The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

Figure 5.11: Peter‘s perception of his learning experience in the UK between September 2008 and April 2009
There are four children in my family including me, plus my parents and my grandmother (my
grandfather went to Thailand doing business when he was young but died in an accident), so
the total number of my family member is seven. My mother is a housewife. She and my
grandmother brought me and my sibs up. When I was a child my father was the only resource
of money in the family; he had to become a businessman in order to bear this heavy burden.
My family status is a common one among the Chaoshan families. In my opinion, the osmosis
of the huge family and the husband doing business sowed a seed within my heart, or within
most of the Children‘s hearts in Chaoshan family, that our future is like our fathers‘ – doing
business. It influenced my opinion towards education before I moved to Guangzhou – one
modern city of China, but after settling in Guangzhou, my opinion towards education
changed. So I divide my schooling in China into two parts: the period when I was in Shantou
and the period when I was in Guangzhou.
The schooling in Shantou
I studied at two different schools in Shantou before my family moved to Guangzhou. During
that time, as with quite a few of my peers, I didn‘t care much about study. We dreamed of
being a businessman after University or even high school. The function of Education is like a
triangle with a horizontal top rather than a pinnacle as follows:
The horizontal top for me was like the level of high school education, I got useful knowledge
until high school, and then after the high school education, it meant little of importance to
me, or it could even waste my time if I continued to a higher education level. So, I spent little
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