“Who are you” is a common question inquiring a clear description of an individual with respect to his or her life within a certain social setting. I am a male student of Chinese origin aged 24 years old. We are four in a family made up of two siblings and my parents. We are two children, both boys. I am the last born of my twin brother and definitely the younger one in the family. We reside together with our parents in Beijing where both my parents practice as professional doctors. Even though my parents are medically trained professionals, their passions for being doctors or their careers appear to be an inherent profession from their parents who were professional doctors. On the contrary, my profession is distinct and has no association with any of my parents’ field of profession (medicine). I am an international student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering at the University of California Irvine. I intend to graduate after this summer and start the journey of my career as an electrical engineer.
Coming from a family of doctors and a diverse communist cultural practice experience in China has made me a very round person due to the amalgamation of my origin and the American culture where I study. Even though I am more of a Chinese oriented culture, I have a lot of American aspects that will influence how I interact with various people across China and America, as far as their social backgrounds are concerned (Kleinman and Tsung-Yi Lin). I have a lot of passion in sports and especially in soccer. Most of my time is spent on physical fitness activities and watching sport documentaries or soccer games. To be specific, I spend a considerable part of leisure time watching soccer games and playing the same. I am a talented soccer player and in most cases I tend to view my progressive development or achievement in playing soccer as an alternative career in the near future. This kind of thought is highly informed and motivated by the current trend in the Chinese Soccer sports that recognizes the importance of soccer as a sport and as an alternative economic growth.
Apart from being a soccer player and an ardent fan, I am an ordinary and ardent Chinese origin who is adapted and conditioned to martial arts. I spent a lot of time in physical fitness or body workouts as a routine in which most men of Chinese origin are used to. My passion for physical fitness or body workout started way back in our childhood in which children of similar age group or age set undergo physical training as part of their physical education. I was brought up in a community or a society where physical education and particularly martial art is a traditional game that the old and young, as well as youths are wholly engaged in as a sport and as an entertainment sector. While I was barely three years old, my parents had made me understand that martial arts or physical workouts were part of our culture and a means of healthy living. I then thought of it as kind of torture before I became fit to suit it but latter it turned out as a routine game in our environment. Generally, the game had no boundary as we were trained together irrespective of our gender or sex despite the fact that our culture is more gender sensitive than western cultures. I treasure sports so much due to their positive impact in our social life. For instance, our introduction to martial arts had created a great social relationship among our group and the people we came along during our exercise period (Chengyin). This is one of the major aspects that have elevated my spirit for soccer games as it brings many people together as compared to other sports. However, in China, martial arts and body workouts has been the traditional game that connects most age groups and age sets together.
Martial arts have been one of the starting phases or stages in which we learnt various moral lessons from our parents. My twin brother has been my best friend and we have a strong connection that promotes family unity. The manner in which we were brought up has brought us close to our parents and enhances our relationship to an extent of sharing any issue or secret we may have. The aspect of martial arts that many people embrace in China is the power of meditation that creates an impact on the practitioners. It is of no doubt that most of us, the Chinese, link our power of understanding certain concepts based on the ability to meditate on the concept (Chengyin). While undergoing my junior school and high school, we engaged in meditation and physical fitness activities that workout as family rejoinder and create positive competition. I have been one of the great competitors in whatever activity I am engaged in and feel rejuvenated to achieve higher. Since my childhood and the support of our parents, I have been positively competing against my twin brother to ensure that we always do better than anybody in our class.
I shared a class with my twin brother from junior school to secondary school in which our competition outshined the whole class. It was one of the interesting competitions where we bid back at home to beat our own records. As a surprise, we used to alternate in position one and two or even tie at times as an indication of academic giants of the class. Our competition was a spar of our parents’ commitment towards our education achievement. However, hailing in a family in which both siblings were men was a challenging thing as far as gender role is concerned. In a community like Chinese society where gender stereotyping is a common scenario and people are assigned duties or roles depending on their gender requires a unique approach (Bolman and Deal). The fact that my parents reside in a metropolitan region but rather dominated by Chinese culture made us practice a life of no boundary where all chores were done by us irrespective of being female duties. Performing duties that were basically viewed as women’s role helped us to acquire unbeatable self-esteem as we beat odds of the community expectation. As a matter of fact, my social background and my relationship with other international students or people of American origin have been easy because of the fact that my parents have never been conservatism of our initial culture. Probably, the fact that my parents have shared a glimpse of other cultures such as the socialist cultures might have influenced their reasoning and the zeal of competition, as well as cooperation with other people.
On the other hand, our social status is a cornerstone to what lifestyle and the perception I have in life. Being that our parents are both professional doctors, I enjoy the sense of middle class citizens in China and this has been a motivating factor for me to work harder and be somewhere that is relatively better than what our parents have accomplished. As I intend to graduate this summer, I am bold enough to face the demand of my profession with the zeal of doing greater things in invention and engineering aspects. This is supported by the fact that I have higher self-esteem that has enabled me to relate effectively with my peers and will remain on the rise and exclusive to my fellow workmates. With reference to psychological disorders, I am one of the people with the ability to cope in a complex environment without experiencing challenges relating to depression and extension of antisocial behavior to my colleagues. I am very much optimistic that my future engagement in the career and corporate world will be a replica of my good performance in school and self-discipline that I have acquired throughout my life. In conclusion, I strongly portray the Chinese culture notion which holds that an individual must be brave and outstanding on every occasion or in any activity one is engaged in. Therefore, I am an attractive person with respect to my expertise or field of orientation and have the ability or competence to scale higher in the field of electrical engineering. This makes me more self-worth to work in various areas or regions like America and other parts of the world. Lastly, my engagement in soccer games has impacted on my social acceptance, as well as improving my social contribution through the aspect of athletic exercises such as body workouts.
- Bolman, Lee G. and Terrence E. Deal. “”Leading and managing: Effects of context, culture, and gender.”.” Educational administration quarterly 28.3 (1992): 314-329.
- Chengyin, Li. “”On the Structure of the Chinese Martial Arts’ Culture [J].”.” China SPort Science 4 (1992): 6.
- Kleinman, Arthur and Tsung-Yi Lin. Normal and abnormal behavior in Chinese culture. Vol. 2. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.