I have posted interviews with superheroes before. Today begins the first of a several part conversation with Superwoman. If you don’t think she fits the job description, I encourage you to read on. Kexin’s (her real name) experience in Farmville (sounds a lot like Smallville for superhero buffs) is just the start of her journey filled with championing good around the world.
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-Can you tell us
a little bit about your family and where you grew up in China?
I was born and raised in Beijing, the capital city of
China. Both of my parents' heritages are in Shandong province, where we proudly
regard as the hometown of Confucius. Unfortunately, among all the places I
traveled in the world, I have yet to visit my “ancestors” in Shandong. My
mother is a retired art editor from a major publishing house. Quite rare for
people from her generation, my mother actually held an
associate degree in editing, and she was able to use her skills to
support my dad when he first started doing business. My father is a
trade/businessman and investor. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a
military general. One of my uncles is an American citizen now. He was among the
first wave of young students who studied in the U.S. All of my three cousins
studied abroad. I always hold a deep gratitude to my parents, who also served
as my first teachers, and who always support my education and devote everything
so I can have the opportunities I had and became the person I am today.
-Can you
describe your secondary school in China? How big was your grade and how big was
you class? Did the school emphasize Gaokao prep and were their other
options for those thinking of going abroad? Was there a lot of pressure put on
students? Were there extracurricular activities and if so what were you a part
of?
I went to the same middle and high school in Beijing,
but I came to the United States as an exchange student in 11th
grade. I went to October First School and absolutely loved it. The school
ranked the second in the academically vigorous HaiDian District. When I was
there, each grade had three sections, with a total of more than 20 smaller
classes (as subdivisions, where students stayed in the same classroom for all
their classes). Each class had about 40 students, so you can do the math here.
Whereas section I was the “smart kids” section, for which the school selected
the best students and enrolled them in a 6-year program from 7th to
12th grade (they didn't need to take the high school entrance exam
and would automatically stay in section I throughout middle and high school),
and section III was for the “bad kids,” as rumors went, whose scores were not
good enough for the school but their parents could contribute a large endowment
or have connections so that they can enjoy the same quality of education. I was
in the middle section II, for which I did take the high school entrance and got
admitted based on merit. Now this will get more complicated. Within section II,
there are two “elite classes” for the smartest students in the section, one for
mathematics/science focused, the other for liberal arts focused. This division
was catered towards the GaoKao, because students would need to choose their focus
and take different tests. I had to take an additional exam before staring high
school and was admitted to the “mathematics elite class.” I often scored higher
in math subjects in tests, although I was more interested in liberal arts
subjects, such as Chinese literature, history and writing. I only stayed in
high school for one year in 10th grade before I came to the U.S., so
I didn't go through all the GaoKao preparations. I know that my high school had
a special arrangement that all classes would finish teaching new materials
before the senior year, and the entire final year would be dedicated towards
reviewing and GaoKao preparations.
Nonetheless, the apparent focus on GaoKao was just the
reality that every school and student in China have to deal with. My high
school actually had many extracurricular activities and, unlike many other
top-tier high schools in Beijing, it actually supported students to study
abroad. In the fact, I learned about the AYUSA global exchange program through
flyers, information sessions and former participants in my high school. I would
probably not have come to the U.S. without my high school’s modern outlook. I also had my best
leadership experience in middle and high school. I was first the president of
my class, then I became the minister of communication for the student union,
then I was elected the vice president of the student union. I remember I
organized the first “Easter Egg Hunt” in the entire campus and the first-ever
student dance (a formal dance event was almost unimaginable in a Chinese high
school at that time). I had a lot of fun coming up with ideas for student
activities, and I still cannot believe how much freedom and support the school
had given me—who was just a teenager at that time—to execute my ideas. I would
say that we had a very good quality of life at my high school. Of course
students study very hard, and there were those who didn't involve in any
extracurricular activities, but there was this lively, free and friendly
atmosphere that made the campus special. The three different sections of students
actually made the student body quite “diverse.” And the resources are there,
for the library-goers, the athletes, the future leaders, and the ones who
skipped classes and hang out “on the streets.” We were all there, and we were
friends.
My high school was actually quite innovative even when I was there. It had a beautiful campus with a large track field, brick buildings, scientific building with labs, and international students building. It was quite modern and advance at its time. I saw online that my school had put in even more investment in improving infrastructure and reforming teaching methods. There are cafes for individual student and teacher meetings, laptop and iPads for each class, gyms, air-conditioning in every classrooms (when I was there, we only had fans), modern laboratories, and frequent student and teacher exchanges with other countries. It’s becoming more similar to an American college.
-What made you
decide to become an exchange student to the US? Can you describe your
experience of going to school in Farmville. Can you talk about your host family
and how you felt being in a place so utterly different than your home?
I actually never planned to study abroad. Ever since I
was in elementary school and throughout secondary school, my dream had always
been to study Chinese literature at Peking University. I use to love, and I
still do, reading about Chinese history, classic literature and all facets of
its culture. However, life-changing moments often come as unexpected. One day
in 10th grade, I saw a flyer in my classroom about a global exchange
program under UNESCO. It somehow caught my interest, so I told my mom about the
meeting and we attended together. I remember I was a little reluctant about
going for the program because I still had my Peking University dream, but my
mother was the one who really encouraged me to try. She believed that this is a
wonderful opportunity to broaden my horizon and gain valuable life experience,
by going abroad alone and see a different education environment. She convinced
me that I could still go to a Chinese university if I don’t like going to
school in the US after one year of exchange. So I applied for the exchange
program, and the process was not easy. I had to pass an English exam and a
personality interview, but I was selected in the end.
Besides filling out some preferences about smoking or
non-smoking households, pets, little kids and if we mind paying extra for a
private school, we had very little control over where in the U.S. we would go,
which host family to live with, or which school to attend. Most exchange
students were assigned to small towns, and some had horrible experiences with
host families. However, I was probably the luckiest exchange student in
history. I spent my exchange year in a small town in central Virginia called
Farmville, had the best host family one could ever ask for, and finished my
junior and senior years in one year. As a girl from Beijing, the transition
from the capital city to a rural countryside in Virginia might seem
unimaginable now. But to the 16 years old me, the geographical differences
didn’t really seem like a big deal. I think when we were younger, we had less
expectation of what a place or people or food should be like. My experience
going to a boarding kindergarten and learning to be independent at a young age
might also play a role. Nonetheless, there’s a difference between didn’t know
what to expect beforehand and how to adapt afterwards. Certainly, the first
couple weeks were tough and I had to think hard everyday of what to do with
myself. The regional program coordinator, who picked me up from the airport,
told me on the first day that my English was the best she had seen (I also went
to a bilingual kindergarten). All factors considered, I might have an easier
time adapting to the language environment than others.
I went to a private high school in town, along with
five or six other exchange students from different parts of the world. Coming
from a top high school in China, I remember classes there were not
challenging—except for US History, because the teacher spoke very fast. After a
couple months, I started to score As in all my classes, including the highest
in US history. Math classes there were elementary school level in China. Art
and creative writing were my favorites.
I was utterly surprised when I saw students put their legs on the table
during classes and teacher stand on his desk to mimic the Patrick Henry speech.
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| Kexin with host family and friends |
My host family really made my exchange year special. I
lived with a loving couple in their 40s. They have a little girl that they
adopted from Vietnam, who still calls me her big Chinese sister. They really
became my home in America, and I still visit them for Thanksgiving or Christmas
every year. I thoroughly enjoyed the small town environment, where everyone
knows each other and greets each other. The place was quiet and content. I had
a lot of free time to plan my own future and pursue my interests. I loved the
peace and freedom.
I can go on and on about my exchange student year. The
first time going to Taco Bell, first time going to a church, first time trying
S’Mores… As you can see now, the experience was so great that after a year, I
became 200% determined that I wanted to go to college in the U.S.
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| Kexin teaching fellow students to make dumplings |
Kexin demonstrates that sometimes learning happens in
laces that are not rated in magazines and websites for their academic rigor But
Kexin found a home, a host family and a way of living that was at times a
struggle., yet turned out to prepare her for the challenges that awaited her.
You will find out how her experience in a small town, out of her culture may
have been the best thing to have happened to her.
What follows is the essay she submitted with her
applications to colleges. She says far more eloquently than I ever could what
she learned. I have read untold thousands of application essays but I can say
that few native speakers have the ability to use English so persuasively.
Journey to Maturity
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is
to go on creating oneself endlessly,” said by Henri Bergson. That deeply
appealed to me when I looked back on my life as an exchange student in the
United States. To me, it was not only a unique experience that left a most
meaningful memory but also a journey of creating my new self. It was a journey
that showed me not only the world but how I fit in it. It was my journey to
maturity.
August 8, 2007—exactly a year before the Beijing Olympics
Games started—I boarded the plane CA981 from Beijing to New York and there I
started my journey to an entirely new and unfamiliar world. Ten months later, I
landed on the brand new Terminal 3 in Beijing International Airport. On that
cloudy day, I returned to my motherland with mixed emotions. I recalled that
little girl behind the security gate, wearing a red flowered dress, holding her
passport tightly, turning back and smiling at her mother with tears in eyes.
But now I see her, a returning student, pushing two over
weighted suitcases, talking with the customs staff in fluent English. I
wondered: what, in those months, has made me what I am today? It’s easy to
visualize the “before” and “after” on appearance, but what about the invisible
process in between?
What about my transformed mature mind?
The recognition of individualism in life was the first sign
of independence. I sensed my existence as one individual through the loneliness
I suffered in the first three days. What is loneliness, even if you were
surrounded by people? What is living under another’s roof, even if you tried to
make yourself at home? Every morning when I opened my eyes I heard people
outside talking, but I didn’t realize it was English until after a long while.
I remembered someone had told me that I should eventually dream in English.
Staring at the ceiling for an unknown period of time, I told
myself to face the reality and get up. With my hand already on the door knob,
however, I didn’t have the courage to push it open… I didn’t know what to do
yet I had so many things in front of me; I pretended to go to the restroom only
to stare blankly; I seemed to look for something in my “temporary” room without
knowing what was missing. All this was just to kill time.
That is loneliness.
You have no way to understand the bravery of being lonely
until you are really alone. On the other hand, I believe that being lonely and
learning independence are part of the same process. If ten months of loneliness
didn’t feel lonely to me, then I could declare my independence.
I knew I had succeeded when I made the first Chinese dinner
for my host family and
understood what a hard work my mom had been doing to cook
everyday. I knew it when I held the Mid-Autumn festival party without my
Chinese family and understood the real meaning of celebrating. I knew it when I
got up on one snowy morning and painted for a whole day. Maturity is loneliness
when you comprehend that every man is alone and that’s why we are all together.
Every individual lives a life of their own, but since we have the word “every”,
we have a “whole” as well. It is these independent lives that together made up
the structure of an integrated community, a society.
When I was gladly independent in person, however, I found it
wasn’t enough. The thing is: there isn’t just one same community that every
individual lives in, adjusts to, and confronts. That is, we formed diverse
cultures. Yes I came to the United States by myself.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t only representing myself; I also
represented my distinctive Chinese culture. And I felt it to be a vital objective
to take my culture to others. Who says we’ll forget about our own culture when
we go abroad? To the contrary, I didn’t realize how much I loved my country
until I left it; I didn’t realize how little I knew about my own culture until
I wanted to advertise it to others.
During a certain period, I was over-patriotic even to the
point of craziness, even to the point of detesting the U.S. I thought Confucius
was the gentleman of gentlemen. I dreamed about Chinese dragon talking to me. I screamed when
I saw an everyday Beijing trashcan on television; I cried when I saw the
touching moments of Chinese students protecting the Olympics torch in foreign
countries…Recalled that when I was in my native land, people never stopped
criticizing our government and I, neither, never tried to understand their
difficulties. Yet it’s not at all the same when I was the only one in the
environment who came from that culture. It’s not at all the same when I heard a
foreigner criticize my government, though sometimes I knew their opinions were
correct. “Culture shock” was an extremely painful process, but I believe in its
value. “We cannot forget our roots.” Everyone knows this slogan but few truly
comprehend it. Environment can certainly change a person, but in this journey to
a foreign land, I was actually returning to my roots, step by step. What sense does the term “hometown” have if you never left your home?
As I passed the peak of the “culture shock” cycle, I could
say that I had become a true
adapter. We mature in a culture. Ultimately, maturity is
cultural maturity. Different cultures exist together and influence each other just like
individual persons do. Amazingly, I could sometimes have a more clear and
dialectical view of my own country from another culture’s point of view. I have
had deep talks about Communism with my host grandpa who firmly believes there’s
nothing good about it. I have told my classmates about the necessity of birth
control and explained it’s not as strict and cruel as they heard.
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| Spirit Week in Farmville |
I have claimed that China is actually practicing capitalism
in its economy but the government couldn’t admit it… Conflicts so often come
from misunderstandings rather than differences. Furthermore, if we look closely
enough, we are not actually that different. We need to accept the difference as
the first step but more essentially, to understand it. So then, we shall see
the common ground. This is the role a cross-cultural adventurer like me should
play.
The whole world
focused on my hometown Beijing in 2008. I am turning my eyes to the world, with
China at my back and America ahead. China is becoming ever more mature as well
as the world is, as well as me. Now I’m back in the place with which I’m
familiar.
However, the journey did not end here. America freed me
bitterly and sweetly, but there are still numerous “new selves” waiting to be
created on the rest of my journey. Therefore, I will continue to mature.
Therefore, I’m ready to change. Therefore, I exist.
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| Kexin soars in St Louis |
An admission essay works if it can unfold a clear
description of learning from personal experience. But if it also adds knowledge
of Descartes and Bergson, philosophy, psychology
and history, and incorporates them by using telling and showing detail, then it
is special. Add to this the fact that English is not Kexin’s first language and
then you might agree with me that this essay helps any reader learn about Kexin
in ways that would predict great success in college and beyond.
The next installment of the Kexin’s interview will take her
from Farmville to her university and then track where she will bring her
superpowers in the very near future. It should come as no surprise that what’s
she’s done should inspire anyone.
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