Trip of Mount Sinai

It was 3 years ago when I was studying in Egypt with 10 Chinese classmates from Beijing Language and Culture University. One of my classmate, Liang, came to my room when I just finished my essay.

‘How about a trip, bro?’ he said.

Liang was a tall boy from Beijing. He is a Muslim, and knew more about their customs than me.

Taking a trip with such a good guide would be safe and convenience.

I looked back. ‘Where are you going? I don’t want to go to Cairo and Alexandria for we have been there so many times.’

‘Of course not there. Sharm el Sheikh, a city on shore of the Red Sea. I wanna go to Mount Sinai to achieve a ceremony for it was where Moses got the Ten Commandments.’

In fact, since our last trip- all Chinese classmates together taking a cruise on the Nile- 3 girls started dating 3 boys. That’s why I had to stay indoors in such a good holiday while those lovers went on their own sweet trips, and may also be the reason Liang came to me for he was not popular between girls. What the hell.

‘Alright. Give me 30 minutes to prepare.’ I shut down my computer and stood up.

After several hours plane trip we arrived at Sharm el Sheikh. As Liang wanted to climb the Sinai Mount in night for religion reason, we had a hurry time preparing- then I found I didn’t get warm clothes, and we had to buy some. However it was apparently impossible to find warm clothes in a place close to the equator, so I ended up buying a thin Middle-East style robe there.

This trip began in confusion. The Mount Sinai was miles away from Sharm el Sheikh, thus we have to join a tourist group to get a ride to there. We thought it would be easy- you know, we both studied Arabic, and had got used to strange Egypt-style English, so we didn’t think there would be any possibility of communication. However, when we got on the car, we were surprised to see that all tourists on the car were Russian! Later we found that Sharm el Sheikh was a popular resort among Russian, and now even the guide spoke Russian to tourists and made introduction in Russian but not Arabic nor English. Though most of the other tourists were kind aged Russians, their Russian-style blunt English were too hard to understand and make response. We two Chinese could only sit in the back seats and talk with each other.

When we arrived at Mount Sinai, it was already 1 a.m. The weather was clear and cold, and the mountain was totally dark for artificial light sources was not allowed to be built on that mountain. Liang insisted to get on the top of the mountain before 4 a.m. (sunrise), so we decided to leave the tourist group and climb by our own.

As soon as I got off from the bus I knew I made a mistake. It was freezing cold there, totally different from Sharm el Sheikh in the daytime only miles away. No lights anywhere, and as the mountain was not developed, the road was only gravels and sand. Another refresh to my cognition- Arabian robes were not as warm as it looks- in fact, my Arabian robe was very limited to keep me warm. It was made of sesame, weaved very loosely to make it light and air permeable, which could not keep heat inside well nor keep cold mountain wind outside. ‘It would be a hard time.’ I said, ‘let’s go.’

Only 1 hours later I regretted for my decision to come. Gravel was pricking my feet, wind with cold air scraping my skin, and the narrow mountain way seemed never ends. The whole mountain had no plants, only rocks and sand, which made it more boring.

‘How long we still need to go?’ I asked, trembling in cold air.

‘We just begin, bro.’ Answered Liang.

As we were climbing the mountain, Liang told me something about Moses. I was surprised to know that he appeared in Christian, Islam and Judaism; looks like his image and story didn’t differ among these old religions. And also, I learnt for the first time that these religions had close origins and background; there is Jesus in el Quran, and Muhammad in the Bible. Many stories were similar in these religions.

When it came to 3am, things got worse. I wasn’t strong nor with good stamina, and my heavy bag with two drinks and a bag of food were consuming my strength second by second. Though I was cold, I still felt my sweat drench my T-shirt and the robe. My feet was out of strength, and my heart beat hard. As the altitude increased, the sand road became more and more rugged, finally became big rocks that needed to be actually ‘climbed’. Sometimes I had to accept Liang’s help to go ahead.

Finally we got on the mountain at 3:30 am. I sat down on the top of the mountain, exhausted. Liang said he was going to do his Salat (Islam religion ceremony), and I finally found that I did a mistake. I saw he brought 4 liter of water, and I thought maybe this mountain was so dry that we need to drink more, and I bought 2 liter of sprite and 2 liter of coke. These drinks almost drained every strength of me, and now I saw Liang took out his water, and wash his hands for his Salat. I could only took out my cold drinks, drinking and looked around.

A small deserted ancient church stood there silently. No one was here. Night breeze blew through rocks and stone fences, making smooth sounds. Then I looked up into the sky.

Thousands of stars waiting there, surrounding the lone moon, giving out weak light; dark blue sky changed its color into purple, and black. Constellations, most of them I couldn’t name, all around my sight; in the middle of them was a silver river of stars and nebula, the milky way, and a cold moon in a fading halo. That was the first time I see such a beautiful starry sky- much different from the sky in the cities or the country. I just felt so calm and still, feeling myself as clear as the sky and the universe. The more I looked up, the more I felt that the stars were slowly sinking down to me, and I was also slowly floating up towards them. In the next hour before the sunrise I sat there like this, thinking about the existence and the fading, the instant and the eternal, until the sun rose and swept all the cold and dark from that journey.

In my bitter-sweet childhood days, the words “freedom” and “independence” represented the crux of my troubles. I knew that it was not the kind of trouble I would get in when I would scribble on the pink painted walls of my bedroom, eat unripen fruit from my grandmother’s garden, or turn off the TV while my dad was anxiously watching the news. To my understanding at that time, my family’s forced mandate to leave behind everything we had built in our hometown and move to Albania as refugees was solely to be blamed on the cry for freedom and independence from Serbia. Little did I know at the time that being refugees was not a decision made of freewill… it was a must, as our country was on the verge of war.

Even though I was very young and did not have the reasoning capability of an adult, I could sense the tension around me and my family. In the midst of palpable terror and fear, I managed to find peace in self-teaching myself ballet. Despite my mental state, ballet initiated a renaissance within me. Through ballet, the chaotic scenes of fear and terror were balanced by the beautiful, slow and synchronized movements of my body. Dancing allowed me to hide in a perfect shell, built from pirouettes and fouettes. Although I had no formal instructions, ballet enabled me to escape to a self-constructed free world that everybody in the refugee camp pined. I was no longer confined by the gravity of our situation; I had found my freedom in dance.

My parents had always been supportive, but when I shared my desire to take ballet classes, I was surprised by their response. I wanted to take ballet, not solely for my enjoyment but also be part of a group. Despite my hopes, my parents softly explained to me that they could not afford to sign me up; however I should continue pursuing it on my own and they can borrow some DVRs from the public library. I felt devastated and unloved! How could they not help me pursue “the dream of my life”? That’s what parents are for!

This devastation intensified when I found out that a few days later that my dad had signed me up for private English classes that cost even more than ballet lessons. I grew up in a bilingual environment of Albanian and Italian, so I did not need an academic introduction to learn a language. I learned Italian mostly playing in streets with friends and watching my favorite cartoons. Why did I need a third language, especially in a country where nobody knew English? I asked this question over and over to my dad and I remember him replying: Americans are our friends and one day we will go there! I asked if I would take ballet classes there and he replied: YES! It was the biggest yes I had ever heard from him.

This promise motivated me to attend all my English classes and try hard to learn the language. It was not an easy process as English was not a common language in a post-communist country like Albania. Majority of people spoke Russian as it was the foreign language taught in schools.

Many of my friends who attended ballet classes would comment on how much they enjoyed it and how one day they will be performing in prestigious academies such as the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. I secretly envied them but I always remember my father’s promises. Although he never kept his promise, I started liking my English class and my teacher as well. I became friends with a lot of my classmates and we would practice every other day. Another companion to this journey was my father as he would push me to learn new words on weekly basis. The English course was useful for teaching grammar rules however; it was my father who would always make sure I fully utilized all the available resources. He even bought an Albanian-English dictionary and would ask if I knew random words. Although some of those words were outdated and my father spoke no English, he tried to do his very best to help me.

Ballet remained one of my unfulfilled dreams however; I accepted the reality as I was used to not having everything I wanted. I lived as a refugee in Albania where security and food were my family’s primary concerns. It would be very selfish of me to ask for something that my parents could not afford and see a payoff. I know that such decisions were not easy for them and now I realize that my parents’ guidance to take English classes was the best decision as it opened many doors for me. I am getting an education in the US, visited many interesting places and met many people from different cultures.

My family’s journey and the discipline I learned through ballet have served as my primary inspiration to work passionately and ethically to achieve my goals, no matter how big the obstacles along the way.  It has not been an easy journey, but today I can undoubtedly say: it was worth it. Through my experience, I learned how to work hard in order to achieve a higher personal and intellectual status and how important it is to not take things for granted. I attribute everything that I have come to know and sought to discover to my family and to my passion for ballet.

Reflection on presentation 1 and post to our blog:

• What do you notice about your presentation?

I realized that I should improve speaking skill more. At that time when doing presentation, I myself thought I was speaking well. However, now I’m disappointed that my English is difficult to understand both in terms of fluency and pronunciation.

Also, I was wriggling throughout the presentation, so I should be confident, or be relaxed next time.

• What feedback did you receive from classmates?

I was just talking about my narrative myself, and didn’t pay attention to audience’s reaction. So I should talk to audience and involve them in my story.

• Based upon feedback and your own appraisal, what are your goals for next presentation?

Be confident.

Be relaxed.

Be active more.

It would be difficult to improve English skill by next time, so I have to keep practice everyday.

I can see a big difference between the part I memorized and the part I tried to talk about based on key points. To me , good preparation requires memorizing that could also eased my tension, and it worked. However, when I tried to recall my next points or certain phrases, I tended to look up to the ceiling or down to the floor and I didn’t pay enough attention to my audience. However, speaking based on key points is the opposite: when I talked about the differences between writing in English and writing in Chinese, I wanted to make some change to my original points and you could tell that I were a little bit nervous: I made some grammatical mistakes and had some false starts.

I spoke quite fast in the beginning because I was worried that I might exceed the time limit. This is also why I failed to pause after I raised a question to my audience and after I finished some paragraphs, which makes me seem in a hurry. Some necessary pauses will make my speech more natural. My classmates, Veronica, also mentioned that I should make my conclusion more powerful. Apart from my volume and tone, I believe some proper pauses would help as well.

I was not used to making gestures. I compared my gestures and good speakers’ gestures, I found that their gestures are more powerful and mine are weak and sometimes unnecessary. Next time I will practice more on my gestures and control other body language.

Next time, I will speak more confidently and clearly, make firm eye contacts and proper gestures. I will keep working on speaking based on key points instead of memorizing every words, finding a balance between these two methods. I will also try to decrease the distracting “ah”, “um” and lip smacks.

After finishing my summer program, I could not wait to go to Chinatown in San Francisco to experience my long-lost culture and Chinese food. However, while going through the Stockton Tunnel, I saw a China I had never seen. The watery sunshine rested on the walls in blurred and desultory gleam. Streets were narrow, steep and empty with homeless people begging for money. Words on billboards were written in traditional Chinese characters with a typesetting and style from the 1920s. Grocers stood at street corners selling southern vegetables and fruits. Grandmas sat on vegetable piles chatting with customers in fluent Cantonese that I could hardly understand. I went into a supermarket decorated with dust to buy snacks and juice. Everything went well until I started talking with the cashier in Mandarin with a strong Beijing accent. She opened her eyes wide in mock disbelief and then narrowed her eyes scornfully at me. I tried several more times at grocery stores, restaurants, and newsstands and observed what happened to other Mandarin-speaking customers when they started talking. Storeowners, employees and even other Cantonese customers reacted the same way. It seemed that they were so surprised to see a Mandarin-speaking customer. “They are rude,” a Mandarin-speaking fellow standing next to me whispered. With no doubt, they were. But why had they reacted this way?

To explain why Cantonese-speaking sellers treated Mandarin-speaking customer in a rude way, it is necessary to mention stereotypes against Mandarin-speaking people and cultural perspective Cantonese-speaking people embrace. Normally, people speaking mandarin, especially with northern accent, are considered as mainlanders. Mainlanders always receive negative feedback when they travel all around the world, due to inappropriate behaviors and cultural misunderstanding conducted and kept by some mainland tourists. Though those people who behave inappropriately and create cultural misunderstanding are not the majority of tourist population, they represent the mainland and the mainland’s culture. Thus, they contribute to the forming of stereotypes against mainland people, who innocently considered as people lacking civic virtue, morality and quality. Moreover, most people speaking Cantonese are from Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, and foreign countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. Some Chinese immigrants in foreign countries are Cantonese speakers as well. The Cantonese-speaking populations have cultural protectionism on tradition, language, food, life style, and other features that can distinguish them from other culture groups. However, exposed to mainland’s tolerant and open culture, Cantonese-speaking people in Guangzhou don’t have problem in the interaction with people from other provinces. However, because of cultural misunderstanding, less knowledge of the mainland, and stereotype, people in Hong Kong always have conflicts with their country fellows from the mainland. Therefore, Hong Kong receives negative feedbacks as a tourism destination from most of the mainland visitors. While talking with my friends studying overseas, I realize that I am not the only person feel alienated in Chinatown as a Mandarin speaker in Chinatown overseas dominated by Cantonese-speaking immigrants. As we concluded, stereotypes and cultural protectionism can be factors contributing to Cantonese-speaking sellers unfriendly attitude.

Different from people from Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau, and other places in the world that are congested with Cantonese-speaking people, San Francisco Chinatown has its own historical and cultural background. People there view themselves as Sanfranciscan and Chinese American growing up in special regional culture. San Francisco Chinatown is created by racism. Intense anti-Chinese attacks and the Exclusion Act of 1882 make Chinese immigrants dwelling together and create barriers to their assimilation to American culture. Moreover, Chinese immigrants can hardly live and work outside Chinatown due to housing and labor discrimination. After hundred-year-long “isolation”, San Francisco Chinatown develops unique culture differentiating it from American, Chinese, and even original Cantonese culture. People in San Francisco Chinatown may have even less knowledge than Hong Kong people on the mainland China. As I learn, some people in San Francisco Chinatown are monolingual Cantonese speakers. With no doubt, based on their stereotypes, cultural protectionism, even less knowledge on China, and national identity, Cantonese-speaking sellers in San Francisco Chinatown treat Mandarin-speaking customers as aliens in a rude way.

However, does the Cantonese-speaking sellers’ attitude the only reason result to my unpleased experience in San Francisco Chinatown? Same like Cantonese-speaking people in San Francisco Chinatown, pride in Beijing culture and less knowledge in San Francisco Chinatown history and culture made me feel uncomfortable when communicated with them and have bias on Cantonese-speaking sellers there. Moreover, wrong expectation on Chinese Americans made my feeling even worse. Born and growing up in Beijing, I am proud of my Beijing culture. Beijing is the beloved hometown for all Beijingers. Beijing is capital city of China for more than 800 hundred years having a unique temperament which results in its combination of royal and folk culture. Beijing is a developed international city having convenient transportation network, living condition, and leisure living style. Climbing to the top of the hill behind the Forbidden City, you can see a nice blend of traditional and modern. Lush poplar trees surround traditional courtyard houses. Hutongs, alleys in Beijing, divide the city into a chessboard. Hutongs extend to wide roads decorated by modern buildings designed by famous architects around the world. Wherever they live, courtyard houses or modern apartments, people treat each other friendly and treat foreigners with hospitality. Morality and civic virtue are highly valued in Beijing culture. Inclusiveness and virtue, two voted Beijing spirits, provide an environment where everyone can live with dignity and respect from others. Therefore, when the pride I have as a Beijinger and the prejudice the Cantonese-speaking sellers clash together, conflicts occur. I even thought and reacted in a self-defensive way while encountering the Cantonese speakers in San Francisco Chinatown. Languages we used were tools that distinguished us. Cultures and concepts behind languages were what created conflicts and misunderstanding. Before the first time I went to San Francisco Chinatown, I had no idea of its history and culture. Same like some Chinese people, I viewed Chinese Americans as my fellow citizens sharing same culture. However, I was just self-assertion and wrongly considered that those Chinese Americans would treat me with hospitality as meeting compatriots. Thus, my experience and feeling of the Chinatown in San Francisco became even worse.

Exposed to MIIS’s diverse culture and accessing to intercultural competence classes, I gradually learn how to think in the position of other cultures and actively study on other cultures. The secret is to develop tolerance and patience. Therefore, we can have openness to other cultures and languages. At the same time, we can have much better experience while being in a foreign culture. I went to San Francisco to see the Chinese New Year Parade last weekend. Preparing for my trip, I downloaded application teaching Cantonese in my phone and did research on San Francisco’s history and its Chinatown’s history. When I was in San Francisco this time, though I still received Cantonese speakers’ prejudice, I tried to understand their hardship and reasons behind their attitude. I found that I became less likely to be irritated and influenced. At the same time, I thought much highly of the tolerance among people.

Language is a powerful tool to connect with people. Having said that, language can also be used to belittle people. Since moving to the United States, I have experienced a series of events that have shown me the difficulties of a language learner and living in a world in which stereotypes are still present. As a Puerto Rican, I have experienced a distinct political status among the Latin American and Caribbean countries. Compared to other Latin America countries, Puerto Rico has no political sovereignty.  For instance, Puerto Rico is considered the world’s oldest colony. The complex relationship between United States and Puerto Rico has transformed the island—economically, politically, and culturally. Through the island is technically a colony, Puerto Ricans have not assimilated to the United States’ culture. Despite this powerful defiance, Puerto Ricans are often stereotyped as being ignorant and lazy. The constant struggle of demonstrating I do not fit this description contributes to my inability to fully communicate to the full extent of my potential. To that end, I will describe my journey, as a language learner, which has involved many valuable and eye-opening experiences as I have continually endeavored to overcome stereotypes.

From a very small age, I was exposed to the bilingual world. At school, we used textbooks written in English, but the lectures were actually given in Spanish. So when it comes to reading, my confidence level is a lot higher in English than it is in Spanish. I have a higher ability of receiving and processing English, both written and oral, than I have of producing high quality pieces of writing or discourse in English. However, I still consider myself an English learner and I feel like I struggle just like any other English language learner from anywhere else in the world.  My ability to write is amazing in some areas and superficial in some others. When the topic I have to write about is a topic that I have previously studied or discussed, I feel more confident in the correct usage of vocabulary and sentence structure than when I have to discuss an unfamiliar topic.

At the same time, when the topics I have to express myself about are topics that for some reason evoke some emotion in me, I find it much more difficult to discuss them and write about them. For this same reason I have a hard time when discussing such topics with my classmates and when taking part in group discussions for our class projects. If the topic is something I have a passion for, my mind goes completely blank and I can’t get an idea across even if my life or world peace depended on it. When I moved to the United States my linguistic experience proved to be different than that of others due to the fact that even though I do have the ideas and resources well developed in my mind, I face a kind of writer’s block that is fueled by my fears and insecurities caused by my life experiences of being judged under people’s preconceived ideas and stereotypes about what Puerto Ricans are like. I feel that all eyes are on me.

With this in mind, I feel pressure to be a good representation of my country and gaining the individual respect of others. Therefore, I cannot turn in an assignment without having a native English speaker review it. For instance, my academic experience at MIIS has been a very positive learning experience, in which my professors’ feedback has been so beneficial. Nevertheless, some students have shown disrespect toward my skills and abilities. For instance, a teammate did not want to read the recommendations I spent a whole night preparing after reviewing our project because, as he put it, “he had no time for my input”. These recommendations were written in an essay that was reviewed by the Writing Center, as well as by one of my professors from my university in Puerto Rico. Nevertheless, despite the fact that I put a lot of work, effort and energy into this assignment, it never saw the light of day: the intended reader never even gave it a chance.

Despite all of this, the gains are bigger than the uncomfortable experiences. Moving to the States has pushed my linguistic boundaries a great deal. I am now able to sit in class and feel at ease with the environment. I feel more comfortable completing my assignments for all my courses and can easily finish my reflections. Furthermore, I have realized that to become a confident writer in English, I have to free myself from mine and others misplaced preconceptions.

Sometimes I think you have to be Latin American to understand and feel in your whole body the magical essence of my south. At least you need to have a special soul, a very sensitive one, to picture the slaves in the palenques when the rhythm is playing; or the criollos praying to Caridad del Cobre for a better life; or the Mapuches fighting for their lands and rights; or Gardel singing “Volver” while a random couple dances tango; or just to understand the meaning of the yellow butterflies of Mauricio Babilonia and take it as a regular event.

I arrived here barely a month ago, and I remember noW my first class about Latin America in America, I mean, USA. It was an Economy class and the teacher told us to read Funes the Memorious by Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian author, one of the best in Latin America. I was so excited and a little shocked because, what were the chances to read just that short story here? For me it was a well-known story, one of those I had been reading since the beginning of my love for Borges and Latin American literature. It was like facing the essential. And also it was a sign of destiny: one of the few book I took with me when I left Cuba was precisely a collection of Borges’s poetry, essays and short stories.

I read Funes again, and went to class hoping to have the most amazing discussion about the surreal character and his particular gift. Then I realized that the teacher and me were the only ones really captivated by the story, the way Borges told extraordinary things, narrated a continent in a few pages. In the end my classmates talked about economy, Latin America, Funes, but they hadn’t understood anything. They didn’t understand how Funes, the character, was the memory of things, the memory of people, the memory of my part of this great continent.

And I thought: what would happen if they read García Márquez? Would they feel something, anything? Would they care? Would their imagination burst with One Hundred Years of Solitude? In this novel, García Márquez created the trend of magic realism. He invented a new way to talk about Latin America, and put into words the most authentic soul of our history and traditions. My classmates, studying Latin American issues, didn’t know _ and they still don’t _ who that man was.

Because of that novel I really felt as part of the land for the first time. It happened more than ten years ago, reading the story of Coronel Aureliano Buendía’s family, killed by fire, born and raise in Macondo, a little town lost in the middle of nowhere, blessed and cursed by their people and the universe and by history, with a common life full of normal magic events, just like Latin America. That time I could felt in my bones the weight of an entire civilization. I saw how people believe without any god or with all of them; or the way of dying is grew a pair of wing out of nothing and just fly to the sky; and the way of love is turned into a millions of yellow butterflies; and live is just a matter of curiosity, but in a big, transcendental way, that turns out to be just the normal, obvious way to do it.

One year after reading García Márquez’s novel –I was 14 years old– a friend of mine invited me to my first toque de santo, an afrocuban religious ceremony where people offered food, music and dancing to yoruba saints. It is the moment to sacrifice animals as an offer and to communicate with those saints. These ceremonies usually are an overwhelming experience for the beginners because of the animal’s blood, the strong music of batá drums and the unnatural force of the dancers. There is a spiritual violence in the performances, like an aggression, but it is actually just a very personal feeling and a demonstration of individual faith.

Afterwards, my English friend and I started to talk about it, and I was shivering, and shocked, trying to process what I had seen because it had been very powerful to me. But he, well, he was only excited with the experience. For him had been just another exotic thing to watch in Cuba. For him had been a bunch of black people getting crazy with some music.

He couldn’t felt the rumba in his blood; the saint’s words speaking through human’s mouth; the ancient deaths embodying live men. He couldn’t felt the magical essence of a strongly rooted tradition, a deeply ingrained faith. And more than that, he couldn’t felt the history behind that ceremony, years and years of slavery and struggle and fighting to reach freedom.

Like my English friend, my American classmates from USA can’t feel those tradition, perhaps because they are not their own, perhaps they get lost in translation. The difference is that my English friend was just visiting Cuba as a tourist, and my classmates want to change the world and help other countries and people. But how can you help others if you can’t get into their world, their tradition, their culture? I know, there is a difference between feeling and understanding, but sometimes just understanding is fine; it could be the first step to reaching my south, that part of the world beyond USA border.

Asking myself what writing means to me, I realized that writing serves as an escape from my messy daily life and an entrance to my utopia, the world established by the voice deep inside me and the harmony with others’ thoughts.

The first time I found writing enjoyable was in junior high school. Before then, writing was just a way to gain attention and accomplishment from my parents. I was supposed to use analogy, personification and parallel structures to demonstrate how I had been developing my writing skills—I wanted to be recognized as a student who was good at writing, and a daughter who satisfied my parents’ expectations.

However, things changed during junior high school, when I had a young lady, Miss Jin, who just graduated from college as my Chinese teacher. With straight black hair to her waist, she always wore long dresses. I cannot forget her warm smile and the gentle voice she used to read my composition aloud. Unlike Chinese teachers in other classes, she asked the students to turn in a composition every week instead of assigning boring readings to us.

At first, students’ reaction was so negative: When she announced the weekend assignments, quite a few students in my class yelled, “That’s too much for the weekend!” “What? Without a given topic? That’s not how it works.” “This writing assignment sucks!” There were complaints filling the classroom, including my own.. I was so used to writing on given topics that it was killing me to find a topic myself. Reluctantly, I went to Miss Jin’s office and asked for ideas and detailed requirements. “No requirements! I just want to know if anything interesting or upsetting happens to you this week and how you feel about it. Writing can reflect who you are and I would like to know my students better.”

That was a shock to me! What should I do? I started to pay close attention to those enchanted interludes; I viewed the people around me in a different light, observed closely the views that caught my eyes and tried my best to revivify these with my own understanding in my writing. Later, I gradually grew accustomed to this freestyle writing.

Actually, it turned out to be one of my best writing experiences ever, and I really appreciated it because I could pour out my heart. Some of you may have experienced the same period as I did, a time of feeling uncomfortable or even bashful to share your thoughts and feelings with your parents. I considered Miss Jin as a big sister and believed she would be a good listener to my stories. Putting on my headphones, I felt like I was entering my utopia, free to express my ideas. I always remember this scene: My parents would be watching the blind date TV show on Sunday nights, and I hid in my own room and began to recall the interesting, joyful or sometimes depressing moments. They could be provoking and moving films, small episodes happening between my friends and me, or amazing sunset views.

Time flies, and it was not long before I said goodbye to Miss Jin. High school turned out to be a nightmare to my writing life. My high school was exam-oriented, and famous for its enrollment rate to colleges and universities. None of the teachers there were like Miss Jin. Instead, they tried to instill this belief in me: what really matters is not what you think, but what teachers, especially those grading your composition, like to read. As the Chinese saying goes, “Grades determine your fate.”

Fortunately, I figured out my own way—writing journals in English. They don’t have to be long and well-structured; actually, most of them were composed of primary words and simple sentences, which I would not even regard as writing now. Nevertheless, I felt peaceful and relaxed because, finally, I didn’t need to pretend to be someone else or worried about getting accused of doing things irrelevant and unimportant to studying. English writing to me was and is an escape from the suffocating exams and homework.

I believe that’s the reason why exam-oriented education hasn’t smashed my interest in English, and why I had no hesitation to take the Supply Chain course in English rather than in Chinese. The course was taught in a western style – students were asked to conduct a group project at the end of the semester, writing a case study essay and presenting on it. This class is where I learned academic writing in English and became familiar with the spirit of group work.

For the first time, I knew how to find my voice and find my position in a group. I was shy at first to share my ideas with others and afraid to be too talkative. One of my group members happened to know me well and encouraged me, “Share your ideas with us. You never know when your thoughts can inspire others.” Gradually, I opened my mind and actively contributed to our discussion instead of keeping my perspectives to myself.

For the first time, I realized the differences in writing between English and Chinese: English writing requires a certain logic, usually reflected in the organization and structure. At the very start, I felt awkward to state my points directly in the beginning of every paragraph, but after I got used to it, I could appreciate the charm of this structure. I could always demonstrate the key points clearly and the ideas flowed smoothly afterwards. It was also such fun to revise my part, combining short sentences into longer ones and varying word choice. I believe I have started to establish my own writing style since then.

When I look back today, I find those experiences the stars in the night sky that have guided my way. Even now, writing allows me to enter my private space, my Utopia where I can find my own voice and express myself without reservation. As long as my journey to my utopia does not end, nor does my writing.

Today, English is one of the most common languages used by people all over the world. Without English skill such as speaking, reading, listening, or writing, people may encounter difficulties in business, feel awkward during discussion at class, or cannot enjoy an overseas travel. English is supposed to be a tool to survive in an English-speaking world, not a goal. In Japan, we begin to learn English as soon as we enter junior high school, and continue to learn it until we graduate from high school. For the Japanese, however, English is not a tool but a goal for the entrance examination to colleges or universities, and so most students stop learning it after getting into school, leading to the decline of entering the world of Japanese people.

Like most Japanese people, English was just a goal for me. However, an encounter with one English teacher started me studying English hard, and my studies guided me out into the world. I was 17 years old when I first met her. Before meeting her, English was not a second language for me but an unreadable code. I was so lazy that I didn’t try to understand English even as a goal for entrance examination. Luckily, however, I met her, and now I’m here in the US thanks to her. My friends were always complaining that her class was boring, or that she was not good at teaching. But, for me, it was not true. I really liked her class, and made every possible effort to get high score of English quiz and test. One of the reasons why I studied hard in her class was that she was eager to teach us. But, more than that, I studied very hard because she was very much my type despite being around 40 when I was only 17. Sure, I had impure motives, but I passed the entrance examination with a high English score because of her.

I was planning to proceed to a school when I passed the exam, but my father told me, “How about going to school in the US? In your generation, English is essential to survive current globalized world, and you can improve your ability if you went there. Thankfully you have the basis of English.” Before that, I had never thought about going overseas. Additionally, I didn’t have friends who had been to schools overseas around me. Nevertheless, I made a decision promptly, “That sounds exciting! Ok, I’ll go there and do my best.” Something had been changing inside me since I met the teacher, and I think the offer from my father would not have come if I hadn’t met her. It was the moment that the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together and draw the pathway to my future.

My life in the US began in August 2010. While spending time in the school, I met a Russian girl who was six years older than me. Because she was older than me, her thoughts and attitude were mature compared to me, and having such an adult girlfriend stimulated me to make greater efforts on studies. At that time, I was not sure what I wanted to do as my career, so I just put all my effort to study hard to get high GPA, and wanted to work as soon as I graduated. “If I worked and became adult, I could associate with her on equal terms.” At least those were my thoughts. As the time of job hunting and graduation approached, my worries about the future got bigger. At that time, I was taking care of just myself, and didn’t pay attention to my girlfriend. In the meantime, she went back to her hometown, and the distance, not only actual but also mind distance, between she and me was separating away. Eventually, we ended our relationship, and began to walk on each way separately. After breaking up, I continued to study hard, but my initial objective to study hard was to be independent and to get my ex girlfriend to see me as a mature adult, so I gradually lost my sight for the future. “What do I really want to do for the future?” I was always thinking of it. Thinking such a thing, I often remembered days with ex girlfriend. Her dream was to pursue Master’s degree. When I first heard about that, she was 27 years old, and it was a bit surprising for me because Japanese people pursue Master’s degree right after they graduate from their undergraduate schools, and it means that 27 was too late to pursue Master’s degree in Japan. However, it’s just perception and stereotype for those who live in small country like Japan. When looking overseas, students without any job background are a minority, and most students come to graduate school with some job experience. Then I realized that looking for jobs was not only way and that there were options to go to graduate school to pursue what I wanted to learn more. As soon as I realized that, I talked to my father about it. He said, “It’s your life. If you want to do it, do it when you have time to do it. Don’t worry about money.” I thanked my parents and decided to pursue a Master’s degree in the US. And now, I’m still here continuing on my journey.

If I hadn’t encountered the English teacher, if my father hadn’t offered me to go to school overseas, and if I hadn’t met my ex girlfriend at school, I would not be here now. From this experience, I realized that there are opportunities to change your life everyday. For me, it was people whom I had met: My English teacher taught me the importance to learn English as a second language, my father gave a chance to use English overseas, and my ex girlfriend showed me the path to the further education in the US. I’m sure my encounters with new people at MIIS will take me in new, unexpected direction.

Dear EAPP 8385 students,

Welcome to our course blog! Here, we’ll be posting reflections on our classes and more. Throughout the course, I will ask you to post your final drafts of assignments to our blog? Why? Our blog has a few key goals:

1- It requires that you think of a larger audience than just our classroom.

2- It encourages you to more carefully edit your work.

3- It generates the potential for more feedback and interaction with classmates, professors, and the MIIS community.

4- It creates something beyond “static” content. Here, you can add photos/videos/links to your papers, making them more interactive and authentic.

I hope you’ll enjoy this site and respond to each other enthusiastically here and in the classroom!

Best,

Kelley