An Asian child in a foreign country, lest a Korean one would often be called, a nerd; someone good at everything. Straight As, sporty, able to play at least 2 instruments- basically people with very high IQs. Every Asian parent wants their child to be par with the rest of the Asian population. Jennie’s parents were like that. Like no other family, they wanted their child to be everyone’s ideal child. In Korea, they call a filial son or daughter, eomchinah, which basically translates to mom’s friend’s child. Jennie grew up to be an eomchinah, protected by her parents. Why? Because she was willing to do everything and anything that will make her parents proud. That is, until she grew up, saw the real world, and knew she had to live for herself. 16 years of living by herself, unaware of the beauty of life, she spent hours worrying and pondering over the hardships that the world bestowed upon her.

Jennie however was different from any other Asian child. Average grades, not even the least bit interested in sports, only able to play the triangle and not even close to being the teacher’s pet. She had a reputation of not caring, and that’s how she liked it. Meddling in the affairs of others were too much of a nuisance so why not sit back, chill and let fate decide it’s path? There was only one thing the world could not take against her. She was an artist, one who was so willing to paint the world. And her passion for paint and paper led her to believe that society would not allow her to be who she wanted to be. After all, if you didn’t belong to any of the social class or have any kind of status, you didn’t mean anything. Isn’t it always like that everywhere? She never wanted to work in some corporate office or the government, because for all that mattered to her, everyone and everything was corrupted. So therefore all she wanted to do was travel, read, listen to music, and drink coffee and sleep.

Freedom; liberty, autonomy, lack of restrictions, self-determination, independence, choice, free will, sovereignty. How was one supposed to explain freedom? To some it may mean to live without burdens. To a person with money debts, he might think that freedom is sleeping at night without having to worry about paying all the loans. To a person doing jail time, he might think that freedom is to be able to run around the city once again. To a father, freedom might be to be able to provide bread and tea to his family without having any worries about tomorrow’s food. To a mother, it might be the worry-free life of a wife who has to care for the family. But what people do not realize, is that in freedom they commit sin. If kept for too long, a tiger cub could go wild in search for that same point of sanity. Just like that, if a person is kept from the world, he could go wild looking for that point of sanity in a void of strange colors, faces and shapes. Freedom could make even the most rational person go insane, it’s harmful. If that person with debts to the bank cannot repay his loans in time, he might suffer in jail and that would not make a good impression on his family or the society. The prisoner once out of jail could go back, committing all the crimes he had once done. The father might do something irrational, leaving the responsibility of earning bread and money and caring to the mother who in turn may rip her own heart out.

But then again, what is life without freedom? The freedom to feel your heart beat with exhilaration as you run through fields of sunflowers or something as equally as perfect. Without freedom, life is just another obstacle one has to labour through.

To Jennie, freedom was simply to play around and live your own life without having a care of what others thought about you. You are your own boss, king of your own kingdom, soldier who will die fighting for your own life, queen who cares about herself, prince who saves your own heart and princess who will realize that life is not a fairytale. You are a warrior, you have your own backbone and you are one who can stand on your own, proud, tall and fearless. So why don’t you? You’re a wild horse, running towards the horizon. You’re a young human, searching for a story to tell. You’re a free bird, you can choose your own path, so why don’t you dare fly high? You’re wild, young and free, so why don’t you create your own tale? Live for today, forget about yesterday and dream about tomorrow; after all, you’re wild, young and free.

So, I'm done with chapter 1! Woohoo! The first two chapters are kind of fillers. They try to portray what the characters are like and what their thoughts are.

Please enjoy! :)

Love,
AlyChae.