When I was in fifth-grade, a school band program gave my mom the chance to turn me into the elegant, flute-playing daughter she knew I could be. An ambitious Korean mother, she saw the flute as a symbol of success and femininity, one that my cousins had wielded before me. However, as a directionless ten- year-old, I resented those expectations and decided that I would play something more unpleasant to my mom’s ears—a trombone.

After my first day of band rehearsal, I walked home a little more triumphant than usual. Sauntering into our kitchen, I could barely hold my new brass trophy with my bony, fifth-grader arms.

My mom stood at the kitchen counter, slicing zucchini. Her knife hit the cutting board in short, rhythmic strokes. She stopped and looked down at me, seeing my trombone, enclosed in its cheap, plastic case.

“You want to play that? I already found a flute teacher for you.”

I glared back but did not answer. Even at ten-years, I understood the silliness of choosing trombone impulsively for the sake of rebellion. Yet, this choice marked one of my earliest rejections of tradition and allowed for self-discovery outside of my mom’s expectations.

As I grew more confident in my decisions, I began to resent my mom for the traditions she embodied. Shaped by Confucian values and her mother-in-law’s wishes, she mirrored the quiet, deferent housewife idealized in Korean culture. Conformity led her to quit her job and to raise a family. While my mom expressed enthusiasm for her domestic roles, I noticed an underlying unease during her phone calls and lunch dates with friends. As my mom jokingly lamented housework and family relations, I feared I would end up in a similar position and looked for other ways to reject tradition.

Soon, trombone grew into a three-year trial of vegetarianism. I even refused to eat my favorite food—Korean braised short ribs. Of course, my mom called me out on the absurdity of refusing a staple. Her response, however, only spurred my fear of tradition.

By ninth grade I was thousands of miles away from home, walking through northeastern leaves. With the new distance, I found myself gravitating towards my mom whenever I visited home. Realizing our limited time together, I put aside my pride to go on lunch dates with her. Little did I know that she was also defying tradition, from angering professors by her support of same-sex marriage, to giving her children the freedom to play despite Korea’s cram school culture.

In tenth-grade, my mom handed me a stack of papers that completely changed my perception of her.

“What’s this?” I was sitting at our kitchen table, watching TV with my grandpa.

“I wrote a screenplay.” My mom tapped her pen against the table and glanced at her father. “It’s about marriage,” she said in English, “and patriarchy.”

With pen in hand, I saw my mom transform into an unfamiliar yet empowered writer, one who could both critique and find meaning in her role as a Korean housewife. At that moment, my small rebellions evaporated in the presence of her screenplay. Her experiences with marriage and patriarchy, streamlined by ink and fictional characters, reflected a thoughtfulness I lacked. My mom encouraged me to cultivate rebellion not through a childlike rejection of family and values, but an ability to navigate context in a way that acknowledges both the importance and limitations of tradition.

This idea now serves as the foundation of my interest in the humanities, particularly religious studies. I am interested in how we make sense of humanity by preserving and changing culture, similar to my mom’s screenplay. I also want to understand how my mom employs writing as an expression of her own humanity. In the meantime, the words of her screenplay tower above me, foreign to my elementary level Korean. They know a humanity I have yet to learn.