1)They are fresh and original. You may think that anecdotes about the dynastic period in China are simple and straightforward because you and all your peers know them by heart. However, they will be fresh and interesting to Western readers. Imagine the poor high school teacher who has to grade 500 SAT essays on his or her day off. Imagine how sick he or she must get of reading the millionth reference to Thomas Edison developing the light bulb. By using Chinese examples, you will be writing something a little bit more interesting and creative than what the grader is used to seeing.
2)You can get a Chinese example a little bit wrong. Lets say you need to write an essay about overcoming hardships. Lets say you cant think of a great historical figure who has overcome hardships. Your American grader will know you are just fabricating a story if you tell him that Bill Clinton spent the first ten years of his life blinded by a childhood illness. If you make the same claim about the Emperor Kangxi, no grader will be the wiser. This gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility to make sure that your examples neatly fit the argument that you are trying to make.
3) You dont know American examples as well as you think you do. Time and again, Chinese students overestimate their knowledge of American history. Additionally, even if you have your facts straight, they dont just need to be right, they need to be the same as what Americans learn. I had one student who wrote about the beginning of the American Civil War, and the gruesome toll taken by the Battle of Gettysburg. Knowing that he was a Chinese student, I was very impressed that he knew so much about the war. However, any American who has been through American history knows that the Battle of Gettysburg did not happen until the mid-point of the war, and that the first big battle was actually the Battle of Bull Run. If that seems like I am splitting hairs, it is just another reason to heed this warning. When you use American examples, you are going to need to be much more accurate and that raises your degree of difficulty.
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