March, 2, 2010
I have already been in Beijing for a week now. I cannot believe I have survived the first week! This is my first time away from home and doing everything on my own. At first, I was scared about being in a new environment and not knowing anyone, but now I have made several good Chinese friends and everything is coming along very nicely. This is such a great opportunity and will be a value added to my experience. The food here is AMAZING! People are so willing to learn English! I had a chance to sit in a Microeconomics class taught in Chinese and it was really cool to see the text books and the power point slides (in English) being quite similar to the ones we use back in the state. These Chinese students are learning materials in English when they are still having trouble comprehending the language itself. These students spend hours upon hours with the dictionary, trying to understand the meaning of the word while also needing to understand the class materials! English is one of the hardest major for Chinese students, others being pre-med and engineering. I just cannot get over the fact that these students are taking classes in English when they don’t fully understand the language! My classes so far have been very interesting. We have three students in our class who are from the U.K and it was interesting to see how they conducted businesses. One example we discussed today was the trend in technology; how the U.S and the Chinese younger generations are fast phase consumers wanting the latest phones and other new gadgets, where as in the U.K, majority of the population are okay with the five year old phone. There are so much to learn from this culture and many things to see. Even the local people who live in Beijing have not seen some of the famous attractions.   My goal right now is being as open as possible and trying new things. I recommend anyone who wants to come to Beijing to study should definitely learn some Chinese because it will help you out greatly in every aspect of daily life! Â