Many kids dream of living in Italy, a country filled with beautiful architecture, lavish food, and magnificent art and music. It’s a romanticized lifestyle that is portrayed as perfect and desirable in movies and books. But for one student, the fantasy of living in Italy was her reality.  

Freshman Amy Kim not only grew up in Italy, but she got to live in the fashion capital of the world, Milan, with professional opera singers as parents. The experiences that Kim had in Italy gave her great stories for conversations, but it also gave her knowledge of many different cultures which she will remember for the rest of her life.

“I really learned a lot about artistic culture while I was in Italy,” Kim said. “It became one of my prized qualities, being born in Italy. The freedom and beauty. The European culture taught me to appreciate the finer thing in life.”

Part of that could be a result of her parents’ chosen profession.

Kim’s parents are professional opera singers, with her mom attending one of the world’s best opera schools in Italy, Milano Conservatorio di Musica.

“It was a hard school,” Amy’s mom Sarah Park said. “It has a very low acceptance rate and it was very competitive.”

Having parents as opera singers may seem cool, but to Kim it comes with ups and downs. Since she came to the U.S. in 2007 at the age of 5, when she was first starting to understand the world around her, the sudden move greatly impacted her personality and early school years.

“I was five, I remember so clearly I loved the plane coming here,” Kim said. “I remember wanting to live on the plane. And there was also the fact that I didn’t know why we were going to America, because we were going to move to Germany, but then my aunt got pregnant, so we moved here.”

Kim noticed many differences when she first came here, with Texas at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to Italy in terms of people, culture, size, and jobs.

“Texas itself is a lot bigger than Italy and it’s really free and very open,” Kim said. “But then Italy is like really enclosed. It’s very dark spirited, there’s a lot of gypsies who pickpocket too, but then it’s also a really beautiful place. Dallas is really boring, but Italy has lots to do.”

She also misses many things in Italy that she can’t get here, with the food in Italy still holding a special spot in her heart.

“They have really good McDonald’s,” Kim said. “When I came here we went to McDonald’s, and I was thinking ‘what the heck is this place?’ McDonald’s is actually like a fancy restraunt in other countries. America just ruins it. It was even in the cathedrals, which was nice.”

However, a future in Italy was not to be as Kim’s mom decided to move to America after her sister got pregnant to seek better job opportunities.

“Italy is more free in life,” Park said. “They are more like people who just want to enjoy life. I like the way of life of Italy, but it’s not very helpful in gaining money. They have no conception of “good jobs” and “bad jobs”. Italy is friendlier to foreigners because it is a tourist country. And the old buildings are much more artistic. The harder you work, the better the chances in the USA, so that’s good. But in Dallas they keep building buildings so there isn’t any of that artistic feeling.”

Although Kim’s parents spent time in the opera world, she does not enjoy the genre and has no interest in following her parents’ lead.

“I hate opera,” Kim said. “I’ve lived with it so much that I absolutely hate it. My dad’s in Houston right now doing this opera gig, and I am so happy I didn’t go with him.”

Kim prefers Korean pop songs and enjoys keeping up with her favorite Kpop bands and idols. However Kim acknowledges the upsides of having opera singers for parents.

“Whenever on the first day of school they say to tell everyone three interesting facts about you life, I always say that I was born in Italy, I have a sister 11 years younger than me, and that my parents are opera singers,” Kim said.

Although both her parents were opera singers, Kim probably takes after one more than the other.

“Amy is more like her mom,” Kim’s dad David Park said. “She is understanding and is able to put others in front and is able to consider their feelings more.”

The fact that Kim doesn’t enjoy opera does not stop her from being proud of her parents and all that they have accomplished.

“I love my parents, and I’m very, very, very proud of them,” Kim said. “My parents are actually really famous around the Texas-Korean community. People actually drive all the way from Waco to get lessons from them, and my dad goes to California sometimes to perform. So yeah I’m really proud of my parents and I love them.”