“Wow!!! Dad!!!!! Look at this!!! I caught a fish!!!!!” I remember saying this when I was about seven years old. At that time, I was fishing in Lake Ontario, where it seemed like the earth started and finished with that lake. I caught a fish the size of my dad’s head, and it was moving so fast with its golden skin sparkling, reflected from the sun. Little did I know that kind of familiarity would become foreign to me, I believed that my life would be easy and we would stick and adjust to one place. Unfortunately, shortly after that day at the lake I had to move to different countries with extremely different cultures. I had to move to four different countries and attend about twelve schools. This changed me dramatically, and I learned some valuable lessons.

I was born and grew up in a small city in Ontario, Canada. My father was a student, who was studying to be a doctor in the University of Ontario. My mother was a child of Korean immigrants who came to Canada for a better life after going through hard times in Korea. My mom’s dad had passed away because he had pancreatic cancer and there was a major medical accident during his surgery. My grandmother had no skills to earn money and lead the family, so she decided to immigrate to Canada and work in a small Korean restaurant. I have many memories with her, where my grandmother forced me to learn Korean.  After my father finished studying and became a doctor, he found out that foreigners cannot become a doctor in Canada. I was the only one in the family who had a Canadian passport, so we had to move to Korea so my dad could find work as a doctor.

Moving to Korea wasn’t that hard as I was young and caught up on the Korean language and its culture pretty quickly. As time went on, I gradually forgot to speak English and Korean became my most comfortable language where I could express all of my feelings with detailed words. My family had a strong Christian faith, so we went to church every single week. One day, my father told me that we will move our home to Pohang from Seoul. I asked my mom why and she said, “We will move to Pohang, so we can be trained as medical missionaries and help others in need.” I had no idea what a medical missionary was. Filled with questions and curiosity, we moved to Pohang. The most “isolated” part of Korea. Pohang is surrounded by mountains and it is in the countryside of Korea. It was really different from Seoul, where cars were easier to find than trees.

In Pohang, the nature was very beautiful and every morning the old and tall trees waved their hands to me, and the flowers made me smile with their smells. However, moving to a different part of Korea wasn’t as easy. I had to learn a new dialect of Korean; people teased me when I spoke the common Korean language, or the Seoul type of Korean. I had to adjust to a new environment and I had to make new friends. My best friend, Euncheul, always helped me to adjust to the new environment, but when my classmates found out that I was the son of a doctor and was not a real Korean, they teased and bullied me. I wanted to tell my teacher about these events and talk to them about this, but my friends threatened me that if I tell the teacher or my parents, the bullies would beat me up until I died. In Canada, we are taught that bullying another student is bad and that we should tell our parents or teachers about this when it happens.  In Korea I felt extremely afraid because of the warnings I received from my peers, and felt that I couldn’t tell the teachers I was being bullied. I always cried and asked my parents if we could go back. However, we didn't and this misfortune did not stop from the time I left Seoul. I had to move to eleven extremely different schools just in South Korea because my parents had to get medical missionary training.

I was always depressed and sad that I had to make new friends and say, "good-bye" to them every single time.  I was tired of even moving. After all of the relocating we finally moved to Bangladesh, where my parents worked as medical missionaries in Dhaka Christian Hospital. A Missionary is a type of job where people are called by God to spread the gospel in different ways to different countries. As soon as I arrived in Bangladesh, I felt like the smelliest fruit in the world, Durian, was in my nose. Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world has many problems such as: environmental, health, educational, political, and many more. It was really stressful for me to adjust to a new country where everything was different such as cultures, and language. There I had to attend an International school that did not have internet, and it only had an educational system until Year Nine of the British system. I first went to Ebenezer International School for the entrance school, where I was recommended to lower three grades to enter the school. I was very shocked and stressed as even saying the words, “Hello, my name is Seonmin” was extremely difficult for me.  Although I was a Canadian citizen, I completely forgot how to speak English and my brain was already set in Korean. When I wanted to attend Grace International School of Dhaka, where it had the best British educational system, I was rejected. I was a perfectionist, had good grades, and had extreme typical Asian expectations on me. When I was rejected I started to have Tourette's syndrome; tics, became obsessed, and started to isolate myself. Although I made it into another international school with all Indians and Bangladeshi, every single one of students and the teachers made fun of me, this deeply hurt my feelings. I started to wonder if I should commit suicide, then everything will be okay, and they will be finished making fun of me. However, there was one teacher who always helped me called Miss Shamina. Because of her help, I started to open my heart again and adjusted to the new environment.

Although it was extremely difficult to move around places and countries, through this experience I learned that there are different kinds of people in the world, how to encourage other student based on his or her situation, how to be more independent and trying to solve problems by myself, how to self-teach, studying strategies for a new language, trusting myself no matter what kind of problem I have, and to be more international and open-minded to everything. I learned how to understand others as I lived in different countries with extremely difficult cultures with the world’s different religions such as in: Canada, where Christianity is the major religion; Korea and Thailand, where Buddhism is the major religion; and Bangladesh, where Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism are the major religions.
After staying in Bangladesh for five years, our family moved to Thailand as the Islamic community in Bangladesh had threatened our life for spreading the gospel. Now with the experience from moving to different countries, I now can adjust to a new environment very quickly, and I thank my parents for letting me know that there is a bigger world, how to overcome difficulties no matter what, and that there is nothing impossible if I do my best on everything.