Scholarship Essay

By Johnny Guo

In elementary school, I dreaded waking up early every Saturday and missing those morning cartoons just to learn what I considered a pointless language. As I moved on to middle school, I hated the experience even more. Then when I finally reached high school, I couldn't bear it anymore and quit Chinese School using sports as an excuse. Back then it never occurred to me what I'd be missing. For those one and a half years I quit Chinese School, I never saw my friends I had made there, never participated in any of the cultural events it provided, and never learned any more Chinese. For those one and a half years, I temporarily left my culture and my heritage.

After about a year away from Chinese School, I found a strange emptiness that accompanied my body. One day, my friend's mother asked me a question in Chinese, and I tried to answer back, but stuttered instead.

"Why can't I speak my own language?" I thought to myself. "What's happening to me?" When I was a little kid, I could speak Mandarin fluently. As I grew older, I stopped using that language to speak, and instead spoke in English, even to my parents. After that, I could never speak the way I used to. But then, I started going to Chinese School, and I got a little better. I was never the same as when I was a kid, but I could probably carry a conversation with someone if I ever visited Taiwan. But now, I couldn't even answer back simple questions to my friend's parents. I knew there was something seriously wrong, something that caused an emptiness that I always knew. That day, I resolved to try to learn Chinese before it was too late. That day, I realized what my parents meant when they told me I'd thank them for dragging me to Chinese School every Saturday.