There is truth to the platitude that it isn't the destination that is important,
but the route that one takes to get there. To say my goals for studying abroad
were purely academic would be skewing the truth; studying Chinese took me
to China. But just as from studying Chinese language, I have gained new insights
into China's cultural and historical legacy, so too, in going to China have
I gleaned more than just the ability to speak a foreign language.
I remember arriving in Beijing. I was awestruck. Tiananmen Square on
my left,
the Forbidden City on my right, a giant-sized portrait of a deified
Mao Zedong
looking down on me from above. It seemed unreal. So many times had
these images
been a part of montages in books and on television, I had become
accustomed
to representations of this amazing place, but had never taken in "the
real
thing."
It was all so surreal, so wondrous, these impressions were unforgettable.
A week into my trip abroad, here is what I wrote as my first journal entry:
"I am for the first time in my life truly alone. Alone not just in the
sense
that I don't have anybody to rely and depend on, but in that I am in a
country
where I can barely communicate with anyone, and beyond that, I don't
have
a cultural clue how to follow that old traveler's phrase: 'When in
Rome, do
what the Romans do.' I am a stranger here. I wear the marks in every
sense
of the word. It is in the way that I look, it is in my inability to
communicate
with people, it is in the way I carry myself. Sure, I am nervous, and
rather
timid. But, the fact is, I am excited. I am finding in China a new
kind of
engagement; it permeates every minute of my time. All these activities
in
my life that I have taken for granted, those that even no longer
warrant the
classification of 'activity,' those things like buying a soda or
taking a
bus, the regimens of everyday life, have now become the instruments of
my
engagement. Ironically, my vehicle is Chinese; until this point, my
studies
have been so figurative. It is so strange to actually hear people
use this language that I have been studying for so long
in American classrooms as
their everyday mode of communication, as I use English."
As I discovered, the world indeed is a large place; and there I was
amidst
a part of it completely and totally alien to me. With the passing of
each
day, however, I would make more and larger strides toward acquainting
myself
with my surroundings. On my first day in Beijing, it is embarrassing
to admit,
I wandered barely beyond the reaches of my dormitory. But in the weeks
to
come, I would explore the campus and its neighboring parts, and
eventually
I would learn to take the taxi, bus, and the subway; my willingness to
explore
would grow and so too would the scope of my explorations. While I
would never
see the metropolitan city of Beijing in its entirety, I would, as my
language
skills improved and my experiences accrued, reach a point where I
would find
stability in my surroundings.
Along with this new-found stability, China, this 5,000-year-old
civilization,
this place that I had once described as "wondrous," for me would begin
to
lose its novelty. The mundane would replace the wondrous; the regimens
of
daily life would resume. I would change, as would others toward me. I
would
find a solid orientation among the hubbub of everything. At this
point, my
Chinese, alone, had not only become more fluent, but the timidity in
my voice
had disappeared. People were responsive to these changes that had
taken place
in me. I found that less and less were people asking me where I was
from;
less and less were people responding with emphatic flatteries of my
Chinese
at a simple utterance of a Ni hao (hello). In a way, I felt like I was
"home."
The language, people, and culture were merely another set of
circumstances;
I adapted to them and once again was as emotionally and mentally
sturdy as
I had been the day I had left.
In this manner, I found that being abroad has empowered me. I have a
new
confidence in myself. If I am capable of taking a place like China,
adapting
to it, and making it my home away from home, I feel as if anything is
possible.
I am once again back in Bloomington, Ind., my home since birth, and nothing
has changed. But at the same time everything has.
English and East
Asian languages and literature (Chinese) major Patrick Spencer, a
Bloomington
native, spent his junior year abroad in Beijing, China. He studied at Tsinghua
University through the 