish heart of an eight-year-old, the only thing I could understand was that I had to wear hand-me-down clothes, give up toys, and forget all my fine arts lessons all because my family could no longer afford them. It was only until I was a teenager that I began to understand what a struggle it was just to put food on the table. With barely enough money to buy food, health care was out of the question. Even today, whenever one of our family members gets sick, he or she just tries to suffer it through. The immigration to United States opened my eyes and the word misery became a part of my vocabulary. I started to understand that not everyone had experienced the life I had in Vietnam. It made me more sympathetic to the disadvantaged, and I began to comprehend the inequalities in this world.
When I was in Vietnam, I had been taught that Vietnamese education system was superior to all other nations’ education systems. Although I understood so little English in the beginning that I had to take English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, I could see major differences between the Vietnamese and the American styles of teaching. In Vietnam, students were clones—sharing the same thoughts, acting the same way. We didn’t learn in class, but rather we memorized and reiterated the mechanical words of the teacher. In America, the teachers encouraged me and this freedom intoxicated me. It separated me from my neighbor; it made me a unique individual. My passion for learning was inflamed. I poured all of my energy into first learning English and eventually every subject covered in school.
Encouraged by my enthusiasm for education, my parents explained to me that they had sacrificed their lives in Vietnam to provide my brother and me a better chance at life through a better education. The passion before coupled with my understanding and appreciation of my parents’ suffering pushed me to work harder in my studies. I had to work twice, sometimes thrice, as hard as other students did. My summers were filled with extra lessons and books checked out from the library instead of sunshine and swimming pools. As a teenager, I stayed up until 2 in the morning, not to play games or socialize like other teenagers, but to reread the textbook assignment one more time to check my understanding. My efforts are starting to pay off after all these years and I take pride in my scholastic progress. From an ESL student who could barely string together a coherent sentence, I’m now taking 5 AP classes and performing well in all of them.
In Vietnam, I was taught to accept what was given. In United States, I was dared to ask for more. Because of my family’s past situation, I aspire to become a doctor, one who has the aptitude to aid the disadvantaged. Although my dreams and hopes are lofty, they’re not impossible to achieve. Unlike the frog, I am free from the well and I will conquer my ignorance to reach beyond the stars.