Although we wanted to blame Hell’s Kitchen, my first-grade teacher Ms. Li suggested that it was my personality that slowed down my eating and learning. “Therefore, we recommend Miss Zhang be put in our special class,” concluded she in my end-of-the-year evaluation.
My parents, loyal believers in free-range parenting, did their best to defend me. Slow eater? “That’s because we were binge-watching Hell’s Kitchen and Gordon Ramsay’s obsession with food rubbed off on her!” Slow in calculation? “That’s because she hasn’t fallen in love with math yet!” Despite their pleadings, I was branded “problematic.”
Throughout elementary school, I was the famous snail girl who wrote Chinese characters with the patience of embroidery and spent simply too much time chewing her food. While my teachers put me through multiple speed writing and calculation tests, slowness never left.
In the cafeteria, despite my effort to chew faster, I would helplessly get lost in the taste of my food, dwelling on the intense ways carrots and pepper jostled in my mouth. In my Chinese class, I could not help imagining my meandering strokes as ladders to another world, daydreaming like Alice in Wonderland.
Slowness urged me to pause and reflect. I could simply get carried away by a too beautiful sentence, or I would stare at a butterfly’s translucent wings and imagine a tornado taking place somewhere deep in Amazon. With the many inconveniences of slowness, there also came its secret gift: I could observe and empathize with every peer. I found their roughhousing to be their creative outlets, their silence and shyness the reasons they span rebellious tales that also spoke of my heart. In moments too quickly dismissed by our teachers, I found self-value beyond their scolding and developed profound connection with my peers.
Middle school became the turning point after I transferred to an international school. There, diversity was celebrated for the first time in my life. My slowness was no longer viewed a stigma, but a personality valued as much as my passion for collecting dog-eared pulp fiction and my over-dependence on body language for communication.
I no longer stuck out; instead, I stood out, as slowness allowed me to enjoy what I could not before: studying. I digested Edgar Allan Poe’s poems, taking the time to dress up as a Raven. I immersed myself in circles and triangles, imagining the millions of ways an auxiliary line could be drawn. I derived from studying a pleasure I had never experienced.
Slowness, a previous hindrance, became the secret engine to my academic success. It allowed me to chew the materials as thoroughly as Ramsay would his food. It taught me patience, persistence, and most importantly, the need to stay in my rhythm and embrace who I am.
Transitioning into high school, I continued to deepen my understanding of slowness. In my interstellar city design contest, my unhurried approach not only earned me my first leadership position but taught me that there was more than one way to be a leader. Instead of being fierce, I compensated with a listening ear and a willingness to take criticisms and serve behind the stage. At the animal shelter and various service centers for disadvantaged communities, I keep expanding my ability to work with different people. I learn that my willingness to take my time means more than just the pace of my own life. It means compassion and dedication, the principles that guide me to leave lasting positive impacts on others, be it humans or animals.
I no longer dread my slowness; I embrace it as my biggest gift. It teaches me that it’s not the speed at which I travel that defines me, but the time I give myself and dedicate to my communities.
Nowadays, I still constantly get enchanted by the simple task of chewing, but instead of speeding up, I take my time to really chew as Ramsay does.