文书点评：Harvard大学本科申请文书

Increasingly, I find that I'd much rather talk about queerness than write about it. I've yet feel comfortable enough with my words to trust how they frame, limit, and structure my experience. I don't yet notice the experiences for which I have words and those for which I don't. I also wonder how adeptly I can to tease out my sexuality anyway, how well I can place it at center, since my particular queerness has had everything to do with my Asianness and uppermiddleclassness and youth. Again, I've yet to learn how to discuss these weaves in tandem yet, but I will.

Living behind the Orange Curtain, I feel that my sexuality has grounded me outside society. I remember encountering lust during early childhood. I think his name was John, and he was in sixth grade. It seems like my desires have always been there; I simply did not acknowledge them, at first, as particularly interesting or, more tellingly, substantial enough to construct a name, a category, or identity around. My identity remained based in far more conventional structures: although I knew I liked boys, I still expected to become a successful heterosexual doctor, find a dutiful Asian bride, and have an obscene number of children. Sexual orientation, unlike money, racial authenticity, and status, had yet to become a foundation upon which my life rested. Masculinity and sexuality had yet to emerge as an issue.

Gradually, I began to realize that my peers were treating me differently. I wish there was a fresh way to describe alienation, how painful it is to feel like an absolute freak, how name-calling and insults cannot be dismissed as "teasing, " how children relish in making people suffer, but such coming-of-age melodramas become trite, even laughable. I remember them mocking me for innocent hand gestures; I remember beginning to watch myself neurotically for any action that they might construe as effeminate; I remember violence; I remember feeling stiff and stale, like granite, icy, numb, each encounter, each slur and slap laying the blocks, smoothing the mortar of my new, emerging self. From behind the rising walls, I watched them becoming couples and realized that I could never have that easy way, that I could never commune with others without sadness.

My parents only complicated the matter. As traditional Asians, they demanded that I, the eldest son, serve as the tantamount heterosexual, a role model for my brothers, the carrier of the potent seed that would foster the next Chiu generation. Soon I learned that the identity they had built for me not only stood on wealth and cultural and familial loyalties, but around virility and manliness as well. I had been obedient for my entire life, willing to fulfill every expectation. Now I faced disownment. I was terrified; I had lost my sense of direction, false or otherwise. As I grew aware of my Otherness, I began to see my life as a series of illusions. My prospects dissolved, and from these mirages emerged barriers, bastions I had never recognized.

Because what I had always considered natural was now wrong, I was framed as the unacceptable, the deviant. Silently,  insidiously, the world had reified a Self for me, cemented my most intimate and meaningful desires into an identity of Pervert. It had warped me into a suffocating, totalizing essence, pinned me with the girders of weakness, monstros-ity, and leprosy that supported their dichotomous construction of Homosexual. I couldn't let myself stay a freak, so I decided I didn't know who I really was and attempted to redefine myself. First I went ascetic, soaking myself in Buddhism to extinguish my desires, to tear down the source of my aberrant nature. My peers, however, would not let me go so easily. Seeing as they had already decided that my sex-uality was my self, I then decided to seek solace with fellow perverts. So, I came out.

Coming out, I was told, would solve all of my problems. Sure, there would still be the leering, the homophobic slurs, and all that, but I would at least be "proud" of my sexual preference; I would "stand up and be counted." In reality, my momentous coming out was anti-climactic and disappointing. I expected that by telling people that I was gay I would metamorphose into a braver, stronger being. I didn't. To a certain extent, I never rested deeply in the closet anyway; because of my "flamboyance, " my private and public lives never seemed genuinely partitioned or obscured from one another. For me, at least, the closet emerged as another strange edifice, another harsh, warped, and dichotomous lens through which to understand myself.

Consequently I returned to my original foundations, plunging into schoolwork to redeem myself through academic excellence. Still miserable, I turned to extracurricular activities and community service, trying to erect an identity in a facade of social responsibility and activism. I found myself searching for the approval of others. Their praise of my right image, my unperverted, correctly structured image-my stellar transcript, my hours of community service, my ability to blow into a flute and scratch out a few greeting card poems-reassured me of my worth. Despite the rigidity of my A-student identity, I still felt stale and numb, dizzy and nauseous, my body floating in black and crimson. My life was nothing but a series of unstable illusions, shadows that consumed and rejected me, a society that told me that, beneath any self I pieced together, my sexuality made me essentially perverse and nothing more.

I reject these ideas. As Foucault writes, queerness represents a constructed, implanted perversity. People see my sexuality as the defining aspect of my persona. They see it as the sum product of my past and the determining factor of my future. Everywhere people limit me in ways far more insidious than stereotyping or anti-gay legislation. Discrimination against gays and lesbians is not simply a homophobic don't ask don't tell policy: in the contemporary consciousness, homophobia builds queerness into a monolith. With queer individuals reduced to nothing but absolutely, impregnably Queer, dehumanization becomes almost inevitable. There are the obvious examples: the gay bashers, the skinhead neo-Nazis, Jesse Helms, those who decry us as Satanic. Yet with the "gay-friendly" we become perverse too, metamorphosing from devils to ABBA-loving fashion freaks. Even queers sometimes yell too thoughtlessly for gay pride, as if having a sexual preference is something of which to be proud. Sexuality is not an accomplishment; it is not something that reveals who you are; it is not all that you are: it exists as a strand, one interwoven into all the other facets of Self .

What I want is gay dignity and freedom. I want to integrate my sexuality with all the other weaves of my self: burn any architectural plans that mount my gayness above my race, ethnicity, and age. In fact, I'd like to trash any designs on fixing my identity at all. I want for people not to trap me, totalize me in predetermined roles and lifestyles, to tell me that I have to resolve my deviance when they have constructed it for me. With horror, I know that I've lived my sexuality with relative ease, that I've passed through high school relatively unbruised , that I've always been able to wrap my Harvard successes around me like a shawl and beat my enemies back with my résumé. Still I am tired of fearing that I might lose my parents' support and never being able to return home after college. I am tired of wondering if a potential employer finds me too effeminate or if I need to carry mace on-campus. I am tired of having my sexuality dominate me, suffocate me, be my persona.

Of course, I certainly can't take it for granted either. For many years, I've distanced myself from certain queers, naming drag queens, transsexuals, and flaming gay activists as freaks or Other to bolster my sense of normalcy. Only recently did I become a crusading warrior princess myself. Gradually, I am coming to embrace the identity of Homosexual, the identity built so rigidly around my desire and so oppressive to my sense of self, and encourage others to do the same. Screw normalcy. Only through reappropriating this artificial category of Queerness we can name ourselves as a community. Only through political mobilization can we reclaim what it means to live Gay, bring our multiplicity as individuals to light, and achieve equity in our lives. Coming out means avowal, a desperately needed acknowledgment of yourself and your peers and a commitment to fight for them: not necessarily a collision of the theoretically public and private. Queers need to proclaim their supposedly perverse subculture, a subculture borne in the oppression, resistance, and struggle within and between the queer and straight communities. We must seek equity through visibility. Moreover, while our identities may remain socially constructed, their fabrication does not make them any less meaningful or real. Perhaps because I can afford to, I have learned to take pleasure in deviance, in flaunting my self; in reveling in sexual experiences; in passing as a girl or heterosexual boy. Certainly my experiences prove as legitimate as the construction of Straightness. We need to establish queerness as just as normal and "unnatural" as Heterosexual convention. We must understand that barbie doll cheerleader is just as contrived as the diesel dyke, that the muscle-bound jock is as much of a construct as the leather queen. Only after achieving a visible place in society and showing Straights how society has fabricated their identities as well will queers move from the deviant to the normal, from the periphery to the center.

So in looking toward my activism at Harvard, I perceive two emerging strands. First, I will continue to work on the numerous issues that I've pursued during high school because in doing so I do justice to all aspects of my self and serve all of my communities. Beyond my attempt to unify and integrate the weaves of my life, I would, however, like to become more present in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender community, particularly since my home life and county of residence have largely curtailed my efforts. Despite the importance of the cause, I would definitely like to move beyond A.I.D.S. activism and attack broader social justice issues on sexuality that receive less attention. My human rights work promises to redouble in the area of sexuality as the international human rights community grows increasingly aware of the torture and oppression of sexual minorities worldwide. Moreover, I would also like to study and pursue the creation of alliances within queer communities, in terms of varying racial-ethnic and gender groups, and with heterosexual communities as well. Specifically, however, I feel drawn to the study and teaching of identity politics, particularly in how the social discourse constructs Homo and Hetero-sexuals. I feel a need to collapse the shaky dichotomy between Straights and Freaks, to demolish the structures we've erected to define ourselves. Understanding my queerness has become a process, a process of deciding that my difference will no longer isolate, relegate, or alienate me. Instead, it will build me a space from which I can expose the perversity in calling someone perverse.

Comments by Admissions Officers who Assisted with the Course Development

One admissions officer called it a "work of art, " and another described it as "the stuff of graduate research." One admissions officer offered a warning to applicants, though. "This is not the conversational style that I recommend that most applicants use, because too often students at this stage sound pretentious and awkward if they try to go beyond a simple style." Another felt it very important to stress that a topic does not need to be this grandiose, personal, or revealing to be effective. "True, these topics often tug at the heartstrings and therefore get more notice . . . but it's worth mentioning that you don't need to be a gay Asian activist to get noticed." The combination of such a deeply personal topic, the depth of insight, and the ability to articulate such a breadth of thought is impressive.

点评：

作者勇敢地和我们分享了一段他自己的个人隐私，作为一名同性恋者，他一开始无法接受自己喜欢男生这个事实，但对于男生自己又有一种莫名的冲动，这使得作者不得不重新去审视这个问题，但作者越是审视问题就越是害怕去面对，害怕面对家人、朋友甚至是整个社会，但其实作者更害怕面对的是他自己。为了逃避，作者选择潜心修道，企图用佛教来洗涤自己龌龊的私欲和消除自己性向异常的劣根。除此之外，作者还试图通过在学校获取优异的成绩还有参加各种各样的社团活动来充实自己的人生，希望可以帮助自己树立一个正面的形象。但是慢慢地作者发现这样的生活并不是自己想要的，自己已经迷失了自我，分不清方向，于是作者开始忧心、痛苦甚至迷茫。在极度痛苦的时刻，作者开始反思并进行一个重新定位。作者意识到导致自己如此痛苦的一个根本原因是社会对于同性恋者的歧视。由此而引发了作者对于同性恋者人权问题的深思，并立意要为同性恋者的人权维护运动做出贡献。

这篇文章篇幅较长，感情也错综复杂，但形象塑造比较鲜明。作为读者，你会随着作者心理的变化而产生感情变化，可以说，这篇文章成功地做到了让读者忧作者之所忧，想作者之所想，而且作者的描述是如此的扣人心弦，让人对同性恋者产生了怜悯之情，同时也让人对于当今有关人权问题的法律法规产生了深思。

但同时这种写作方法和方式是比较危险的，稍有不慎就会让人觉得你有为了博取同情或为了引人注目从而突出自己而讲述一个悲剧的故事的嫌疑，如果是这样你非但不能得到任何加分反而会引起别人的反感。这样读者虽感受到作者的严重困窘，但不会给与怜悯。

译文：

渐渐地，我发现相比起以写的方式我更愿意以说的方式来谈论同性恋。虽然我相信我的这些言论会定格、限制甚至改变我日后的生活，但我对于自己所说的并没有感觉到一丝的不自然。而对于一些我有所感悟的和那些我没有感悟的经历我却不以为然。由于我的同性恋倾向会直接影响到我身为一名亚洲上层阶级的年轻人的身份，我也想知道自己究竟能如何巧妙地道出自己性取向异于常人这个事实和如何能较好地使人接受。此外，我也尝试着去学习如何有条理地与人讨论这其中错综复杂的关系，但是我相信我可以做到。

生活在这橙色门帘背后，我感觉到我异于常人的性取向已经完全把我置身于正常的社会生活以外。记得我年幼时曾经有过性冲动的对象。而他的名字叫约翰，是六年级的学生。我似乎能时常感觉到自己那种强烈的欲望。刚开始我并不觉得这是我对某人、某种人或某种性别的人有着特别兴趣的象征。而我的性取向的确偏离正常：虽然我知道自己是喜欢男生，但是我仍然希望自己可以成为一名出色的异性恋的学者，找一个娴熟的亚洲新娘，然后有很多很多的小孩。性取向不象金钱、种族和身份，它是人的一生的基石。因此性别和性取向往往能成为一个话题。

渐渐地，我开始意识到我身边的同龄人都在以一种不同的方式对待我。我希望有一种新的说法来形容疏远，被人当成是怪物的感觉是多么的难受，这种耻笑和侮辱又怎能不叫做是奚落，使别人受苦的孩子心理是一种怎样的滋味呢，但是这些成年人的情节剧渐渐变得过时甚至可以说可笑。我记得他们曾因为我的一些无意识的手势而嘲笑我；我记得自己逐渐地也神经质地对着镜子看着自己，试图分析着被他们认为是女人气的动作；我记得我曾为此和他们打架；我记得每一次遭遇辱骂或者打架倒地之后拍去身上的尘埃而重拾全新自我时的感觉是如此的难受，僵硬和冰冷，完全失去知觉。从缓缓建起的高墙后我看到他们成群结队，那时我就意识到我以后的路都不会走得那么容易，而我也不再可能和别人毫无保留地互吐心声了。

而我的父母只会把事情弄得更加复杂。作为传统的亚洲人，他们希望我作为家里的长子可以为弟弟们树立一个好榜样，做一个真真正正的男子汉，传宗接代，延续我们徐家的香火。不久我意识到他们为我所树立的形象不仅是在财富和文化家族信仰上，而且同时也在男性的特征上。我的一生都循规蹈矩，希望可以不辜负每一个人的期望。现在我却不这样认为了。我非常的害怕；我迷失了方向，对错与否我并不清楚。当我意识到我是异于常人的时候，我就开始把我的一生看作是有一系列的幻想所组成的。我的前途一片渺茫，而从这些海市蜃楼里萌发的就只有我从来都不曾意识到的屏障和堡垒。

因为以前我一直觉得是很自然的事情现在被发现是错误的，所以我被定义为不可接受的和不正常的。而这个世界无声无息地并且阴险地把我的本质给具体化了，并且把我最内心的和最有意义的愿望和反常这样一个定义给连接在一起了。它使我误入歧途，并将我钉在用软弱、畸形和麻疯病所筑成的支架上从而来支持他们在同性恋上的构筑。我不能让自己成为一个怪物，所以我决定忘记自己究竟是谁同时也尽力地重新塑造全新的一个自我。首先我潜心修道，用佛教来洗涤我的私欲和消除我性向异常的劣根。然而我身边的同龄人并不会那么容易就放过我。看到他们已经形成了一个定向的思维觉得我的性取向是不正常的，于是我决定在我的同性恋伙伴们寻求安慰。就这样，我走出来了。

别人告诉我只要走出来了就可以解决一切问题。当然，还是会有歧视的目光，辱骂的声音，一切一切，但是最起码我走出来了我可以以我自己的性取向为豪；我可以站起来并且自己的存在是那么的有价值。但事实上，这次意义重大的出走，最后还是草草地结束了，让人很失望。我还期望可以通过告诉别人我是个同性恋这个事实来使自己变得更加勇敢和更加坚强。但是我发现自己做不到。从某种意义上说，我从未找到真正属于自己的私人空间；而因为我内心的狂野使得我的公众生活和私人生活始终无法真正的分离开，两者始终还是那么的模糊不清。对于我来说，这个私人空间只是另一所陌生的高楼大厦，是另一个苛刻的同样带有偏见的透镜，透过它来了解我自己。

结果我又回到原来的样子，投入到校园生活中，在学习中通过获得优异的成绩来重新肯定自己。但令人可悲的是，我参加学校里面各种各样的课外活动和社团活动，试图努力去树立起一种积极向上的有社会责任心的正面形象。我发现自己在寻求他人的认同。别人对我积极向上、身心健康的形象， 优异的学习成绩，社区服务的工作以及吹长笛的技能都给与了赞扬，而我就通过他们的赞扬还有他们给我写的贺卡上所写的赞扬的诗歌来给与自己自我的肯定。虽然我在学校获得了优异的成绩，但我仍然感觉到内心的麻木、疲倦、迷乱甚至厌恶之感，我感觉到自己在黑暗中漂浮不定。我的生活除了一些有的没的的幻想和阴影之外什么都没有，而这些幻想和阴影正一步步地把我吞噬和否决。这个社会告诉我，在我所拼凑的零碎的那个自我之下，我的性取向已经完全使我变得不正常，变得什么也不是了。

我否认这样的想法。就像Foucault所写的，同性恋从本质上就意味着成形的已被灌输了的反常。人们把我的性取向和我的人格等同了。他们把它看成是我的过去的一个综述和我未来的一个决定因素。到处的人们看我的眼光和对待我的方式比反同性恋的法规还来的阴险恶毒。对男同性恋和女同性恋者的歧视不是简单的对同性恋的恐惧，不要问我也不要和我说法律：在当代人的意识中，对同性恋的恐惧和厌恶之情已经可以做成一个雕塑了。随着人们对同性恋者的赶尽杀绝，非人性化就变得那么的显而易见。有很多很明显的例子：同性恋袭击者，包括平头装的neo-Nazis和海尔姆斯，还有称我们是恶魔的人们。但是在一些对同性恋友好的人们的眼里我们同样也是龌龊和不正当的，只是从恶魔的称号转为时髦的怪物。甚至有些同性恋者有时会高呼同性恋万岁，就像他们以自己的性取向而自豪。但性取向并不是一件完成的作品，它并不能揭示你是谁更不是你的全部：它只是一条绳索，将体现自我的其它因素编织在一起。

我想要的是作为同性恋者的尊严和自由。我想把性与编织我人生的其它因素紧紧地结合在一起：我要焚烧阻碍我的条条框框，使同性恋凌驾于种族、家族、和年龄之上。实事上，我正想要抛弃一些把我定格的想法。我希望人们不要陷害或算计我，不要把我定死在一个固定的角色和生活方式里，我希望他们不要告诉我，我必须纠正我的不正常的行为，而他们却没有想过这个不正常是他们强加给我的。带着恐惧，我知道我已经能相对轻松地看待我的性取向，我几乎能不受伤害地度过我的高中时代，而且我总能成功地用在哈佛取得的成功把自己外包起来，用我这段成功的经历去击败我的对手。当然我也害怕我的父母不支持我，害怕大学毕业后就回不了家了。我对于自己总是担心雇主会发现我过于女人气，或是总是想着在校园里走动时要不要带着喷雾催泪器护身这些想法感到疲惫。我也非常厌倦我的性取向支配着我的生活，让我透不过气，成了我的伪装人格这个事实。

当然，我同样不会觉得这是理所当然的。这些年来，我都与那些同性恋者、反对同性恋的激进分子以及支持我找回正确的性取向的人们保持距离。直到现在我才成为了一个真正的改革运动的战斗公主。渐渐地，我开始接受我是同性恋这个事实，其实这个事实已经牢牢地刻在我的意愿中，只是这也给我的内心形成了很大的压力，同时我也鼓励其他同性恋者能向我一样接受这个事实。只有通过对自己重新定位，我们才能将自己称为一个团体。只有通过政治上的动员，我们才能呼吁，作为同性恋者活着意味着什么，同性恋也是个人燃烧自己的一种方式，只有呼吁才能在现实生活中实现我们的平等对待。从误区走出来就必须向世人宣誓，这是对你自己、你的同性恋伙伴以及你为他们所做的承诺的肯定：而无需在理论上的公众生活与私人生活上纠缠不清。同性恋者们需要宣布他们所支持的人们所谓不正常的亚文化，这种亚文化产生于压迫、反抗和同性恋者与公众群体之间的斗争。我们必须寻求可看得见的公平对待。而且就算同性恋的行为被社会上的人给歪曲了，这些歪曲的定义并不可以使得同性恋者的存在变得卑微和不真实。这或许是因为我可以承受得起压力，我已经试着在这些违规行为中偷乐并为此炫耀着自己，沉浸在这些被认为是不正当的性乐趣当中，并且以女生的身份或是男生的身份过活，这个我并不在意。事实证明了我的这些行为是合法的。但是我们需要把同性恋的形象给树立起来，让人们觉得同性恋和异性恋一样都是一种正常的行为。只有将同性恋和异性恋给等同起来了，同性恋者才能从不正常恢复到正常，从外围返回到社会的中心。

因此展望未来我在哈佛的校园生活，我找到了可以鞭策我的两条准则。首先，我会继续我在高中时的各项研究，因为只有这样我才能对自己负责和对我们这个群体负责。除了这些努力之外，然而我更希望能在同性恋、双性恋等群体贡献自己的一分力量，因为以前的我在家里若要从事这方面的工作总遭到家里人的反对。虽然我知道这份事业的重要性，但是我不仅仅会同性恋者的爱滋病问题，但更多地我会在为同性恋者寻求公平对待方面下功夫，而这方面恰好是社会关注比较少的。由于国际人权组织越来越关注人们对同性恋者的歧视对同性恋者造成的影响诸如此类的问题，所以未来我在同性恋者人权方面的工作会逐渐加大和加深。而且我想去学习和在同性恋者群体当中根据他们的性别或种族来建立起属于他们自己的联盟团体，异性恋者也一样。然而我对与性有关的法律法规的学习更感兴趣，特别是研究社会应该如何正确的引述同性恋和异性恋。我觉得很有必要打破同性恋与异性恋的界限，从而推翻社会强加给我们的歪曲的定义。了解自己的同性恋倾向慢慢地就会变成一个可以改变自己命运的进程，这一命运的改写所导致的差别在于我不会再被鼓励和被疏远。相反，我可以在我自己的世界里尽情放纵。

协助学校项目发展工作的录取委员所给的评论：

一位录取委员称这是一件艺术品，而另一位就形容这是研究生研究项目的具体内容罢了。而又有一名录取委员给了申请人如下的建议：这并非是我所推崇的写作方式，因为很多时候当学生们想突出自我的时候，他们就会变得自命不凡甚至可以说迂腐。而另一个录取委员就强调为了写出优秀的文书并不需要描述得如此的宏大，如此地揭露个人的隐私。“的确，这些描述的环节由于涉及个人隐私所以比较扣人心弦，也因此比较受人注目，但是值得一提的是：不是只有亚洲的同性恋者这样的一个特殊身份才能引起我们的注意的。”但是作者意味深长的个人描述以及清晰的自我表达能力是会给人留下很深刻的印象的。