2010 Sejong Writing Competition

Essay Winners


  Senior Division Junior Division
First Place Joyce Sim
Jericho, NY
11th grade, Jericho High School
essay
Elizabeth Dia
Germantown, TN
8th grade, Lausanne Collegiate School
essay
Second Place Seyoung Lee
Andover, MA
10th grade, Phillips Academy
essay
Una Koh
Conshohocken, PA
7th grade, Colonial Middle School
essay
Third Place Dana Huh
Manhasset, NY
10th grade, Philips Exeter Academy
essay
Victoria Tu
Northbrook, IL
6th grade, Sabio Academy
essay
Honorable Mention

Friend of the Pacific Rim Award
Zedan Rong
Urbana, IL
10th grade, University Laboratory High School
Katharine Olinger
Glenside, PA
7th grade, Philadelphia Montgomery Christian Academy
Haa-Young Cho
Columbus, OH
9th grade, Dublin Scioto High School
Julia Shin
Dublin, OH
8th grade, Dublin Henry Karrer Middle School
Christopher Demetree
Alpharetta, GA
12th grade, Marist School
Shafeeq Ibraheem
Piscataway, NJ
8th grade, The Wardlaw Hartridge School
Bria Gepitulan
Roanoke, VA
11th grade, Hidden Valley High School
Ruth Eujin Hwang
Cypress, CA
4th grade, Margaret Landell Elementary School
Yunjae Choi
Silver Spring, MD
11th grade, The Barrie School
Eshpreet Kular
Chicago, IL
6th grade, Andrew Jackson Language Academy
Patrick Shin
Chesterbrook, PA
11th grade, Conestoga High School

 

Joyce Sim

first place, senior division

Joyce Sim

My name is Joyce Sim, and I am going to be a senior at Jericho High School in Jericho, New York. Since I was six years old, I have had an interest in the medical field and was fascinated by healthcare issues and the human body. I want to help people achieve and maintain good health, and comfort them and their families when they are suffering. Given these factors, nursing seems like a good fit for me, because it combines my desire to help people with my interests in science and healthcare. My personal hero is Florence Nightingale who believed “Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work.”

I first heard about the Sejong Cultural Society writing competition from my AP Composition and Language teacher, Nadine Bouler. First, I just wanted to see the list of folk tales and what I am writing about, since there are not many competitions that deal with Korean culture. I saw that “The Green Frog,” the folk tale that really affected me, was on the list. Hence, I decided to write about my experience and thoughts I got from this folk tale. While I was writing the essay, I read this folk tale over and over to get the real meaning the author tried to imply. When I finished writing the essay, I realized that I had picked up on so many things that passed me by when I first read the story. I had fun writing this essay and I would recommend it for anyone.

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Seyoung Lee

second place, senior division

Seyoung Lee

Moving to the states when I was four, I never really thought about my Korean culture growing up. It was not until the very end of middle school that I was really faced with questions about my identity as a Korean American. Ever since, I have been trying to connect back to my heritage, reading Korean books and even learning traditional Korean dance.

I found out about this competition through one of my advisors at school, and believed it would great opportunity to embrace my Korean culture. Finding out that the essays would be based on Korean folktales, I was happy to read stories buried deep in my childhood. It was interesting to connect my past with my present, my Korean heritage with my American ideals.

The biggest goal I have set for myself is to work towards creating a more equal society. I am currently in clubs such as Model UN, Asian Society, and Andover Philanthropist’s Society. I believe my experiences in these clubs will help me come closer to specifying exactly how I will go about executing my goal.

My personal hero is Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank. His pioneering in the concepts of microfinancing, I believe, is an answer to many of the world’s issues with fighting poverty. His initiatives and success show the world that there is still room for change and hope.

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Dana Huh

third place, senior division

Dana Huh

My name is Dana Huh and I am a rising Junior at Phillips Exeter Academy, New Hampshire. I entered this competition because I was excited about the idea of writing an essay about tales that I have heard countless times sitting on my mother and my grandmother's lap. As these childhood folktales influenced the way I see and learn things in the world, this writing process has allowed me to reflect on my past actions as well as my future ones. Through the tale of Shimchong the Blind Man's Daughter, I saw the hopes and the positive influences present in society. It taught me a lesson that when one overcomes hardships and makes sacrifices, those decisions eventually benefit not only that individual but everyone around him/her, and that even in society today, there are still "Shimchongs" in the world who are willing to make those decisions.

My personal hero is Maurice Sendak, the author of the well-known children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are. The first time I read the book, I could not stop smiling at the pure creativity and happiness that one simple storybook can bring. As Maurice Sendak states, "Inside all of us is a Wild Thing" and I cannot think of a better job than one that brings hope and imagination to children all over the world. This belief is also the reason I want to go into a medical field that deals with children, such as pediatric oncology. My goal is to become someone who can bring support and relief to the children and their families who are going through these hardships, just as Mr. Sendak has been able to do.

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Zedan Rong

honorable mention, senior division

Zedan Rong

My name is Zedan Rong but I prefer to go by Annie, it's much easier to pronounce. I attend University Laboratory High School at Urbana, Illinois. I've always enjoyed writing and reading but it wasn't until my sophomore year that I realized how much value these gifts truly have. My English teacher has been extremely helpful and patient with me and for that I would like to insert a big thank you here for her (Thanks Ms. Linder!).

I first heard about this competition from my Freshmen year English teacher but it wasn't until this year that I managed to muster up enough energy and enter. Reading all the different folk tales was unbelievably fun and choosing just one to write about was harder than I imagined. Writing my essay made me thankful for what I have and just how much my family means to me.

I do not have a specific personal hero. Instead, I admire everyone who tries his or her hardest at everything he or she does. For me, their boundless efforts and accomplishments are the driving forces of this world and they all deserve our gratitude. In the future I hope to become historian so I can keep track of the lives of all these great human beings and learn from them as much as I can. 

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Haa-Young Cho

honorable mention, senior division

A Korean teacher who works at my school suggested that I participate in this competition and I thought it would be a wonderful chance to express my emotions and share my amazing experience in America. I learned and felt how beautiful my Korean culture is by composing my sijo. As to writing the essay, I learned more about myself . I seriously thought about who I truely am and how I have overcome difficulties in America. It made me really proud of myself and the fact that I am Korean. 

My goal is to be an attorney at the UN and help children who suffer from forced-labor, disease, and famine in the third world. I'm really interested in fighting against  forced child labor, human trafficking, and domestic violence. Thinking about how awfully these people suffer and how painfully they get hurt, not only physically but also mentally makes me feel so sorry for them and gives me very strong motivation and energy to work to reach my goal. 

My parents are my personal heroes. They've raised me with their infinite love regardless of how many times I hurt their hearts or disappoint them. They also have given me an amazing opportunity to be in America and experience diverse cultures and people. I am sincerely grateful to them. 

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Christopher Demetree

honorable mention, senior division

Christopher Demetree

I entered this competition because the competition was a class project. I learned that entering a writing contest entailed much more work than I had previously suspected. My goal for the future is to work as hard as I can to become the best person I'm capable of.

My hobbies are watching all sporting events, playing golf, Jeopardy, and being in and around water. My personal hero is my sister, for she has always been a model of hard work, determination, and helping others.

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Bria Gepitulan

honorable mention, senior division

Bria Gepitulan

My name is Bria Gepitulan, and I am a rising senior at Hidden Valley High School in Roanoke, Virginia. I am an honor-roll student that has participated in BETA Club, Spanish Club, Prom Committee, and Spanish Honor's Society. I have been dancing for 13 years, and I am currently a Senior Company member of Southwest Virginia Ballet (SVB). In my free time, I enjoy spending time with friends and family, playing guitar and writing songs, reading, writing, painting, and taking pictures. I plan to graduate with an advanced diploma to go onto college to be a dance major. After college, I dream of becoming a professional dancer and choreographer further in the future.

My English teacher informed me about this competition as an assignment. I was interested in learning about Korean culture through folktales and decided to write and submit an essay. By writing this essay, I found that many folktales and fables have the same morals and plot lines. It was interesting to compare and contrast the different cultures while still being able to connect to the stories. I found this experience truly eye-opening and enjoyed reading the collection of folktales.

My personal heroes will always be my parents and the Artistic Director of SVB, Pedro Szalay. My parents have always been supportive of me, and they are always willing to make sacrifices for our family. I consider them my biggest fans when it comes to my dancing. Pedro Szalay has brought out the best in me as a dancer, but more importantly, as an artist. He has pushed me to always do my best, and he is constantly inspiring me to explore my existence and purpose in the dance world.

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Yunjae Choi

honorable mention, senior division

Yunjae Choi

My name is Yunjae Choi, and I am 17 years old. I go to The Barrie School, a small private school in Maryland and have interest in studying international relations. I entered sijo and essay because my 10th grade Humanities teacher, Paul, handed me a sheet of paper one day for me to write about my own culture. As the only Korean in my school, I felt it would be a special chance for me to learn more about my culture. While writing sijo and essay, I learned interesting and unlikely beliefs or plotlines that ancient Koreans had been using. My goal in the future is to major in international relations, education, and art history and learn French, other languages, and art as minor. I like learning and playing violin, drawing, cooking, reading, running, swimming, and hiking. My personal hero is my dad who always shows passion toward the people with whom he is working and for striving to keep reaching for the top even if he had already become a top hero to many others. From him, I learned that nothing is impossible with tenacious effort.

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Patrick Shin

honorable mention, senior division

Patrick Shin

My name is Patrick Shin and I am currently going to be a senior in Conestoga High School in Pennsylvania. I was born right around Philadelphia because of both of my parents, who are indeed quite Korean, were studying abroad. When I was around five, my dad got a job as a professor back in Korea so our family moved there. I lived there for five years and learned a significant portion of Korean language and adjusted myself to the culture. My parents decided that it was best of my interest and my brother’s to go back to America to receive education so my brother, mom, and I returned to America. Now, here I am.

The reason behind my entry is not that profound, but it was very peculiar. My English teacher received a mail from the Sejong Cultural Society about the writing competition. Now she was neither Korean nor had extensive knowledge or familiarity with the Korean culture so she had no idea why she received the mail. However, knowing that I was Korean she decided to give me the mail to see if I was interested in it. I am not the most diligent and prolific kid around, but I thought this was a very good opportunity to not only have a little something in my transcript, but actually get a closer understanding of the Korean culture. I read a lot of folk tales as a little kid in Korea, but now I started to realize some of the hidden implications behind these stories so I thought that writing for this competition might pique my brain into thinking about it.

My goal in the future is to just go by and have a fulfilling and healthy life. However, I would be really, really happy if I can do something that is going to be beneficial for mankind. My main interest is in history and cultural studies so I think I may become a professor regarding these subjects. I love history because I am a fanatic when it comes to human studies. The concept of different cultures and their interactions and the future consequences of such interactions to human society have always fascinated me.

My personal hero... well I have many figures I respect, but have never really sought of a great personal hero that I adore. It would be dishonest of me to make one up here, but I would say that my personal heroes are people who maintain their morals despite hardships and criticism. Figures like Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau come into mind.

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Elizabeth Dia

first place, junior division

Elizabeth Dia

My name is Elizabeth Dia and I am a rising Freshman at Lausanne Collegiate School. I entered this competition after my English teacher, Mrs. Reese, told my class about it. When I read the folktale "The Snake and the Boar", I was surprised at the complexity of the moral issues mentioned. This was a challenge when writing this essay. It was a unique essay prompt which I enjoyed responding to.

In the future, I will continue learning about different cultures. I want to major in both political science and international relations in college. In high school, I plan to become an International Baccalaureate student. I also plan to join Model U.N. and Debate Club. I am already part of Emerging Ethical Leaders and Girl Scouts. Volunteering is one of my hobbies. I also enjoy studying Spanish and art. Writing and reading are some of my passions too. This summer, I am traveling to France with a school group. I will be doing landscape painting, in addition to visiting museums and learning about French culture.

I have many heroes- all of those who work to make the world a better place, especially artists. Artists make the work more beautiful through song, the written word, paintings, murals, sculptures, dramatic performance, and drawings.

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Una Koh

second place, junior division

Una Koh

I entered my essay to this competition because my English teacher, Mrs. Feiler, told me about it and encouraged/suggested/strongly suggested/forced me to enter. (No, of course she didn't force me. She kindly gave me a paper all about the essay and sijo competition and for that I am extremely grateful.)

While writing and sending my essay, I read and learned about several Korean folk tales and learned what a sonagi is. I learned that it is very stupid to procastinate at certain, extreme levels and that those weird and crazy people who get started on things right away are actually very smart and must lead a much easier and simpler life.

My goal in the future is to become an artist or an author, or maybe both, or a graphic novelist, or... umm... perhaps something else. My hobbies are drawing and writing, if it wasn't too hard to discern from my dream professions, and my personal hero is Helen Keller, though there are many adults I know who are technically equally, if not more heroic than Helen (i.e. parents, teachers).

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Katharine Olinger

honorable mention, junior division

Katharine Olinger

I entered my essay in this contest because I’m always in search of a good writing competition. My English teacher, Mrs. Rockey, introduced my class to the Sejong Cultural Society’s contest when we began our Korean literature unit.

Although I had never read Korean literature before, I found the selected folktales quite interesting. It was the character of Shimchong in “The Blind Man’s Daughter”’ that caught my attention most. In some ways she was just like any American folk heroine (an underdog). But, in other ways she was quite different, in fact, the polar opposite (motivated by filial piety, not her own dreams).Through this competition I have learned many things: from the big idea of unselfishness paying off, to the fact that a deadline can improve writing.

In the future, I plan to continue writing, but to expand to fictional stories for children, in addition to essays and book reviews. I would like to travel to the Mediterranean area someday because it was the literature of that region that first drew me to myths and folktales. I’m on my middle school’s soccer, basketball, and softball teams, and I also like to swim and to go fishing for hours on end. I play the flute in band and in solo and ensemble performances. I enjoy shopping, though I never hold on to my money (another plus to this contest).

Given my love of literature, it should be no surprise that my “heroes” are authors, Rick Riordon and Robin McKinley. I’ve heard it said, “Write what you would want to read.” Someday I hope to write a story that rivals Riordan’s in excitement and emulates McKinley’s creativity.

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Julia Shin

honorable mention, junior division

My name is Julia Shin and I just finished my 8th grade year at Dublin Henry Karrer Middle School. I first heard about this essay competition from my tutor, and I thought this would be a nice experience for me of knowing my writing ability.

While writing my essay, I learned that a lot of critical thinking is needed to write. I understood why writing a good essay or story takes a lot of time. I also learned a lot about the relationship between the reality and the folkstales.

My goal for the future is becoming a graphic designer as those people who design the word "google" in the Google company. I enjoy decorating and designing.

My personal interests are tennis, art, and reading. Whenever I have time I like to do one of these three. I try to play tennis almost everyday, and I try to read as many books as I can in my free time. However, my main interest is art. When I am drawing or doodling I feel very comfortable and peaceful.

Finally, my personal heroes are my parents because they always lead me to the road of success and trusts me that I will follow them. They are always there for me.

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Shafeeq Ibraheem

honorable mention, junior division

Shafeeq Ibraheem

When my English teacher told the middle school about the competition, I decided to give it a try. I had no idea what sijo was (I had enough trouble with haiku), and didn't know anything about Korean culture. That changed after the competition, of course. With a little research, I learned the basics of sijo, and the folktales were easy to understand.

My goals for the future are to go through high school and then to a good college. I like using the computer. TV and stuff. My personal hero would have to be Barack Obama.

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Ruth Eujin Hwang

honorable mention, junior division

Ruth Eujin Hwang

I wanted to enter this competition for 2 reasons. First, I wanted to see if I had developed as a writer. My essay writing needed improvement. I tried very hard to bring my writing grades up to all “A” work. Secondly, I was interested in learning about my heritage. When I read the story Shimchong, the Blind Man’s Daughter, I learned things about my Korean culture and the values that were important to my ancestors and that still apply to me, today.

By writing my essay for this competition. I learned to use more detailed comparisons. For example, when I described the similarities and differences of Shimchong and me, I compared how we were alike in our actions and values. I also discussed we were different in many ways due to our geography and our choices. That discussion helps me learn how to compare and contrast people and their situations. In sending the essay, I learned about following details in directions. I know that I had to submit my essay just as the judges had stated or risk being disqualified.

My goal in the future is to be a veterinarian, a dog trainer. I have always loved animals and they always loved me. I enjoy taking care of animals and have gained many animal friends.
I have many hobbies and personal interests. I like photography, reading, figure skating, and helping my mom baby-sit. I also like sewing and playing tennis.

My parents have taught me many things. They have taught me to work hard and think ahead. I also have learned to trust in the lord my God. Most importantly, they loved me, took care of me, and supported my life. I hope to be like my parents when I grow up. They are my heroes. A hero is a person that you look up to, admire, and want to be like. My personal heroes are my parents.

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Eshpreet Kular

honorable mention, junior division

Eshpreet Kular

My name is Eshpreet Kular. I currently attend the 6th grade at Andrew Jackson Language Academy in Chicago, Illinois. When my English teacher, Ms. Bacia told me about this competition, I knew I had to try out. I have always been amazed by cultures around the world and I knew that I would enjoy reading Korean folktales. All the folktales had very special messages, however, I chose to analyze, “Shimchong: a blind man’s daughter,” because I could connect to it the most.  I learned many things, but one thing I learned that I will never forget is that if you are caring and are willing to sacrifice yourself for someone you love, you and your loved ones might eventually benefit. This is a value I will remember for life.

In the future, I hope to become a great doctor. When I was young, my mom had a problem with her kidneys and I remember how much I wanted to help, so I am thinking about specializing in nephrology. I also hope to one day make an impact on the world in stopping global warming and saving the wildlife on our planet. In my free time, I enjoy writing stories, reading, or staying active doing sports such as badminton, soccer, and swimming. I also love traveling to different tourist spots across the nation.

My hero is my grandma. I admire her because I know she has been through many hardships through her life, having to evacuate from her own home country, Myanmar, to India. And to add on to all the trouble she also lost most of her great wealth during that time. I find it quite amazing, how even after the recent loss of my grandfather, she still has such a positive attitude towards life.

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