Pupil Selina wins prize in Chinese essay writing competition
Selina tells us what inspired her to enter the competition and how she enjoyed the writing process:
'When I was informed by my Economics teacher that there was an essay competition on ‘Bridging the culture gap between China and the West’, I was totally enthralled and immediately decided to sign up for it. My experience as a Chinese girl who studies in the West provides me with an excellent perspective to analyse this phenomenon.
'In my essay, I identified and examined several factors which I deemed as critical to this problem, for instance: the principle difference in the educational system, family values, historical development and way of living in general. Then, I introduced several ways in which we can potentially overcome these problems e.g. learning from each other , promoting a deeper understanding of the differences in family structure and other issues. This could be achieved through better informed media coverage, as well as maintaining stable economic collaborations to encourage further cooperation and understanding. At the end, I raised an ultimate question of whether the cultural gap should really be ‘closed’ as precious cultural distinctiveness may disappear throughout the process of narrowing the gap.
'I have never thought of winning any prize, but I was indeed contented when SACU honoured me with the third prize. However more importantly to me, I enjoyed the process of writing this essay as it provided me with a great opportunity to investigate the existing problems in greater depth, and made me realize how few people from both China and the West have done it. I hope through reading my essay, more people will be aware of the problems surrounding cultural gaps'
