Born in Corea, raised in... where do I begin?
Wanna know about my life, eh? That sounds a bit too grand... ^^ Well, first of all if you wanna get to know me you have to know how to pronounce my name. Why? Cuz that's what people do when they get to know each other, no? Actually, that whole concept of "being able to pronounce others name" is quite new to me as well. In our country, you see, there's no question as to how a word is pronounced. So all that stuff you learn in your business class about being able to pronounce the business prospect or your client's name correctly don't have much meaning in our country until they go global. Then I came here and every darn person has a problem pronouncing my name correctly... which, to be honet, is pretty frustrating. -.-; ... If you know the type of person that I am, then you'd know that I'd never even think of just giving in and getting an American name. So I compromised and, instead, let them call me by my DJ name ( which was inspired by my user ID in college ): SLIM.
Well, at any rate... My full name is Seung Chan Lim. Lim is my last name and Seung Chan is my first. I refuse to put a hyphen in between Seung and Chan because they are two separate words each meaning "to rise" and "brightness" respectively. They are seprate entities, and don't you dare try putting a hyphen between them. -.-+ Now for the pronunciation... Here we go... Seung is sort of like 'Sung', as in the past-tense for to sing, but the 'eu' doesn't pronounce quite like the 'u' in 'Sung'. How you make the "eu" sound is actually quite simple. Just think of "SEU" as a word that rhyms with "DLE" as in "POODLE". The "S" is also very smooth... Not so strong like the "S" in "Super", but soft like the "S" in "Snake". Chan is NOT the typical 'Jackie Chan'. The 'a' in my 'Chan' has a short 'ah' sound than an 'eh' sound. Lim is just as how you would guess it to be pronounced. Click here to hear it in mp3. Now you might want to know how old I am... Well, I'm a snake, Leo, and in my twenties... so you can try and figure it out on your own.
I've spent most of my life away from my home country, Corea. When I was 6 our family moved to Cairo, Egypt where my father was stationed as a general manager of the Hyundai branch office. I was there for about 5 years studying English, some Arabic ( I pretty much forgot all of it, which is rather unfortunate ), but I was studying at a Corean Elementary school, so my first language has always been Corean. Although I have very little memory of my time there, I do remember that I enjoyed every little bit of it and made great friends ( whom I recently found on the internet!! ). By the time I was halfway through completing 3rd grade, our famliy moved back home, to Seoul, Corea. Adjusting to the new environment was quite difficult for me. I had difficulty understanding why students needed to be beaten up the way they were for getting bad grades or for being loud in class... All in all I was doing quite poorly in school, and, quite frankly, I couldn't care less. I started getting into video games since then. No, seriously. I was addicted to video games, playing super mario brothers constantly, getting myself into RPGs like the classic final fantasy series and dragon ball series on the Famicom (Nintendo). I frequented the arcades every chance I had... ya know.. kids just want to have fun. I was also deeply into drawing pages and pages of cartoon. All of my close friends were equally into video games and deeply involved in drawing cartoons. I was "okay" at it, but my friends were reeeally good. One of them now majors in commercial/fashion design or architecture.... I'm the only techy, hee hee.. ^^;
But, I digress ...
I lived in Seoul until I was half-way through eigth grade... socially fun, academically challenged... ^^.. I needed motivation, a goal... then my father was stationed in Dalian, China which gave me the opportunity to depart and study abroad again, away from the Corean education system. I ended up living in Beijing instead of Dalian since my parents thought it would be much more beneficial for me to study at an international school then at a local Chinese school. In 1991 I started studying at the International School of Beijing as a 9th grade student. This was almost a culture shock for me. Essay writing, submitting reports, expressing my opinion on various subject matters ???? whoa ... now there's an eye opener .. ( don't get the wrong idea about the Corean education system, though... it's not like that anymore ) Life there was just great. Great friends, awesome social life ( relatively speaking ) ... it was just great. I have so many fond memories of my days in Beijing... Flip to the section on China for more.
After my days in China it was time to move on. Believe it or not, I didn't really have any lofty goals other than pursuing more education in guitar playing. You see, I was very much into playing the guitar in China. I was partially a metal head, but not so hardcore... more like hard rock.. ( think G N' R, Metallica, and Bon Jovi ) .. I wanted to live the rocker's life. on the road, six strings and some, ahem, excitements along the way. I must have spent more time than you guys can imagine playing the guitar and just practicing with the other band members ... that was all I wanted to do back then. At least I had found something about myself: If I find something I like doing, I don't even notice the time passing by, I'll stay up all night all week doing it. It's kinda funny how I ended up actually going to college... whatever the reason may have been, the fact is that I could have not gone to college and be on the road RIGHT NOW with my six strings. ^^;
So I did go to college and did graduate... Hell, I'm even in graduate school now trying to earn my degree in International MBA... I'm not quite sure what this degree will allow me to do, but this one thing I'm sure of; I'll be more aware of what the hell is going on in the world than I've ever been. You see.. I've been known for being a rather ignorant fella when it came to current events... ask my beloved highschool history teacher .. she'll be more than delighted to reiterate the fine memories that we shared... me as her student and she, as my teacher. She'll jump out of her seat when she hears that I'm working on an MBA degree... Well, hopefully in a year or two I'll be out of grad school and we'll see how the saga continues...
