When I was growing up, it was imperative to my dad that my brother and I not wile away our time.  Sitting around the house was the least acceptable option we had.  He did not leave behind his motherland so that his progeny could turn into a couple of couch potatoes.  Oh no.  When I was able to walk the 10 blocks to the community ice rink, so began my figure skating lessons.  I was 5 (Actually he drove us until my brother was able to walk us there).  That was about the same time that I started swimming lessons too.  Tennis came a couple of years later.  Piano had already started.  Saturdays were either Korean language classes, to which we had crazy long subway rides when I was 8, or bike rides to the library where we camped out until they kicked us out.  Jazz dance was my choice when I turned 8. 

Eventually, my brother and I clued into the the fact that my dad slept when we were out of the house.  And so we started to slack off.  Much to my father's chagrin, we did become couch potatoes by 16.  Big brother was just a year older than me and we, so alike in our teenage apathy,  both protested, mouthed off and eventually wore our tired immigrant father down.  He couldn't make us.  Hanging out smoking at the mall, skateboarding, shopping those were the mentionable things that we did. Or trying to get away with watching more T.V than our allotted 1 hour a day.

My mother made one last attempt.  Though she was softer and more laid back than dad, it was important to her that we keep up with the Joneses, or in our case, the Kims, and so we had to be riding the subway for an hour to the Royal Conservatory weekly for something.  "Violin," I attempted.  "You're too old, it's too late to start violin."  "Okay.  Guitar then."  So guitar it was.  I had visions of learning rocking chords to sing my eighties songs to, but Mr. Robert Hamilton, with his long hair, Birks and soft voice, was a classical guitar teacher.  And a very patient one at that.  I lasted two years.  About the same time as Eug.  I used finances as reason to bring my weekly visits at the Royal Conservatory to a finale.  "Mom, I hardly practice.  You're wasting your money."  She couldn't argue with me about that. 

I don't know how my parents did it as immigrants and as a dual earning couple with two know it all kids with attitude.  But somehow they managed to bring us up with some culture and artistic and athletic skill.  I have little bits and pieces of this and that.  I find myself now a jack of all (mastering very little to none).  Mom and dad's passion for music (classical mostly), especially their membership with the Toronto Korean - Canadian Handel's Messiah choir, performing annually at the Roy Thompson Hall when we were barely teenagers and still highly impressionable, had a big impact, rounding out the reggae/r'n'b/new wave/alternative influence of the innercity community we were growing up in.  One extreme - only classical music was allowed in the house to another - dancehall v.s. Siouxsie and the Banshees (thanks to my goth pal and strawberry girl Nellie) at the school dances led to an eclectic appreciation for music.  My parents were oblivious to the chilliness that crept in the room from our direction when they cranked polka tunes - it was all nostalgia for them anyway - a throwback to their young and happier days in Germany.  But Mozart, Bach, and all the big boys we were okay with.  They and Bing Crosby at Christmas.  Who doesn't love Bing anyway?

But to bring the old nature v.s. nurture argument in here, my brother and I, to this day both have a passion for art.  You know the kind of art that involves visuals: drawing, painting, photography, gluing, cutting, bringing things together to make a visual image.  Neither one of us received any extra training outside of the pre secondary public schools we attended.  Derrydown Elementary School was not known for it's art program nor was Elia Junior High.  These were schools that bordered very closely on the Jane/Finch corridor (aka "the jungle") where crime and racist stereotypes were mythified in the news regularly.  But that's another story for another day.  I tried for ten years to trod the practical route for a myriad of reasons. But have now surrendered to that innate, inherent, intuitive, organic and creative way that I process and express.  It's been a circle ten years in the making. 

Eugene, the one more in touch with his creative side, pursued Architecture and then Interior Design.  I've tried hard not to be envious of his choices. 

As a teacher, I get to create each day with my students here in Seoul, Korea where taskmastering parents are as common place as chopsticks.  It's like I'm in my childhood again watching my little Grade Ones, some of them anyway, get carted to after school piano, swimming, soccer and Korean.  Those are the more fun after school activities.  I had a boy in my class fall asleep at his desk every Monday afternoon because his weekends were so full on for a while.  "Just let him play at home with his friends," I urged his mom.  But there is a part of me that secretly hopes some of the kids will be greatly inspired - a passion ignited within to pursue and intimately know their art.  Some of us do become masters of something after all.