Studying alone in an unfamiliar place

According to the book Gathering of Pearls, which is written by Sook Nyul Choi, it tells a story about the experience of a North Korean girl, calls Sookan, go to college in the US. She meets the differences between Korean culture and American culture. Leaving home and going to a totally different place, she fixes the problem of hard courses, finding friends and moving from tons of works to do to her college life. I like the book by showing me the feelings when I came to CA along, highlighting the personality, the changes and the emotion of a living person, and comparing different cultures in chapters.

Sookan’s experience is not exactly the same as my experience when I came aboard along. She’s the only international student at her school and it’s even sealed at that time in North Korea. It’s much more easier for me to settle in Cheshire Academy than her experience. However, it’s the same for me to feel lonely by leaving my mother country, my family members and my good friends. It’s still hard for me to totally get in to that American culture and I even cannot completely understand it now. It’s interesting because reading the book is like reading the experience of myself in other’s perspective.

In the meantime, the delicate descriptions make Sookan a vivid person. I see her changes in chapters. I know that she has been a shy girl who’s hardly speaking or stating her feelings. It seems like she has been kind of inflexible and a little bit clumsy in the first few chapters. Then, Sookan does change to be more outgoing; she gets more friends and starts having her own life that she wanted to have. I like the way that the author change her mind and moving her to a brighter person. It makes me to see the changes that her friends, and the new condition give her.

Then, in the book, the author shows lots of differences between North Korea and America. For example, men could do housework for their family and people can talk to each other in any ages. Sookan seems so surprised that people can recommend each other by themselves. There are many surprising things happened since she has been to America. These things are also factors to change her. For example, her sister wants her to be a nun and she has chosen to obey her before but she changes her mind after going to America. Even though she might already know what she wants to do in the future, studying aboard encourages her to catch her dream. I like the conflict in her mind so much. Also, I like to see the culture it shows in the letters to her mother, and sister. These factors attract me to read further more.

To conclude, I haven’t finished the whole book yet and I would continue reading. I would recommend my friends in China to read it by understanding our lives; I would also recommend my friends who already study abroad to read it by comparing the lives.