"Dad, I don't want to go back to Korea again."
        "Why? You have begun your study, so you should end it," Dad said.
        "But, it is too hard for me," I said.
        "I can understand, but if you give up now, you will be regret it," my father said.
        This is what I talked with my father this summer. He has never given up anything halfway during his fifty-seven years of life, and he educated his children just like that too. Because of that, I admire him.
        My family belongs to a minority nationality in China. My grandparents are Korean. My father was educated in a Korean school until his high school years, but he graduated from a Chinese university and there are few minority people in his workplace. So he sometimes appears to have mixed Korean and Chinese thought.  Because of that, he thinks that it is his responsibility to have a son and to take care of my grandmother and all of his sisters and brothers only because he is the first son. And he also thinks all of his children should marry people who have the same nationality as us. At the same time, he also shares the housework and takes care of his children with my mother, just like many Chinese husbands.
        My father loves my mother very much, and he is a good husband also. For example, my mother had to take a lot of medication and see a doctor when she married my father because of her poor health. At that time, we lived in a small village, so it wasn't very easy to see a doctor. My father bought many books about herbs, and he even learned acupuncture in order to take care of my mother better.
        My father isn't very lucky, I think, although he always tries his best at everything. He often said to us that we must catch hold of any chance by ourselves. He graduated from a university in the 1960s. At that time in China, a person who had a high education could gain a job with excellent prospects. But because of the Cultural Revolution, he had to work with the peasants in a village where there was  not even a bus for almost ten years. After the Cultural Revolution, he became a principal in a high school and taught math. I only remember that he studied till midnight everyday. When I was in third grade of elementary school, he even went to the Institute of Political Science and Law to study. After several years, he became a popular prosecutor, and he did that work for twenty years.
        Because the government of my hometown needed an official to be in charge of the minority nationality of the city, my father became a town clerk when I graduated from college. There are fifty-six different nationalities in China. They have different customs, religions and cultures. It was a new job for him. So although he is more than fifty years old, he still buys some books about the minority nationalities and reads them.  Almost all the people whose ancestors are Korean know my father in my hometown, because they can gain his help when they have problems.
        In addition, I think that my father has always been a good father, although he was very strict about our study. He treated us in spirit freely. I am outgoing and I often stated my views frankly, the boys didn't often become angry about what I said but the girls were just the opposite. So I liked playing with boys during my school days, but my parents, especially my father, never bothered or asked about them and trusted me. Even when I later met my boyfriend who has a different nationality from mine, my father accepted and respected my choice although it was very difficult and sad for him.
        "I hope you can do everything well just like my father." Sometimes I have said that to my boyfriend. I know it is unfair to him and he isn't glad to hear that, but, my father is a good father, a reliable husband and a kind-hearted clerk. For these reasons, I think that my father is a real.... no, a perfect man.