The Emotional Common App Essay That Got Me Into the Ivy League
By Kevin Zhen, Yale ’20 East Asian Studies
Sophomore year has just ended and it’s the morning of my second day of summer vacation. My mother shakes me, waking me from my eleven-hour slumber.
“Sai lou,” she whispers in Cantonese. “Remember, you have to work at the restaurant today. Your father needs you.”
I rub my eyes with the tips of my fingers. I shake my head. No, I just got home, I need time to recover.
***
There’s no breakfast on the table when I arrive. The food is by the stairs, in the plastic containers from my uncle’s restaurant. My father is sitting on our shoe bench. His head is bent towards his knees. His right forearm is in a cast. His middle finger is taped to his index and fourth finger in a makeshift splint. He tries to put on his grey sneakers that were once white, but fails. I rush to his side and help him. When we’re finished, we head to work together.
***
I have worked in the restaurant before, but today is different. Instead of answering phones or wiping down tables, I’m in the kitchen, moving between stoves that breathe steam and heat and sweat.
The mornings are slow, so my father takes this opportunity to guide me through my duties. He speaks softly. First, he gives me a tutorial on the small wok used to cook main dishes. Then, the fryer. Finally, the large wok used to cook fried rice.
At the other side of the kitchen, my uncle laughs. “Let me tell you something, sai lou. If you learn anything, it should be how to fry rice. A Chinese man who doesn’t know how to cook fried rice is like an Italian man who doesn’t know how to cook pasta.”
Dad lets Uncle take over when we move to the large wok. Uncle watches me closely during my first few batches. “Not too slow. Then the rice burns. Not too fast. Then the rice doesn’t cook evenly.”
“Here, let me give you a small batch. Those are a bit easier.” He fetches the rice and ingredients, dumping them in the center of the wok. “Try now.”
I cook for several minutes, tossing the rice in the heavy wok.
When I’m done, Uncle reaches in, and plucks a few grains of rice to try. “Not bad!” he says. “Already better than your cousins!”
***
Yet despite Uncle’s jolly attitude, I hated every day I worked at the restaurant. There’d be no time for sitting, for loitering. We’d work ten hours a day on weekdays, twelve on the weekends. My days had been stolen from me. Life in the kitchen was physically grueling, too: smoke in my eyes, strained muscles from the repetitive work, burns from the deep fryer.
Once, I even considered faking sick so I wouldn’t have to cook anymore, but the thought quickly disappeared as I realized that my injured father would take my place.
***
Three weeks later, as we’re driving home at midnight after a particularly busy Saturday night, my father turns off the radio. He turns to me, coughs and says, “At first, I didn’t think you could do it. But then you showed up every day, woke up every morning, and came with me to the restaurant. You worked in the kitchen. You put in the hours. And never once, did you ever say you were tired.”
He leans over the passenger seat, embracing me in a rare hug. “I’m so proud of you, son,” he says. “And I want you to know that I love you.”
I stare at my hands on the steering wheel. Grip them tighter. I sniffle, and as I make the left turn on 104th onto the final stretch home, I realize that what I have done this month is what my father has done for twenty years, and I am filled with a sense of relentless gratitude.
