"The Reason Why I Like Gonggal Bread"

By Jessica Lee

Submitted to the New England Korean Speech Contest in 2023. Awarded Third Place in the Level 2 Category.

Translation:

Hello. Today, I’d like to talk about my favorite bread.

In my hometown, there’s a bakery I used to visit often with my grandmother. They had a big bread called gonggal-bbang (a large, hollow bread). I remember thinking, It’s bigger than the other breads—why is it only two dollars? My grandmother bought me one, and I took an excited first bite: Huh? What is this bread? There was nothing inside. I thought it would be hard and tasteless, but the more I ate, the softer and tastier it was. It wasn’t what I first imagined.

I wrestled in middle school and was the smallest on the team. Whenever I competed, everyone watching assumed I would lose, and my opponents kept flipping me over. But I practiced hard every day and finally won. From then on, big opponents didn’t scare me, and during every match I thought of gonggal-bbang.

In college I majored in mathematics, and the problems became very difficult. Math is my favorite subject, but sometimes I think about a single problem for hours and still can’t solve it. At times like that, I think of gonggal-bbang: it looks complicated and difficult, but if I face it with confidence, I can find the answer more simply than I expected.

These days there are more tough things like exams and interviews. Sometimes I worry before I even begin and feel like giving up. But if we prepare well and don’t give up, success will surely come. When you run into something hard, think of gonggal-bbang too!

Thank you for listening to my story.