As a boy, I had to struggle every day against the awkwardness and confusion of an unfamiliar culture and against isolation and feeling of inferiority caused by a language that I knew. I don't speak, but I never had to fear the Japanese Imperial Army, nor live under the rule of the French colonialists, nor dodge the machetes of the Cambodians and the Viet Minh, nor hope that an assassin of the Viet Cong does not have a gun pointed at my back. . I had to fight hunger because I was rushing to school without eating breakfast, but I never had to wonder where my next meal was coming from, not even once. I had to endure the heat and humidity of a restaurant kitchen owned by my own family, but I never had to work the land on a ten-acre farm, where I had been banished by my own government. I had to spend long, boring hours studying to get into the university of my choice, but I didn't have to spend long, boring years working in a factory because I had no choice . (Chung 337) The memoir “Where The Wind Leads” contains many examples of how tradition and past struggles shape the lives of subsequent generations. Childhood discipline and people's interpersonal habits may be difficult to accept in the eyes of Westerners or modern society, but this is what they experience on a daily basis. It's inspiring to see the sacrifice and strength parents had to put in to provide an easier life for their children..