Before departing for China in the summer of 2016, I was honestly very hesitant on what to expect.  I just finished my freshman year of college and was only 19 years old at the time and did not know how I would fare being in a different country.  I can still remember my first night we ate as group at a famous Peking duck restaurant.  I awkwardly attempted to pick up the duck using chopsticks, but was unsuccessful.  I knew I was no longer in America and I was going to have to adapt to the Chinese culture.

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Our curriculum was five weeks long in Beijing and four weeks long in Dalian.  When we arrived in Beijing, we were welcomed immediately.  We were set up with language partners that showed us around our school, Minzu University of China, as well as the surrounding neighbor.  This made it easy to feel comfortable in an area that we were not used to.  I was the youngest and most inexperienced in Chinese when I first got into the program.  We started right into classes where strictly Chinese was spoken.  This made it very difficult at first, but I was quickly able to pick up the pace of the class.  In Beijing, our classes were taught by Minzu University education students, but my classmates were other Clemson students.  Our teachers had never worked with American students so they took it as a challenge, but were also quite intrigued with our culture and how we did different things.  During these classes I was able to advance my vocabulary skills, as we were required to learn 30 different words a night.  In the afternoons, our professor took us to different locations in the city, such as Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven.  I was amazed at Tiananmen Square because it is a place with such rich history knowing the events that took place in 1989.  

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In the third week of Beijing, we took a week off of classes to travel.  We were fortunate enough to take a cruise to Japan and South Korea.  It was good to experience the different cultures and to be able to eat the different foods.  But my favorite memory came back in Beijing during my fourth week, when I wondered by myself down to the basketball courts one night.  As I was the only non-Asian person down there, I quickly stood out, which is common in China.  As I started playing, I quickly drew attention and before I knew it everyone stopped playing to just watch me.  It made me feel better than I actually was, but it was a memorable moment.  Chinese sports and exercise in general are a huge part of the culture.  Every morning you can see people doing morning exercises, which includes Taichi or running.  But in the afternoon, you can always find people playing ping pong and badminton in gyms all around China. At night, a whole different world is seen.  The streets are alive with food and art vendors.  The street markets are filled with ethnic cuisines and were some of my favorite dishes I have ever eaten.   

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After the fifth week, we left Beijing for Dalian.  Dalian was a much different experience- less hot and less people.  But I loved Dalian.  This time we were placed in Chinese classes with all international kids- from Russia to Kenya to Costa Rica to Japan.  This was something I had never experienced before.  But they had all been living in China and studying the language for a lot longer than I had been and were extremely helpful in class because my teacher spoke zero English.  Aside from classes, we took a class trip to Dandong, which is across a small river from North Korea.  Being able to look over into North Korea was a little scary, but an opportunity I never thought I would have been able to have.  Additionally, we were able to play with baby tigers at a Tiger sanctuary, which is not something you would never really find in the United States.  One day we were able to go to a traditional Chinese medicine doctors office. At the office, they showed us many different types of practices such as herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage, exercise and dietary therapy.  I did not have the courage to try acupuncture, but the most interesting form was the cupping form.

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Overall, my experience in China was life-changing and although I was hesitant at first I could not have been more glad that I was able to go.  As I move forward with my career at Clemson and beyond, I am excited to use my knowledge of the Chinese language and culture to build bridges between the two countries.  I hope that my stories can inspire others to visit China as well.