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By Gary Bum You I'll Never Get Hit by a Rock My name is Gary Bum Jin You. I was the first one in my family to be born in the United States. My father was in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Virginia at the time. He and my mother were immigrants. Because of their marriage my mother's side of the family was invited into the States. All of my parents' immediate family members reside here now. My last name is You and is actually of Chinese descent. "You" is not a common Korean surname such as, Kim, Pak, or Lee. There is a joke on my father's side of the family that says, "If you go to Mount Nam (a mountain in Seoul, South Korea) and throw a stone, you'll hit a Kim, Pak, or Lee but not a You." It was their way of saying the Yous were unique and special. There are four or five subsets to the You name. The most common being Buh-Dul You, meaning willow, and our You, Myo-Gum-Do, being one of the rare ones. My family name was rare enough to trace. There was a series, a sequence that had to be followed. This traditional way of naming only followed with the first sons. My great-grandfather's name was Jong, my grandfather's name is Young, my father's name is Joon, and mine is Bum. Usually Korean names consist of two syllables, the first was given and the second was chosen by the family or a name doctor. My first name is Bum and my second name is Jin, which was chosen by my great-grandmother. After my parents named me, they were so proud. They went around telling the people of the base that their son's name was Bum. To their surprise they later found out that Bum in English meant a beggar, a vagrant. My father quickly asked some of his friends, resorted to a name dictionary and came up with the name Gary. It was unique enough not to be a common Bible name, and American-sounding enough that native Korean speakers could not pronounce my name. There was no way his son would be named after a vagrant. Soon he changed all my official records to Gary Bum Jin You. And that is how I became the person who I am today, Gary Bum Jin You. (Gary Bum Jin You is a Junior majoring in Asian American Studies.)