After my first draft of my post about the journey I took to creating a coloring book for my kids, I almost deleted the entire thing to start over.
I wondered if people reading my blog would care about the personal stories I shared.
In the post I shared struggles as a second generation Korean-American raising a third generation family in America.
The reason I kept the orignal post was because I knew the struggles I grew up with and the struggles with identity and traditions I still wrestle with. If for no one else, I wanted to keep the stories in hope that one day my children would be able to read my posts and get a sense of the things that their dad struggled with and hopefully find lessons that would encourage them in their life.
Publishing the blog post, with personal stories and all, resulted in a surprising by-product. Strangers that I have only known through my newsletter and my blog read my post and were able to journey through an aspect of my life through my story telling.
They went as far as to emailing me to tell me that they enjoyed my post. The email exchanges have been have been a delight to my week.
Like this one from Christopher,
Awesome writing man! Very engrossing to read as someone with no korean background.
And this one with Saketh,
Haha, I found your blog while doing a quick search on how to unstage all files from git.
I enjoyed the writing style and pace. The article had a story arch rather than the blunt writing I’m used to granted I usually only read software development blogs. However your ideal of maintaining your culture captivated me as I too feel bad I am not as involved in my own (Telugu Indian - American) for my kids’ sake and my own. So many parts of our culture have taught me so many values and gave me my fondest memories. However, if it was not for my parents’ adherence to their traditions I would not have had those experiences. I fear us second generation kids will lose those traditions.
I liked the approach you took in trying to teach your kids and enjoyed learning a little bit of your culture. I hope you continue trying to be involved with your culture and can’t wait to see what’s next.
These conversations for me is the magic of the Internet. Sharing stories that go beyond what we experience on a day-to-day basis. That we may experience empathy and being challenged by complete strangers. It is these stories that we share where we may find a common-place to have meaningful conversations and to hopefully encourage one another.
There’s a saying that, a picture is worth a thousand words, but I believe a good story is worth a thousand pictures.
