Meet Zhang: College Admission Essay Sample

This year, my family had a surprising new addition: an eleven year-old Chinese boy.

No, he isn’t a product of an affair one of my parents had at the Number One China Buffet years back, as joked by various friends. After coming to the U.S. in August, Zhang Shouda (or “Orange Soda”, as kids jokingly call him at school), grew close to my mom through her job as a teacher‘s assistant at Ocean Air Elementary School. Though he only spoke broken English and she even less Chinese, they quickly realized that kindness, hugs, and laughter are easily translatable.

After six months of transition - making friends, picking up essentials of English, growing inseparable from my mother - Zhang was to be moved, at the behest of his father, to a farm in New York. There Zhang would stay with a distant friend while his father drove trucks for a year. My mother, persuasive and sentimental, knew she couldn’t let this happen.

After convincing my dad, which took some time, she invited Zhang’s father over to persuade him to let Zhang stay with us for the year he’d be gone. My siblings and I were hesitant about the whole thing. We were already sharing rooms, and wouldn’t a seventh family member just create more chaos? But then again, who were we, with so much to be thankful for, to turn away a shy eleven year-old facing a year with people he’d never met?

As I sat across the room from a man crying in gratitude, so sure that sheer Chinese luck had brought him and his son here, I was convinced that letting Zhang stay with us was the right thing to do. Sure, it was the kind of thing you see in Lifetime movies, the kind of thing that reminds the cynic of any 99-cent greeting card – but this, this had tangible sentiment to it. It was then that I recognized the simplicity and ease of something all humans, despite religion, race, language, or heritage, can respect: compassion.

Zhang’s transition into American culture hasn’t been easy. His English is coming along smoothly, but slip-ups often result in hilarious situations. Zhang once arrived home from a school Valentine’s Day party insisting that his teacher had served him beer. After a lot of giggles, my siblings and I finally worked out that it was root beer that had been served.

Now that Zhang has been with us for almost two months, many challenges have risen. Turns out, American etiquette is quite different from Chinese, and much to the dismay of my mother, Zhang can’t always remember to chew with his mouth closed. (I have learned this is in fact a sign of gratitude for the meal in China.) He has grown close to my brother, who begrudgingly allows Zhang to follow him around morning, noon and night. It also seems Zhang's new favorite hobby is standing over my shoulder while I surf the web. Thus, despite his small stature, Zhang is proving to be just as irritating as my other siblings.

However, as I give up my favorite easy chair or search my cupboards for Doritos, only to find foods the names of which I can’t pronounce, I remember the sacrifices Zhang's parents, as well as mine, have made, and I realize that the small changes and annoyances I deal with are nothing in comparison.