ESSAYS ON
EXPERIENCES
ABROAD

 

Matthew Yglesias
College: Harvard University

DREAMS OF MY RUSSIAN SUMMER

According to the Time Magazine/Princeton Review publication The Best College for You and How to Get In, the number ten essay topic to avoid is “your trip abroad, unless truly noteworthy.” I am, therefore, about to commit an act of stunning intellectual audacity and state that my trip to Russia was not only noteworthy, but college application essay-worthy.

My first trip abroad was not of particular note: I went to the Czech Republic and lived in the small town of Telc while doing community service and visited the cities of Prague, Vienna, and Cesky Krumlov. I loved the trip and it intensified my interest in the history and culture of Eastern Europe. There was, however, a small problem—my pursuit of this interest revealed that I had visited only the wealthiest and most beautiful section of an often unpleasant area of the world. Something had to be done—I decided to spend the summer of ’98 in Russia.

I learned that American Field Services sponsored a summer home stay program with Russian families in Nizhny Novgorod, a city that had been called in The Economist “the Detroit of Russia.” Here, I thought, I could find the real essence of Eastern Europe.

After a two-day stay in lovely Moscow, I met my host family in the distinctly unlovely Nizhny Novgorod. The Zhemchuzhnikois live in a gray apartment block off Great Bolshevik October Revolution Street. Large Dumpsters sit in the center of the building courtyards, filled with trash that has gone uncollected for five years. During the summer, the government saves money by turning off the city’s hot water supply. Such things as supermarkets have not yet reached this city of three million people.

The Zhemchuzhnikois are small in stature, and my feet hung well over the edge of my bed. My host father, Andrei, an engineer, spoke no English but gave me the nickname “yelefant” (elephant) in reference to my habit of banging my head on the low doorways. I like to think the time we spent watching the World Cup together and making anguished facial expressions at each poor play resulted in some connection across the language barrier.

Tanya, my host mother, is a medical doctor who took advantage of her July vacation to (over) mother me. She enthusiastically exchanged Russian and English words with me and lovingly cooked meals of delicious (though slightly poisonous) mushrooms which were enjoyed by the whole family. In the evenings the entire family would often bond together over stomach cramps and badly dubbed episodes of Dynasty.

Katya, my 16-year-old host sister, is a serious student and a Girl Scout. Despite my diligent efforts to learn Russian from the Pimsleur Method tapes before starting my journey, I was extremely grateful for her English skills. She was my friend and guide during my stay in a city which featured many aspects of my life in New York City (apartments, mass transit, pigeons) while remaining totally strange.

We visited such tourist sights as there are in Nizhny (war memorials, Socialist Realist statues, damaged churches) and met with the city’s mayor, who told me that he didn’t see any problem with having a Communist Youth League Metro station six years after the disbanding of the Communist Youth League. I “hung out” with Katya and her friends, participating in the day-to-day life of Nizhny Novgorod. I met a colorful drunk who kept me well informed of his political views, notably “we must give nuclear weapons to Cuba,” and “a blockade! A blockade of the Baltics is the only solution.” During the overnight train ride back to Moscow, I shared a compartment with three Russian men, and when I offered to share my Pringles and pierogi, I was offered in turn to share in the smoked fish and vodka they had brought aboard.

When I returned to America, I brought with me much more than photographs of the great Russian tourist attractions—I made an intense emotional connection with a family thousands of miles away whose language I do not speak, made new friends, saw firsthand everyday life in a country now very much in the news, felt at home in a foreign city, and learned some basic Russian.

Capitalism has not brought prosperity to Russia, and the government’s near-total control of the media has stifled democracy. Extremist solutions to the country’s difficulties were widely expressed even before the present crisis, and it is only the Russian people’s healthy skepticism toward all public figures that has prevented extremists from coalescing behind an effective leader. In his book The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel P. Huntington has argued that future relations between the West and other civilizations (like Russia) must always be antagonistic—it does not seem to me that this future is inevitable, but it is in many ways the one to which we appear to be heading.

In Russia, I was directly exposed to what I believe will be the most important issue of the early twenty-first century—will America’s defeated cold war enemies join the West, like Germany after the second world war; or will they return worse than ever, like Germany after the first? “Truly noteworthy?” I hope so.

COMMENT:

Unfortunately, this essay falls into the very trap it sets for itself: the opening paragraph claims that what follows will be “an act of stunning intellectual audacity” in describing a trip that is “truly noteworthy.” But, really, this trip isn’t. Or at least the writer hasn’t convinced us of this, but rather has offered a hodge-podge of well-known facts about contemporary Russian life. (It’s difficult; the beds are small; mushrooms are often used in cooking.) The writer hangs out and visits different sites. So what? There’s a brief effort toward the end to discuss Russian politics, but nothing previously discussed in the essay suggests the writer’s conclusion about the inevitability of future clashes between the West and Russia. Reading this essay, it’s easy to understand why college applicants are cautioned against writing about their trips abroad. (MR)

Olivia Hung
College: Harvard University

CHANGES IN MY VIEWPOINT

December 16, 1994, was the last day of school before winter break. It would be the last day I would spend at ISS (International School of Stockholm) and with Lily-Ann, my best friend. I had spent most of my middle school years living in Lidingö, Sweden. The next time I would start school would be in rainy California. I would move back just in time to complete my course selection sheet for high school and to witness the floods that occurred that winter. The time I spent in Sweden helped me to broaden my once-provincial view of the world and to gain self-confidence.

As I left my friends, memories came to me, memories that I would not easily forget. I got a perspective of diversity in Sweden that I would not have gotten if I had stayed in my ethnically diverse but culturally identical community. I first noticed diversity when I stepped into my sixth grade classroom at the local elementary school. Almost everyone in the room was twelve and had blond hair and blue eyes; I was ten and I had black hair and brown eyes. My classmates were nice to me, but I never felt I belonged with them. Starting seventh grade at ISS, I found an international flavor to the student body, which was a pleasant change from an all-white society. I remembered when I was in fifth grade none of us dared to show our individuality for fear of other kids’ laughs and jeers. At ISS I noticed that nobody was laughed at, shunned, or criticized for being unique. Classmates dressed, ate, and studied the way they wanted. Along with Lily-Ann, there were some people I met that were unforgettable. Joris was one of them.

I met Joris, whom many considered to be a jerk, in seventh grade. I remember him not because he was a jerk but because he always made me work harder. At the beginning of the year, our math teacher Mr. Vass told us that we could independently work ahead if we wanted to. After a month, working ahead had turned into a competition; we were running a race to see who could finish first. I was barely ahead of Joris; one time he was ahead by two sections. Telling myself I had been slacking off, I started working with renewed energy. Fueled by the freedom given by Mr. Vass to me in determining my pace and the competition from Joris, I was well into Algebra II and matrices when winter break came.

Lily-Ann and I spent that last afternoon hanging out and buying gifts. We bought each other pens with our names engraved in them. We knew it was going to be a long time before we saw each other again. As we parted, Lily-Ann told me, “Promise me you’ll write. I’ll never forget the time we spent together.” Those two years are unforgettable to me as well.

COMMENT:

This writer conveys strong ambiguous feelings about her middle school experience abroad, as she makes the ironic point that this homogeneous community was where she first encountered diversity. Without referring to the title, however, it’s hard to tell where she wants to go with the essay. Given the importance of her friendship with Lily-Ann, one wonders why she doesn’t focus more on that relationship; and the paragraph about Joris doesn’t add anything significant, other than to describe anecdotally one way that she develops self-confidence. The concluding paragraph fails to pull together the various strands of the essay. While an interesting piece, it just doesn’t really come together. (RK)

Whitney Lee
College: Harvard University

I cannot speak Spanish. It is a fact that becomes blatantly obvious whenever I visit my mother because she lives in Argentina, but before sophomore year, she lived in Puerto Rico. When I was a child, I went to Puerto Rico every summer. We lived in a villa on the grounds of the Westin Rio Mar and had family in the small town of Rio Grande. My lack of Spanish skills was met with a mixture of disdain and fascination at the fact that I was a “unilingual” American. Though I explained to them that I studied French, it did little to convince them.

After months of pleading for a vacation in a French-speaking country, we went to the Canadian province of Quebec. I was looking forward to the role-reversal; for once, I would be the bilingual traveler and my mother would be the “Ugly American.” To my surprise, she transitioned almost seamlessly, using her broken French as a jumping off point to start conversations. In doing so, she met many people who were eager for a chance to converse in English with a native speaker.

Her ability to connect with others baffled me. I did not understand how she could relate to them so easily, that is until I went to Ghana. Though I worked during the day, I was able to spend quality time with the girls attending the Nsaba Diaspora School, a recently built single-sex school in a rural village. They were in the process of learning English and I cannot speak Twi (their language), but we connected immediately. They took me to their classes, showed me the village and worked math problems with me on a chalkboard so we could compare problem-solving methods.

What brought us together was a shared desire to relate to each other and to experience life from another viewpoint. What I took away from that experience was that language does not have to function as a barrier if both sides are willing to look past linguistic differences and acknowledge shared humanity.

COMMENT:

This essay adds a new twist to a familiar topic: lessons learned from one’s mother. The writer incorporates youthful feelings of inadequacy when compared to her mother with the lessons she has learned during some of her travels. The setting jumps from Puerto Rico to Canada to Ghana without seeming disjointed or random. This essay starts on the subject of language skills, or lack thereof, and then moves on to how language can end up drawing people together. By beginning with speaking about her lack of Spanish skills, she opens the door to then tell the reader that she can, in fact, speak French and, more importantly, has traveled to Ghana on a public service mission. The writer ends the essay with an important realization that she made about language and the fact that language does not have to be a barrier between people. One of the main reasons why this essay is successful is that the writer shows the reader how she was able to turn a weakness into a strength. (AMH)