Bruce Lee's Adaptation Analysis

“Be formless, shapeless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow and it can crash. Be water my friend.” This quote from my childhood hero Bruce Lee has given me inspiration and motivation to adapt to changes in my life and to keep working. Adaptation has always assumed a big role in my life. Whether be it moving to new cities in my grade school years, or immigrating to Canada when I was eight years old, I was faced with the task of acclimating to my new living environment. My family is based in Xi’an: a mid-sized city in central China. Due to my father’s work requirements my parents and I moved very frequently in my elementary school years. We relocated cities every few months and I was put in an alien environment with new schoolmates, neighbors, dialects and cultural practices. I took on the challenge to make new friends, learn new dialects and accommodate to new customs every time I arrived at a new city. Although keeping up with school work and staying in touch with old friends was hard without the aid of readily available internet, I tried my very best to maintain my existing friendships and
stay up to date with the academia. All the hard work and sweat my family has put out did not go unrewarded: my family’s application for Canadian immigration was approved and a new chapter of my life was started. Prior to my arrival in Canada I knew absolutely nothing about English as a language. I received minimal English education in my school and the English prep classes I attended afterschool proved to be unfruitful too. Adaptation again became a key in my life. I was in a school with a completely different education system to what I was used to and in addition to that I did not understand the words the people around me were speaking. With the support of my parents I signed up for English classes and spent hours of my spare time to ameliorate my understanding of English. With two years of work I finally was fully accustomed to English and was able to successfully get into a private school to further my education in high school. From there with my previous experiences in learning Chinese dialects I decided to learn the French language in school for the next few years. All this adapting and changing has influenced me tremendously.
This has made me become resilient and versatile. With my family’s business background combined with my past experiences regarding adaptation I aspire to be a successful business person in this ever-changing global economic climate. I yearn to work internationally in the field of business and I hope one day I can fulfill this dream. I can envision myself pursuing my aspirations on a UC campus in the future. With the UC system being one of the best public school systems in the world, having a diverse multicultural environment, and being in the IT business state of the world, I believe strongly that I can entrust myself and my future learning right here at
UC.