Why do we waste so much, America?!

After being here for only a week we've taken in a lot of the culture already. I was going to save this until later, but I just can't seem to wrap my mind around it and I'm sure everyone's already written plenty on Tian'an men. So one thing we all noticed was so far was that almost everything we buy here is expired.

My initial reaction to this was, “Oh my gosh, I keep drinking expired things... I need to make sure to check everything!!” But the more I thought about it the more I realized these things I bought are still fine, and I bought them all pretty cheaply...

There's nothing wrong with Coke, juice, chips, or shelf food after it's been expired. Yet, in American, we just throw it all away.

 I thought that maybe it was just at this store we usually go to that sells expired things, but we continuously checked at every place we bought things and so far the only that was not expired was a bag of Doritos Ashley bought.

I just can't wrap my mind around how much we throw out in America. I can remember plenty of places I've worked at home where my boss would tell me, “that's been sitting out over 2 hours, throw it out.” But it's not like it was sitting out on the side walk with the sun beating down on it making it sour. It's been sitting in a nice little cooling shelf.

And now I come to China and find they don't waste things like we do. What is wrong with us? I've been eating expired food and drinks for a week now and I promise, I'm still alive!

The Longest Plane Ride I've Ever Taken

Thirteen and a half hours sounds long; it is, but it is totally worth it! If anyone is using the long plane trip for an excuse not to come to China, you're really missing out. A lot of my friends told me before I left, they wouldn't be able to handle it, but it's really not that bad at all. One thing most of us didn't know: you get to fly over the North Pole!

We were all looking for Santa on our trip. I'm not going to tell if we saw him or not, you'll have to fly here on your own to find out! I think we all did get a little restless after a while though. The worst thing I could have done was checking the time on the video map every hour or so (but I couldn't help it I was too excited). Here are a few things made the trip more comfortable for me, maybe you'll find them useful if you decide to make the journey yourself.

1. Wear comfortable clothing

2. Bring plenty to keep you occupied

3. When the seat belt sign is off “Go to the bathroom!” and by that I mean, get up and move around bit when you can

4. Having friends next to you who you know doesn't mind if you fall asleep on their shoulders. (the seats don't move much and not everyone can sleep in a sitting position).

The plane ride was long, but hey when I got off the plane I was on the other side of the world! Nothing beats that! So there's no excuses and as I'm sure anyone can see we're all pretty psyched to be here!

I really get to stay here?!

Before we left for China, I kept saying it's not going to sink in until I get there. Well I'm here and it's still hard to believe sometimes. The first day that we got to check out the campus was after our exams on Monday the 1st. The campus is huge! It's almost as if the campus is a small village of its own; there is so much to do. I could sit here for hours trying to think of something that I can't do on campus that I need to. There's a post office, bank, grocery store, park, you name it!

This is so different to Bloomsburg where it's almost impossible to get anywhere without having a car. Don't get me wrong, plenty of people here have cars, as you can see, but it's definitely not a necessity. While studying at Peking University, we're staying at the the Zhong Guan Yuan Global Village, which is where a lot of the international students are staying.

I've never lived in any kind of student housing before, so I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a bit of an adjustment for me, but adjustments are just that. So far, I really like living in student housing. Everyone's right here.

 We have study sessions at night because we live so close. If we need some one, they're just up or down the stairs. Don't get me wrong, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but I'm really liking the experience.

The park in north campus has been my favorite place to go on campus so far. It's a maze to get through it, but it was no problem with a bike. Among the many lakes and ponds there are also monuments, temples and even a marble boat, which our group met for class on one day.

When I biked through the park on Sunday, it was filled with so many students taking their graduation photos. All I could think was “wow, they're so lucky they get to go to school here!” It still doesn't seem real to me that I get to study here, I didn't even realize: hey, I am studying here! I am so lucky!

The Legend of Kongfu

On July 10, we went to see a Kongfu Show at the Hong Theatre in Beijing. I wasn't sure what to expect and I kept asking if we were going to see a play or just a bunch of people showing off some Kongfu. Either way I was excited, but I was curious because I didn't have much of an idea what we were going to see. Little did I know, it was both and much more.

The play called The Legend of Kongfu, which began with a boy who was afraid to start his studies in Kongfu and leave everything else behind, so his new teacher told him the story of another boy was also afraid to leave his home. Throughout the story there was loads of Kongfu and amazing performances using aerial silks. I thought it was so neat to see how they did not use any safety lines, just the aerial silks.

I've only ever seen this once before back home at Music Fest in Allentown, but this one kind of put that performance to shame. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures in the show, but after they invited the audience to come on stage to take some pictures with the performers, which I've never been able to do at a play before. I'm wondering if that's a Chinese theater thing, or if I haven't been to enough plays, but the ones I have been too have never just invited everyone up.

299km/h?!

Am I on a plane?! Nope, a train! I know, it's insane. Okay, I'm done rhyming now. I wish we had these in America! I absolutely loved my first bullet train experience. Today on Friday the 12th we left Beijing to go to Tai'an in Shandong Province for the weekend. Tai'an is about 500km away from Beijing. The least amount of time it would take driving according to google maps would be over six hours!

I know to most people that wouldn't be much, but hey if we can cut 4 hours out of travel time, I'm all for it and according to the student from the Washington group, their bus ride was not a pleasant one, it took them 11 hours. I'm so glad our school sprang for bullet train tickets. Even before I got on I felt like I was about to get on an airplane.

 The train station was just like an airport with lots of shops and stuff to do while waiting for a train. They also had the very familiar security lines and pat downs, but luckily the lines for that were much quicker than at an airport. I really hope we get this in America some time, it just seems so convenient and perhaps it would free up our very crowded airports a bit.

Our Mt. Tai Adventure

I don't think I can describe the trip to Mount Tai as anything other than an amazing adventure. I felt like I got a real challenge that day, not in the fact that there were 3000 stairs for us to climb, but I personally conquered two fears that day. Heights and lightning!

 After the first hundred or so stairs we all kind of split off into our own little groups and went at our own pace. I was with Ashley and Sarah and we were somewhere in the middle.

However, what started out as an unspoken race to the top turned into just wanting to make it to the top once the fog grew into a heavy rain. I think some of us were relieved at first to get a nice refreshing rain, but then came the thunder and soon after the lightning. By this point, Ashley had run ahead and Sarah and I were about a little over half way up the mountain. Many people were hovering under the sides of the mountain as we got to level grounds in between steep parts of stairs, but we kept going.

The closer we seemed to get to the top the more lightning we saw. One of the bolts hit pretty close to us and I even got a little shock from it while holding on to the railing (I'm not going to lie I screamed like a little girl). But we made it to the top and when we did you couldn't keep the smiles from our faces. We reached the top, in the rain and the storm and we didn't get hit by lightning. We were so happy, and sick of stairs,on the way back down we sang the whole way to pass the time. And as Laura said, we got stairs and stares the whole way down.

— April Mavroleon, French major and Chinese minor

A walk through the garden

One of my favorite experiences since being here was our exploration of what I like to call “The secret garden.” It’s not really a secret, but it is tucked away in the north side of Peking University. I like it a lot because Beijing is a very industrialized, constantly on the go city, but here in this garden it’s very peaceful. It’s actually a lot closer to what I always imagined Chinese life to be: calm, peaceful, relaxing.

In this garden there are a lot of cool things. For example there is a giant water tower. Now of course, we don’t think of a water tower as something to write home about, except this is no ordinary water tower. It’s very ornately built, very much like the Chinese architecture we see in Chinese Kung Fu movies. This garden is situated around a large pond; in this pond is something called the marble boat. It legitimately is exactly that: a marble boat. It was cool just to stand on it and relax. The reoccurring theme here is peaceful. The garden was full of older Chinese buildings with the more traditional architecture, which is one thing I really love about China.

On our way out of the garden we (Joshua Meyers, Ed Davis, Jackie Simon, and Ashley Boehmer, and myself) were stopped by an older Chinese man and his grandkids; they wanted to take a picture of the Americans. It was fun, and they were very nice and friendly. Although, that was an interesting experience because not too many people stop and take your picture randomly. Overall, walking through the secret garden felt to me like a very “Chinese” experience, and it was a great experience to share with my friends.

Eating in China

I would first like to start of with this statement. Living in China is not at all like living in America. One major difference is an obvious one: the language barrier. Virtually no one in Beijing speaks English, and those who do are not fluent in it. Even simple things like ordering food suddenly become a challenging undertaking. You really gain a unique perspective on the things that seem so natural to do at home like ordering food, buying everyday supplies, or connecting to the internet.

Only by getting out of your natural element can these seemingly easy things be seen as a valued privilege. Ultimately the China study abroad experience has been absolutely fantastic; one of my favorite experiences thus far has been attempting to eat at what we have started to call “The noodle house.” Keeping pace with the fast moving life of the Chinese people has not been easy, and lunch time is no exception. Lunch on one of our first days was perhaps one of the most frustrating ordeals I’ve ever been through. All we wanted was to eat some noodles, however one thing about China food place is all of their menus appear to be in Chinese, go figure.

Right as we walked in it became very clear we didn’t understand the language at all. Everything on the menu was in Chinese; we witnessed other Chinese people getting noodles, so when we went up to the lady who would get our noodles we tried to explain what we wanted. So we tried saying what we wanted in Chinese, but everything we asked for they didn’t have. Everything is so much more difficult here. Don’t get me wrong though, I love everything about it, the challenge, learning the language, making friends with new people, everything. One thing I do miss though is American food.

Never thought I would say that, but there is not a whole ton of sweet stuff here. Not that that’s actually a bad thing, it is clear that Chinese people eat a very healthily. Even the “sweet” stuff is way healthier tasting than American sweet stuff, which is interesting to me. Living in China for one week has already opened my eyes to so much stuff, and I’m looking forward to continuing my education here. Lastly, the weather here is awesome, it’s always hot. You never have to worry about wearing a sweater here; it has been over one hundred degrees consistently. Live long and prosper humanity!

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

This Saturday we had the opportunity to walk through the Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City; both important pieces of Chinese history. Tiananmen Square was very cool. One thing that was really interesting was learning a little bit about the buildings that are on the 100 Kuai (Chinese Dollar). Another thing that really struck me as being particularly interesting was the large number of vendor/salespeople out. They were all selling something, whether it be ice cream or little umbrella hats. They’re also quite aggressive, there was one moment where our group was standing in the middle of the Forbidden City and we were attacked as if we were dead meat and the salespeople were vultures.

That was a very different experience. The Forbidden City was particularly interesting to me because of the Chinese architecture, it’s so unlike anything we have in the United States. It’s amazing what people were able to build without the technology we have today. Overall, I really enjoyed walking through these two areas, and I’d highly recommend anyone in Beijing to check it out.

Bartering in China

While being here I have had many opportunities to barter with Chinese vendors on the street. Bartering is an interesting concept for me, especially because it’s not something that I’ve ever really seen in the states, at least not in the areas I’ve been in. Everything in America usually has a set price and that’s that. Not in China. One such experience was on our walk back from the Chinese KFC (which is another story in and of itself) we stopped at a random street vendor. This vender had a bunch of random figurines and jewelry. At the time I was with Ed Davis and Joshua Myers. We were looking at buying these small elephant figurines for people that like them in our respective circle of loved ones. At first the vendor said that it would 120 yuan (which would be about 20 U.S. Dollars), of course the language barrier was at play here as well. Eventually we got her down to 100 yuan, which is what we ended up paying for both.

We later learned after talking to Dr. Luo that we should probably have only paid about 50 yuan for both of them instead of 50 each. So for the next time we know a little more on how to barter. Even though we overpaid, it was still a fun experience because we were able to interact with Chinese natives, and practice our Chinese at the same time! Which the best way to get better at speaking Chinese; get more exposure to it.

Kungfu Show

One of my favorite experiences since being here was getting to see the Chinese Kungfu Show. The show was about the legend of one of their Kungfu masters. The show was full of fantastic acrobatic demonstrations as well as many dramatized fight scenes. The special effects of the show were also very cool. One of my current hobbies is martial arts, which is why this was so interesting to me. It was great to see a little bit of what Chinese fighting involves.

Kungfu is much more form based, as well as the principles behind it are more about peace than actually fighting. There were also many kids in the show with considerable skill in Kungfu. The discipline they have to train their selves to be that good is pretty amazing. It makes me wish I had started studying martial arts when I was a young child, especially because children are like sponges when it comes to learning. Overall, it really was just an entertaining show and a great exposure to Kungfu.

Climbing Mount Tai

One of the most exhilarating yet terrifying experiences I’ve had since being in China was the journey up and down Mount Tai. Mount Tai is a large mountain that resides in the city of Tai’an. Our journey up Mount Tai started with a wild bus ride up to the halfway point. From the halfway point it’s supposed to take about two hours to get to the top. Of course being the fitness junkies that we are, Harry Schultz and I raced up the mountain in about an hour. It certainly was not an easy climb, but it was fun.

The steps were extremely steep at some points, almost to the point where you could actually crawl up if you wanted to. Even better, about 30 steps away from the top, it started down pouring. It made climbing up the rest of the way very difficult, we went from being hot and sweaty to being very cold and wet, very fast. Eventually we made our way to a restaurant to get out of the rain and wait for the rest of our group to arrive. There we had some interesting conversations in Chinese with some Chinese natives. It was great to realize how much Chinese we really have been learning. We eventually had lunch with the group at the top of the mountain, which was good, especially after the exhausting climb up.

The way back was even more treacherous though. It was raining cats and dogs out there. People were slipping and falling all over the place, it was very scary coming down the mountain. We had to tread very carefully, but we eventually made it down safely. At the end I was extremely wet and very tired, but I felt accomplished. It was a great adventure.

— Andrew F. Rector, digital forensics major

Students to discuss D.C. experience

The 10 Bloomsburg students who participated in The Washington Center Inaugural Seminar in January will discuss the experiences and what they've learned on Wednesday, March 6, at 6 pm in Andruss Library, Schweiker Room.

The participants are, from left: Mathew Sullivan, Abigael Moser, Jimmy Mowumbi, Tykirra Robinson, Spencer McHugh, Robin Segale, Samantha Smith, LaDeshia Maxwell, Olivia Miller and Matthew Kenny.

Update (Feb. 25)

Students Jimmy Muwombi and Matthew Kenny were quoted in USA Today and  highlighted on C-SPAN (Muwombi at 39:30 and Kenny at 53:10).

Washington, D.C.: A call to service

More than 400 college students from across the country, including 10 Bloomsburg University students, descended on the nation’s capital in January for The Washington Center’s Inauguration Seminar — a two-week program where students and faculty participate in a series of discussions, site visits and guest lectures culminating with public inauguration events and President Obama's swearing-in ceremony. 

Throughout the past week students heard inauguration staff, political leaders and White House news correspondents share personal stories of presidential campaigns, elections and national policy. Historians and renowned professors also hosted interactive discussions on political appointments, congressional confirmations and policy agendas. 

Here, Bloomsburg participant Mathew Sullivan talks about the National Day of Service on Jan. 19.

The theme of the day was certainly “hidden opportunities.” Many students from The Washington Center were able to either meet or see some famous people today who were in town gearing up for the inauguration! It is extremely exciting having the opportunity to be in the capital during this event, you can feel the excitement mounting in the city, awaiting the ceremonies which will take place on Monday. The opportunities today weren’t just hidden, but publicized as well. Today is the National Day of Service. It is a day dedicated by President Obama to be a day that the nation can band together to commit service to one’s community. With all the preparation for the inauguration, as well as the day of service festivities going on, Washington is quite a fun place to be.

The Capitol prepared for President Obama's inauguration.

The day began with a trip to the Newseum, a relatively new institution dedicated to the history and appreciation of the evolution of not only American, but foreign news as well. This museum includes real broadcasting rooms, a piece of the Berlin Wall, and some other modern and historic pieces. In some ways, it is like being in a museum just waking to the Newseum. All the buildings surrounding the mall are either museums or historic/important in their own respect. Walking through judiciary square and appreciating the architecture, and memorial to law enforcement officers which have died in the line of duty was really amazing. The grandeur of the courthouses is an outward presentation of their symbolic nature. One could spend hours just wandering the city streets and marvelling at this city. 

A trip to the botanical gardens located to the south of The Capitol is a break from the expected sites and views of Washington. Being in a comparatively small building, the glass roof and architecture are quite attractive amongst the slew of marble-white buildings that surround the mall. Inside, Washington has arranged an amazing collection of plants from all around the world. From desert plants, Hawaiian plants, and even a section on medicinal plants, this diverse array of plant-life is quite impressive. The building is like a greenhouse of course, but it is still quite astonishing how the botanists are able to preserve these plants so perfectly, especially when it is winter outside the walls of this giant plant observatory. This place certainly played a calming role, in comparison to the hustle and bustle of the preparations for the Inauguration as well as the National Day of Service activities that were happening throughout the city. 

Registering for the National Day of Service was as easy as filling out a form on your phone and receiving an email. Once you received the email, all you had to do was show that to the workers at the tent and you were admitted. Inside, there were thousands upon thousands of people. It was truly amazing that this many people wanted to show up to see how they could help in one way or another. There was a speech by Lieutenant Colonel Tammy Colonel of the Illinois National Guard, who was injured in the Middle East, losing both her legs. She now serves as the first asian-american congress woman from Illinois. Her words were truly inspiring, she gave thanks to Martin Luther King Jr, because if it wasn’t for his fight during the civil rights movement, she herself would not be able to serve in the House of Representatives given her race. She also continues to serve as a Lieutenant Colonel despite her injuries, her story and continued motivation show her love for her country, it was amazing to see someone with that much dedication. 

Throughout the events at the National Day of Service, there were different stations depending on what time of service you might be interested in. There was a station for Economic Development, Health, Faith, Veterans, Environment, etc. etc. It was amazing to see how motivated people were about all these issues, not only the people attending the event, but the people working the stands as well. They were extremely eager to share their organizations story and get people involved to help out. One of the largest stands was for the American Legion, where people from all across the country were writing letters to our veterans. A woman from Telemundo was interviewing people in Spanish, I was one of the people she interviewed. This showed the great amount of participation from hispanic-americans as well, and how an event like this is important to report for people of different countries as well. 

A visit to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum came next. This museum offered an amazing collection of artifacts displaying human progression throughout history in the subject of air and space travel. An entire section of the museum is dedicated to the Wright Brothers. This is rightfully so, since it was with the innovation of these brothers that a whole new way of travel was born. Other interesting parts of the museum included the Lockheed Martin Imax Theatre, and the amazing collection of airplanes they had hanging from the ceiling. This museum was a testament to human ingenuity. The day’s events were truly full of “hidden opportunities”, many students were able to see Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. Many other students were able to participate in one way or another at the Day of National Service. Americorp did an amazing job of pulling the day’s events on altogether.