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ESSAY

What is love? A promise at the altar? The soft kiss of water on parched lips? A flash of his shadowed gray eyes, or the tender caress of pink pigment on her cheekbones?

“I love those Jimmy Choos!”

“I just love the pasta salad at La Madeleine.”

“Love you!”

“Love ya more!”

Love. For a word describing such a powerful emotion, it is always in the air. The word “love” has become so pervasive in everyday conversation that it hardly retains its roots in blazing passion and deep adoration. In fact, the word is thrown about so much that it becomes difficult to believe society isn’t just one huge, smitten party, with everyone holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” In films, it’s the teenage boy’s grudging response to a doting mother. At school, it’s a habitual farewell between friends. But in my Chinese home, it’s never uttered.

Watching my grandmother lie unconscious on the hospital bed, waiting for her body to shut down, was excruciatingly painful. Her final quavering breaths formed a discordant rhythm with the steady beep of hospital equipment and the unsympathetic, tapping hands of the clock. That evening, I whispered—into unhearing ears—the first, and only, “I love you” I ever said to her, my rankling guilt haunting me relentlessly for weeks after her passing. My warm confession seemed anticlimactic, met with only the coldness of my surroundings—the blank room, impassive doctors, and empty silence. I struggled to understand why the “love” that so easily rolled off my tongue when bantering with friends dissipated from my vocabulary when I spoke to my family. Do Chinese people simply love less than Americans do?

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As I look back on seventeen years growing up in my Chinese family, I don’t feel a gaping hole where “love” should be. I see my grandmother with her fluff of white hair, guiding my clumsy fingers as they grip the Chinese calligraphy brush, carefully dip just enough ink onto its thick bristles, and slowly smooth the pigment over tan parchment to form wobbly Chinese characters. I taste the sweet watermelon brought to my room at 3 a.m. during finals week by a worried mother, and I hear the booming voice of my father begging me to get more sleep. I envision baba, dad, waiting in the 100 ℉ heat every day to pick me up from school, just to drive home in traffic-infested roads. My mama, mother, staying home from work to care for my cold, then feeling no resentment when she contracted it herself. My mistakes yielded stern, harsh lectures brimming with concern, while my tears assuaged mama’s irritation. I picture that arcane emotion imprinted in tacit smiles and hidden tears—shining from chests and unabashed pride. Within the realm of my memories, I discovered a truth that lessened my crushing regret at the loss of my grandmother: just because Chinese love, ai, can never render a fondness for Britney Spears’ Toxic or be prostituted to mold description of delicious dishes, the emotion isn’t any more absent, or any less profound. Knowing that I could possibly have shared with my grandmother an implicit love that neither of us chose to address vocally, I could loosen my selfish grip on her past and allow her to ascend into her future.

Although the alien expression “wo ai ni, mama, baba,” would be met with a few awkward blinks and a “How much money do you need?” expression, I feel the fondness of my joking father like “[g]reat drums throbbing through the air [,]” and for my stern mother in “great pulsing tides[,]” as Countee Cullen articulates in Heritage. We Chinese aren’t limited by the cultural and linguistic “love” barrier; we learn, through living together as a family, through our shared experiences, the sensation of true devotion and compassion, and, if that’s not something Americans call love, then I don’t know what “love” is.

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REVIEW

Janice’s nuanced take on the word “love” proves an effective window into her Chinese culture. Here, it turns from musings about love that leave the reader eagerly anticipating Janice’s connection to the topic to a personal account of family and identity. Throughout the essay, she maintains an emotional authenticity that doesn’t feel sappy, which can be a delicate line to tread. A core strength of the essay is the way it demonstrates personal growth. It shows Janice starting at a place of guilt for only professing her love to her grandmother once, and ends with her coming to terms with the ways that love is expressed differently in her family. Through the intimate details that Janice provides about her childhood—such as her mother caring for her when she was sick—the reader gets a genuine sense of who she is and where she comes from.

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While the essay overall reads smoothly, it could benefit from the simplification of some phrases and sentences. Clarity is more important than ornate language. Finally, the quote in the last paragraph feels unnecessary. In such an eloquent and personal essay, turning to someone else’s words seems out of place. Despite these minor weaknesses, Janice does an excellent job of writing an essay that demonstrates her insight, personal growth, and unique voice.

Disclaimer: With exception of the removal of identifying details, essays are reproduced as originally submitted in applications; any errors in submissions are maintained to preserve the integrity of the piece.

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