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

the time and I found it too hard. However, these two years provided me with an
opportunity to witness how harsh the life could be in the rural China. Many years
later, whenever I have a difficult time, I always tell myself there could not be
anything worse than coping with the life in that village. If you very much dislike or
fear such life conditions, you will work harder to make a difference. Now I believe
my experience in those two years has motivated me to strive against the odds in my
later life. Every time I recollect my memory of living in the village, I feel appreciative
for the decision my father had made even though I did not see it that way at the time.
Soon after I reunited with my family, we moved to a small city and my father gave up
the private business and joined a state-owned factory as an engineer. The main reason
for the move was that my father wanted me and my brother to get a better education
in a city. My study in high school was not standing out at all. I attributed this to the
fact that I had received a disadvantaged primary school education in the small town
and the village. However, I made a real effort to catch up with the rest of the class in
the following six years. I was suffering in some of the subjects. For example, I did not
enjoy the subjects like English and politics. It seemed all subjects were taught for the
purpose of preparing for different levels of the exam. I did not see how they could
apply to real life. I did not do very well in the National College Entrance Exam in
1996. I only managed to be accepted on a two-year diploma course in a provincial
agricultural university. I was admitted to a course to study Food Sanitation and
Quarantine.
I enjoyed every minute of the two years at the agricultural university. The university
is located in Zhengzhou, a provincial city famous for its light industry and its location
as a transportation hub linking many parts of China. Studying at the university
provided me with a new perspective in life. If the experience of the village showed me
how harsh life could be, then my initial university experience convinced me how
wonderful life and the future could be. Without the burden of exams, I just enjoyed
learning more and fully participating in many student societies and clubs. I was
rewarded with a small scholarship for each term based on my academic performance;
I was an athlete competing in 10,000 metre races and I was even selected to join the
Communist Party at the end of the first year. Everything seemed very rosy and, like
many other university students, I was expecting to be assigned to a job by the state
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