Shengjun Liu Essays Example

Jillian Abbott

ENG1F
Personal Experience
Introduction
Thesis: One’s identity, today, can no longer be the same as the one we had by the time we were leaving “the nest”. By getting out of the comfort zone our daily world is, and by discovering new realities and cultures, we question our own ways and develop new ideas. Ultimately, we find out new limits for our adaptation skills and our identity suffers a profound evolution and transformation.
People are not always the same, i.e. our identity is an endless evolutional process, as we learn new things and perceive new realities, especially from the experiences we endure during our lifetime. In fact, to be more precise, we all are the living proof that “learners analyze their experience by reflecting, evaluating and reconstructing it () in order to draw meaning from it in the light of prior experience” (Foley, n.d) and, thusly, build our own reality.
Two years ago, I left my home country, my “nest”, and came to United States. I can say, up front, it was a very special experience in my life. Since I left my home and found myself in this new environment, culture, a melting pot of ideas, I have been learning a lot of new things; on the other hand, I have also lost a lot of other things (I can say my comfort zone was one of them). I am still in this situation and, since this a very radical change in my routine and habits, I think I’ll be building up my “self” idea for a long time.
I came to LIU POST to study business two years ago, filled with both curiosity and fear. At that time, one of the things that weighed on my decision of leaving was that the relationship between my family and me was not what could be defined as “good”. Although I was very afraid of the idea of living alone, outside from my daily world, my parents had the solid, unchangeable notion that I should be pushed to study abroad. Of course, I did not want to leave my country at that time, because this would mean to feel completely lost.
But because my parents were the ones with the final word, the decision was made and I left my home. Since I wanted to return soon, hopefully, I carried only one small suitcase with me, as I walked inside the terminal. Besides the fact that leaving “the nest” was hard enough, I also needed to change planes two times, from my home to New York! After 30 hours of exhausting travel time, I arrived in New York’s JKF airport.
Until now I still remember that feeling, the excitement, together with the terrifying tension and fear. After I exited the airport, I did not know how to go to the college. Even worse, I did not know how to ask people. Yes, these are the times we most treasure communication skills! I was not afraid to communicate with people, but I didn't know how to ask in English: when I spoke in English (well, tried to) with passengers near me, they always looked confused, like I spoke some kind of “alien” language. Well, that was the truth
Finally, I saw some Chinese people (a glance of “home” and my salvation) and I got to ask where to go and how to get there. When I arrived, I was really exhausted. I settled down and, slowly, began to have my routine; I also called my parents every day and, although the adaptation was hard, I told them I was happy living in New York.
In fact, the beginning was not so easy. A totally different environment brought me a lot of trouble. One of the big problems I had was that I did not know how to make friends in a foreign country. Besides that, there was the language issue: I had problems in communicating. Most of the times, I did not understand what my classmates tried to tell me. Other times, I did understand what they were talking about, but I did not know how to express myself in response. It was a big mixture of a language barrier and the contact with an environment I did not know how to engage with. This was the mirror of what Moya (2002) said about differences being relational and also about the fact that our ability to understand others depends on our examination of one’s “self”. I had to learn how to deconstruct my ways and adapt them to others, to try to understand my peers and, thusly, fit in. Studying was also a big problem for me. Basically I did not understand what the professor say in the class. As a result, I had to spend a lot of time reading textbooks and figuring out what I was learning from them.
Through all of this, I did not want to mine my parents’ serenity, so I never told my parents I wanted to go home; I also did not wanted them to feel disappointed about me, since they put some much effort in me coming abroad.
Things got better with time and I finally learned how to fit in and have a positive life experience in this country; ultimately, I got “Americanized”.
I now have some friends, I have the knowledge I wanted to acquire from all of this, and I am independent. But, since no new chapter in life comes without losses, I had to leave my parents and my old friends to live in a foreign country. I won and lost at the same time, but I grew up and this became a unique experience in my life.
I wonder if people like me, coming to the U.S every moment, also cause change here; and I agree with the notion that we, being also so different, and bringing our own culture and ideas, can make our new home to re-think “priorities, values, and goals.” (Suárez, 2008)

References

Foley, G. Understanding Adult Education and Training. Sidney: Allen & Unwin, n.d. Hard-Cover Impression.
Moya, Paula M. L. Learning from Experience: Minority Identities, Multicultural Struggles. California: Regents of the University of California, 2002. Hard-Cover Impression.
Suárez, Carola, Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo M., Todorova, Irina. Learning a New Land: immigrant students in American society. United States of America: President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2008. Hard-Cover Impression.