Undergraduate / "Hey, we don't ride horses to school." - My Personal Statement [3]

So, this is my personal statement. All kinds of criticism is welcome. Thank you!

"Hey, we don't ride horses to school."

I always considered myself a "gentle girl". Seldom would you find me angry or ignore anybody. But there was one exception: my avoidance with Kaidi, my highs school classmate, lasted for half a month.

I was fifteen that year. As one of the three students from a place two thousand kilometres away, I was excited everyday to find everything new. One day in the cafeteria I overheard Kaidi bragging with his friends: "I went to Qinghai (my hometown) once. The people eat food with plastic basins. Man, they don't really know anything about courtesy!" And another boy echoed: "Totally! They smell like they don't take a shower for weeks!" Unconsciously, I pulled up my t-shirt and sniffed. I was relieved to find out that I smelled pretty nice. It would be funny to hear this conversation while I am having a warm bubble bath at home. And even though people back home often had big appetites, but plastic basins? That was just too much of exaggeration. Despite my fury, I suppressed my urge to jump in and say "you know what, I am from Qinghai!"-I was too shy and timid. I thought that if they had a bad impression about my hometown, they probably did not like me either.

Those days I struggled to live with a knot in the heart every day, as I tried to escape from every contact with him. It was especially hard: we met each other on a daily basis as we were all boarding students.

I thought that life would just go on, and we would graduate without exchanging a word, until one morning when I was reading out English on Dao Hill, a small hill inside our school, Kaidi suddenly showed up-he wanted to read English out too. I kept on reading pretending that I did not see him. I was not sure if he detected the drastic battle that was going on in my heart in that second: should I talk to him or not? I was tired of living in a jail built with my own cowardice. I realized that escaping a problem is not the right way of solving it. I was offended by their narrow-minded remarks concerning my hometown, but maybe I would be able to change his opinion. I decided to crawl out of my shell and be friendly.

Unexpectedly, after I said hi, the conversation just went on by itself. And I could still remember the first thing he said to me.

"Oh it's you! I've always wanted to ask you: do you guys ride horses to school in Qinghai?"

I laughed so hard for ten minutes. I cannot believe the problem that occupied my heart for so long was resolved so easily. Rubbing my tummy, I explained to him life about my hometown: our food, our culture, our customs, etc. He understood that, Qinghai is developing enormously fast now, and "no, we don't ride horses to school anymore." It turned out that we became best friends. Later when we talked about first impression, I said jokingly: "well apparently my impression about you is that this ignorant guy really has some things to learn about."

So in two years time I managed to build a bridge between North and South China. I am happy to be the cultural ambassador of my hometown, to change the old image of Qinghai in people's eyes, which is also what made me succeeded in applying UWC schools, schools to unite people from different parts of the world.

Languages, geometric distance, cultural differences are barriers setting people apart, are walls need to be pushed over. My experience told me that hard may the process be, making friends from other cultural backgrounds is never impossible. Cultural understanding has always been a crucial theme of my life and I will carry on where ever I go. Because I believe that if we all try to understand the others there will be no fights or wars in this world, and the world will become such a better place.

Undergraduate / "Homeless in Victoria" - Princeton Supplement [6]

Hi! I just finished this essay, could someone help me please? Thank you so much!
Prompt:
Option 4 - Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation at the beginning of your essay.

Homeless in Victoria

"Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe."

- Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

It was 2 a.m. and I was shivering inside a 24-hour bank in the city of Victoria. Unfortunately my friend Tahmina and I missed the last bus to school (both of us live on campus), and as we could not afford a taxi, we had to be homeless in Victoria that night. We wandered along the streets for hours, finally ended up waiting for dawn inside this 24-hour bank. The night was cold and we were rather scared, for most people on the streets at this time were either drunk or homeless.

Just while we were sitting half awake, a middle aged lady walked in with a strong smell of cigarettes. She murmured hi and sat in another corner. I stole a glance at her. Wearing clothes that did not fit her, the lady seemed exhausted. She took out a black plastic bag from her pocket and fished out some colourful candies. I guessed that she belonged to the group of "homeless people", or street people.

To be sincere, her entrance made me feel uncomfortable as I did not talk to homeless people before and scarcely knew about them. As she sat down, she looked at our direction; quickly I moved my eyes away to avoid direct eye contact. I did not even know myself what I was hiding from.

So three of us sat there for a while, and then the lady broke the silence first. "So, what are you gals doing here?" she said as if to continue a conversation. I looked up only to find that she was looking at me with an amiable smile. Even though seldom did I speak with strangers, I told her our circumstances. I stammered a bit, but her smile kept me going on. It felt natural: we sat there watching the cars passing Victoria Main Street, and chatted quietly. I learned about her story too. How she had an alcoholic father, how she dropped high school, and how her husband left her and their daughter.

We kept talking until she left the bank at 5 o'clock in the morning and we also got on our 2-hour bus ride back to school. I reflected a lot on the bus. Chances are I would never see her again, but in several hours we became good friends and she taught me more than I realized. For so long I have been seeing the world around me with my eyes instead of my heart. Deep inside I labelled people with different tags: rich, poor, middle-class, Chinese, successful, etc. Unconsciously I judged people before even trying to get to know them. As Haruki Murakami stated in his novel Kafka on the Shore, "Narrow minds devoid of imagination. What I absolutely fear and loathe. "

A night homeless in Victoria freed me from my former blindness. I decided to seize my "usurped ideals" by opening my heart and accept everybody, everything without any biases. Try to reach out to not only people like me, but more importantly people different from myself; try to things that I am comfortable with, but more importantly, that I feel challenging and difficult.

From that homeless night, I tried to live a life with a heart open to accept.

Undergraduate / My view on stereotyped beliefs; Amherst Supplement [4]

The deadline is approaching and guys, please help me O(∊_∊)O~

Amherst requires a second essay of no more than 300 words. It is not necessary to research, read, or refer to the text from which these quotations are taken; we are looking for original, personal responses to these short excerpts. Remember that your essay should be personal in nature and not simply an argumentative essay.

"Stereotyped beliefs have the power to become self-fulfilling prophesies for behavior."
Elizabeth Aries, Professor of Psychology, Amherst College
From her book Men and Women in Interaction, Reconsidering the Differences

"Rui, are you absolutely sure you want to switch to philosophy?" Mark, the dean of studies looked at me with doubt and warned me once again.

Without second thoughts, I answered "yes".
I am studying at a UWC school where there are students from all over the world. Constantly we talk and joke about cultural stereotypes, and it is interesting to see how these stereotypes often affect people's choices or characters. My own experience in course selection tells me that people's actions are influenced by stereotyped thoughts only if they allow them. Before choosing my courses I consulted former students and they suggested that most Chinese mainland students took economics as a human science because they tend to do better in economics. I did not think much and chose economics too.

However, when I was sitting in economics class, I realized that the sole reason why I chose economics is that I was lazy and timid. I believed in the stereotype that students from Chinese education system cannot be successful in anthropology or philosophy. Truly, I did not have any philosophy background nor was I proficient in English, yet I should not be afraid to try. I had a passion for philosophy and I became the first Chinese mainland student ever to take philosophy.

Nowadays with an increasing awareness of individuality, stereotyped thoughts are having a less effect on people's behaviours. Though our sub-consciousness still influences the behaviour without us noticing it, many people are beginning to realize their owe uniqueness and does not care about what people expect them to be. And this is largely encouraged by figures that broke the stereotypes themselves, like Obama or Liuxiang. Stereotypes matter much if we believe in them; otherwise they are just another example of hasty generalization.