The Story of Nate Kuo - Essay Example

Nate Kuo SOC 150 Laurie Petty Jan 19th, My Story People know me as Nate Kuo though my official as indicated on my passport, is "Na-Te Kuo,” a name of Taiwanian origin. My date of birth stands on the day of 25th, March 1994 in New Taipei City, Taiwan. At that time, New Taipei city was given the name Taipei County since it had not upgraded to acquiring city status by then. My family consisted of my parents, grandparents, and three cousins together with their parents. The whole family lived in the same house, but I used to live at my grandparents’ house and sometimes went to their house when my parents left for their jobs during daytime because they lived right next door. Some of my friends argue that I had a small family that was only made of three family members with no brothers and sisters. However, as conflicted to the American situation, people are very close to their other family members in my home country. The reason for the attachment comes from the ancient times when most of the people were farming and every member of the community had to take part in helping with the societal work. Up to date, some families from my country still live together to form a reference group of which I think is beneficial because when you get older, a person always develops his or her skills of primary and secondary socialization with time that is obtained from their family attachment. As I have already indicated, I grew up in my grandparents house and spent most of my time with my three cousins. I happen to be the third and the middle child in the family and I did not really get the required attention from the adults that could have helped me acquire the required socially constructed cultural norms that are obtained by the interacting with the adults. My oldest cousin always brought surprises to our home because he is the oldest and had to display his hegemonies to us, as we all had to learn from him as the youngsters. My second cousin was special because she happened to be the only girl in the family house and she later moved to Japan to take her piano classes making every person in our family to be very proud of her. My third and younger cousin attracts much of the attention from home because he is the most youthful and calls for a lot of care to be given to him. Contrary to my three cousins, my character is very chill while at home and I usually need to be a god boy and behave myself. I am very much aware that I did not get that much appreciation in the house after accomplishing things in the house when I was young, but I also know my place in the family and I know people love me as much as the other kids based on my presentation of self. My father used to live in Tainan a town in South Taiwan. Due to that, every time during the summer break or New Year break, I had to go back to their place and spent the whole break period at their place. I used to hate going back to Tainan when I was a small kid because it used to separate me from my cousins and with my school friends too. The other important reason for me not being happy when going to where my parents lived was because I grew up in Taipei, the capital city of my country and compared to Tainan, it was a complete countryside to me with entirely different social productions and status quo. It was very inconvenient to go there because most people down the south speak completely different language known as Taiwanese and not Mandarin. From my hatred of going down to the south to meet my grandparents, I always had a long face and was very impatient when I visited them at their place. However, as I grew up, I learned more about respect and how important it was to show respect to my elders and other family members. My father passed away when I was in high school. The memory of seeing my grandfather cry for the first time while at the hospital remains very strong in my mind and thoughts up to date. The air at the atmosphere was frozen and no one talked to the other during that period. All the people present stood around the bed where my grandfather was laying as they saw him off. I became very excited when I was about to join my elementary school because most of my childhood friends including my cousins were going to the same school that was located outside our community as well as I did. However, my father really wanted me to get some better education and he got me enrolled in a different school on a controversial side of the community and I really felt that it was terrible as I felt that I was exposed to some subjective freedom by my father and me have not understood the reason he did that up to date. During my elementary schooling time, teachers had the right to hit the students whenever they misbehaved in the school compound. I used to be naughty and I remember a particular time when the teacher beat me up because I used to score poorly in my grades. I remember this one specific time when I got into the classroom through the window. The teacher got mad by the incident and used a long plastic ruler to beat me on my legs as a punishment for what I had done. To everybodys surprise, the ruler broke in half after the third beat. 20 years have passed and I still hate that school and all the teachers that punished me by hitting me. I still think that no teacher is supposed to teach a kid by beating them but should teach them by telling them to do the right things, as it is the most socially constructed reality that should be used in the society. In my country, we usually go to junior high for three years and high school for another three years, so it is half-and-half split. The primary reason it was always terrible to me is because I was bullied by my classmates. I was bullied verbally but not physically which to me is worse than just beating me up because of the role of language in shaping thought and action in ones life and its long-lasting effects. My classmates used to some incredibly mean things to me that made me feel so bad and embarrassed, and humiliated me in the whole classroom by making every member of the class to laugh at me and mock me at the same time. It was always awful to me as I cried at home all the time and I sometimes made some excuses that I was sick so that I evaded going to school to hide from my bullying classmates. My high school life marked some of my best times in life. I made my first good friends while at high school since the time I got out of elementary school and my present best friend is still from my high school days. Despite the friend being at Taiwan, we still talk and keep in touch and we usually hang out together when I get back home during my holiday breaks. High school life was very amazing to me and it is the same time that I started learning how to play the guitar. Firstly, it seemed to be a fun for me to play guitar, but as it got better and better, my classmates started recognizing me and it made me feel better over time as it made me notice my value in the class. The morale made me get far-reaching about playing guitar and at some point; I developed the interest of becoming a professional finger style guitarist. My first year as a freshman was very rough because the school put me on probation making me not to study in that year and at the same time; I broke up with my girlfriend making me feel as if it was the end of the world to me though it was not. Then the time I returned to Taiwan during the summer, it dawned on me that my mother suffered from cancer for a couple of months. Because I was in the US, my family had not told me anything about the incidence and they did not want me to think about the problems that existed back home. That moment really felt like the end of the world but my mother always insisted on me working hard in my studies and try to avoid stressing myself by all means possible thus easing my heart and got the courage to go back to America to continue with my college education. Later, I worked very hard to pull my GPA up and I managed to get out of probation although it is still low but will continue working hard to improve make it rise above 3 before I graduate, and apply for the graduate school in the near future. Read More