"Shall we Dance" - a Japanese movie. UVA College of Arts and Sciences Essay

I've been working on this essay and editing for a while now, and I thought I'd post on EssayForum. It's the essay for UVA's College of Arts and Sciences, and it has to be about 250 words. It's over 250 words by 40 words or so, so any advice on how to condense is appreciated (along with other suggestions)!

Prompt: College of Arts and Sciences: What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?

(I chose a Japanese foreign film, Shall we Dance, as my work of art)

On a brisk autumn day, my family and I visited my first-year brother Tim for Parent's Weekend at the University of Virginia. I was especially excited about meeting with Professors Eric Maceyko and the Japanese Department Head, Michiko Wilson, to discuss my short-range plan to attend U.Va. and study Japanese. Living on Virginia's Eastern Shore, I felt somewhat limited in conversational skills, as the opportunities for these were scarce. Professor Wilson then recommended that I watch one of her favorite Japanese movies, Shall we Dance. The movie tells the story of the seemingly dull life of Japanese 'salary man', Shohei Sugiyama. We watch him leave his office each night and ride the train with legions of others like him who seem to move and behave without joy or impulse. One evening, we observe Sugiyama looking out the train window at an elegant lady in the window of a dancing studio. He seems transfixed on her image and impulsively leaves the train to venture forth, finding himself standing outside the studio. At first, he only wants to meet the woman in the window, but throughout the movie he discovers how much he truly enjoys dancing and ultimately, dancing changes his life for the better.

I was surprised and unsettled at how similar Sugiyama's discovery of dancing was to my own discovery of Japanese. At first, I only wanted to learn Japanese because of pop culture such as anime and manga. However, I have grown to understand more about myself and have met such wonderful people by pursing my newfound passion! When I look back upon how far I've come with Japanese and how much more I have to learn (hopefully in the U.Va. Japanese program) I'm amazed at how much I've grown as a person.

"Professor Wilson then recommended that I watch [...]"
In these lines your idea is not clear. I think reviewer can hardly figure out the meaning at his first glance.

Amy, it is nice that you have such a keen interest in learning Japanese. It is even better that you found a Japanese film that seemingly parallels your interest in learning about Japan. Here is a suggestion; why not use that parallelism between your interest in learning about Japan and the interest of Mr. Sugiyama in the film?

Having seen the movie myself, although in the English version starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez, I believe that the parallelism of your interests will work well in creating a surprised response on your part to the film. Consider your life before you learned Japanese, what was it like for you? Was it anywhere like Mr. Sugiyama's? Talk about it. In the movie, I think he saw the woman as an unsettling challenge in his life because he was married. What was unsettling about being attracted to the Japanese language for you? He saw learning how to dance as a life changing opportunity, parallel it with your learning Japanese. Do you see where I am headed at here by using the parallelism? I really think it will make the essay more interesting to read.

Try to cut back on the narrative about the film. Use the narrative only in relation to your own life. That way you present a clearer idea of how the film affected you in a highly positive manner. It was the summary of the film that really made you go over the word count. So altering that part of the essay should help you meet the word requirement.

Thank you so much for all your suggestions, I will definitely incorporate them into my essay! I will try to include more parallelism and cut down on narrating the film. :)

- and study Japanese.( on this part of the essay, what do you mean by "Japanese" is it the culture, the language or the literature, please be more specific )

- ...dull life of a Japanese...
- ..dancing changeschanged his life for the better.

Well it seems that you are rather interested and intrigued with the Japanese culture, history, lifestyle and the overall Japanese association instead of being passionate about it. Now, what you have written may not be the best essay for an admissions application,however, you'll definitely be able to come up with a good essay, may be a few more paragraphs, a couple more and you should be good to go. The overall focus of this essay that you wrote is the movie and though it is helpful in developing your love for the Japanese culture, it should not be the center of your essay. Remember that the goal is for you to get admission to the UV.

I hope the remarks I made help a little bit, I hope to see you re- written essay here on EF, Best of luck to you.

I actually have a word limit to this essay (no more than 250 words), but I would definitely add more paragraphs if I could! I should actually be shortening it because it's too long, but thank you for your suggestions. I'm not sure what you mean by "you're interested and intrigued but not passionate", could you elaborate on that? I thought my passion was pretty clear in this essay. Also, the movie is the center of the essay because the prompt asked us to elaborate on a piece that surprised, unsettled, or challenged us in some way. I'm currently editing it to create more parallelism between my Japanese interest and Sugiyama's dancing interest (my ultimate objective in writing this essay).