“I am a girl who is defined by dancing,” Jennifer Liang said. “When they [friends] mention me, I am always that girl who dances,” she smiles with her mouth widened.
Jennifer Liang, 19-year-old, is a freshman majoring Advertising at Boston University. However, her dream has nothing to do with her major concentration. She wants to become a dancer. Not just an amateurish dancer, but a real professional dancer on the stage.
Jennifer started dancing when she was in middle school back in China because of a rather funny coincidence. She danced because she did not want to cut her hair short. In China, many schools require female students to cut their hair short except those who are in the school dance team.
Although the starting point of Jennifer’s dancing dream is quite unusual, she found herself obsessed with dancing and eventually danced her way into a Chinese entertainment agency’s trainee during her high school year.
In Asia, especially in Korea, teenage and young musical artists often undergo a rigorous dancing and sing trainee program for years to become a part of a pop musical group.
“The year when I was a trainee is the happiest year in my life,” Jennifer said in a lower tone, “sometimes I looked back to that memory and I felt a wrenching in my heart.”
Jennifer’s parents, who work in business, are not supportive of her dancing ambition, believing there is no future in such path.
“They said dancing is a profession for the youth and once you are old, you loses everything,” Jennifer said.
Jennifer bended to her parents’s demand in her last year of high school and went to study aboard in Boston. However, deep down in her heart she still desires to become a dancer.
She joined several dancing clubs in BU and went to practice dancing almost everyday. She is now trying to convince her parents to let her take a gap semester to try the trainee program because this is her last chance before she exceed the age limit of the trainee program
“It is already very hard for anyone to find a passion in life,” her voice trembled, “ I am not going to give it up like I did before.”
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