The study abroad faculty-led program that I chose took us around China and Vietnam. We started in Shanghai, China where we learned about the cultural aspects of China and its people. We also visited one of Colgate’s factories: Colgate Sanxiao in Yangzhou City. Then, we took a plane to Shenzhen, China. We spent most of that whole day traveling to Shenzhen, and the program allowed us to have the rest of the day to explore the city. However, some of us decided that it would be really cool to travel to Hong Kong instead, which was extremely close to where we were staying. None of us had been to Hong Kong before and we wanted to go on the Peak Tram and the Star Ferry, so a couple of us ended up going. We left from the airport while the others went to the hotel. We took a bus to the border where we went through customs. The ride was long, and we had to go through a long tunnel that seemed endless. However, we made it through the neverending bus ride. Once we got through Chinese customs and got our Hong Kong visas, we transferred to another bus that took us to Causeway Bay with the help of a kind English speaking Chinese businessman named George. We traveled through the countryside on this bus. Seeing all the vegetation and mountains was worth this the second two hour bus ride. This bus dropped us in the center of where we wanted to go, but we were nowhere near the peak tram. We ended up figuring out with the help of a kind couple about how to get closer to where we wanted by getting on a trolley. Once on the trolley, we met an amazingly kind lady named, Naz. She stepped off the trolley with us and took us directly to the Peak Tram Station which was an incredibly kind gesture to complete strangers. The Peak Tram was unbelievable. It went up the mountain almost completely vertical. You had to sit down to keep from basically sliding out the back of the tram. We looked out over the city, and the view was breathtaking. Once at the top, we viewed the top of the city from a lookout before we had to go back down to not miss the last metro back to China.
We didn’t have enough time to go on the Star Ferry that night, which has been named by the National Geographic as one of 50 ‘places of a lifetime’. It has carried passengers from Hong Kong Island to the Kowloon Peninsula since 1888. However, we ended up going back to Hong Kong again with another group to go on the Star Ferry in between one of our classes and dinner. Going on the Star Ferry was kind of like my starstruck moment because I had seen the Star Ferry in a lot of late 1900s and early 2000s movies, but it was so surreal to actually go on something that you’d think that you only see in the movies. In addition to the incredible day, we got to go on the world’s longest outdoor escalator system that was 800 meters long consisting of a chain of moving stairs and walkways in the Central business district of Hong Kong. Traveling away from our study abroad location in China to Hong Kong was so worth the extra six hours of traveling on plane, bus, train, metro, trolley, and tram. It was interesting to visit a place in Asia that reminded me so much of being back in the United States. Most people spoke English, which was an anomaly from the past four days where almost no one spoke English. Some signage was even strictly in English. To the group of us traveling, it felt more westernized than we expected. Hong Kong was truly incredible, and everything I dreamed it would be.
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Everyone in the program had just arrived in our first destination, Shanghai, on our study abroad program the day before. The time difference caused a lot of us to wake up early. We had a lot of time to explore before our first classroom session, so two of us decided to explore around our hotel. We stumbled upon the Shanghai Civilized Park that was nearby. Historically, the park that we discovered was located in a part of Shanghai that was the designated area for stateless refugees. The area was bordered on the west by Gongping Road, on the east by Tongbei Road, on the south by Huimin Road, and on the north by Zhoujiazui Road. During the time of Nazi persecution from 1937 to 1941, thousands of Jews fled to Shanghai. The Japanese occupation authorities, at that time, labeled them as “stateless refugees”. They set up this area that was designated for them as a means to restrict their residence and business. The park was a standing reminder of that past. In the park, there were four groups of people doing different types of tai chi and listening to different recordings while doing it. Some recordings were of just instrumental music. Others appeared to be instrumental music with a voice instructing everyone in Chinese, but we couldn’t tell because we can’t understand Chinese. It was amazing to see all these people so early in the morning knowing exactly what to do without instructions, moving together as one, and so disciplined. It was so incredible. We both had taken some tai chi classes back in the states, so we decided to try and join in. We stood next to a group of women that looked nice. Compared to them, the little knowledge that we had was very insufficient, and we definitely were not as skilled as they were. I think that they sensed this because they slowed down in an effort to help us and non-verbally instructed us to try and copy them. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I was humbled that these ladies decided to help us. I can’t put into words how incredible it was to gather in a park with all these people who just get together in the morning. They don’t really speak much to each other. They just do tai chi as a community. It, also, amazed me about how much can be said through no words being exchanged, just movements. That experience will always hold a special place in my heart. Even though I’ll never see those ladies again or ever have the chance to actually speak to them, the experience showed me the beauty of community and how those ladies just accepted us into theirs even though we were complete strangers. When the music had finished, we thanked the kind ladies and went to head back to hotel. On our way back, I was so excited for the day and happy that I unconsciously started sort of dancing while walking back to the hotel. My friend told me to turn around in the middle of a twirl, and she snapped this picture. I think this is probably one of my favorite photos from my entire study abroad trip. It’s not just a picture of me in the streets of Shanghai. To me, it symbolizes my first cultural experience abroad. The first time I realized how beautiful and special community is, and how beautiful small moments in time like these are. A year ago when I was deciding where I wanted to attend college, my school counselor laid out a list of common deciding factors that were supposed to help me decide. There were the obvious ones like the location of the university and its surrounding atmosphere, the types of majors the university has, and the overall campus life. Then, there was study abroad programs that a university offers.
Study abroad? I wasn’t interested. Definitely not a deciding factor for me. I’ll be just fine studying at the university I choose. That was that, and I was okay with it until the study abroad program: UA in Asia: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Vietnam (Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) and China (Shanghai and Shenzhen). Significance: I am part Chinese and Vietnamese. My mother’s family immigrated from Vietnam during the end of the Vietnam War. I have never been to either country, but I have always had a strong tie to the culture through my family’s oriental traditions. We celebrate Chinese New Year. I wear the traditional Vietnamese dress on special occasions. I’ve grown up being taught how to prepare certain Asian dishes, just as my mother did, but I’ve never been to Asia. Wow! Not only would I get to learn about something that I’m interested in, but I’d get to do it in the countries that I have familial ties to. And it’s during May Interim, so it won’t interfere with my degree plan or any summer plans. But it was a pipe dream, never in a million years would I think that everything would fall perfectly into place. That right 38 hours after finishing my last final of freshman year that I’d be on a plane to Shanghai of all places to meet up with my professor and 11 other students. Since I’m on a plane almost to Shanghai, shouldn’t I be able to answer: how does one prepare to visit a country for the first time that their mother immigrated from when she was ten years younger than you are now? Yes, but I can’t answer it. I have packed and repacked and repacked again just to make sure that I have everything, and I do. In terms of tangible things, I am prepared. Though emotionally, I am not prepared, and I don’t know how to be. Everything just seems so surreal. So many thoughts are running through my head. It’s really scary going overseas to countries that are very unlike the United States. What if I forgot something that I didn’t think I’d need until I need it? What if I get lost? Me and running around lost do not make a good combo. With all the nervous thoughts swarming my brain, my level of excitement is actually increasing exponentially outweighing everything else. I am excited to experience the culture, taste the foods, visit the sites, and learn about the differences between Asia and America. And, man, oh man is it gonna be so amazing! No matter what happens. |