A Memory from Shanxi Province, China
November 2016
In November of 2016, my classmates, teachers, and I took a week-long study trip to Shanxi province (山西省). One of the most memorable days was when we visited a local high school in a city known as Datong (大同). As we left our modest hotel that morning, I grumbled to my friends about anything and everything─the early wake up call, the seemingly Arctic temperature outside, my lingering cough. However, when we arrived at Datong Erfuzhong (大同二附中) and were greeted with a boisterous welcome from the local students, all my admittedly minor cares seemed to fade away.
We got up on stage to be introduced to the Datong students and faculty. As I stood on stage, waiting to introduce myself, I looked over the hundreds of students and wondered at the circumstances that had brought me here. I found it hard to believe that in just a couple of short months, my Mandarin language ability and confidence had improved enough that I would be able to introduce myself in Mandarin in front of masses of native Chinese. It felt, in a word, surreal.
Hanging out with some young Datong students
Over the next couple hours, I sat through three classes entirely in Mandarin. At each class, we’d begin by meeting the students and then move on to learning whatever it was that the students were learning that day─in this case, physics, math, and literature. I was surprised by how much of the instruction I was able to understand. Another surprise was how excited the local students were to see us. At one point, I found myself on the sports field, surrounded by maybe 50 students, signing autographs on scraps of paper, hands, even foreheads! Everywhere my fellow SYA students and I went, we were followed by a swarm of adorable local kids. At the end of the day, when we finally had to go back to the hotel, we were certainly as sad to go as the Datong students were to see us leave.
