These past few days I have been reading a lot of student journals because I want to hand them back next week. My students write about a lot of things: their stresses and worries in the university, their families, dating, weekend activities, current events and what they want their lives to be like in the future. It is really interesting to read the writing of someone who has learned English as a second language because many times the grammar is completely correct but the phrasing sounds awkward or the vocabulary is antiquated. Other times the students use English in completely new and creative ways to describe something. This might simply be a translation from Chinese, but since I don't know Chinese, it sounds impressive to me. It is also entertaining because there is always a hodgepodge of British English and American English spellings, sayings and vocabulary contained in the same essay.

There's a few key phrases that I see over and over again and I can't help but wonder if they were overly emphasized while learning grammar or drilled into them culturally. Here are the popular words/phrases that seem to be chosen by default:

"Nothing is impossible"
"In a word . . ." (to make a conclusion)
"Harmonious"
"Resilient"
"It's a pity"
"Lovely"
"Delicious"
"Beautiful"
"Every coin has two sides" (to explain the advantages and disadvantages of something)
"Time flies"
"No pains no gains"

Here's a journal entry that I read today (nothing has been changed or edited):

"I can still clearly remember that there was a large bamboo grove near my former house in my childhood. Sometimes I watched the bamboo trees bend under pressure from the wind and watched them return gracefully to their upright or original position after the wind had died down.

At that moment the word "resilience" came to my mind all of a sudden. When used in reference to a person this word means his ability to instantly recover from shock, depression and any other situation that challenge the limits of a person's emotions. On some occasions, I often felt a mix of emotions that threatened my health. And even I felt emotionally drained, mentally exhausted and appeared some unpleasant physical symptoms. While watching the bamboo grove in the wind, I was always at peace.

The bamboo tree bent but didn't break. It seemed to tell me that I might try my best to make the situation get the best of me in that life was a mixture of good times and bad times, happy moments and unhappy moments. Bad times or unhappy moments might bring us anguish or suffering. In my point of view, when we wish for a better tomorrow or a better situation, things may not be as bad as they seem to be. The anguish or suffering may be easier to deal with if the end result is worth doing.

In a word, it depends on us. When meeting up with difficulties and setbacks, we need to show the resilience, like the bamboo tree, bend, but never break."

2 comments

1. Catherine on November 18, 2009 at 10:38 AM

   Wow. That's beautiful. I honestly don't think I could write something that pretty in Spanish or English. :)

    
2. Chen on November 18, 2009 at 10:56 PM

   That's the results of Chinese education system.