Mentor Sage Monologue

Mentor Sage Monologue

Over the years my grandmother has told me tales of her life in Korea during the Korean War time and time again. The Mentor sage project gave me a chance to tell other people her story. The Mentor Sage monologue assignment asked us to interview someone over 50 years and interview them and then become them through a monologue we would perform. I decided to interview my Grandmother. My Grandmother is originally from Seoul, South Korea and was born eight years before the beginning of the Korean War between North and South Korean war, she lived on the Southern side.

I enjoyed this project because it gave me a chance to experience my Grandmother’s story in a new way, instead of just listening is was thinking about how she was feeling, what was running through her mind and how she would react, really trying to become her. I learned that during the war she was often scared that North Koreans would come to her door, and once they actually did. She also informed me of the hunger that her and her family experienced during war times and through the hardships and hunger they found light as kids by playing jacks or skipping rope in the streets.  After the initial interview I wanted to pull out the best possible story and decided on to focus in on how the war affected her childhood and then how the war made it possible for her to meet my Grandfather and move to America. I began to write a script keeping these ideas in mind and found it surprisingly easy because I already knew the story I wanted to tell. The next part was just to practice and perform. I practiced by repeating the monologue over and over in my head and out loud and thought of how my grandmother spoke English and tried to embody her, since she was born in South Korea and Korean was her native language she spoke unsurely, since she had never taken formal English lessons and with an accent. The accent was hard for me to do throughout the monologue so I didn’t want to risk talking with the accent for half and not having it the second so I didn’t do that part but I did adapt her pattern on speech. The performance was nerve-wracking for me, I was really nervous about the physicality and the use of props in the monologue, but even though I was nervous I felt like I did a good job and ended up getting an A on the project.

            If I had another chance to do this project I wouldn’t do much else different in the process but I would try to find a way to calm myself down before the performance, which would make it better. It is important for me to put this in my portfolio because I think it says a lot about me and my family. I also am really proud of the way that I turned real stories into one big story. I am happy that I choose my Grandmother to do this project on because she has had such an impactful, interesting, amazing life, and some of the things she did and sacrificed during the war showed such incredible strength that I feel like not including this project would be leaving out an amazing story.