My Version of a Chinese Dream
I was sitting on the stairs of a stargazing tower, writing a letter to my parents across the ocean.
I was there in the woods, attending an international summer camp. Away from the hustle and bustles of big city, it was just me and sixty girls of my age, coming from 30 different countries, 30 different cultures and 30 different communities.
Finishing the first few lines of my letter, I took a pause and looked up. Martyna from Poland was pointing at my paper: “Is this your language? It’s so different! What does this mean?” She was pointing at the character “美”. I told her that it means beauty in Chinese. She persisted, “how is it structured?” I was stuck. I glanced at the word again. This time, it appeared strange to me. How is it structured?
I looked up the word on the internet. The character comes in two parts— lamb and big. The succulent taste of lambs in the agricultural days of ancient China meant not only a tasteful meal, but also a gift of beauty from nature.
I was amazed and confused – How could I not know? The richness and the profundity behind the characters—the very characters that make up my Chinese language, the very characters that embody five thousand years of my civilization and the very characters that witness the quintessence and brilliance of my culture, the culture of China.
The realization hit me right in the heart. For all this time, I have been taking my culture for granted，leaving it in the corners but turning away to Hollywood and Super Bowls, which, brilliant as they are, cannot help me define who I am.
And I realized: It is our language, our philosophies and our culture that shape who we are. My generation has been exposed to western cultures at a very young age that we’ve neglected, ignored what is ours. We need to rediscover the very nature of our Chinese culture and exert its impact upon the world. This is my Chinese Dream…
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