Cross-Cultural Experience Essay

Remember once upon a time (May 21, 2011) I promised I'd post one of my Peace Corps application essays? Well: here it is. I'm sharing it because:

1. It's an amusing, if Gambia-unrelated, story that I never wrote about on my Hong Kong blog for fear of causing my family undue worry
2. I remember how helpful I found reading others' application essays were when writing my own, so I'm hoping some Peace Corps applicant searching for "peace corps cross-cultural experience essay" will find this.

But: please, please remember this was an application essay. As in, I needed to make myself sound awesome. Normally I talk about myself with more ordinary adjectives.

Cross-Cultural Experience (09/2008-12/2008)

I would rather be lost in Hong Kong than tucked up safe in a dorm room. This—from a girl who last year feared riding a bus outside town limits. But had I not lost myself—repeatedly—in Hong Kong, I would not have emerged as confident, adventurous, and culturally-immersed as I did from my semester abroad.
I’d been in the country less than 24 hours before I first became lost—and I don’t mean I struggled to locate the campus dining hall; I mean LOST in the border between Hong Kong and Mainland China. I’d gone to visit Shenzhen with my new Mainland friends, not knowing my student visa wouldn’t admit me. Luckily, I could see where my friends waited on the other side of Immigration; I called to them and Ricky agreed to return and accompany me to campus.

So I waited for Ricky. And waited…

I realized I needed to do something, but what? I couldn’t leave Ricky wandering the building in search of me—and besides, without Ricky I’d never remember the way to campus.

I tried talking to one of the officers. We couldn’t understand each other, but sensing my panic, she called over someone more fluent in English. I explained the situation—“I’m a student at Lingnan University and I went with some fellow exchange students, they’re from the Mainland. Now they’re in the Mainland. I’m here and…” Questioning stares. I tried again, “I’ve lost my friend.” Several loudspeaker announcements later…no Ricky.

So, tight with worry, I followed the pointing fingers of the officials to the Hong Kong border, completely unsure where I would go from there. I walked until the crowds subsided, and there—sigh of relief—stood Ricky.

Instead of immediately returning to campus, we thought we’d wander the city. We ended up sitting on a park bench, where Ricky told me about his life and goals in Mainland China. Ricky most wants to earn a million U.S. dollars before age 30. Originally, I thought this terribly materialistic, but I learned to judge less harshly—a country only recently tasting capitalism values money differently. To Ricky, money must have represented freedom and independence—these wishes consumed him, not greed.

Despite this adventure’s happy and enlightening ending, the fright might easily have discouraged me from ever venturing beyond clearly labeled tourist attractions. Instead, the opposite happened: I became truly adventurous. Having experienced the complete panic of being lost in a foreign country, the fear disappeared. To avoid past mistakes, I set to work learning the transportation system and basic Cantonese phrases. I determined that next time, I would rescue myself.

With new confidence, I ventured to lesser-known destinations. My friends and I stumbled upon a traditional wedding. We sampled toads and pig’s brain omelet. And lost ourselves! We traveled for an hour in the opposite direction of Tsing Shan Monastery, misplaced the map to Monkey Mountain… I didn’t mind—I loved it, I laughed!—losing myself to the beautiful culture of Hong Kong.