Undergraduate / "Trying not to be object of friends' joke"- Macalester' supplement [3]

Hi!
I have just finished my Macalester's essay. although I have many ideas to write about, I dont know how to express it in my essay. This is my essay for Macalester's supp

Here is prompt: Describe a situation where you had to work or closely associate with someone from a culture very different from your own. What challenges did you face and how did you resolve them?

I hope that you guys can help me to improve my essay and also correct my grammar errors.

Thanks
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Moving to a new land with the cultural differences is not easy for people at all. Two years ago, more exactly, it was a windy Autumn day of 2007 when from Nghe An, I came Hanoi for the first time to continue to study after passing the entrance exam of a famous high school of the country. To me, everything here was really different from my homeland's. And maybe difference between me and people there which was easy to realize was accent.

In my first day in school, I was the center of attention of my classmates because I was the first and the only Southerner passing the entrance exam to study in this school. To them, I was quite different and strange. I have strange kind of costumes, specific color of skin and especially, a different accent from people there. They looked at me all the time. When having the break times, they tried to approach me and ask me as many questions as they can. When I spoke any thing, my classmates laughed and tried to mimic my accent. At first, I thought that because they were nice, they always tried to laugh to make me feel comfortable and friendly

Once, one of the boys sitting near me wrote me a note:" Trung, you don't realize that you are the object of people's joke. If I were you, certainly I would not mind asking them to stop their joke". I started feeling confused. He seemed right. I realized people approaching and talking to me was to make fun for their jokes. When I was standing in a large group, their jokes made me feel embarrassed. I couldn't stand the situation in which all people laughed but I was only able to see them laugh at me. I started decreasing to talk to people. I avoided coming near the crowd and just spoke when there were not much friends near me. But days passed by and I realized that the less I spoke, the less friends I had.

I thought I needed to change. Instead of asking people stop their mimicking my accent, I tried to change the object of joke. When they spoke my accent wrong, I said" "No, it's not right. You must say like this..." and taught them how to spoke like my accent. When he tried to speak, it seemed really funny to me. And many times, I couldn't help laughing. At those times, it was as if I and my friends were the object of one another. Everything was gradually improved. I felt more comfortable to talk to them. I and my friends found more and more things to talk about.

Two years elapsed and I learned many things in my specialized high school. But what I have learned more is about culture. I perceive that different culture can bring back the trouble but if we know to overcome it, it will help you become more interesting. I love different culture because it makes me unique.

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