Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring(봄, 여름, 가을, 겨울, 그리고 봄)

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring is a movie that paints out the story about a boy who grows up in a beautiful Buddhist temple and learns important life lessons from his monk master. It is divided into 5 sections; Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. The focus of this essay is on the very first section, and the lesson that the boy learns by then.





The season is spring. Beautiful weather, green plants, fresh water. The boy goes outside to play. He chases butterflies and runs around the rocky hill. Until he gets bored.





The little boy needs something new. Something entertaining. What he decides to do is to tie rocks to a fish, a frog, and a snake's body so they cannot move freely. He enjoys watching the animals suffer and try to escape from the weight of the rocks they're tied to. The boy never notices that his master has been watching everything.



The next morning, the little boy wakes up and finds himself tied to a rock bigger than the twice of the size of his face. Master says that he will untie him as soon as the boy go to the hills again and free the animals he abused the other day. As the boy frees the animals with the huge and heavy rock tied to his waist, he gets to know what life means and how he shouldn't treat it easily, no matter what it belongs to.



Master's way of teaching is in fact very affective. He used the method, "to be in someone else's shoes". It means to put yourself into someone else's perspective. The little boy had no idea how painful the animals must've been when they had rocks tied to their bodies. Master made the boy to actually experience the pain.



I remember this book I read: Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech. The title of the book is from a famous Native American saying, "never judge a man until you walk two moons in his moccasins ". It basically means the same with "to be in someone else's shoes". The main character of Walk Two Moons learns a lesson by being in someone else's perspective, like the little boy did in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring.

There were a lot of times in my life that I had to hear the words, "Think how the other person would feel.", "be in someone else's perspectives.", etc. However, I've never experienced directly and felt the importance of being in someone else's shoes. I do know that it is nice to think about the others, I do try to look into other people's perspectives. The thing is that I have never gotten a chance to feel the pain that I have given to others. Instead I only herd the words, "don't do it again."

What the Master monk did to the boy was very clever. Feeling the pain by yourself leaves the lesson in your head for a long time. I am positive that the boy will not ever make the same mistake. I wonder if I would've been better at being in someone else's shoes if I had an experience like the boy had.