Personal Statement

Every time when the sun rises in the east, it brings us a new day, with renewed hopes for a better life. No matter how hard it is, we can continue to move forward in life‘s battles, as long as hope is with us. It is like a compass that tells us where to go to reach our destination. To me, the great hope I have always cherished is to study and live in the culture I have read so much about ever since I was a child.

I graduated from the Second Institute of Foreign Languages of Beijing as a major in Spanish. Ever since I was little, I became fascinated in the history and culture of Spain and Latin America. The ebullient Latin music, and the flamboyant Flamenco Dancing, captivated me completely. Language, on the other hand, has been my favorite subject of learning. In high school, I always had top-ranking performance with English. This was why I enjoyed my college study so much, when I was able to immerse myself in the study of the language, and also the literature and culture behind. To some, language learning is a tedious process of drill and memorizing. But to me, it is a challenge I was happy to meet-an experience from which an enormous sense of satisfaction could be derived. I still remember that when just entering the college, I had great difficulty pronouncing the Spanish trill "R," which at that time seemed to have crippled me in learning the language. But I did not give up, and after a period of intense effort and concentrated practice, was eventually able to do it right. From this experience I learned a great deal about human potential. As the Chinese saying goes, "Hard work pays, sooner or later."

Encouraged by this initial "success," I threw myself wholeheartedly into the course work, which encompassed listening, reading, writing, and oral and written translation. Every time when I came across a word I had tried to memorize before, or understood an idiomatic expression, or finished reading a book in Spanish, it filled my heart with an ineffable feeling of joy and fulfillment. Later, I was even more pleasantly surprised, as I found that I could actually carry a conversation rather easily with native speakers of Spanish, and introduce them to traditional Chinese history, architecture, and culture.

During the four years of my college study, I was also active in social and cultural events held in and outside campus. The colorful cultures of Spain and Latin American countries, with their fascinating blending of Christian, Moorish, Jewish, and Roman ingredients, give birth to towering authors and artists, such as Cervantes, Dali, and Picasso. To enhance my reading ability, I read many books in their original Spanish versions, which I was fortunately able to borrow from the Spanish Embassy in Beijing. I had the opportunity to participate in various cultural events sponsored by the embassies of Spain and Latin American countries, such as the Festival of the Dead by the Embassy of Mexico, the Film Reception of Mexico, and the Latin American Cultural Festival. This experience further strengthened my desire to pursue systematic and in-depth learning of matters Hispanic. With assiduous effort, I was able to pull out remarkable academic records consistently during my college years. I won scholarships for four consecutive years, and was awarded the Certificate for Excellent Graduate, with the highest GPA among all the students of the same grade. In addition, I also received the Excellent Thesis Award for my graduation thesis, which was about a period of Ming Dynasty history, written in Spanish.

After graduating from college, I worked for a travel agency, and later for a foreign company. These work experiences further enriched my knowledge of Hispanic countries and cultures. Meanwhile, I have continued my learning of Spanish with a sustained effort, hoping that one day I will have the opportunity to pursue an advanced degree in the study of Spanish language and culture abroad. To this end, I have decided to give up my present job, which offers good pay, if admitted into your graduate program. I am most interested in Spanish language, Spanish Literature, Literary Criticism, and Culture Studies. I will, of course, be interested in comparative and cross-cultural research on cultural relations between China and Spanish speaking countries. I am also keenly interested in literary translation.

Columbia University is a world famous university. There are, as I have heard, more than 60 Nobel Prize winners who are, or have been, affiliated to the university. And its graduate program in Spanish is especially strong. In addition, Columbia University also has one of the oldest programs in Sinology in the United States, and has hosted renowned Chinese scholars, such as Hu Shi and Xu Zhimo, who played key roles in the cultural transformation in China in the early part of the 20th Century. I am now attempting to follow their footprints, to make myself an accomplished literary and cultural critic, as they were. Your careful consideration of my application to your graduate program in Spanish will be sincerely appreciated.

I always feel that like music and painting, literature is also a form of lingua franca that connects peoples of diverse racial and cultural identities (How did I love Don Quixote when I was a child, even though I could read it only in Chinese translation). And I will be proud of playing such a role of connecting peoples, for the rest of my life.