THE "GRANDMA'S KIMCHI" COLLEGE

ESSAY EXAMPLE
This essay could work for prompts 1 and 7 for the Common App.

Every Saturday morning, I’d awaken to the smell of crushed garlic and piquant pepper. I would
stumble into the kitchen to find my grandma squatting over a large silver bowl, mixing fat lips of
fresh cabbages with garlic, salt, and red pepper. That was how the delectable Korean dish,
kimchi, was born every weekend at my home.

My grandma’s specialty always dominated the dinner table as kimchi filled every plate. And like
my grandma who had always been living with us, it seemed as though the luscious smell of
garlic would never leave our home. But even the prided recipe was defenseless against the
ravages of Alzheimer’s that inflicted my grandma’s mind.

Dementia slowly fed on her memories until she became as blank as a brand-new notebook. The
ritualistic rigor of Saturday mornings came to a pause, and during dinner, the artificial taste of
vacuum-packaged factory kimchi only emphasized the absence of the family tradition. I would
look at her and ask, “Grandma, what’s my name?” But she would stare back at me with a
clueless expression. Within a year of diagnosis, she lived with us like a total stranger.

One day, my mom brought home fresh cabbages and red pepper sauce. She brought out the old
silver bowl and poured out the cabbages, smothering them with garlic and salt and pepper. The
familiar tangy smell tingled my nose. Gingerly, my grandma stood up from the couch in the
living room, and as if lured by the smell, sat by the silver bowl and dug her hands into the spiced
cabbages. As her bony hands shredded the green lips, a look of determination grew on her face.
Though her withered hands no longer displayed the swiftness and precision they once did, her
face showed the aged rigor of a professional. For the first time in years, the smell of garlic filled
the air and the rattling of the silver bowl resonated throughout the house.

That night, we ate kimchi. It wasn’t perfect; the cabbages were clumsily cut and the garlic was a
little too strong. But kimchi had never tasted better. I still remember my grandma putting a piece
in my mouth and saying, “Here, Dong Jin. Try it, my boy.”

Seeing grandma again this summer, that moment of clarity seemed ephemeral. Her disheveled
hair and expressionless face told of the aggressive development of her illness.

But holding her hands, looking into her eyes, I could still smell that garlic. The moments of
Saturday mornings remain ingrained in my mind. Grandma was an artist who painted the
cabbages with strokes of red pepper. Like the sweet taste of kimchi, I hope to capture those
memories in my keystrokes as I type away these words.

A piece of writing is more than just a piece of writing. It evokes. It inspires. It captures what time
takes away.
My grandma used to say: “Tigers leave furs when they die, humans leave their names.” Her
legacy was the smell of garlic that lingered around my house. Mine will be these words.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE "TRAVEL AND LANGUAGE"

When I was very little, I caught the travel bug. It started after my grandparents first brought me
to their home in France and I have now been to twenty-nine different countries. Each has given
me a unique learning experience.

At five, I marveled at the Eiffel Tower in the City of Lights. When I was eight, I stood in the
heart of Piazza San Marco feeding hordes of pigeons, then glided down Venetian waterways on
sleek gondolas. At thirteen, I saw the ancient, megalithic structure of Stonehenge and walked
along the Great Wall of China, amazed that the thousand-year-old stones were still in place.

It was through exploring cultures around the world that I first became interested in language.

It began with French, which taught me the importance of pronunciation. I remember once asking
a store owner in Paris where Rue des Pyramides was. But when I pronounced it PYR–a–mides
instead of pyr–A–mides, with more accent on the A, she looked at me bewildered.

In the eighth grade, I became fascinated with Spanish and aware of its similarities with English
through cognates. Baseball in Spanish, for example, is béisbol, which looks different but sounds
nearly the same. This was incredible to me as it made speech and comprehension more fluid, and
even today I find that cognates come to the rescue when I forget how to say something in
Spanish.

Then, in high school, I developed an enthusiasm for Chinese. As I studied Chinese at my school,
I marveled how if just one stroke was missing from a character, the meaning is lost. I loved how
long words were formed by combining simpler characters, so Huǒ (火) meaning fire and Shān
(山) meaning mountain can be joined to create Huǒshān (火山), which means volcano. I love
spending hours at a time practicing the characters and I can feel the beauty and rhythm as I form
them.

Interestingly, after studying foreign languages, I was further intrigued by my native tongue.
Through my love of books and fascination with developing a sesquipedalian lexicon (learning
big words), I began to expand my English vocabulary. Studying the definitions prompted me to
inquire about their origins, and suddenly I wanted to know all about etymology, the history of
words. My freshman year I took a world history class and my love for history grew
exponentially. To me, history is like a great novel, and it is especially fascinating because it took
place in my own world.

But the best dimension that language brought to my life is interpersonal connection. When I
speak with people in their native language, I find I can connect with them on a more intimate
level. I’ve connected with people in the most unlikely places, finding a Bulgarian painter to use
my few Bulgarian words with in the streets of Paris, striking up a conversation in Spanish with
an Indian woman who used to work at the Argentinian embassy in Mumbai, and surprising a
library worker by asking her a question in her native Mandarin.

I want to study foreign language and linguistics in college because, in short, it is something that I
know I will use and develop for the rest of my life. I will never stop traveling, so attaining
fluency in foreign languages will only benefit me. In the future, I hope to use these skills as the
foundation of my work, whether it is in international business, foreign diplomacy, or translation.

I think of my journey as best expressed through a Chinese proverb that my teacher taught me, “I
am like a chicken eating at a mountain of rice.” Each grain is another word for me to learn as I
strive to satisfy my unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Today, I still have the travel bug, and now, it seems, I am addicted to language too.

Click here for this student's amazing Instagram photos.

THE "DEAD BIRD" EXAMPLE COLLEGE

 Smeared blood, shredded feathers. Clearly, the bird was dead. But wait, the slight fluctuation of
its chest, the slow blinking of its shiny black eyes. No, it was alive.

I had been typing an English essay when I heard my cat's loud meows and the flutter of wings. I
had turned slightly at the noise and had found the barely breathing bird in front of me.

The shock came first. Mind racing, heart beating faster, blood draining from my face. I
instinctively reached out my hand to hold it, like a long-lost keepsake from my youth. But then I
remembered that birds had life, flesh, blood.

Death. Dare I say it out loud? Here, in my own home?

Within seconds, my reflexes kicked in. Get over the shock. Gloves, napkins, towels. Band-aid?
How does one heal a bird? I rummaged through the house, keeping a wary eye on my cat.
Donning yellow rubber gloves, I tentatively picked up the bird. Never mind the cat's hissing and
protesting scratches, you need to save the bird. You need to ease its pain.

But my mind was blank. I stroked the bird with a paper towel to clear away the blood, see the
wound. The wings were crumpled, the feet mangled. A large gash extended close to its jugular
rendering its breathing shallow, unsteady. The rising and falling of its small breast slowed. Was
the bird dying? No, please, not yet. 

Why was this feeling so familiar, so tangible?

Oh. Yes. The long drive, the green hills, the white church, the funeral. The Chinese mass, the
resounding amens, the flower arrangements. Me, crying silently, huddled in the corner. The
Hsieh family huddled around the casket. Apologies. So many apologies. Finally, the body
lowered to rest. The body. Kari Hsieh. Still familiar, still tangible.

Hugging Mrs. Hsieh, I was a ghost, a statue. My brain and my body competed. Emotion wrestled
with fact. Kari Hsieh, aged 17, my friend of four years, had died in the Chatsworth Metrolink
Crash on Sep. 12, 2008. Kari was dead, I thought. Dead.

But I could still save the bird.

My frantic actions heightened my senses, mobilized my spirit. Cupping the bird, I ran outside,
hoping the cool air outdoors would suture every wound, cause the bird to miraculously fly away.
Yet there lay the bird in my hands, still gasping, still dying. Bird, human, human, bird. What was
the difference? Both were the same. Mortal.

But couldn't I do something? Hold the bird longer, de-claw the cat? I wanted to go to my
bedroom, confine myself to tears, replay my memories, never come out. 

The bird's warmth faded away. Its heartbeat slowed along with its breath. For a long time, I
stared thoughtlessly at it, so still in my hands.

Slowly, I dug a small hole in the black earth. As it disappeared under handfuls of dirt, my own
heart grew stronger, my own breath more steady.

The wind, the sky, the dampness of the soil on my hands whispered to me, “The bird is dead.
Kari has passed. But you are alive.” My breath, my heartbeat, my sweat sighed back, “I am alive.
I am alive. I am alive.”