“Capstone Essay”
I am thinking of titling my final essay, “Little Irish Shangrila”. This essay will be about a weird little symbiosis that exists between hard-core Tibetan party mongers and the setting of an Irish pub. Especially, during weekends, instead of finding grumpy and scrubby Celtics overdosing on their favorite lager, this place is packed with Tibetans and has been for the last four or five years. Fights Break out, Girls fight for boys, guys fight at the slightest agitation and other scenes peculiar to a bar. But doesn’t this sound like any other bar? Yes, but what’s at stake here is the whole discourse that has formed around it: rumors that originate from the bar and end in the community meetings; aphorisms that surround the “type” of people who go to that bar.
I think one reason why I am doing this project is to understand my community a little better and at the same time, defamiliarize ourselves a little. As a Tibetan myself, even I have stereotypes and generally categorize them under various rubrics. But I have always attributed this tendency to the lack of interaction I have had with youngsters of my ethnicity. So I am taking this opportunity to know them a little better and confirm, or otherwise, my reduction of their diversity.
I am planning on starting the essay with a bit of a humor when I do my exposition, and gradually bring in anecdotes from the regular patrons and the staffs who work there. Finally gravitate towards a graver tone of realization.
I believe my essay will be a hybrid because it will be an audio essay with proper background scores and patches of voices outside of me. Hopefully I will do a good job at that. If anyone is interested in the place that I am talking about here, I guess you can go and read the yelp reviews on “”Sean Ogs,” Woodside.
4 responses so far
That’s really interesting! Hope you pull off the background sounds to heighten the essay experience.
The last sentences of your first paragraph in the proposal capture the potential of this essay. There’s a whole discourse that originates in but transcends the bar itself and helps define/shape the Tibetan community in NYC. That’s very, very interesting. You might give at least one specific example of how this discourse emerges/has emerged.
The idea for an audio essay is great. You should go to the bar and record sounds to use. Prepare to do some editing to make all the sounds work and match it to the various voices you will use. If you want to interview people and include their voices in the essay, if you do it at the bar, you will have a lot of background noise to contend with in the final product. Just be aware of that. I haven’t had a chance to check out the Yelp reviews, but you could even include a quote or two from them, if there’s anything particularly striking or funny or pertinent. Maybe an epigraph?
Hey Tenzin,
This essay had GREAT potential!
First, your title is catchy and I sort of chuckled a bit.
I love how the bar will be the main character in this essay.
The audio idea will definitely do you justice. It will create a vivid image of the bar and the reader will be able to experience a slice of what you experienced.
I agree with Prof. Smith regarding interviewing Tibetans at the bar. Give them a voice and maybe ask them some rumors that have been going around, the latest gossip, the last fight that broke out. You have so much creative space to make this a fantastic essay.
I can not wait to see what path you are going to take.
Good luck!
Andrea
Tenzin Bhai,
I truly appreciate your purpose in this essay. And the setting is very interesting as well: eastern culture in a western bar. This idea is simply brilliant. As I myself from the same region, East Asia, I know how our community builds up by social gathering. Maybe bar is not the place where our people gather in my country, but the purpose is same: meeting friends, chatting with unknown people, having good time.
The audio idea is really great. It will be a huge source of highlighting emotion at different level of consciousness. You can capture the voice, tone and music. Maybe you can randomly record the voice without letting them, people at the bar, know that you are doing it for class. I think this will capture the originality. It’s just my thought.
I hope it will navigate you through the all unknown situation to your goal that you set ahead of yourself.
I am looking forward to see your creative work.
Sincerely,
amzadhossain