Essays /
I've been thinking about the prompts for days but still got nothing yet; personal essay! [28]
"How can we improve gun control policies?"My government teacher posed this question to the mass of students before him, standing formidably at the front of the classroom.
This was not the first time that I had been asked such an "American" question. As a Chinese exchange student, I have often wondered how to answer such questions most tactfully. While my classmates brainstormed about detailed government implementations, I was trying to open a new line of thinking.
"To be more communist." The words blurted out of my mouth without any hesitation. The class roared with laughter. A classmate who seated behind me scoffed harshly at my suggestion: "How could a foreigner like YOU know what OUR government is like? Hahaha"
His words stung. I could feel my face getting red.
I was upset, but all I could do was fume silently in my seat. "Were all Americans so ignorant and close-minded?" I felt like there was a thick wall reinforced with steels between the others and me, a wall that could never be broke down.
However, life proved me wrong. Looking back, I realize now that all these misunderstandings came not from what others did, but from what I myself had or rather, had not done. I, naively, was the one who was too quick to judge. Without thinking deeply, I had made my assumptions about others on my own but failed to question why my peers did not understand my perspective, or had never tried to explain the cultural differences between China and America. My immediate thoughts were to protect myself from having my opinions passed off because I was a "foreigner". It was this realization that inspired me to rebuild my personalities to a more mature state by dissolving the misconceptions between the others and me, extendedly, Americans and Chinese.
I founded Mandarin Orange Club, which had meetings, usually about two hours, every Wednesday after school. To fully utilize the limited two hours, I made specific plans about what I was going to convey: the translations of their names, pieces of Chinese history, basic language with grammar and a short time for Q&A. The first three parts went out smoothly, however, with the last section turning out being too short --- they had too many questions about Chinese: the food, music, lives, even the ideology about ancient Chinese! Some of the questions were answered through my personal experiences, while leaving others I had no ideas, either. Then a brilliant plan came up to my mind: to make my Chinese friends and my American peers into pairs so that both of them would get to know each others' culture better and more lively through e-mails with out any time-consuming. Through this experience, both parties corresponded with one another well. However, students who did not join the club still aggressively interrogated me on cultural differences that they did not understand.
"Has communism ever worked?"
"Can you really not access Facebook?"
These misconceptions, although harsh, no longer angered me. Instead, I took pride in what I was doing to eliminate these misunderstandings. The club not only improved my administrative capabilities, but also shaped the development of my core life values. The more I shared with my peers, the more I realized that everyone's thinking is at the very least subconsciously influenced by cultural background. Now, I wait patiently to hear other people's opinions and I take the time to figure out how they have arrived at their opinions. Therefore, I developed to a person who no longer judge others by personal opinions but think about the whole things in detail with standing in others' shoes and then make final decisions. On a larger scale, in today's increasingly globalized world, misunderstandings can be particularly damaging to international relations without multicultural perspectives in mind.
I seek to find the equilibrium point, a point at the intersection of carefully considering all perspectives equally. However, this club is only a start.
