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I was born Song Zi Jia into the patchwork culture of Asia and North America. My mother’s arms, obliviously Chinese, left me for the West before I had a sense of them. I was raised instead for the first years in the angled gray of my birthplace, until, at three, I left to follow. There was no great inundation of the mind that so many describe as they make their first steps upon this new land. I looked and saw the same people, the same life, the same blue expanse of sky. In my youth it posed a subtle change of scenery and little else.

This was, without question, naïve of me. Although the majority of my years have flowered in this place, I am still and always the product of drifted seeds. My father prided himself in my name: Song Zi Jia, a shard of my ancestry. A combination of my mother and my father and the name of their Canadian destination, chosen for the sexless hope of life in my mother’s womb.

To me it was odd and foreign. In this America it proved nothing, contributed to nothing, meant nothing. I was a child of this new world but born in the old, believing in what _is_ but labelled for what _was_. Such diagnosis was upsetting. My name seemed a severe malapropism even in my own ears. I felt I required its change, intent on affirming my Western-ness, unwilling at eleven years to know or to admit to the sense of my alienation. But I was also unsure. A name was more than the combination of its letters. It was a prophecy, a link to the past and to the future, a symbol of the person himself. It seemed unlucky to simply discard it and continue anew. It was cheating fate. It was treacherous, a perfidy of my roots, an insult to my heredity.

But those roots were roots abandoned before my birth, cut free in those moments my father stepped onto the liberating vessel which would bring him here. That heredity was one with which I felt no deep connection or belonging.

For a year went this internal debate. People called my name beautiful but pronounced it brutally, unable to form the syllables with their Western tongues. Finally, in my twelfth year, my resolve solidified. Song Zi Jia ceased to exist except for the black ink strokes of calligraphy on the certificate of my birth. After that, Jenny took its place, its small harsh letters bearing its North American platitude.

I had feared losing something in this change, but I was mistaken. Years later, as maturity develops, I am able to appreciate my background, but I do not feel my choice to abandon my given name was a loss. It helped me then, which is what matters. Today I am at ease with Jenny, but I also feel a comfort when my mirror tells me I will always be the person I was born. Canada has shaped me, but it was my mother who gave me her happy dark eyes and my father who gave me his fine, raven hair and that spark of personality.


what do you think? my friend told me it really really sucked but I personally I thought it was alright I just want to know whether I should keep it/change it/start again.

By Jennyzsong (Jennyzsong) on Saturday, December 13, 2003 - 03:11 pm: Edit

bump! thanks

By Nathan311 (Nathan311) on Sunday, December 14, 2003 - 02:18 am: Edit

you speak deeply, a bit too deeply. it seams you wish the reader to feel maximum emotion with every sentence. yet without any buildup or climax it reads very much flat and emotion free.

if you want emotion then you will have to hook the reader first, then build them preferably to a pivotal point or single most important moment you wish to relate.

furthermore, establishing analogies to represent feelings, thoughts, etc, are wonderful; but you cannot expect to hit the reader with a SAT dose of them and have their impacts remain.

~just some thoughts to toss around~

good luck to you

By Jennyzsong (Jennyzsong) on Sunday, December 14, 2003 - 12:00 pm: Edit

thanks nathan

anybody else have any comments?

By Noshiksagoddess (Noshiksagoddess) on Sunday, December 14, 2003 - 12:47 pm: Edit

It's deeply felt and original. It sounds a little melodramatic at times, but I like it. But how does this fit Northwestern's very specific essay guidelines?

By Jennyzsong (Jennyzsong) on Sunday, December 14, 2003 - 03:45 pm: Edit

the question asks to write a bout a time i discarded something reluctantly... i hope it fits, I did write the essay according the NU guideline. For the other ones anything seems to be able to work.

By Jennyzsong (Jennyzsong) on Tuesday, December 16, 2003 - 10:09 am: Edit

last bump