The question that I get asked the most is: "How did you get interested in China? How did this whole China thing start?"
Well, here's a video that I put together that talks about a few of the reasons. If you don't want to watch the video, you can just skip it and read below, although you might miss a few things.
Although I enumerate a number of reason why I got interested in China, the biggest reason was the one that I mentioned at the beginning: my professor of Modern China and World Civilizations classes.
He was so knowledgeable and so passionate about China; it was impossible to ignore. He had an enormous influence on my and he, along with help from the International Office of ETBU, helped get me over to China to become Lanzhou University of Technology's first-ever exchange student.
It changed my life - I no longer see life in America the same way. Nearly everything I thought about life in general was turned upside down by that trip. I have gone back to "normal life" in Texas and live not too differently than the way I did before, but my thought process has changed completely in regards to my personal relationship with the world around me.
I suppose that's what I wanted and what got me really excited about China more than anything else once I got there. It was SO different from anything I had ever known before that it forced me to grow up and get serious in certain ways that I hadn't had to worry about before.
Getting food was a struggle. Doing laundry was a struggle. Going to class was a struggle. Making friends was a struggle at first. It was hard, but I overcame it with some help, and now I have emerged from all that as a different person.
I'm really excited about going back to Lanzhou on June 13th - it's less than 3 weeks away! Time passes really slowly and really quickly at the same time.
It's hard to believe I've been an A/V tech since about November. Weird....I don't feel like I wasted my time or anything - it was good, and it was what I needed to do at this point in my life. I needed to step back from China for a bit to really think about what I wanted to do. With some pushing from friends and a select few members of my family, I made the decision to apply for a job in China, and I got it!
All this to say ----- I got the China bug. Big time. It won't be going away any time soon! More videos and posts to come as the date gets closer!
There are so many things about China that makes it a fascinating interest: history, culture, language, geography, economics, politics and LOTS more. One of the reasons, besides the language, that intrigues me the most about China is this sense of mystery. An allure. Something embodies all the things mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, on a personal note, China allows me to think about things and cultures way beyond my own ingrained ethnocentric ideas about the world. It challenges me and I like that.
yeah, there's so many things you want to say (and intend to say) when you make a video, but sometimes they just go out the window once you get started. You can only say so much in a 4 minute video haha
DeleteBut yeah, you're right, especially about the mystery, allure, and step away from ingrained ideas. We are forced to see China, and to some extent, the world itself, as it is, and not how we think it should be. I read a blog post from "Poise On Arrows," that talked about how being in China brought her "one step closer to the person I've always wanted to be."
That definitely was true for me....I can't believe I didn't include that in my video. *shakes head*