Domestic and Foreign Education

On reflecting my past experience, there were some situations where I was caught in the “freed prisoner’s” dilemma, but the most impressive, which can be applied to the Allegory of the Cave should be my decision on pursuing my study abroad rather than taking part in the entrance examination as my Chinese classmates did.  A years ago when I was still in the middle school, my parents persuaded me to take my college study in America, which seemed and still seems  an enlightened choice for me in their eyes. 

As a Chinese student, the biggest barrier for me to get permission in American universities is my poor English. So the first thing I had to do was taking all my time to improve my English. To get a satisfactory grade, I had to take part in TOEFL and SAT time and time again.  To engage more time in studying English, I couldn’t take all the classes or stay all my time in the boarding school as all of my classmates did. Gradually, I became the invisible person to my teachers or my classmates, who was only a kid sitting in the furthest corner of the classroom among sixty students. I was n ever called by the teachers to answer questions in class and never invited to extracurricular activities after class. I used to be a beloved one either in my teachers or my classmates’ eyes. But after I gave up the domestic entrance examination, I became the “the freed prisoner”, who was no longer chained to the heavy load of study. As is known to many people, China has the toughest college entrance examination. There is an old Chinese saying that thousands of people competing for walking through one single-plank bridge. However, I didn’t feel freed at all at that time. On the contrary, I felt completely isolated from my community.

However, I couldn’t go back to “the cave” after all I have prepared for my new life. With doubts and struggles, what I could only do was to be persistent in my choice and lead a totally different path. So here I am, studying in America, ceasing to be a “princess” in the family and learning to be independent all on my own.

 The “reward” of my studying abroad is the loss of most of my peer’s understanding. Whenever I talked with them, they all like “Oh, you are so happy”, “You do not have to go through all that we have suffered”, “You have only couple hours of school? How great is that?”.  To certain aspect, I am killed by them. When they made all the remarks, either ironically or admirably, I was like “Err, How do you know I am happy?  How do you know I haven’t suffered more?” What they have seen is my university offer from a foreign country, what they have seen is that I can skip the classes whenever I want, and what they have seen is my short hours in class, but what they haven’t seen is my endless hours of memorizing the vocabulary or shuffling through various English training centers and what they haven’t seen is my unaccountable stay-ups for passing my course here in America. I am not ambitious to “enlighten” the others as Socrates wished for the best in such situation, but I do get out of “the cave” and enable myself to get more challenged experiences and dream bigger.


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