this is my personal essay for common app. any feedback is greatly appreciated!! is there too abrupt a transition between my descriptions and my main points?
My ba ngoai sits in a cracked wooden chair, sipping on chai. I watch as the warmth of the tea fills the room, floating from the smooth rim of the porcelain mug to the deep-set wrinkles engraved in her face. They are a catalog of her life, reflecting every experience, every loss, every joy. The house opens into an old alley, and she gazes past the mosquito netting into a sea of brown-roads, air, skin. Her deep brown eyes squint pensively through panes of glass; these eyes were hardened by things like war, like scarcity, like sending children across the ocean, but softened by peace and unconditional love. These eyes are deep brown, just like mine. Her hand reaches out to grab a small lychee, wavering as she plucks it from the vine. With that hand, she carries the weight of eternity; such is the consequence of having sacrificed your family in hopes of a better future. Her seventy-two-year-old palms are eroded from the splatters of cooking oil, the handles of shovels, and the grips of thirteen children.
We arrive at Cho Ben Thanh and a wave of scents envelopes us. All at once come the tides of cooled lobster and pungent durian, colliding with the aromas of ambrosial yet fiery curry spices that all but mask a hidden whiff of ripe jackfruit. The market is one body, oscillating with the movement of brown skin against weathered shops. In an endless throng of tanned skin and black hair, I wade three-quarters deep, a giant, a foreigner, an outsider overcome with awe. My ba ngoai takes my hand, saying more with a gentle squeeze than she could have with a thousand words. Pointing to a Vietnamese girl my age examining a palm-sized, antique brass bicycle, she whispers in broken tongue, "Look. She likes old things. Just like you." She then motions to a young boy eating warm soup. "Look. He puts mint leaves in his food. Just like you." I am more similar to these people than I think. My ba ngoai knows. She smiles as she tells me that I have the same penchant for hard work, I have the same moral standards, I eat the same foods. Suddenly, I do not feel so misplaced.
The family farm lies a few miles away, separated from the neighbors' land by a trickling stream and a thin-wired fence. As we walk through the pineapple bushes and the banana trees, I see the hard work my ba ngoai has put into raising a farm, a family, and a legacy. She reaches down to weed the overgrown cabbage patch; her seventy-two-year-old palms do not mind. The air smells of cleanliness and must, of ocean and earth, of new and old, of life and death. Vietnam is a soft reminder of a oneness inherent in the winding earthen roads. But as I look at my ba ngoai and the toil that she has put into her accomplishments, I realize that underneath the façade of simplicity is a tradition-built character in not only my grandmother but also in the people of Vietnam as a whole. The pride my ba ngoai has in her work and the success of her family is familiar to me. That cultural dignity has been passed down to my mother, and I now find traces of it within myself. Her travails have been far from fruitless; she has bestowed a piece of Vietnam onto me, and because of her, I realize that even though I was born an American, I was raised by Vietnamese, and that part of me will remain forever. Even though I dress differently and my broken tongue immediately pinpoints me as a foreigner in an ocean of brown, I still have black hair and I still have tan skin. Intrinsic in my upbringing is my sense of cultural identity, the stamp of distinctiveness that makes Vietnam, a tropical, underdeveloped, alien land that I have only visited once, feel like home. By showing me both external and personal views of Vietnam, my ba ngoai teaches me that in Vietnam there is a unity of purpose, which creates a tolerance for one another. There is a subtle acceptance of status and a respect for hard work, even at little profit. The earthen roads are a symbol of a less developed world, but also of the strong moral fiber that comes from threshing endless rice fields and polishing the amaranthine layer of dust collecting on unused china; they are a symbol of the strong character that has flourished for generations and has now been bequeathed to me. My ba ngoai knows.
My ba ngoai sits in a cracked wooden chair, sipping on chai. I watch as the warmth of the tea fills the room, floating from the smooth rim of the porcelain mug to the deep-set wrinkles engraved in her face. They are a catalog of her life, reflecting every experience, every loss, every joy. The house opens into an old alley, and she gazes past the mosquito netting into a sea of brown-roads, air, skin. Her deep brown eyes squint pensively through panes of glass; these eyes were hardened by things like war, like scarcity, like sending children across the ocean, but softened by peace and unconditional love. These eyes are deep brown, just like mine. Her hand reaches out to grab a small lychee, wavering as she plucks it from the vine. With that hand, she carries the weight of eternity; such is the consequence of having sacrificed your family in hopes of a better future. Her seventy-two-year-old palms are eroded from the splatters of cooking oil, the handles of shovels, and the grips of thirteen children.
We arrive at Cho Ben Thanh and a wave of scents envelopes us. All at once come the tides of cooled lobster and pungent durian, colliding with the aromas of ambrosial yet fiery curry spices that all but mask a hidden whiff of ripe jackfruit. The market is one body, oscillating with the movement of brown skin against weathered shops. In an endless throng of tanned skin and black hair, I wade three-quarters deep, a giant, a foreigner, an outsider overcome with awe. My ba ngoai takes my hand, saying more with a gentle squeeze than she could have with a thousand words. Pointing to a Vietnamese girl my age examining a palm-sized, antique brass bicycle, she whispers in broken tongue, "Look. She likes old things. Just like you." She then motions to a young boy eating warm soup. "Look. He puts mint leaves in his food. Just like you." I am more similar to these people than I think. My ba ngoai knows. She smiles as she tells me that I have the same penchant for hard work, I have the same moral standards, I eat the same foods. Suddenly, I do not feel so misplaced.
The family farm lies a few miles away, separated from the neighbors' land by a trickling stream and a thin-wired fence. As we walk through the pineapple bushes and the banana trees, I see the hard work my ba ngoai has put into raising a farm, a family, and a legacy. She reaches down to weed the overgrown cabbage patch; her seventy-two-year-old palms do not mind. The air smells of cleanliness and must, of ocean and earth, of new and old, of life and death. Vietnam is a soft reminder of a oneness inherent in the winding earthen roads. But as I look at my ba ngoai and the toil that she has put into her accomplishments, I realize that underneath the façade of simplicity is a tradition-built character in not only my grandmother but also in the people of Vietnam as a whole. The pride my ba ngoai has in her work and the success of her family is familiar to me. That cultural dignity has been passed down to my mother, and I now find traces of it within myself. Her travails have been far from fruitless; she has bestowed a piece of Vietnam onto me, and because of her, I realize that even though I was born an American, I was raised by Vietnamese, and that part of me will remain forever. Even though I dress differently and my broken tongue immediately pinpoints me as a foreigner in an ocean of brown, I still have black hair and I still have tan skin. Intrinsic in my upbringing is my sense of cultural identity, the stamp of distinctiveness that makes Vietnam, a tropical, underdeveloped, alien land that I have only visited once, feel like home. By showing me both external and personal views of Vietnam, my ba ngoai teaches me that in Vietnam there is a unity of purpose, which creates a tolerance for one another. There is a subtle acceptance of status and a respect for hard work, even at little profit. The earthen roads are a symbol of a less developed world, but also of the strong moral fiber that comes from threshing endless rice fields and polishing the amaranthine layer of dust collecting on unused china; they are a symbol of the strong character that has flourished for generations and has now been bequeathed to me. My ba ngoai knows.