ESL Integrated 100 Spring 2020 - A New Deacde!

My Generation         The story began in 1841 with a war called “The First Opium War” between the United Kingdom and China. After that, Hong Kong became a colony of the U.K. for one hundred years until July 1, 1997. My father was born in British Hong Kong and had the experience of living in Hong Kong under the British government and Chinese government. Although the United Kingdom gave Hong Kong back to China, my father thought he was a British more than a Chinese. My father always told me the story about the life and government under the colonial period and taught me about freedom and democracy. However, the Hong Kong — Mainland conflict became serious when Hong Kong returned to China over twenty years ago. This change over has affected the way I identity myself and think about who I am.         My father said the British government gave more freedom to the citizens. For example, they would not force citizens to learn their language, but my father still tried to learn it, b

Miracle of Han River              Nineteen ninety-seven was a meaningful year for my family. It was the year I was born   and there was a big crisis in Korea called The International Monetary Fund (IMF). Korea owed millions of dollars to the U.S.   and it did not have enough dollars to pay them back. As a result, Korea’s economy had plunged. At that time, Koreans were feeling desperate, so many donated a lot of gold to the country to help the debt even though people did not have money. At that time, my father was working at a small company. , But my parents could not earn enough money to make a living because of his low salary. That was a tough time for my parents to raise my brother and me. The IMF crisis influenced my parents to realize about danger and importance of money. As my parents learned, they taught me about my own money management.              One of the effects that my parents taught me about is saving money. If I wasted all of my money, I would be in tr

Most people relax at the spa, on the beach or by doing yoga. The similarities with all these activities are that everybody does them alone. Nobody thinks that relaxing is synonymous with going around or walking around one of the most populated cities in the world, but I do. Every time I went to the Zocalo, I got something unique. Every single time I walked around the Zocalo in the imperfect Mexico City I could exercise and relax at the same time. I moved to Chicago two years ago, and I have found many restaurants from many different cuisines. However, I haven’t found something similar like the Zocalo. One of the most interesting aspects of the Zocalo is its gatherings and multifaceted place. It is an extraordinary place where people gather for any interest. For example, when some groups want to pretest against taxes, earnings, violation against women, insufficient resources for the countryside and any other cases they go there to gather and have a big protest. Also, the most imp