Hi I wrote two essays for the Common App, but not sure of which topic they fit.
Anyway I tried to exhibit my interest in business in both, but I think the 2nd one talks more of what I really want to say--americanized foreign-borns and how they lose their ethnic identity, blahblahblah
I don't really want you to spent hours fixing my grammar. A little advice/comment on which essay is more unique, or more like a eye-catcher would be helpful.
1)
(NO TITLE, is it harmful???)
Staring at the $2018.20 account balance on my bank receipt, scribbling numbers tirelessly on a piece of paper, punching keys emphatically on a calculator, I'd suddenly feel as old as my parents who work their butts off to save for a fancy car or a bigger house. My dream trip to Japan seemed as far away as in half a year ago when I first began to plan for the journey. My bank balance grew as slowly as my Japanese vocabulary. With this growth rate, when can I make the trip and when can I meet the creator of my favorite cartoon characters? My sense of responsibility has prevented me from asking my parents to pay for the plane tickets and sightseeing expenses. Growing up is about taking responsibilities and paying for my own dreams is a big part of those responsibilities.
My waitress job at China Star gives me a mixture of feelings, and serves manifold purposes. Most importantly, it brings my Japanese trip closer and closer. I can whine about it for its long hours and for its unsatisfactory pay, but still, I cannot deny that it feels really good when I finish a busy day's work at night. The first two weeks were challenging and I found myself awkward and confused to handle those unfamiliar names of entries. However soon I started running back and forth to take orders, answer phones, handle payments, and pack foods, almost like a spinning top. As my work requires me to smile and communicate with people, I soon stepped out of my shyness and start to converse with customers, sometimes even offer advices.
My work has brought me closer to some problems existing in the restaurant. As a mid-sized Chinese restaurant, it runs like a family workshop. The owner family spent all their time in the place, and no vacation is possible except one day off on Thanksgiving Day which is usually when waiters and cooks rush to get married. The quality of cooking is not highly consistent, and sometimes customers complain. There is no real advertisement and we rely only on periodically sending out the takeout menu to local residents. One question inevitably came to my mind: why don't we have Chinese restaurant chain in America? McDonald, Red Lobster, Oliver Garden, Chili...the list can be very long. These are examples of successful modern businesses, but at the same time most of the Chinese restaurants are like eateries from a pre-modern era.
"There is a Chinese restaurant chain," my classmates said to me with a smile, "P. F. Chang's." The name then planted a seed of curiosity in me. At a special occasion few weeks after hearing it the first time, I was granted the opportunity to reveal what was behind the infrequent title of Chinese restaurant chain. Upon the steps leading to the glass door I was still questioning the place's image as merely a high-end restaurant rather than a Chinese restaurant, but I soon changed my mind at the very second when I stepped into that door. Thematic decorations exemplified ancient Chinese culture attested the ethnic focus as well as the chasm between it and the place I worked-the two completely disparaging places which bore the same title as Chinese restaurants. During the whole time I attempted to unearth what made P. F. Chang's a restaurant chain, or what other millions of Chinese takeouts lacked to do so. I laid my eyes on those shuttling American waiters and waitresses in uniforms, and remembered how I found toothbrushes behind the counter at work and how the sons of the owner came back every school recess to help the business. Most Chinese restaurants are family-owned, which means an absence of professional management to run the business. Cooking is nonetheless the most crucial element to determine a restaurant's success. Comparing to the inconsistency in the quality of cooking of my place, entrees of P. F. Chang's showed a taste of delicacy and high skill in the same dishes one can find in any Chinese eatery: General Tso's Chicken, Chow Mein, Beef with Broccoli, to name a few. However, it seemed difficult for Chinese restaurateurs, even like those of P. F. Chang's, to not follow the trend of Americanized Chinese cuisine. When packaged with typical oriental decorations, the central idea of a successful Chinese restaurant chain can be condensed into one line: run it in the American style.
At the end of my first job and also the beginning of a second round of job searching, I took my last payment as well as a heavy load of experiences wrapped in both difficulty and pleasure. Through this cozy eatery I have never been so close to the prototype of a business, exposing to its unique characteristics that are duplicated in all Chinese restaurants throughout the country. I discover the secret that turns a China Star into P. F. Chang-a simple inequality: 1+1>2. For now, I have added another entry onto my resolution list: open a Chinese restaurant chain that fuses efficient Western management with rich Oriental culture to produce something more than a cultural hodgepodge.
2)
Lo Mein Street, U.S.A.
Staring at the $2018.20 account balance on my bank receipt, scribbling numbers tirelessly on a piece of paper, punching keys emphatically on a calculator, I'd suddenly feel as old as my parents who work their butts off to save for a fancy car or a bigger house. My dream trip to Japan seemed as far away as in half a year ago when I first began to plan for the journey. My bank balance grew as slowly as my Japanese vocabulary. With this growth rate, when can I make the trip and when can I meet the creator of my favorite cartoon characters? My sense of responsibility has prevented me from asking my parents to pay for the plane tickets and sightseeing expenses. So I got my first job.
My oriental facial features and fluent Mandarin put me ahead of others who were also looking for a job at Chinese restaurants. My waitress job gives me a mixture of feelings, and serves manifold purposes. As bringing my Japanese trip closer and closer, interesting enough, it also serves as a probe revealing the essence of ethnic backgrounds that help sculpt my character.
Chinese restaurants, like Chinese immigrants, have mushroomed in America since the 90s and the total number exceeds that of McDonald's, Burger Kings and KFCs combined. Chances are, you've got your own favorite wonton spot. No doubt that Americans love Chinese food. The irony is, much of what we think of as Chinese food isn't really Chinese at all. General Tso's Chicken and Lo Mein are in the top three most-consumed Chinese foods by Americans, but people in China may not even hear about them. Doubt has raised its voice within me since the time I found out those salty meat and scarlet ribs that were considered popular in my restaurant had never appeared in the employer meals. Ingredients and tastes of Chinese food in the United States underwent an adaptation to the Western culture and are therefore, Americanized, rather than genuinely Chinese. One such example is the common use of western broccoli instead of Chinese broccoli in cuisine.
So what, exactly, do we find Chinese in all that chop suey which is actually macaroni with broccoli? And if it's no more authentic than a pair of fake ivory chopsticks, why do we bother to eat it? Regional and universal, foreign and familiar, Chinese cuisine's appeal lies in its dual nature. It has allowed the Americans to safely dabble in exoticism while holding onto their own traditions. At the same time, Chinese restaurant is an archetype of the mixture of two disparaging cultures after adaptation and assimilation. If immigrants are here illegally and cannot speak English, there's a good chance they will wind up in New York's Chinatown before going to any of the millions of Chinese eateries in the country. To these Chinese restaurant workers, their futures seem promising in the big picture of America the land of freedom while they need something from home to overcome the fear and anxiety towards new things. They are relieved to find these restaurants, running like ethnic niches filled with the familiar tongue.
In many ways the blending nature of American Chinese cuisine is similar to me and many others who are also combinations of the West and the East. I was raised and grown in China for fourteen years, a period long enough to give my character the first chisel from the hand of austere ethos of the eastern culture. However, at an age of fourteen, the vital time to mold one's personality, my family decided to put me into another hand-the hand of the United States, the free-spirited, laugh-out-loudly, easy-go-lucky America that is completely different from the serious Confucius. Many like me have faced a period of confusion when growing under impacts of more than one culture. And many, especially those who have not yet apprehended the beauty of their homeland, lose their roots and run into arms of the new world. Just like the Chinese cuisine catering to Americans' preferences, these people who deliberately ignore their ethnic backgrounds become Americanized, Europeanized, or anything else but themselves. Fear aroused in me when I once forgot spellings of several common-used Chinese characters. But to my dismay, there are plenty of other American-Born-Chinese who cannot read, write, or speak Chinese, say nothing of understanding the grandeur of the five thousand years of Chinese civilization.
I always wonder at the sight of General Tso's Chicken and Eggrolls of how the nature of Chinese restaurant represents that of people who have to use two adjectives to describe their races, those Americans with distinct ethnic backgrounds. Like the Chinese cuisine which cannot be labeled with Chinese or American, people grow in dual cultures tend to get lost in the search of their identities. In fact, a mixture of two great cultures will only make a person more advantageous yet many seem to only chase the new things and leave the old past behind. Today I still work in a Chinese restaurant. Knowing that the taste of the mysterious Oriental is what attracts Americans rather than Egg Foo Young (Chinese version of pancakes) or Lo Mein (eastern spaghetti, anyone?), I hope that more people can appreciate their foreign backgrounds, and realize that they are Chinese /Japanese/Korean/...American, not Americanized Chinese/Japanese/Korean.
I think if I'm going to use the 2nd piece, maybe stress more on the ethnic background is better? Should I try to use the nature of americanized chinese cuisine to imply about the lost culture whatever? Like a short paragraphs/quotes on the food follows by a incidence relating to the culture theme?
Anyway, I want to thank whoever comments on my post.
THANKS A TON!!!
Haha, both your essays are really very interesting reads. The first talk about the problems you have discovered and you ambition to overcome the problems while the second talk more about your general view on ethical differences. The topic is kind of heavy, but the way you transition between light and heavy tones is really well done. It just flow so naturally without trying to force super strong emotions from the readers. This is the kind of essay that will deliver the message across. Your language is excellent in general.
However, if you want to use the second essay, you need to make "you", instead of Asian Americans in general, the topic. Even though it is interesting, the second essay lack your own view to the problems on the society nowadays. If you are wondering, I am talking about the fourth paragraph where you spend a good paragraph explaining other people's life, which is not needed. Spend one sentence to talk about them while the rest to elaborate on your own thoughts will probably be better.
I really like the way you talk about the real problem face by people that you care about, instead of making random claims about how hard you life is without supporting details or trying to build castles in the air. If you think this is what really matters, go ahead and show it. Good schools will see your potential, accept your believes and help you to achieve what you want to become.
G L~
(NO TITLE, is it harmful???)
I think it is always good to include a title. the title is as powerful as the thesis statement for making a memorable impression.
My dream trip to Japan seemed as far away as
in it did half a year ago when I first began to plan for the journey.
My bank balance grew as slowly as my Japanese vocabulary. --- nice!!
With this growth rate, when can I make the trip
and when can I to meet the creator of my favorite cartoon characters?--- less confusing this way.
Use a comma for each compound sentence:
Growing up is about taking responsibilities, and paying for my own dreams is a big part of those responsibilities.
...it brings my Japan trip closer and closer.
Okay, I see that the theme for this first essay is to work hard and achieve your goals, and you did a great job of proving that you have well-developed goals.
As for the second version...
This is very good, but it seems to have less of a thesis statement at the end of the first para than the first one does. This essay tells a lot about you, and the theme includes culture, goal setting, ethics, responsibility... it is a lot of stuff, but they are related to each other.
I suggest adding a sentenceto the end of the first para, a sentence in which you sum up the meaning as best you can in a single sentence. That will set the theme of the essay and make the reader appreciate the theme as it is reflected in each detail of each body paragraph.
Focusing more on ethnicity or more on responsibility... it is up to you... but the thing to do is capture the central meaning in a single sentence that sums up the whole essay... a sentence someone might say if asked what this essay is about.
You should know that this is very impressive! Any essay that reflects careful consideration and specific goals is impressive.
