Composition I

Prejudice

When people walk past strangers , they can’t help but make judgment of others. They keep thinking about something like “He wears a pair of dark glasses and he must have a bad temper” or “What she wears is over and she must be a rude girl”. They don’t know each other but they create a personality of others. This is how "prejudice" is invented. The word “prejudice” refers to prejudgment: making a decision about something or someone before aware of the relevant facts of a case or event.

People can easily make judgment of others and prejudice against someone because of different race, sex, age, appearance and religion. Take “People in Sichuan love spicy food” for example. The speaker of the sentence makes a judgment that all the people in Sichuan love having spicy food. However, we don’t understand every individual in Sichuan and it is impossible for us to know whether everyone of them likes spicy food. It’s just our prejudice of the people in the region. Therefore, if one day you make a friend who comes from Sichuan, you might ask him/her that if he/she likes spicy food. If we have to give a present to a friend in Sichuan, we might give them a spicy food. It’s all because of our own prejudice.

I am one of the people who easily make judgment of strangers. Once I had a part-time job in an English cram school. On the first day I went to work, I met one girl who came from Taipei. She liked laughing loudly and she wore a mini-skirt. I didn’t talk much to her on the first day and I didn’t even understand her very much. I couldn’t help but think that she was not easy to get along with and I thought she looked like a conceited person . I thought I wouldn’t be good friend with her. However, after we got along with each other for a few days, I found she was totally different from my impression of her. She was kind, innocent, humorous and passionate. What’s more, she was humble in many ways. I just made a wrong judgment due to her hometown and her appearance. Afterwards I found how foolish I was and my prejudice was almost wrong.

The novel “Pride and Prejudice” is also a good example of the wrong judgment. The main character Elizabeth Bennet, who often judges others by her first impression, has a stong prejudice against Mr. Darcy. Finally she finds out the truth and falls in love with him. Prejudice can change due to understanding.Therefore, the word “prejudice” is widely used to refer to hostile attitude towards people based on only few reasons or even by judging someone without knowing them. Consequently, the result and fact is totally different. It is a common phenomenon among humans and a human nature. If we can try to live a day without judging people, it might be a new world in our eyes.