My plane ride to China best symbolizes what I expect my experience in China to be. I expected my United Airlines flight to be like any other long flight: watching movies on the mini screen in front of my seat. As I arrived at my window seat, I was in utter shock and horror because guess what? There was no mini-TV! Even better was that I couldn’t watch Zootopia like everyone else because my earphone cord didn’t work. The one thing I do when I’m stressed is sleep. So, naturally, I slept. When I woke up, there was an old Asian man who looked to be about 70 years old sleeping on my shoulder. I spazzed out and woke him up. He immediately started speaking Chinese to me, and I could only make out one of the things he said; “Are you Chinese?” “No, I’m American.” And that’s how the plane ride went from depressing to interesting. I barely reviewed Chinese before coming to China, and it definitely showed during our conversation. As he talked to me in only Chinese, I had my first taste of what China was going to be like (which involved using a lot of my Chinese-English dictionary). This is what some of the conversation looked like:

I had a huge headache the entire plane ride and felt like a 3 year old child trying to talk to Albert Einstein. But throughout my terrible Chinese, I learned that his son is a professor at Penn, a story about a man named Wu Song who killed a tiger, and (after holding up the flight attendant for several minutes) how to say red wine in Chinese. Long story short, my plane ride was my first taste of China: and it tasted weird but interesting.

I noticed a lot of things that I took for granted in the States. For example, TOILET PAPER. Public bathrooms here are not only holes in the ground, but they also don’t provide toilet paper, so we have to carry these little packs of tissues. Ice water is also huge. Restaurants here don’t provide us with ice water, so we have to drink hot water. But it’s ok. Everything is really cheap here and the people are really nice (except when they’re driving: it is terrifying).

NDiB is pretty challenging, in both the academic and cultural sense. We have a lot of work to do and I still don’t know how to say napkin in Chinese but it’s aight. My classmates and I suffer together, but we also have fun together hahaha. We went to a few “cultural excursions,” 比方说 (for example) we went to the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square. The Great Wall was super sick. There were a lot of foreign people struggling to hike the Great Wall, but the view was incredible. 8/8 would highly recommend. Tiananmen Square is cool too, but there were a lot of people there, which made me feel pretty uncomfortable. There were a lot of Chinese people taking pictures of us because we were American (well mostly my caucasian friends), so we felt like celebrities.

In conclusion, even though there are some things that I don’t care for in Beijing (air quality, dense masses of people, and 90+ degree Fahrenheit weather), overall I really love it here. The people are chill, my classmates are fun, the teachers are awesome, and the city is bumping. See you guys next week!

The past two weeks have truly been both an overwhelming and exciting adventure. Living in a foreign country, I felt as if I turned five years old again. As soon as I arrived at Beijing International Airport, I took in my surroundings with child-like curiosity, but the harsh reality of traveling to a different country hit when I struggled with my basic Chinese language skills to hail a taxi and check into my dorm. As soon as I got to Peking University, I climbed in bed and thought, “Wow, I am a big 19 year old baby trying to navigate my way through China.”

The “Lake with No Name” at Peking University

At first, I felt terrified and insecure of the weeks ahead. However, now that I am entering the third week of the program, I have noticed my confidence grow exponentially. Every day, my interactions with other students and local residents involve a lot of charades and guessing games, but the small wins are really what fuels my confidence. For example, I learned how to bargain in marketplaces, ask and give people directions, and order food at restaurants. Although each conversation is very short and seemingly insignificant, it makes a world of a difference for me as I continue to embrace my vulnerability and use it as a strength.

Throughout the week, we spend most of the day learning new vocabulary words and sentence structures in class and over the weekends, we have the opportunity to apply what we learn outside of class. Our first excursion was to the Great Wall of China and although the hike up elicited blood, sweat, and tears, the view was simply unforgettable. Growing up, I learned about the Great Wall and marveled at the pictures in my history textbook; however, in person, it seemed so unreal and I reached a newfound appreciation and respect for the rich culture and history of China.

At The Great Wall of China with Ye Laoshi

In class, we learned the phrase, “???? ”, which means “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” My goal is to live in China, not as a tourist, but as a temporary resident, and correct the preconceived notions that I had before coming to Beijing with a more educated and insightful perspective. Every single day in Beijing is full of adventures and hard-earned lessons; I can’t wait for what tomorrow and the next day will bring.

After the second week in China, I feel like I have a good feel for what daily life is going to be like.  There is still not a whole lot of free time during the week just because of the workload, but its manageable.  Our first trip was to the Great Wall, which was beautiful.  There were quite a few other people there, but it wasn’t too crowded.  It was a bit of a walk to reach the wall itself, but once there the view made it well worth it.  The amount of effort and resources that it must have take to construct it is unimaginable even today, let alone hundreds and hundreds of years ago.  It was also something to consider how many people must have died making it.

We have Friday activities that I’m not too much of a fan of, but it’s not the worst.  They generally consist of familiarizing ourselves with Chinese culture in some way or another, whether it be talking to random people about the college entrance exam they have there, or just exploring campus.  On the weekends Wudaokou is generally the place to hangout, it seems like its kind of tailored to college students.  I also went to an area called Tuanjiehu with a lot of expatriates, where you can get some fairly authentic American food, just definitely more expensive than the dining hall.

Good news: I’ve survived another week! Barely.

But more seriously, week two proved to be a new challenge in itself. While I wouldn’t necessarily admit I experienced a wave of culture shock, the simplest tasks still seem overwhelmingly difficult to manage using only my limited vocabulary. In particular, ordering meals at restaurants, the dining halls and at street vendors’ booths has been a nearly insurmountable task, especially because there is no Chinese version of: “just sound it out!” So far I’ve been able to actualize my gustatory preferences by pointing to already prepared meals or pictures on menus followed by either the Chinese for “that!” or “the same as theirs,” but never without the accompanying humiliation. But every setback just serves as inspiration for a new language goal to blog about wanting to achieve. For now, the surprise factor has been a source of excitement and a bit of a game, trying new dishes first and then translating the name afterwards. I like to believe this way is fundamentally better and is conducive to being adventurous in adding new tastes my pallet I wouldn’t have tried otherwise.

The strangest feeling arose when this past weekend while a few of us visited the Beijing Zoo where we watched a toddler, who could probably count the months he has been alive on his fingers and toes, rattle off names of animals and topics more advanced than I could understand. Similar experiences occurred at the Forbidden City, in the Houhai neighborhood and elsewhere. Usually followed by a picture or a comment about a foreigner from a local.

As if to alleviate the extremely narrow range of ideas I can express in Chinese, our textbook was designed to introduce us to the topics that would be most useful to one living in China, as we are temporarily. Strangely enough, I am glad to see the increasingly complex topics in our vocabulary because discussing the double-sided effects of the mandated One Child Policy in Chinese makes me feel more worthy of studying in China’s most esteemed university, while learning to introduce myself makes me feel like a three year old. Speaking of the One Child Policy, I feel that if you would like to have an opinion on the matter, you should be forced to visit China before commenting. Maybe I am only experiencing the strains of living in the world’s third largest city, but witnessing traffic patterns and the sheer volumes of people at nearly every location made me reevaluate my automatically negative opinion of the policy for a much more balanced perspective.