Beijing and Back in One Year

Many Americans say that Chinese Culture seems the epitome of foreign. Before leaving for my Junior year abroad in Beijing, my dear grandmother kept asking me, “are you sure you want to go for a whole year?” thinking I couldn’t survive an entire year in such a foreign environment. Besides wanting to learn Mandarin and say I had climbed the Great Wall of China, I had a question running through my head, “how different could it really be?” I just had to see it for myself.
 
I had been exposed to various cultures before and was just as ready and excited to soak up everything that China had to offer under the sun. Or was I?
 
I was to live with a Chinese roommate the first semester at Beijing Foreign Studies University. At the beginning, I was slightly worried that we wouldn’t get along. Her name was Lina and she was from the countryside of Hebei province. Her parents were farmers and she had an older sister and a brother, despite China’s One Child policy. In rural areas, the policy was a little more lenient and people could get away with having more than one child.
 
The first time I went out to dinner with my roommate, she took me to a Sichuanese restaurant, famous for their spicy food. She ordered us two bowls of “mala tang”. While I was still getting used to chopsticks, it became even more difficult to eat my food politely as a numbing and spicy sensation began to fill my mouth. I broke into a sweat and my nose began to run. I apologized to my roommate for such indecency. She laughed a little and said, “You eat like a bird!”
           
After that, I began watching the way other Chinese people ate. Holding a spoon in one hand and chopsticks in the other to pick up noodles and put onto the spoon. Keep your face low to your bowl or bring your bowl up to your face rather than try to scoop up rice with chopsticks with the risk that the food will fall. Slurping and burping are acceptable. Just eat for the sake of eating.
 
My roommate would show me the places with the best milk tea, fruit, and snacks. Like all groups of Chinese girls walking together, Lina would link her arm through mine and we would joke and giggle as we strolled down the back street behind our university. Lina loved to hear gossip and hear about what it was like back in America.
 
Lina didn’t like to go out and explore the city, but stay in her room. The Chinese had a strong divide between inside and outside. Inside, it is clean and you take your shoes off to not trail in the dirt and germs of the streets. Outside, there is smog, trash, people spit, and babies poop and pee right on the street. Lina longed to be in a place with grassy meadows, gardens, and an abundance of trees. I understood, but to me, the grime of Beijing gave it character. Rough around the edges. So I would wander out on my own to explore the vast city of Beijing.
 
In the beginning, when I could barely say one sentence in Chinese, Lina would speak English and help me with Chinese words. Over the year, we both grew and changed. Lina matured- she got more outgoing and began wearing makeup. I had broadened my horizons in this year-long experience. On my last day in Beijing, I convinced her to venture out to my favorite area of Beijing, Dongdajie hutongs, to go to a dumpling restaurant. After dinner, we stood on the overpass of a highway watching the cars rush by. Our conversation was all in Chinese- talking intimately about our feelings, emotions, and life. She has truly become my best friend, someone I could confide in and trust.
 
Lina had truly enhanced my experience abroad, being part of my vast love for China. She taught me about the culture and customs of her country and I would tell her about mine. China was no longer this foreign land to me. I had unmasked the unknown and discovered this fascinating culture filled with interesting hospitable people. Despite times when Chinese people seemed rude, interactions with them are really what you make of them. We are all just human, after all.