The Mind Behind the Blog

This blog's purpose is to record everything that happens from a month before my arrival in Beijing up till the end of the program. I cannot lay claim that I have a way with words (because I don't), but I shall try to make it as interesting as possible. Seeing as I'll be going to Beijing for school and it's after the Summer Olympics, there most likely won't be much to start with - then again this is the first time I will be leaving the U.S. for parts unknown, so I just might be excited about every little thing. In fact, why am I kidding myself? I will be excited about every little thing.

Let me start at the beginning, shall I?

I am a junior in college and it has always been my dream to travel. This might be the result of several factors. I was born in California and grew up in West Covina the first eight years of my life. When I was in third grade, my family moved to Texas. My sister and I were never informed of the rather important fact that the move was permanent - I was under the impression we were going to visit our maternal grandparents. Needless to say, after staying in Texas for months on end and finally enrolling in school here, we got the point. Besides that, and traveling to a number of western states, Disney World, and up and down California, I had never really went anywhere else. Unless you count the incident where my parents took a wrong turn on the highway and entered Baja California at one point - but since I was still nestled in my mother's womb at this point, it doesn't count - I had never left the United States.

Don't get me wrong, I like the U.S. for the most part. I just got tired of it, not to mention the fact that most of my friends have traveled, lived, and/or was born in a different country and had all of these interesting stories, I was feeling rather deprived.

So, I thought, why not kill two birds with one stone and travel, live, and study abroad? I thought this a fine idea, and so I did it. During my sophomore year in college, I did some research and persuading of my parents and I finally decided to apply to IES' Beijing Intensive Language Program. I had the option of living in a homestay or in a dorm and the classes were hosted in Beijing Foreign Studies University, otherwise known as BeiWai and Beijing Wai Guo Yu Da Xue (北京外國語大學). Back in high school, I had dreams of studying abroad in Europe, specifically France, but then I came to the conclusion that it would be too expensive. Then, I came across the idea of studying abroad in Japan, but I quickly knocked that down when I saw that the costs for one semester totaled at around $20,000 and I'm sorry, but I am not made out of money, no matter how much I want to go. Then, I moved onto Taiwan and China and it made a whole lot more sense.

Taiwan was my first choice since the Chinese that I wanted to learn is more influenced by Taiwan, I am currently obsessed with their entertainment industry, and I could knock out the rest of my Chinese credits that I needed for my major. The problem was that the study abroad fair had no pamphlets for Taiwan (possibly since the U.S. doesn't acknowledge the country as a country) and I'm rather impatient, so I skipped through that. I moved onto China. First, I started out in Hong Kong, since I am a native speaker of Cantonese, though it has died as I grew up, but the Chinese I needed was Mandarin. Then I went to Shanghai and Nanjing and though they seemed interesting, no one I knew knew anything about the cities besides the obvious. There was also another thing that I factored in: weather. I hate Texas weather, which is probably why I dislike Texas. There was no way that I was going to study abroad for about 4 months in another country where the weather would be akin to that of Texas'. The last choice left was Beijing. There was smog due to excessive pollution - which means a delightful lack of sunlight and UV rays. The hottest it got was in the 80s, which is important since I'll be living there from August. The city had the ability to snow - and the field trips went throughout NORTHERN China, generally. Not to mention that, unfortunately, the Chinese I learn at UT Austin is influenced by Beijing, so I could just continue learning that while learning the Taiwanese Mandarin version myself. (This is where I have to admit that there was one point in time where I was completely against learning Mandarin. It turned out that the Mandarin dialect I've been hearing was with that strong Beijing accent. I gave my friends permission to smack me upside the head when I come back and speak with that particular accent. The Taiwanese version, however, I find is pleasing to the ears.)

Now, the things I believe will make this trip so much the better, interesting, and funner - if not more difficult. My family is Chinese-American, for the most part (my parents were born in Vietnam). It is pretty sad when you resemble an Asian but you don't know how to speak your language well enough. This is pretty good motivation for me to get better - unfortunately, I also have a healthy dislike for being wrong so I tend to speak in a language other than Mandarin, even when I have the word(s) already in my mind. The two cancel the other out. Then, if you add in the fact that being American entails a stereotype of being rich in Asia, we have a problem. Of course, this wouldn't be as bad since I am Asian, but I have had a large number of people think that I'm Japanese or mixed (something I find highly amusing). The other bit is that my family, and due to the fact that I live with them, and I, are vegetarian for religious reasons. I can honestly say I will have some problems there. Of course, I am mostly a vegetarian which is worse enough in China, but coupled with that fact that my family also avoids onion, garlic, and other items in their family, that makes it even more difficult. At least I'm not studying abroad in Japan, because my weakness is sushi. I know, out of all of the meat-items that I'm willing to eat, raw fish is it. Well, I can't help it! The beautiful combination of raw fish, vinegared rice, seaweed, soy sauce, wasabi, and ginger is heavenly! This also collides rather spectacularly with the promise that I made to myself encompassing my firm belief that traveling requires one to explore the country's culture, and FOOD is a large part of that said culture. I will say no more on that. Also, I am partial to traditional Chinese. In fact, I am downright biased when it comes down to it. Unfortunately, simplified Chinese is the main way to go in mainland China, though both simplified and traditional are used in Hong Kong. Another unfortunate fact: I am rather stubborn. Also, I refuse to acknowledge reading and speaking "兒" when it's absolutely unnecessary to be understood. What a shame that 兒 is integral to that Beijing accent...

Needless to say, the trip will be a very interesting one, and depending on the availability (and quality) of the Internet that I had better be getting in China, I intend to blog about every step that I take there. Figuratively speaking, that is.

Unfortunately, I still have a ways to go.

Almost two months worth of waiting, to be more specific.