Scholarship / Hello and Zaijian! (multicultural scholarship essay for SCAD) [4]

hello, this is a scholarship essay, to describe how having a multicultural background influences my art/goals and experience.
I have no one I know to proofread it for me so i thought I'd put it on here to see if anyone could help

thanks!

Hello and Zaijian (multicultural essay)

When I was three, I left an island once called Formosa and traveled with my family to the Empire where the sun never sets. The four years that I spent there influenced me greatly, I was quickly adopting a new language when not even being familiar with my own. I stood in old churches and listened to hymns echoing, I stared up at stain glass windows as the story of christ was explained to me. The people were friendly, they hugged and kissed each other a lot, they taught me taught how to bake potatoes, play cats cradle and football. At school the teacher encouraged questions, we did many experiments, we made a volcano, we buried a pencil for a month and mixed tissue in water until it disappeared. I began drawing the things I saw: two vikings I met at school, bracelets that I made for Diwali at a local temple, mark-making, and queen Amidala from Star wars. My mother told me about Taiwan, how my grandmother was living there, I pictured a gentle looking british old woman holding homemade cookies. I found myself interested in different cultures, especially ancient cultures, that was the first time I decided what I wanted to be: An archeologist.

At seven I returned to my homeland, the language that I once knew have become symbols that I no longer recognize. The people were also friendly, though I did not know what they were saying and they looked quite startled when I hugged them. I tried to study in a local school, the teacher said I was a problem because I asked too much questions, we stared blankly at our books, then at the blackboard, then back at our books. I felt weird that I needed to bow at my teacher, I felt horrified when my teacher started to hit a student with "the hand of love" as they called it. My grandmother ended up to be an angry-looking short asian woman, with endless wrinkles on her face, she wore cheap white and blue flip-flops and tried to spank me with a chinese dictionary. Days passed and I started learning the story behind every chinese character, watched my first Peking opera, lit my first incense in a local temple, danced and singed with the aboriginals and for the sake for communicating with my grandmother learned Taiwanese (we get along quite well now, she is a master at majiong). My drawings started to change, white and red Peking opera masks started to appear, I became in love with the style of Lin Feng Mian, his way of using simple and curvy lines to draw women. When I entered an American high school in Taipei I came in touch with Norman Rockwell, Brian froud and Shaun Tan. I dived straight into the world of concept art and picture books, I started combining the cultures I know into a new culture that existed many years ago in my world.

How was my artwork influenced? At first I just drew whatever I saw: people on train rides and ancient artifacts that I would like to dig up someday, but after seeing the drawings of John foster, Kent Williams and Allan lee, I wanted to combine both of the cultures that I've came in touch with, combining patterns, illustrating the stories that I've heard. Instead of just noticing the differences between cultures, I began finding similarities, the strokes of chinese calligraphy and western calligraphy, ink paintings and water colour and finally adding what I've felt and lived into my paintings.

Scholarship / Putting the world in my art, and showing my art to the world. [3]

This is another essay for international scholarship
I'm suppose to state how studying internationally would change my art/goals and experience

Putting the world in my art, and showing my art to the world.

John Keats once said "Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced", I have read many things about Taiwan while I studied in England, but nothing could compare to the first time I set foot outside Taoyuan airport and felt the warm humid air, surrounded by people who looked just like me yet so different from what I've ever seen.

I lived an odd life, My family travels a lot, I grew up in mainly three countries: England, Taiwan and China. For me no place was ever really home yet in a way home was anywhere I went. I felt like I was studying internationally all the time, learning about local habits, why people behaved in certain ways and the stories behind idioms and sayings.

I find the most joy in blending into a new culture/society. It's the minor differences that shows you've become a local, during my stay in Taiwan I've learned that instead of saying "seven-eleven" for convenient stores you just say "seven", I became able to catch the tempo of scanning metro cards as I head out of the MRT and finally I discovered that little tweak in accents and started using it myself. Also another thing I've gained from living/studying abroad is understanding and tolerance, I am able to stand in other people's shoes, and a lot of times it humbles me and I learn how to respect and appreciate.

This year my family moved to china. It blows my mind how two places that share the same language can be so different, I've quickly learned how to read simplified chinese, learned new words for bus, taxi and trash can and realized how China did not turn out to be how it was portrayed in Taiwan. Yet during my stay I am also reminded about the importance of opening one's mind and to see the world. The people here don't know much about what's going outside, for that exact reason, they don't think, they merely accept what is given to them and it's understandable because they are not given different choices or view points.

Studying internationally allows me to experience new languages meet new people, listen to their life stories, it makes my art more believable and easier to connect. I have tried to draw a dancer before, but I was not very successful at it. It was until I started learning ballet that I finally noticed the lines of the human body, how it feels when a string is pulling your head, how you can move different parts of the body and finally how in ballet you always have to "turn out". The same goes with the arts and other cultures, you have to live in it, experience it in order to reflect it better, wether it's acting, writing, or painting.

Nelson Mandela said "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." I plan to see as much of the world as I can, and bit by bit, learn how to speak to the hearts of different people through art.