Hong Chung

College Essay

Shoes laced properly? Check. Pigtails bouncy and intact? Yes. A waterfall of salty hot tears
streaming down my cheeks? Also, yes. Snot faced and puffy eyed, I stood resilient against the huge
Boeing 27 that had whisked me away from home. The bold and rigid architecture of Logan Airport, set
against the gray barren landscape, served as a bitter contrast to the swaying palm trees that seemed to
caress the land underneath the warm Saigon sun. It doesn’t look we’re in Saigon anymore.
In 1998, my family and I immigrated here from southern Vietnam. A Chinese and Vietnamese
speaking family of four, plucked from rural soil and planted in the urban terrain of Boston. My first
bite of Boston was sour. No, literally, cheese was the perpetrator. Its peculiar taste did not sit well, as
with everything else I found foreign in American culture. Yellow haired people roamed the streets in
the dozens, their movements like a stream of animated motion. I stood inferior underneath the
statuesque figures of these people. Ma and Ba were resilient people but I saw through their forced
smiles and empty optimism.
I did not know a lick of English, perhaps, “yus (yes)” and “nu (no)” were as advanced as my
articulation had proceeded. My family and I were cramped in a room, on the floor of an apartment that
we co-inhabited with another Chinese-Vietnamese family. Ma, my little sister, and I frequented the
broken down queen sized bed that had acquired much wear throughout the years, while Ba had to resort
to an itchy wool blanket on the creaky wooden floor. I spent my afternoons in an ESL classroom,
isolated away from the regular English speaking classrooms. Ms. Yau, a Chinese teacher had eased the
pain of separating from Ma and Ba during the day. We began each and every school morning with a
ditty composed of quirky nursery rhymes coupled with a peppy jingle. I had too much pride to
participate with the class on this daily ritual. However, the classroom commenced on singing without
me anyways, it filled every crack and corner with the tune of offbeat singing. In those few minutes of
singing, I found myself secretly mouthing and humming the words to the tune of their melody. As
much as I enjoyed secretly singing to nursery rhymes, I dreaded reading and writing. The letters of the
English alphabet with their dots there, and slashes here, with specific vowels and consonant sounds,
and similar words that sound the same but don't actually mean the same, and silent words, and- I
couldn't take it. I had already saw the light at the end of the tunnel, thoughts of a seven year old, might
I add. It was even more dreadful when we had to recite words and phrases out loud when Ms. Yau
called on us. The screeching words, sharp and uncomfortable came out like a seagull being choked by a
tone deaf Tyrannosaurus-Rex . Please, let this stop, I prayed.
However, as time wore on, I formed an interesting love-hate relationship with the twenty-six
foes of the English alphabet. Time relinquished all fears that I had with the English language. In fact, I
set out to embark on conquering a new and complex word every single day. I attempted to fuse them
into everyday speech and dialogue, and although it was almost always used incorrectly, I conjured up
an immense feeling of satisfaction. What originally pained me the most about living in America was
now my guiding light. I found it painstakingly hard to pry myself out of the chairs of an English
classroom. It was hard to not read books like The Babysitters Club and write silly little melodramas
with twisted plots that I had concocted in my head on Microsoft Wordpad.
My intense fascination with the lingual aspects of the English language fueled my desire to
master my once thought to be 'enemy'. At home I resorted to speaking my native tongues, but outside
the confines of my small two family housing, my thirst for reading and writing were undeniable. My
desire was coupled with a new found love for more sophisticated literature as my tastes matured. What
were once an onslaught of complicated words enumerated on the pages of dusty library books had
become my devoted army of companions. The very thing that stood as a barrier to my own self-
expression metamorphosed into my only form of self-expression. And even though Ma and Ba still
insist on eating white rice everyday and speaking only Chinese and Vietnamese at home, I carved out
my own little universe in the safe haven of books and language.