Personal Narrative

I remember a few months after I settled into Shanghai, my mother took me to a ballet class. Back when I lived in Australia, I adored my dance classes, so when I found out I was overjoyed. As we headed to the studio, I had on a leotard that a parent from Australia had made for me. It was a gorgeous rose pink and its nylon fabric reflected against the light, with that a smooth, lightweight chiffon skirt wrapped around my waist, below, typical ballerina tights. I steadily walked into the class in my itty- bitty ballet shoes. As the class began, I was nervous but yet a part of me was also excited. The class was utterly amazing; the room was filled with plies, tondus and grand battements. We crossed the room with jetes, a move that made me feel
like I could fly. For the first time, I felt like I belonged and despite the changes around me, dance was the one thing that was still constant in my life.
Leaving Australia to live in Shanghai was the biggest challenge of my life.
Having my first few concrete memories come from Australia, I was used to living in a western culture. Shanghai left me to feel abandoned in an unknown land, as the lifestyle was completely different from what I was familiar with.
In Sydney, everyone lived as a community. People believed that participating in collective activities were extremely important. They did not value intellect as much as they valued the social aspect in building relationships. On the other hand, Shanghai seemed to focus on living life more independently. People concentrated on how they could help themselves improve before they considered helping others. Unlike the people in Australia, people in Shanghai believed that your intelligence defined you. I was torn between two completely different cultures and was left in the middle to decide which side to pick. Dance played a major role in terms of helping me to accept the move from Australia to Shanghai and shaped the person I am today. This remarkable performing art consists mainly of two aspects, technicality and emotion. Technique can be determined through numbers. It refers to how many turns you can do, how beautiful your arch is, how high you can lift your leg. Emotion is what makes you special. It cannot be differentiated through numbers or figures, but rather through how you express yourself and how your performance makes the audience feel. Dance took these two aspects and blended them together to create one magnificent performing
art. Just like dance, I took two different aspects from the cultures of Australia and Shanghai and utilized it to shape my personal values. The culture in China represents the technicality in my life. Throughout my life in Shanghai I learned to become independent, and concentrated on myself. I prioritized my studies and looked at how I could make myself a better person. Shanghai made me realize that in order to help others you must help yourself first. Moreover, culture in Australia represents the emotion found in my life. I became conscious of the fact that it is still important to contribute to the community and the activities you do outside of your studies are what makes you unique. I used these ideas to find a combination of activities that allowed me to stand out. I decided to stay in the middle and embrace both cultures similar to how dance embraces both emotion and technicality. I like to think of myself like dance, not just technical or emotional, but a mixture of both. Not a child who is lost in a war between two cultures, but a child who is stronger from the unity of both.