Esei Anak Malaysia Mengenai Bagaimana Sukarnya Berkomunikasi dalam Bahasa Inggeris, Berjaya Tarik Perhatian 8 buah Universiti Ivy League!

Bagaimana boleh seseorang itu menarik perhatian dunia dengan sekelip mata?. Banyak caranya ada yang melakukan aksi-aksi bahaya atau menakjubkan seperti mana yang kita dapat lihat melalui rancangan Guiness World Record. Tetapi kenapa perlu bersusah payah jika hanya dengan satu karangan esei boleh menjadikan anda perhatian dunia!.

Cassandra Hsiao 17 tahun, anak kelahiran Malaysia yang kini menetap di Amerika Syarikat, berjaya mencuri perhatian 8 buah Ivy League School terkemuka di Amerika Syarikat yang sememangnya menjadi impian ramai orang sekaligus menarik perhatian dunia hanya disebabkan oleh resume beliau mengenai bagaimana sukarnya belajar bahasa Inggeris ketika diawal penghijrahan mereka ke Amerika Syarikat dahulu.

Cassandra pada awalnya menghantar resume dan esei karangan beliau untuk memohon melanjutkan pengajian ke 8 buah universiti terkemuka di Amerika Syarikat dan beliau mengakui faktor permohonannya diterima adalah disebabkan oleh resume yang dihantarnya berserta dengan esei tersebut berjaya mencuri tumpuan hingga menerima tawaran melanjutkan pengajian di semua 8 buah universiti di bawah Ivy League terkemuka dunia iaitu Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown. Columbia, Cornell dan Penn yang sememangnya menjadi impiannya!. Kini beliau pening untuk memilih yang mana satu!.

Selain menerima tawaran dari 8 universiti di bawah Ivy League, Cassandra juga mendapat tawaran untuk melanjutkan pengajian ke Stanford University, John Hopkins University, University of Southern California, Northwestern University, New York University dan Amherst College.

Bercerita tentang latar belakang pendidikannya, Cassandra memperolehi GPA 4.67 dan mendapat keputusan 1540 dalam SATs. Tidak sekadar hebat dalam akademik, beliau pernah dua kali menjadi presiden badan pertubuhan pelajar, ketua pengarang majalah sekolah dan aktif dalam semua aktiviti yang dianjurkan. Paling mengagumkan, beliau pernah menimba pengalaman melalui sesi temubual di karpet merah untuk anugerah besar, tayangan perdana, sidang media termasuk menemuramah Chris Evans.

Ramai hendak tahu apa kaitan Cassandra dengan Malaysia?. Walaupun Cassandra sudah berhijrah sejak beliau berusia 5 tahun lagi, ibunya, Grace Gan berasal dari Malaysia dan telah berkahwin dengan bapanya dari negara Taiwan dan keluarga kini menetap di Walnut, Selatan California. Ada juga bau-bau bacang tu!. Hiks!

Anda mesti nak baca esei karangan yang ditulis oleh Cassandra ini bukan? Anda nilaikan sendiri hebat tak hebat!. Kami kongsikan dibawah :

In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.

In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for “cashing out demons.” I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.

Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?

My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, “This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.

When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, “That’s enough.”

“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”

We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.

As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.

In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.

Kepada yang hendak "Stalk", nahh kami kongsikan sahaja secara percuma dengan klik sahaja! Instragram dan Facebook Cassandra, Hihi. Jadi, pada anda yang tidak fasih berbahasa Inggeris itu, jadikan Cassandra ini sebagai sumber inspirasi, Bahasa Inggeris itu hanyalah bahasa, ianya bukan untuk mengukur kepandaian seseorang hanya sebab dia fasih berbahasa Inggeris!. "Cakap sahajalah pedulikan grammar nanti dia betul sendiri!". Hiks!.