Is this a good start for my essay?

College Essays
1

<p>im writing about moving to a foreign country and these are just a few paragraphs ive started</p>

<p>There is something you should know about me before we continue. It’s not something I am proud of, but here it goes: I can’t hold chopsticks. You see, growing up nestled in Old Brookville, NY, population 2,244, there isn’t a hefty demand for local Asian sundries, or my mother’s homespun pork dumplings. Saturdays typically consists of fighting in English with my older sister in the backseat for 18 miles until we reached Grand Szechuan in Flushing, sampling an eclectic variety of what my mother so calls “Authentic” Asian cuisine, followed by regurgitations of my grandfather’s usual stories of ship building and farming. I never paid too much attention to my grandpa as I gorged my fork into the turntable of dishes, ranging from duck’s feet to soup dumpling that spread before my eyes. Always disappointed with the small amount of sliced ginger the dish would come with, Ellen and I again fought to the death for our share of the zest. Nevertheless, this became our routine for the first five years.</p>

<p>The next five years would seem like a blur. I don’t recall the circumstances that led to me being pulled from first grade, just that my father had an emergency and needed to fly to Taipei, Taiwan for his avocation. Soon I found myself stuck between a militant 34D who would not relinquish our hand rest and a crying baby. Upon landing, wearing nothing but a Rolling Stones t-shirt and my G.I Joe in one hand, I was greeted by an onslaught of mosquitoes. Wondering why the local cabbie wasn’t stung, he simply retorted “蚊子只有叮咬美國人”, a literal translation of how mosquitoes only bite Americans. Something about how they liked the taste of foreign meat. </p>

<p>Supplementing my anxiety as a pariah the local markets only intensified my ostracism. The local flavors of caged snakes, live chickens, frogs and live dog only developed an unsettling culture clash in my liver. I could literally taste the bile in the back of my mouth. How different our two worlds were going to be for the next 5 years. How the first day of school I was required to wear a red and green uniform from Nan Bei.</p>

2

<p>Sounds like a great start! You don’t really need to mention the population though. You should probably mention that Ellen is your sister more directly.</p>

3

<p>I feel like your opening will be more of an identifiable “hook” if you delete the sort of dry introduction, and simply start with “I can’t hold chopsticks”. You also seem to be attempting to impress with a bunch of randomly placed “vocab words” but colleges are more interested in the getting-to-know-you aspect of the essay, and your whole story can become arid if you replace the necessity for intimacy (as essays are colleges way of really getting to know you) with your flaunting of your vocabulary. The last suggestion I would make is you should really highlight the contrast between the Chinese and American (ie arguing in English, but then eating an “authentic” (why are there quotations around it?) Chinese dinner), because then it shows how multi-cultured you are. The essay has potential and I think it is a great topic to write about!!</p>

4

<p>^I agree, only I might change the opening to something along the lines of “I hate to admit it, but I can’t hold chopsticks.” Personally, I don’t think the vocab sounds particularly forced - I can see how that could be natural. But that’s just my own opinion, idk about how it would actually be viewed in an admissions office.</p>

<p>This is a very solid start! Just make sure most of your essay is about YOU, not descriptions of other things.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>