Learning Forgiveness :: Personal Narrative Essay Example

Learning Forgiveness When I opened my yearbook, I began to reminisce about my half year of high school in China. As I flipped through the pages of the yearbook, a picture of an old man with a benevolent smile caught my eyes. Daydreaming about the incident, my eyesight became hazy, and I felt my hands becoming swollen, which always refreshes my memory of his profound words. His name is Mr. Zang, my high school teacher in China. A very thin and tall man, Mr. Zang is very caring and always tries to understand the students' concerns and finds joy in having conversations with them. Mr. Zang and I used to discuss my plans to go to the US and why I studied English so intensively. He helped give me confidence that I would find success in the US, and I began to think of him as a very respectable man. When I found out that Mr. Zang, unlike most teachers in China, never hit students, I began to respect him even more. Unfortunately, other students had negative opinions of him and thought he was a coward. "You know what? Your favorite teacher, Mr. Zang, is really sissy." Chang-Min screamed, pointing a finger at me. "I think he is afraid of students. That's why he can't hit students." Staring at him enraged that he would speak badly about my favorite teacher, I dashed at him and yelled, "Don't talk about Mr. Zang that way. OK?" A constant troublemaker at school, Chang-Min was shocked that I stood up to him and looked at me surprised. He thought I was always introspective and would never stand up for myself, and he could sense his hard-earned notoriety slipping away. Looking at his ridiculous, surprised face, I grew even angrier. Ironically, to defend a teacher who didn't hit students, I resorted to violence to deal with Chang-Min. Suddenly, I kicked him in the stomach, and we started fighting. Phil-bong, the vice-principal, caught us and brought us to the student life center for punishment. Phil-bong didn't even ask us why we fought; he simply asked who hit first. Admitting that I did, Phil-bong proceeded to beat my hands until they were swollen and reddish. Watching me getting hit by Phil-bong angered Mr. Zang, and afterwards he asked me why I hit Chang-Min. Mr. Zang convinced Phil-bong to forgive me, and I started to blame my classmate for my sore hands, and I asked Mr.