Wrapping up ..

Winter is here and as I look outside and see a different Hangzhou that I had come to just 4 months ago. But it is not merely all the snow and crisp breeze that makes it such a different place. Now, I walk around campus and see familiar faces. The delivery guy from the West gate Sichuan restaurant, the student of medicine that I had met at a party on campus, the lady who works in our dormitory; we would smile at each other and share a few polite words as we continued along with our daily business.

The Hangzhou I came to a month ago was unfamiliar; I didn’t know most of these students from all these different schools all over the US whom each had very different experiences and backgrounds from me. Walking around campus I would not recognize anyone, travelling around by bus was a challenge, ordering from a menu at any restaurant was a task, I wouldn’t imagine ordering home delivery without help from one of the roommates.

The school work has been hard and time-consuming, and sometimes I would lose perspective on what my motives behind spending a semester abroad in Hangzhou were. We were surrounding ourselves with a culture to which we were challenged to acclimatize to, get familiar with and get comfortable with. Somewhere along the path towards where I am now, I feel that I was successful in achieving these goals.

Culture in some terms is impossible to describe and harder to understand; it is constantly evolving and folding into itself the influences of the new and conservation and oftentimes, the revival of the old. To claim to understand the finer points of someone else’s lifestyle and culture is to put a space between you and him or her, whereby you ought to study it. Wherever we live, we are each different but yet make up small pieces of a collage that we refer to as a common culture.

I have come to believe that the best manner in which to understand a culture is not to constantly be aware of the differences and finer points but to celebrate and explore what you share with someone else. I think that if you spend enough time upholding this approach you will naturally build on this foundation of what you share with your hosts and together begin to explore and imbibe more and also contribute more to this exchange.

Thus the best way to understand a culture, at the end of the day, is to become a part of it, contribute to its evolution in your own little way. I have been a part of this very unusual community of students at this pretty usual university in a pretty standard city in China. Over the last few months, this little community has become closer, more homey and more comfortable. I think the fact that the program only had 13 students and 13 roommates was a great plus as we had an experience to develop meaningful relationships, all within the context of being in Hangzhou.
I like the fact that we made this list of things to do pushed us to have a good time this last one month and also not get too preoccupied with work, for example, we spent a great afternoon at the zoo when we would have likely just spend studying at the dormitory. Also got to see my first panda.

Participating in the University’s soccer tournament was also a lot of fun. Our team which was aptly named “Multinational Cooperation” in Chinese did quite well. Recently we were also invited to a party hosted by one of the academic departments at the University. The party was based on building connections with people from outside China. It which included many games and other activities and helped break the ice and was really successful in what it intended to do, I think. I was also asked to play the role of host at the event and a few of us arranged a song to sing there too. Performing and hosting in Chinese in front of a bunch of Chinese students was a nerve-racking experience, but it was definitely worth it.
Since my last blog post, I also had the chance to spend a weekend at my roommate’s hometown- Yiwu which hosts the largest shopping center in the world. Yiwu is a fascinating place and I really enjoyed learning more about my roommate in a family setting and meeting his family.

We also made our way to a primary school nearby where we had the amazing opportunity to play with little kids who were very very excited to meet people from all over the world and also more than willing to show us how they have fun and the games they play. We also showed them a few of the games we grew up playing. I hope that they will continue to play them even after we leave Hangzhou. A week ago, a few of us went to watch the Zhejiang basketball team play their first game of the season. 4 months in Hangzhou meant that we not only had a team to support but also feel some allegiance to.

After the Hangzhou semester ends, a friend and I will be heading back to Shangrila for a week long course in Tibetan Thanka painting at an Arts academy. I look forward to heading back to place that already seems quite familiar. Once the week is up we will head to Xi’an and then onwards to Qingdao before we reach Beijing for January Term. Leaving Hangzhou will be difficult as I feel that I have developed a deep bond with the city. I have already begun looking for an internship next summer either in Shanghai or Hangzhou. Heading back and once again adjusting to life in US next semester will definitely be a challenge as there is going to be so much about the life here that I am going to miss very much. If someone was to ask me about my experience here, it would be very difficult to summarize into a few minutes.