Reflective Essay-Week 7

In the article “You’re Short, Besides!” author Sucheng Chan tells her story of what life has been like being handicapped due to having pneumonia and polio as a child. She grew up in a country and in a home where her disability was often looked down upon because it was often believed that she must have led a sinful and destructive life in her previous lives or that it was a result of her father’s rambunctious behavior as a young man. The search to find a school that would accept her was almost as difficult as finding the money to pay for the American school she ended up attending along with the cost of hiring an “amah” who would take care of her while at school. She excelled at school and was the star of her class. When moving to different countries, Chan notices the difference in the way different cultures will react to her disability. Her life has its shares of troubles and trials but that never held her back.

Most people probably cannot relate to Chan’s condition and the struggles that she goes through daily, but through her very descriptive language you feel as if you can be a part of her story whether you are that small girl asking why that person is in a wheelchair or are the one who has befriended someone with a disability. She wants to make the story as real to the reader as possible. She also does this through the organization of her article. The chronological order of mini autobiography is effective and only makes sense. It allows her story to naturally progress in such a way so her audience can easily follow.

Through her persistence and life examples, Chan comes across as being a very strong willed and adamant character. She does not want to be pitied simply because she cannot walk like everyone else. Her tone contains a tinge of bitterness. She dislikes that no matter where she seems to go, people do not know how to treat her and respond to her handicap, even her friends and a professor whom she admires. People go about it a number of ways, making fun of her disability, asking what happened out of curiosity, ignore it entirely and say she is capable of things she knows she is not. She is real and vulnerable to the audience.

Chan’s use of imagery, organization and tone all play a large role in making her paper an affective one. Her strong use of emotions and the pictures it provides draws in her audience while the organization keeps them reading a naturally flowing article. Although her tone may not be the most uplifting, it undoubtedly adds to the imagery and the gives a better representation of what Chan goes through on a regular basis.