Rhetorical analysis
In this memoir, I did a photo essay on my first visit to the Chinatown here in Atlanta. I took several pictures in a barber shop in Chinatown to show the lifestyles and living conditions of people in Chinatown. In addition, I used pictures of Chinese international students at Emory to make a comparison of their lifestyles with the Chinese people in Chinatown.
From definition, we know that a memoir is a reflection on a past experience that has a profound effect on the writer. Although due to my limitated photography skills, I could not demonstrate my emotions adequately in just several photos. When I took them and actually experienced the Chinatown during my visit there, it was really impactful. The photo essay I compiled counts as a memoir because it has a significant meaning to me. It shows how I came to know the conditions of the Chinese people in Atlanta other than the international students at Emory. Because of that visit and experience in the Chinatown, I learned that not every Chinese person in America is from wealthy families and does not need to worry about the money. Some of them lead an uneasy and significantly less interesting life that the international students have. I realized how lucky I am to have the life I have right now and I should appreciate what I have. I should be as diligent as the people in Chinatown in order to achieve my dreams.
There are eight pictures about Chinatown in my photo essay. In the first picture, I want to show Chinatown in Atlanta in general. It is the main gate to Chinatown. There are many different types of shops around the main gate. For this picture, I wanted to give everyone an overall impression of Chinatown. The second picture is to show how the Chinese barber in Chinatown looks. From his dressing styles and other small details I wanted to give an example of how most of the Chinese people here in Atlanta Chinatown look alike. Most of their clothes are cheap and old. They brought most of them from China because they wanted to save money by not buying new clothing here in America. The third picture consists of several small pictures. They are basically taken in the shopping center and restaurants in Chinatown. These places are where people living there usually go every day. In the fourth picture, the barber is cutting the hair of a young Chinese international student. The international student is dressed up in a lot of very expensive brands like Givenchy and Louis Vuitton. (Although in this picture the clothes of the student are covered by a cloth because he is having his hair cut, we can still see how he is dressed in a later photo.) However, the barber wears something old style and cheap. He brought the clothes back from China himself. For the fourth picture, I put two pictures together to make juxtaposition. One is a very cheap and pre-owned car owned by the barber in the Chinatown. The other one is a nice looking brand new car of an international student. I also use juxtaposition in the last photo. One photo is a young Chinese student smoking casually outside a restaurant. Although it is noon already, he still looks very tired. The other one is a hair stylist. She begins to cut hair for others at 6:30a.m. Although it was early, she still looks energetic and focused.
I think that my photo essay is a memoir because a memoir is supposed to evoke emotions and should be quite descriptive. Although I am not very good at taking photos and my only device is the cell phone, in this photo essay, I still tried my best to use the light and other effects to convey my feelings to the people who look at the pictures. What is more, in my photo essay, I use juxtaposition, which is a new technique I learned recently. I hope that in this way I can convey what I want to express more clearly.
That visit to the Chinatown really had a great impact on me. Before the visit, all the Chinese people I met in Atlanta were international students at Emory. Almost all of them are from wealthy families in China. They came to America to explore and experience the world outside. They do not have to care about money and how they can make a living here in America because their parents have already paid the high tuition for their college education and gave them more than enough money for living expenses. They buy expensive and new style famous brand clothes and some of them even buy luxurious cars like Lamborghini and Maserati. In their concepts, they do not know what saving money is. All they care about is just their GPA and having fun. Before I visit Chinatown, I was just one of the “Rich Second Generation Chinese”. We typically had a party every weekend at a Chinese Karaoke and stayed in a five star luxury hotel when we had vacation during spring week. I think that every Chinese person in America is the same as us. However when I visited Chinatown, what I saw and experienced totally changed my mind. I saw different living styles and how people made a living on their own and try their best to save money. That really touched me. I began to think that I should not waste my parents’ money. What is more, besides using money wisely, I should be more diligent and try to get a job in order to earn some money for daily expenses. This semester I reduced the pocket money from my dad by 30% and found a job in Woodruff Library.
That visit to Chinatown really provided a chance for me to learn about the living conditions of other Chinese people, not the international students in America. Knowing their lives really changed my way of thinking. It was an event that was really important to me and impacted me a lot. Thus, I think that if my photo essay is based on that Chinatown visit, it can definitely count as a memoir.
I enjoy doing meditation every night before I go to bed. After the visit to the Chinatown. I always think of one question in my mind. “Does Atlanta mean the same to the Chinese people in Chinatown and the international students at Emory?” Now, I think that it is not the same because the differences they have in Atlanta. For most of the international students in Atlanta, this city is just where they go to college. They come here just to get an education and explore a new world. To them Atlanta may be new and fun. Most of them will still leave the city right after graduation. After they leave, maybe Atlanta is nothing special but just a familiar city on the map. However, for the Chinese people that stay in Atlanta, the city means more to them. It is a place where they make a living. Compared to their hometown, it is their second home. They easily feel that they belong here. Their lives may be hard and not that fun, but they will still have more personal emotions attached to the city than the international students have. I think that this really solidifies the point that Yi-Fu Tuan holds that it is our personal experience or self-interaction with a place that makes a space a place and makes it special. He holds the belief a place is somewhere in which we put a lot of our own personal emotions (Tuan 8). The reason Chinese students and local Chinese Americans hold different feelings towards the same city, or the same space, is because of their different experiences in it.
In conclusion, the photo essay should be considered a memoir because of the sentimental characteristics it has. The experience of the trip to Chinatown still has big influences on my living style and attitudes right now. That visit and the meditation on it can also be easily related to Tuan’s idea on space and place that we have learned so far in this semester.
Works Cited
Tuan, Yi-Fu. “The Perspective of Experience.” Space and Place. 3-18. Print.
From definition, we know that a memoir is a reflection on a past experience that has a profound effect on the writer. Although due to my limitated photography skills, I could not demonstrate my emotions adequately in just several photos. When I took them and actually experienced the Chinatown during my visit there, it was really impactful. The photo essay I compiled counts as a memoir because it has a significant meaning to me. It shows how I came to know the conditions of the Chinese people in Atlanta other than the international students at Emory. Because of that visit and experience in the Chinatown, I learned that not every Chinese person in America is from wealthy families and does not need to worry about the money. Some of them lead an uneasy and significantly less interesting life that the international students have. I realized how lucky I am to have the life I have right now and I should appreciate what I have. I should be as diligent as the people in Chinatown in order to achieve my dreams.
There are eight pictures about Chinatown in my photo essay. In the first picture, I want to show Chinatown in Atlanta in general. It is the main gate to Chinatown. There are many different types of shops around the main gate. For this picture, I wanted to give everyone an overall impression of Chinatown. The second picture is to show how the Chinese barber in Chinatown looks. From his dressing styles and other small details I wanted to give an example of how most of the Chinese people here in Atlanta Chinatown look alike. Most of their clothes are cheap and old. They brought most of them from China because they wanted to save money by not buying new clothing here in America. The third picture consists of several small pictures. They are basically taken in the shopping center and restaurants in Chinatown. These places are where people living there usually go every day. In the fourth picture, the barber is cutting the hair of a young Chinese international student. The international student is dressed up in a lot of very expensive brands like Givenchy and Louis Vuitton. (Although in this picture the clothes of the student are covered by a cloth because he is having his hair cut, we can still see how he is dressed in a later photo.) However, the barber wears something old style and cheap. He brought the clothes back from China himself. For the fourth picture, I put two pictures together to make juxtaposition. One is a very cheap and pre-owned car owned by the barber in the Chinatown. The other one is a nice looking brand new car of an international student. I also use juxtaposition in the last photo. One photo is a young Chinese student smoking casually outside a restaurant. Although it is noon already, he still looks very tired. The other one is a hair stylist. She begins to cut hair for others at 6:30a.m. Although it was early, she still looks energetic and focused.
I think that my photo essay is a memoir because a memoir is supposed to evoke emotions and should be quite descriptive. Although I am not very good at taking photos and my only device is the cell phone, in this photo essay, I still tried my best to use the light and other effects to convey my feelings to the people who look at the pictures. What is more, in my photo essay, I use juxtaposition, which is a new technique I learned recently. I hope that in this way I can convey what I want to express more clearly.
That visit to the Chinatown really had a great impact on me. Before the visit, all the Chinese people I met in Atlanta were international students at Emory. Almost all of them are from wealthy families in China. They came to America to explore and experience the world outside. They do not have to care about money and how they can make a living here in America because their parents have already paid the high tuition for their college education and gave them more than enough money for living expenses. They buy expensive and new style famous brand clothes and some of them even buy luxurious cars like Lamborghini and Maserati. In their concepts, they do not know what saving money is. All they care about is just their GPA and having fun. Before I visit Chinatown, I was just one of the “Rich Second Generation Chinese”. We typically had a party every weekend at a Chinese Karaoke and stayed in a five star luxury hotel when we had vacation during spring week. I think that every Chinese person in America is the same as us. However when I visited Chinatown, what I saw and experienced totally changed my mind. I saw different living styles and how people made a living on their own and try their best to save money. That really touched me. I began to think that I should not waste my parents’ money. What is more, besides using money wisely, I should be more diligent and try to get a job in order to earn some money for daily expenses. This semester I reduced the pocket money from my dad by 30% and found a job in Woodruff Library.
That visit to Chinatown really provided a chance for me to learn about the living conditions of other Chinese people, not the international students in America. Knowing their lives really changed my way of thinking. It was an event that was really important to me and impacted me a lot. Thus, I think that if my photo essay is based on that Chinatown visit, it can definitely count as a memoir.
I enjoy doing meditation every night before I go to bed. After the visit to the Chinatown. I always think of one question in my mind. “Does Atlanta mean the same to the Chinese people in Chinatown and the international students at Emory?” Now, I think that it is not the same because the differences they have in Atlanta. For most of the international students in Atlanta, this city is just where they go to college. They come here just to get an education and explore a new world. To them Atlanta may be new and fun. Most of them will still leave the city right after graduation. After they leave, maybe Atlanta is nothing special but just a familiar city on the map. However, for the Chinese people that stay in Atlanta, the city means more to them. It is a place where they make a living. Compared to their hometown, it is their second home. They easily feel that they belong here. Their lives may be hard and not that fun, but they will still have more personal emotions attached to the city than the international students have. I think that this really solidifies the point that Yi-Fu Tuan holds that it is our personal experience or self-interaction with a place that makes a space a place and makes it special. He holds the belief a place is somewhere in which we put a lot of our own personal emotions (Tuan 8). The reason Chinese students and local Chinese Americans hold different feelings towards the same city, or the same space, is because of their different experiences in it.
In conclusion, the photo essay should be considered a memoir because of the sentimental characteristics it has. The experience of the trip to Chinatown still has big influences on my living style and attitudes right now. That visit and the meditation on it can also be easily related to Tuan’s idea on space and place that we have learned so far in this semester.
Works Cited
Tuan, Yi-Fu. “The Perspective of Experience.” Space and Place. 3-18. Print.