Stand Up
“If you really want to go for something that you like, there is always a risk,” Minhwan Kim said, “So just dislocating my toe, even though it hurt a lot, wasn’t big enough to keep me from dancing.”
Kim is a sophomore at Penn State majoring in computer science and he is also a member of Ram Squad which is a dance club including poping, breaking, locking and jazz etc. Kim is a member of b-boying group, which is also called breaking, an athletic style of street dance. Kim used to do gymnastics, which gave him the experience to do the dangerous moves of b-boying.
When he was a child, Kim’s family moved many times because of parents’ work. He lived in Korea, China, Slovenia and Madagascar, all between the age of one and four. When he lived in Madagascar, Kim was verbally attacked toward his race by local people which influenced him and he did not talk much due to these attacks. Kim said he became not confident for himself and he did not try to hang out with classmates and friends. His brother, Yoonhwan Kim, also suffered from these attacks and their parents did not realize what happened at that time.
In the eighth grade, Kim decided to fight back and he said he won the respect and learned how to stand up for himself. Kim becomes more voluble after standing up and he made many friends at Madagascar as well as Penn State. He said he find confidence when dancing and he enjoy b-boying because dances could do whatever moves without other people’s judgment and standard.
