Ellanora Lerner

The black-capped kingfisher sat on the rusty barbed wires in front of me, gazing at the grass that conquered the mines in the field but now lost its green to the nearing dusk. The hills and fields beyond slowly turned reddish gold and in the distance, Mount Seorak’s limestone cliffs lost their white crowns as the frost that capped them, melting, made way for the harbinger of spring. Beyond the barbed fences, soldiers, rifles slung over their shoulders, lit their cigarettes while smoke disappeared in the hovering haze above them. I saw the riflemen, their helmets adorned with the North Korean flag now enameled with mist, shivering lightly from the cold though they were wrapped in thick parkas.

When the black-capped kingfisher, drops of fresh black paint over opaque disks for its eyes, (similar to those of the red-crowned cranes I was searching for), sensed a slight movement, it flew off to the opposite side of the fence and plopped itself down, fixing its plumage. Its elongated beak, saturated in the late copper rays of the sun, nibbled on the vaporizing dew droplets before they could be promoted to the nimbostratus. While feeding on the humidity, it kept a sharp eye out for any insects leaving the haven of woven goat grass. I could tell it was rather impatient, as the layered royal blue feathers on its wings started to form an oscillating gradient of texture from jagged to orderly. It was almost hypnotic; I vacantly, but intently, gazed at its wings’ manifold dancers as I took one step closer to the wires.

But I was interrupted. Without a single word, a soldier with a face of stale bread stood ten centimeters in front of me. His oversized sunglasses were intended to look intimidating, but instead reminded me of the Venezuelan poodle moth. Paired with the teacup-shaped helmet, the proud South Korean hun byung looked like an overdressed, but under-budget Ken doll. This image invited a short giggle to peep through my lips and I shyly backed away. I instantly realized this was a mistake. Although the soldier’s face was masklike, unchanged, I could feel the rising fumes of his sweat and my descending exhale clash and slice the diffusing cotton of air between us.

“You are not allowed further from this fence. This area is littered with landmines and the ‘commies’ are aiming sniper rifles at your head—understood?”

I said, “Yes” with a tone marked with deference, but I couldn’t believe he used the word ‘commies’.

I slowly backed away, leaving the grassy slopes.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone was a lake of land – although geographically sandwiched by the Keumgang Mountain and Cheorwon plains, it was connected to neither. Although it seemed a thread binding the land together, it in fact stood alone as its own complacent entity of abundant peat bogs and virgin soils, instinctively feared by all Koreans but relished by rich fauna and flourishing flora of different shades. In the midst of the peninsula’s inner conflict of shoulder angels and devils, the land was slowly emerging as a five-star hotel for diverse wildlife. I was determined to trace all segments of the slithering path of the DMZ, at least the areas on which researchers are allowed, with my own feet if it meant finding the last few surviving red-crowned cranes.

A memory of my grandmother’s old cabinet, carved from smeary jade, came back to me whenever I thought of the cranes. It shows two red-crowned cranes soaring to meet above a perfectly rounded sun, much like the core of the South Korean flag, The sun is of the same red as the crane’s red crown – a deep, lustering mahogany. The red-crowned crane, or durumi, has always been a symbol of longevity and loyalty in Korea. I have grown up fanning my grandfather with hand fans, threaded from the fibrous bark of hydrated mulberries and decorated with drawings of the crane’s portrait. The ripened mountains and hibiscus flowers were painted merely to fill up the leftover space. But the crane, a symbol endemic only to Eastern Asia, could no longer be found in South Korea. I had to get closer to where the cranes had been last spotted even if much of the 38th Parallel, a 250-mile long and three-mile-wide zone, was a no man’s land.

Those who could not read the signboards along the DMZ were the only ones brave enough to inhabit these minefields and isolated wetlands. Despite whether or not they had planned to do so, animals previously thought to be extinct thrive here in larger populations in this seemingly ominous sanctuary. Two Amur gorals were climbing across the stony Southern Limit Line, each with a black line cutting through its steel wool fur, resembling the DMZ itself – except for the fact that the gorals’ lines were ones of symmetry. Their ears broadened sideways like wooden spatulas and fluttered exactly once when one of them made a misstep, causing a pebble to bounce off  the steep elevated mountains. A few minutes away, an Asiatic black bear snacked on a rather unappetizing concoction of flies and crown grass, shoving its face with the mixture and dropping morsels on its baby-apron-like moon chest. Every single behavior of these animals, which may have been threatened by deforestation or poaching if they had not found refuge, drowned me in calmness, as if I were in a womb. But when the black bear’s white chest started fading into the black of its body, I realized that I was running out of time.

Without the sunlight, the fog began to simmer into darkness, forcing my sight to conform to the shadows. I tried to sway away anything that was in front of me, but ended up lathering more fog onto my face instead. Focusing all my senses on my right foot, I carefully probed the ground for the marshy land that red-crowned cranes favor. While I was busy warming my ears with my palms, the bulbs attached to the wires flickered. Then they suddenly switched on all at once, as if to scan me; blinded by the blaze, I scampered through the grass, deviating from my transect.

Gradually, my eyelids began to soothe my pupils and evenly spread out the amount of radiation they absorbed to the rest of my face. After walking for many more meters, my feet finally stepped into a waterbed of mud. I felt a sensitive resonance of luck and felt the barbed wire pulling me closer with a compelling force. When I opened my eyes, my sight was partially bleached by a smudge of absence where the light had hit me hardest. But through my peripheral vision I could see that I was standing in the presence of a tall bird. Holding in my eagerness, I closed my eyes and stared into the single infinity of darkness within my palms until the blotches faded away. I opened my eyes once again. There it was: the crane with outstretched petals of white and grey, outlined by black strokes resembling those of traditional Korean calligraphy. Its sleek neck flowed into the shape of an “S” like the tail of a koi fish as it called to the sky, its red crown embracing the smooth curve of its head and directing my eyes to the tip of its beak. Following the natural bends occurring all throughout the DMZ, I could truly see that the perpetuation of beauty in nature is inevitable regardless of any kind of conflict. The cranes lay safe here and so did other species that claimed this land as a refuge. It is only fitting to call this area a no man’s land as it exists solely to protect living species from the clutches of greed for power and domination and the human penchant for violence and destruction.  Here in this border symbolic of eternal conflict, the birds and other species after billions of years of evolution, learned to live at peace with each other. It is time that we humans learn it too.

Jin Young Cho is a junior currently living in Manila, Philippines. She enjoys writing about her traveling experiences, and hopes to further explore different cultures all over the world.

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then the dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to slaughter.”¹ George Washington recognized how crucial free speech is to a successful democracy. Our contemporary society has no defined limitations on the freedom of speech; however, there is an insidious undertow threatening to erode this sacred principle: political correctness.

To comprehend how political correctness is shaping the privilege of free speech, one must first understand several major aspects of this concept. The basic premise is that if the pundits and intellectuals can influence how individuals think and act, then they can also influence what is socially “acceptable” language. By imposing their political views on any subject, they create a pressure to conform to these standards. But these standards begin to limit the freedom of speech and expression. Generally, people do not want be labeled as an objector of popular opinion, thereby forcing them to subject their own ideas to the prevailing ideology. The very definition of political correctness stands as, “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated”². But in reality, this term has almost nothing to do with politics.

Instead, political correctness has everything to do with the encouragement of group thinking and the pursuit of conformity. Through social intimidation, a diverse body of ideas and expressions no longer flourishes in the diminishing world of American free speech. In addition, a growing aspect of multiculturalism in our society only further contributes to this problem. Proponents of political correctness obsess over their belief that language should not be injurious to any ethnicity, race, gender, religion or other social group. They attempt to eliminate what they consider to be offensive remarks and actions and replace them with harmless substitutes that come at the expense of free expression. For example, a school in California, in an effort to maintain political correctness, sent five students home after they refused to remove their American flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo³. The school officials clearly regarded the actions of the five students as offensive. These unnatural filters on free language and expression constrict social exchanges by defining certain views as out of place. This acts as a direct suppression of free speech.

Political correctness is also used to discredit opponents of various ideologies by labeling them as violators of this code of conduct. For instance, my father is making a film about the early colonialists and their interactions with American Indians. But every time he speaks with an academic, he becomes uncomfortable with what defining terms are politically correct. Should he call them Indians, Native Americans, Americans Indians, or Natives? As a result, my father tries avoiding directly labeling these people because he is nervous about offending one group or another. Consequently, this narrows his potential range of conversation. This is a simple demonstration of how political correctness can put boundaries on free expression.

Declaring that some thoughts and phrases are “correct” while others are not is creating an ever-tightening noose around the freedom of speech. No matter how uncomfortable we are with particularly strident points of view, it’s crucial to recognize that this is a small price to pay to maintain a democratic system that promotes free speech as a basic pillar of society. While I am certainly not promoting inflammatory language, I believe that the channels of communication should remain unfettered from the burdens and limitations of political correctness.

(This essay was previously published on HuffPostTeen)

Kai Sherwin is a junior at a high school in Connecticut. He is very passionate about history and creative writing. In his spare time, Kai enjoys sailing and playing basketball.

I sat in my imaginary sandbox underneath the twin orange slides on the school playground. Last Saturday was my first time seeing Harry Potter, and I was trying to recreate the scene where Harry writes himself a happy birthday message in the dust. I watched as the other first graders laughed their way through a seventh game of hopscotch. I spent every recess in my imaginary sandbox counting everyone else’s hopscotch rounds. My friends Rose and Leyna sat inside the grey, donut-shaped wall that surrounded the playground. Bored of watching other people enjoy themselves, I decided to go talk to them. But as I got closer, I noticed that they had a book in their hands.

“What are you doing?” I pointed to the book.

Leyna glowered at me and hid the book from me. “None of your business. Only Rose and I can read this book.”

I crossed my arms and snapped, “Who made you the ultimate ruler of books?”

“It’s not like we don’t want you to see it,” Rose said. “But, you don’t even know how to read, so you can’t see it.” Rose shared a look with Leyna and they both giggled.

“I can read!” I stomped my foot, and they both started laughing.

“Then prove it,” Leyna handed me the book.

I looked at the first page of the book, but all of the letters jumped around the page and rearranged themselves until they no longer looked like individual letters, but rather a jumbled blob of my fears.

“L-L-I-O,” I stuttered, hot tears falling down my cheeks while Rose and Leyna cackled like a pair of drunken hyenas.

“I can’t believe you don’t know how to read?” Leyna asked, not even attempting to control her own laughter.

“S-s-stop it,” I stammered.

“Look, she doesn’t know how to talk either,” Rose howled.

“You’re stupid,” Leyna said.

I turned to walk away, but Rose said, “Luna, come back. We were only joking. You’re my bestest friend.”

How innocent her face looked when she said it, her big doe eyes staring at me, a sweet smile plastered onto her face. Part of me wanted to stop Leyna from stealing my “friend,” but before I could respond, the two of them laughed again. I used all of the strength in my legs to run away from them as fast as I could. I swung open the bathroom door, ran into a bathroom stall, and stayed there until recess was over.

That day I told myself that a kingdom of ladybugs inside my body had frozen my throat, and that’s why no words would come out when I tried to read. I wish I still believed that. From what I remember, Rose and I were close in first grade. What confused me was that Rose was always nice to me–except when Leyna was around. When she stared at me with her big, brown eyes that day, I figured she was about to stand up for me. I secretly hoped that she would push Leyna into the road and let her get run over by a massive truck.

Almost a year later, I sat in Mrs. Sontag’s second-grade classroom during the first week of school.

“Luna, can you read the next paragraph?” Mrs. Sontag asked. The whole class swiveled around to face me; they were a sea of small, voracious creatures, eager to hear the rest of the story.

“Why would you ask her? She can’t even read!” my classmate Bryce said. Oh, Bryce. Little did he know that reading had suddenly “clicked” with me during the summer. Thanks to this new development, and with the help of my mom, I was now quite precocious for my age.

“Give her a chance,” Mrs. Sontag said. She smiled at me.

I imagined the ladybugs trying to freeze my throat, but this time I wouldn’t let them stop me. I opened my mouth, and the words spilled out of me like the pounding waves of the ocean. The whole class looked at me, stunned. I was so caught up in the action of the story that I didn’t realize I had read two pages when all Mrs. Sontag had asked for was a paragraph.

What brought me back to reality was Mrs. Sontag’s soothing voice. “Sweetie, why don’t we give someone else a turn?”

I looked up from the book and saw the other kids whispering to each other. There is no way to describe the overwhelming joy that surged through me in that moment. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was an intelligent and important person. The wonderful world of books was finally accessible to me, not just to kids like Rose and Leyna. I soon became the most avid reader in the class, and at sixteen, I now read at the level of a college graduate. If only Leyna could see me now. After first grade, Leyna moved to Germany and could no longer torture me. Rose and her family took a one-year trip to France, and she came back a different person. She apologized for being mean and became a true friend. Maybe she learned how it felt to struggle to be good at something, being surrounded by people who spoke French so much better than she did.

But I’ve never forgotten how I struggled to read that year and what that taught me.

Sometimes, even now, when I’m standing in front of the class, all eyes upon me as I’m about to read something I wrote myself, I feel that kingdom of ladybugs threatening to seize my throat again. But I swallow hard, remember what it felt like to read that day in Mrs. Sontag’s class, to know I had joined that secret club of imaginary worlds and boundless journeys–and my voice comes.

Luna is a high school sophomore in Southern California. She has also been published in Literally Stories. Luna has been writing since she was nine and she hula hoops to relieve stress.

Please, Corinne pleaded, handing me a small novel with the words “Franny and Zooey: JD Salinger”printed across an otherwise blank cover.

Note: I did not read much at all while growing up, whereas my currently begging best friend had consumed entire libraries by the time puberty hit. Her house was lined with shelves of literature and, needless to say, I had heard similar pleas before; too many books tossed my way to count.

I cannot tell you exactly why, whether out of best-friendship or boredom I am unsure, but there was something about this time that made me listen. And I listened as I read, not only hearing but finally feeling as if there was somebody else who was not one for emptying [their] face of expression, who was sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody, and who wondered whether they could continue running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight—someone who, not to be overly cheesy or banal, also felt lost and alone. After this I read everything Corinne suggested. Since then she has patched me with pages upon pages of literature, always sure to shower me in Salinger and Rumi whenever I am spilling sad energy everywhere.

When I was little, I spent much of my time alone. At any given moment I had two places to live— Mom’s and Dad’s—though throughout my childhood the total racked up to nine: a condo, a townhome, two apartments, and five houses. Having two working parents and a brother who found his escape elsewhere made one thing, throughout all the moving, all the change, consistent: both houses were often empty.

Each morning I would wake to the ringing of my bright red old-school alarm, popping out of bed to prepare myself a breakfast consisting of sugary cereal or waffles doused in syrup. I would walk to and from school, afterwards peering into the fridge and pulling out soda after soda, gulping them down as I watched TV for hours on end. On the rare occasions in which my parents came home before bed, my mom would lay down in her room as voices of strangers on the TV filled the silence. My dad, wiped out from work, would sit with a cigar in one hand and remote in the other, persistently and methodically puffing, covering his own loneliness in a cloud of smoke. And in the room over my brother would be busy bringing bong and bottle to mouth, creating a rhythm, which combined with the chatter of his friends, served to drown out the steady, underlying beat of his anxiety. Food. TV. Movies. Drugs. We ‘entertained’ ourselves to escape.

But as I explored Corinne’s home racked with reading my world widened. It was in this home-library on Sunnyglen Drive that I found a way to engage and explore, seeking shelter and solace in words of faceless strangers, making a home out of the pale pages, loneliness lessening. I am full of holes, of inconsistencies and missing pieces—one day an introvert and the next an extrovert, sometimes simple while at other times dutifully dynamic, always up and down. Though no matter the moment I have found there is always a book to lose myself in so much so that I resultantly find myself. No matter my mood, I read. And because I read, I write.

We are constructs of our environments and our choices, and while it was in my houses growing up that I recognized we model ourselves after our surroundings, it was in books—in my homes—that I learned how to choose what around me to model myself after. I may not be able to avoid the fact that I in part mimic my mother: unsteady, unstable, unsure, and at times all too insecure. And my dad: dependable, determined, increasingly independent yet alone. What I can choose is whether or not I want to mimic my parent’s mentality and momentarily escape feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and the like through mindless entertainment or, rather, actively engage my mind and combat these emotions. As an avid reader I have chosen the latter, and as an aspiring writer I hope to help others do the same.

Throughout the years I have made similar pleas to my parents and brother that Corinne made to me, begging them, Books. Books. Books. For birthdays and holidays I buy them books, hoping they will open them and find the same comfort that I do. If there is one thing I want to make clear it is that I do not blame my family for my loneliness. Sure, my empty houses growing up made me feel empty, but it also taught me that while being alone may not always be a choice being lonely often is.

It was during the days I spent sprawled out on the floor of the Sunnyglen house, reading for hours on end, that I realized this. Not only did I realize that I have control over certain aspects of myself but also that through writing I may be able to pass this realization along. You see, when I was little, I always imagined that there was a factory up in heaven where angels patched us together from an assembly line of parts and pieces; and while I still like to imagine this to be more or less true, I now see that the angels are in fact all around us. Life itself is an incessant assembly line. All of the friends, family, teachers, and authors who have helped piece me together are angels working the assembly line and Corinne is my archangel. So I want to work, to build up as many as people as possible through writing and otherwise.

I do not think my story or my motives for writing to be novel. There are undoubtedly others experiencing the near exact emotions I have and likely countless individuals with experiences similar to mine—our holes aligning and overlapping. And I proudly own this ordinariness. While others may wish for extraordinary, I sit with standard. When your life is just barely outside of banal, the simple solution is to silence yourself, to think you have nothing new to say, nothing to add to this already complicated world. But I’d readily counter that you do.

Tell them how your childhood friend was taken too soon, you too far away to attend her funeral. Tell them of the shock, the guilt. Tell them how your brother fell to drug addiction, years later slowly recovering. Tell them of the relief, of the pride. Tell them how your best friend, your angel, is bipolar, nearly three thousand miles away, struggling, suicidal. Tell them of the frustration and sadness, the anger. Tell them you know how lonely life can be—I’m sure they know too.

Danielle is a rising junior at the University of Michigan, where she is majoring in Philosophy and minoring in Writing. As an avid yogi and aspiring rock-climber, Danielle loves all things active and outdoorsy. Her educational aspirations are primarily centered on enhancing literacy in low SES areas, hoping to enter the nonprofit sector of such upon graduation.