ball state goes to china

Whenever you are on a trip it’s impossible not to compare things to home.  For example a trip to central California might elicit a response like this,  “In Indiana we don’t have artichokes, but we have corn.”  A trip to Colorado and we might say “gosh, you have mountains here while in central Indiana we’re lucky to have a hill.”  No matter where you travel it’s always the same.

It is true, as well, when you meet people while on a trip.  If you are in Indianapolis and you meet someone from South Bend, no big deal.  If you are in California and you meet someone from Indiana, it doesn’t matter where in Indiana they are from; suddenly it’s like meeting a neighbor.  Well it’s the same here in China.  Meet someone from the U.S. and no matter where they are from, it’s as if they are our long lost best friends.

Earlier this week, while visiting Tiananmen Square, the students ran into a group of students from all over the U.S., and suddenly it was a party.  Twenty minutes of exchanging names, talking about what each group had done while in China. Chats about majors, interests and what they were headed to see next.  Then pictures, and suddenly the group felt a little less homesick.

All students from the U.S. visiting China. What a small world.

The same thing happened at the Forbidden City.  A group turned to our group and said something like “Wow, it’s great to hear English again.”  Seems they were a group from Penn State University, on a trip much like ours, and the discussions began again.  While in Shanghai, we ran into a family from Ann Arbor, Michigan on the elevator when leaving the Shanghai World Financial Center, and I, being from Michigan, felt the need to have a picture taken.  Again, suddenly it felt as if we had run into an old friend that we hadn’t seen in a while.

This idea that distance draws us closer also worked to our advantage when we first arrived in Beijing.  Terry and I had a discussion about meeting with the Lt. Governor here in Beijing.  If we had requested a meeting with her back in Indiana, our group would have been one of many who request that kind of thing.  The chances of getting time with her would be small.  However, take us both thousands of miles from home and instantly we are set apart from other groups, and we suddenly have a much closer relationship with the Lt. Governor.

Leaving the Shanghai World Financial Center we ran into a family from Ann Arbor, MI.

At China Daily, an English language newspaper here in Beijing, we were excited to visit with a reporter, Todd Balazovic who is a recent college graduate.  He decided to come to China and work because of the opportunities both in journalism and also from a cultural standpoint. Imagine my excitement when he introduced himself and said that he was a graduate of Central Michigan University.  My alma mater.  Oooh Wahhh chips!

No matter where each of us travels after this trip, I believe that this experience will change the way we look at the places we travel but even more the way we look at home.

It’s all in the context of things.

Six weeks in a foreign land can be fun, exciting, challenging and dirty.  Yes, I said dirty.  Not because the country is dirty or the things we are doing are filthy, but rather because there is no way that any of us could pack enough clothes for six weeks.  When I faced the task of packing, I wondered how much I could jam into one suitcase, hoping that somehow I could cram and caress and jam and prod six weeks worth of t-shirts, shorts, slacks and underwear, along with a variety of personal care products into one suitcase; at least one suitcase that I could still carry and get to the airport.  Of course I couldn’t and I was left with the decision of just how much to bring. One week, that was the decision that I made.  One week’s worth of clothes, some of which I could wear more than once without offending my traveling partners.  I figured that gave me a week and a half before I would have to handle laundry.   But little did we know that laundry day would be, in a way, something we looked forward too. We’ve purchased laundry detergent and have learned to launder clothes both in the sink and if we have a big load, in the bathtub.  Washing, soaking and rinsing those three are no problem. I’m not sure if it’s more about the idea of having clean clothes to wear, or the clean smell of the laundered clothes.  I caught my roomie Sarah, on the day she did her laundry, smelling it, enjoying the clean smell of the items.

The only problem we have when doing laundry is trying to get the clothes to dry.  Our hotel rooms in Shanghai really didn’t have any air conditioning, so we left our windows open.  Because of that, our rooms would sometimes be humid and that humidity made it very difficult when trying to get clothes to dry.  Slacks sometimes would take two days, shirts at least a day and even underwear was tough to get dry.  Fortunately Jack came up with a solution.  He tied several shoestrings together and viola’, a clothesline.  While it made drying clothes easier it wasn’t always quicker.

No matter the problems, laundry day has become a welcome event.  And now that we’ve arrived in Beijing and actually have air conditioning in our rooms, I think drying won’t even be a problem.