How Travel Became Important to Me

My name is Peter. My parents came to America from Korea and I grew up speaking Korean. I am 24 now. In school, I was in Special Education because I didn’t want to learn what I was not interested in.

I am interested in drawing, dinosaurs, music videos, Disneyland and traveling. When I was little I did not like to go to the mall or other public places. The noise was too much and I didn’t understand the rules that other people lived by. I could not understand their expressions and know what they were thinking. Life seemed very chaotic and I just wanted to withdraw and live in my own world away from other people, who made demands on me that I could not understand. Life was frightening and this showed in my drawings.

When I was young my parents took my sister and me camping. I liked this. Nature is beautiful and I was comfortable away from other people and their expectations. Later they put me in a one-week summer camp at a state park. I did this several years. It was like camping, but you stayed in a cabin and the other campers were okay. My parents took me to Disney World in Florida and I loved it. I did not mind the crowds. It was a place of fun and I have enjoyed all the Disney stories on video, and learned to sing all the parts. My English became much better.

At age nine, my parents placed me in the Wheat Mission on Saturdays. This is a program for Korean-Americans with disabilities. At first I did not want to participate with the other people – the music was too loud and I was always being asked to do something, so I stayed by myself in a separate room drawing. I didn’t like speaking to others or looking at them. But I met a man there who looks like Santa Claus and who spends time with me and listens to me most every Saturday. I show him my drawings and we read together. I can read much better now and my drawings have developed. I can understand him.

I love my family too. My parents put me in swimming classes and I represent the United States in the International Special Olympics where I have won many medals. I love to travel. It is so exciting.
It is exciting to travel by airplane in the clouds but I also enjoy riding in cars and watching the landscape. I like staying in new places and eating different food. There are so many new things to see and do when I travel, and I even can meet new people now without shutting them out.

I have been to South America and all around the United States. Santa and I went to Disneyland in California two years ago. I went to breakfast on my own and can now shop when I am with someone. I learned to count money and tell time. I am an altar boy with my father at church. My mom made a greeting card business for me and I made $1,000 last Christmas. I want to sell my art and live in a house of my own. Next summer I want to go back to Disney World and wear my Jungle Joe costume.

Life is fun now and more understandable.

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