I have loved China’s culture, language, and food since I can remember. My Mandarin studies began in seventh grade at the Pierce School in Brookline, MA. At Brookline High School, I continued to learn Chinese and took part in a semester-long exchange with 高新一中 (Gaoxinyizhong), a high school in Xi’an, China. A student from Gaoxin lived in my house for fall semester of my sophomore year. I attended Gaoxin during the spring semester. Each of six BHS students in the exchange joined a Gaoxin class for the first four periods of the school day. Among other subjects, we studied chemistry, math, physics, and thankfully English. After the school’s two-hour lunch period, our exchange group followed a different schedule. We attended language, history lessons, and various art classes taught by Xi’an natives as well as creative writing English classes with our teacher from BHS. During this semester, I lived in a Chinese household. I grew very close with this family along with the family of the student who lived with me in Brookline. I now say that I have two sets of Chinese parents, as well as an old and younger Chinese brother.
My Mandarin studies continued through my time at Bates College. Spring semester of junior year, I participated in Student International Training in Kunming. For three months, this included different Mandarin classes along with educational seminars. For the program’s required “five-day,” I explored Xishuangbanna alone. For our month-long independent study that concluded the program, I chose to write a comparative study of Western psychological therapeutic treatment and Tibetan Buddhist practices. For research, I traveled through Northern Yunnan and Western Sichuan, primarily staying in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. I spent the final week of this project in Xizang (Tibet). Following the program, I traveled throughout Xinjiang and the region surrounding Shanghai.
I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in International Environmental Policy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. I continue to study Mandarin and hope to return to China soon.
