Cultural Pigeonholing Myself? Forum

[JazzHands]

I am Chinese. If I choose to write my personal statement about a stereotypical Chinese activity - say ping pong. Do I run the risk of giving off the impression of 'just another chinese boy' to the admissions committee?

I have talked to several people who have given me the impression that there is the possibility that since the personal statement topic is one of my choice, I may be doing harm in the admissions process through this choice of topic, especially considering Chinese are over represented in higher education (and I would presume the applicant pool as well). I have been given the advice of considering changing to something like tennis. If I replaced 'ping pong' with 'tennis' in my personal statement, it does not change the overall effect, aside from the fact that tennis is not dominated by Chinese players.

I would appreciate any opinions/viewpoints on this matter, as it is definitely something I had not considered before.