Career oriented experience. The influence of my father drove me to create an online store on Taobao

Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

"Dad, please go to sleep earlier."

This was what I said most often to my father growing up. My father came from a small town in China that did not catch up with the developmental pace of many other big cities due to its isolated location. The only man who received college education in his village, he also became the only businessman in his family. Growing up as the daughter of a busy merchant, I thought my father's hard work was the result of wanting to make as much money as possible, owing to his poor origins. Continuous business phone calls, hefty stacks of design papers, and fully packed suitcases - these were signs my father's company was functioning normally.

The influence of my father drove me to create an online store on Taobao, China's biggest e-commerce website. My passion for music arrangement undoubtedly helped me to make the choice to sell music. Therefore, in the spring of 2014, I displayed my original piano compositions and re-arranged music scores as my store's main products. Clicking on the "upload" button for my music sheet and typing the description for "Sherlock Medley," I couldn't stop imagining becoming the top seller of the month.

I ran my store successfully for some time-requests for music from the "Godfather" to the Eagles filled my inbox constantly. But gradually, I began to feel empty. Even my customers' text messages, the increase in revenue, and the growing number of page views seemed boring to me now. Where was the excitement that I should gain after selling so many products? I knew something was missing, but I didn't know exactly what.

A new year came around, and I went back to my hometown with my family during Spring Festival. On the way to the village, I took out my flashlight and prepared to use it later. A lack of street lights was always a big issue in the village-you had to be very careful when you went out at night, otherwise it was easy to miss a step and fall onto the cornfield nearby.

''I won't stop you from taking the flashlight out, but I promise it is going to be useless starting this year," my dad said, laughing.

Useless? I ignored my father and continued to put on the flashlight battery. A mile away from my village, I looked out the window and was shocked by what I saw-streets neatly lined with lampposts as far as I could see.

Suddenly, two things were simultaneously turned on. One was the street light. The other was the realization that the goal of starting a business is helping others and not only making money. I realized that this is exactly what my father was doing the past 30 years-working hard to build lights for his village.

This understanding led my business to a new direction.

I used my music store profits to buy eight ukuleles and brought them to a Shenzhen orphanage center. I offered to teach Yue, a 7 year old girl in the orphanage, a song. Her hands were so small that she couldn't even hold the fretboard properly, but she still tried to follow my instructions step by step and looked at me with her dewy eyes, hoping to gain my approval: "C-C-G-G-A-A-G..." This melody echoed in the room for the whole afternoon. I experienced satisfaction, happiness and a sense of accomplishment through this simple "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," through seeing people benefit from my business and imagining the long-term impact on their futures-to me, these are the fundamental goals of business.

Looking at Yue's attentive face, I hoped that the little stars could always twinkle in her heart and light up her future, just like the street lights that illuminate the way for villagers in my hometown.

hi Anglelica,
your are doing great~ regardless in the essay or your achievements.
really enjoy to read your story.

i just have some little opinion as below:

... arrangement undoubtedly have helped me to make ...
very careful when you wentgo out at night
This understanding has led my business ...

Angelica, I understand that you meant that stand alone sentence to be your hook that would interest the reviewer in reading your essay. It just doesn't work. Usually, the hook should be a phrase, quote, or memorable dialogue that would strike the reviewer as unique and thus, excite him to read your essay. Simply asking your dad to go to sleep earlier doesn't accomplish that. Not only does it not act as an effective hook, it had no relation to the rest of the essay that you wrote. Normally, a hook has to circle around at the end to help close the story either by repeating it or, explaining the relevance of the dialogue as you finally came to understand it. The essay is really good, I don't believe that you need that hook anymore. Just start with the parallelism between you and your father instead. That is more interesting to read about.

@Holt
@choyhar2002

Thanks for your comment, it helps a lot!

Btw, I'm afraid that my essay doesn't have enough reflections. I tried to write it as a poetic story, but lack of personal reflections and thoughts would be my greatest concern. Do you think I did well on the reflection part?

@atlantapie

I enjoyed the story!

Maybe you can add in a bit more personal thoughts at the end, how you identify and connect with your father's thoughts/intentions on a more personal level?

The narrative is fine as far as I can tell. the parallelism in the story is something that should be clarified a bit more though. By telling two stories within one essay, you should be able to find some common ground between your father's story and your own that will highlight the way that the two stories mirror each other. That way the background story will have a more solid foundation in the eyes of the reader who may question what the connection is between the background of your father and your own. While there is a disconnection at this point,the essay itself is not affected and your reflections are clear. In my opinion, you have done quite well in that reflection part. You may want to do a bit more work on it as you revise your essay. I know that it can only get better with more revisions done to it.