Personal Statement : Mai Nguyen Tran

HsÜn Tzu’s essay explains to readers that “learning is fundamentally moral because it trains us to know the truth and to restrict the kind of behavior that is typical of ignorant people” (552). Tzu believes to be properly educated an individual must devote they’re life to proper learning. The type of learning Tzu valued in today’s terms, would be those who are college educated. Tzu believed for an individual to be moral, they must be properly educated, but this is not true. Morals are not born in classrooms, morals are learned from all around us, starting at a young age. Most morals people learn such as right and wrong come from their parents and those around us when we are young. The moral development of a person, comes from the world around them. Culture, family, and other role models make up the majority of a person’s moral compass. With education playing a small rule in building someone’s moral code.

In “The Ugly Tourist” by Jamaica Kincaid, tourism is thought as a disgusting and an extremely harmful industry. In her perspective, it allows first world citizens to escape and marvel at the simplest and most ordinary things. Although there is some truth in what Jamaica Kincaid describes to the reader, I believe there is a prejudiced view towards the tourist themselves. Kincaid’s essay about the ugliness and affects of being a tourist contrasts everything I’ve experienced being a tourist in Italy and Greece.

Daily, hundreds of thousands of people are traveling, whether it’s by plane, car, bus, boat, or foot, people are traveling to new locations and being immersed in different cultures. Many fail to realize how ignorant of a tourist they are. Kincaid explains that tourists are morally “ugly” and use other, less fortunate people, for their own amusement. She tries to enlighten those who are privileged to be more considerate when they are visiting new places. Published author Jamaica Kincaid wrote “The Ugly Tourist,” originally written in her book, A Small Place, where she tries to convince readers that tourists are, “a piece of rubbish” (207). Kincaid’s attempt to convey to the audience that tourists are ignorant and morally “ugly” is partially successful, due to her satisfactory emotional appeal, yet inability to produce a less angry tone, along with minimal logical appeal.

The trip to Vietnam from the 16th of November to the 1st of December was an eye-opener to my life as I saw how the locals live and operate daily. This has helped myself gain a new perspective on life. With gaining a new perspective it has helped myself understand and give direction to achieve my future goals and personally help with figuring out a which career path within tourism and hospitality I would like to go down. Over recent years in Vietnam tourism and hospitality impacted the local lives which helped myself understand how they live the way they do. Travelling to diverse cities such as Ho Chi Minh, Hoi An and Halong Bay showed me that Vietnam has different aspects on offer to help myself understand their cultural but also the hospitality and tourism industry. The hospitality and tourism within each city support the history of Vietnam. This increases the experience economy as individual travel for their traditions but also to be educated about Vietnam and their past.

I reached the apex of my adventure in Chinatown, easily my favorite part of the city. The lively Cantonese banter that echos through the streets leaves me wishing I could join it myself. The unique eateries in the ethnic center provide me with comestible gateways to the culture of my ancestors—well a quarter of them. It may not be the shiniest part of Boston, but to me it's the brightest. It’s lively, kinetic, and inviting. As hard as I tried, I could not get picture that fully captured each of these aspects. But the vitality of Chinatown can’t be experienced through pictures, it has to be discovered in

Additionally, It is also assumed that tourists travel for pleasure, “that cannot be found within the life-space and how this makes traveling worthwhile” (Cohen, 93). This is connected to tourists because, it is assumed that tourists travel to get-away from the stressors of their own lives, perhaps have a mini-break away from work or from the chaos within their own lives. It is assumed that tourists with a family, wants to travel and enjoy bonding time with family to create new memorable memories that one may not be-able to create in their own town and/or city. Or, it is assumed that young travelers want a romantic get-away to get hitched, or

I call myself Emily Chen. On the surface, I am like most typical students: serious about school and prepared for exams. I review for exams and the results reflect my hard work; my grades are not the top of the class but I know that I tried my best. I have ambitions and dreams along the path of education and determined to achieve it. I want to attend Manhattan/ Hunter Science High School because of its rigorous early college high school program; I want to attend a high school where I can learn and experience more than I could in any other high school.

It was a cold autumn night in North Carolina when I realized that my youth was being taken away from me. I wanted to run away and go back to the life that I had known; where I had the opportunity to go to school was happy and understood the language. Instead I was in a foreign land with my family and we could not return for there was no future in my homeland. According to my father, we had to keep migrating because it was the best thing for our family. It was then when I realized that this is not what I wanted for my family and I asked my father that we needed to go somewhere where I can go to school because it was affecting everybody including my little brother. My father raised me to believe I could accomplish anything I set my mind to

I have always been captivated by the way authors influence the emotions of their readers with expression of thought and vivid details. I am mesmerized by the past events that has shaped today’s future. The feel of speaking a foreign language and communicating with foreign people has always seemed enchanting for me. Consequently, the study of English, Social Studies, and Foreign Language has appealed uniquely to my imagination. I think the Academy will be a valuable experience for me because I read willingly and enthusiastically, take responsibility for my learning, and enjoy challenges.

The concept of the traveller is seen very differently in comparrison to the tourist. Both have the same interest in being in another country and experiencing another culture, but to what extent are they experiencing it in the same way? The tourism industry has created these different types of categories of people who travel to other countries that have evolved over hundreds of years. Modern travel has become more affordable to people of all different backgrounds and with growing technology it has helped create this booming economy that the whole world in some way benefits off of. In todays society it is now more affordable and easier to reach another country compared to 100 years ago. This has created both titles of the tourist and travller as the tourist has become a negative title to carry as sterotypes on todays society have created a tarnished reputation of tourists. It is widely talked about how the tourist and traveller have two different meanings, but are they really that different? If so which title would fit the backpaper? As a traveller or tourist? This will be analysed throughout so there can be an evaluation and judgement made to help find the answers to these questions.

Local visitors would not consider the factor of “going places my friends have not been” as an important motivations than Mainland and Overseas visitors. More than 91.5 of Local visitors were repeated visitors, this can be explained that “going

Marketing teams have developed “the dream vacation” for just about everyone, whether your interests lie in adventure travel, cruising, or wine tasting, your imagination and perhaps your budget is pretty much your only limitation. Alongside this ever-increasing number of vacation destinations, a large body of research on the “tourist machine” also grows. Over time, the focus of tourism research has shifted somewhat from the basic sort of anthropological or sociological questions such as “why do people choose the destinations they do” and “how do the natives of these tourist destinations feel about their “guests”” to more of an environmental and cultural impact approach. The impacts commoditization on tourism. Commoditization, in terms of tourism, is the “packaging” and sale of an idea or story. What I mean by that is that what is being turned into a commodity is an “experience,” not a tangible product.

70). In 2006, there were 234,000 people employed directly in tourism jobs in Vietnam and 510,000 whose jobs indirectly depended on tourism (John, 2006). According to World Travel and Tourism Council and Oxford Economic Forecasting, Vietnam’s tourism sector is expected to experience the sixth-highest growth rate of countries in the world between 2007 and 2016 (“Vietnam’s Tourism Grows,” 2006). Aside from this quantifiable growth, tourism in Vietnam also continues to change in character. New tourism niches, new types of tourism attractions and enterprises and new kinds of tourists have been appearing in Vietnam since 1986. Doi moi is an ongoing process that is reflected in all aspects of the Vietnamese society, economy and politics.

Many people who travel are attracted to an authentic experience often portrayed by the media that can create an opportunity to learn about different cultures. Gaining tourism knowledge about foreign cultures is now an easy task through the development of globalization. Stroma Cole, an activist researcher on tourism development, suggests that growth in tourism should be thought of as a “cause and consequence of globalization” (Chambers, 2010 p, 21) and that the development of high technology in the media has been very influential on promoting tourism. The media has become a main source for travel information that has direct effect on decisions people make on where to travel, tourist trends, and on their expectations of their experience (Leung, Law Hoof, & Buhalis 2013). I chose to research advertisements of Thailand, a popular tourist country, because of its recent dramatic increase in the number of tourists since the start of the new millennium, and because it has appealed to me as a tourist attraction. Through my analysis of advertisements of multiple media sources I have found examples of advertisements that promote the branding of cultural and indigenous tourism in Thailand. I relate to Erve Chambers, the author of Native Tours (2010) research on the “authentic image” that is used in many ads to catch the attention of tourists and I discuss how people do not always experience what was promoted in the media.

So many countries in our part of the world, particularly Thailand, have reaped millions from the flood of tourists visiting these countries. We get only a trickle, for though we have great possibilities, there is not enough global interest in our country and its attractions. Much of this is due to our own myopia, of our leaders who do not understand or realize the myriad possibilities here if we only know how to use them!