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Year in China is eye-opening experience
(by Sue Hoffman - July 09, 2009)
Year in China is eye-opening experience
By SUE HOFFMAN
A nine-month stay in China brought home the importance of "chi ku" for Sterling Weiser, of Gates Mills.
The Chinese words translate into "eat bitter," Mr. Weiser, a 2009 graduate of University School, said last week. "It means buckling down and sometimes doing things that are not enjoyable."
Mr. Weiser experienced "chi ku" when the complexity of the language left him "mute" during the first two months of his home stay with the Ye family in Beijing, he said, as well as when he had to adapt to the way of life in rural villages.
"I had a friend who went there, and I said, 'That sounds cool,'" he said, recalling his decision to spend his senior year in China. "I didn't know what I was getting into." However, he found that culture shock and initial language difficulties could both be overcome.
His language skills, jump-started by two years of Chinese classes on University School's Hunting Valley campus, developed to the point where he became quite conversational and could understand the "intricacies of the language." That achievement clearly delighted his host family and teachers, he said. He also adapted to rural life during his stay in Fujian, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces. He picked tea leaves with farmers, drove an ox cart and carried vegetables on mountainous terrain on a bamboo pole.
Overall, his senior year abroad was enriching and life changing, said Mr. Weiser, who now avoids any waste of food and aspires to return to China as a doctor. "I learned to appreciate the things I have."
Mr. Weiser, who will study pre-medicine and Chinese in the Ohio State University scholars program, was already a seasoned traveler when he set out for China last fall. He had visited Australia for over three weeks as a seventh-grader at University School, traveled with the People to People student ambassador program to London and Europe the summer before ninth grade and spent a month in Spain the summer before his junior year.
China was an entirely new experience, said Mr. Weiser, who went there through School Year Abroad.
After two months of traveling through China and settling in with his host family, he believed he had a better understanding of the country.
"'If you think you know China, you're wrong,'" he said, quoting his Chinese history teacher at the Beishida Er Fuzhong School, a prestigious school in Beijing where School Year Abroad held class and immersed the foreign students in Chinese. He realized his teacher was correct after visiting Xiamen in Fujian Province. Like Hong Kong, Xiamen was a port town that remained Western when the country became Communist.
"It was a very modern city," he said. A four-hour bus ride away, however, was like a different world. "It looks like the past, although some have TV and electricity," he said.
That's where he lived in a house on stilts, with the animals' quarters below them. "One night I heard a pig being slaughtered right beneath me," he said.
Other memories abound, such as when his host mother seemed to shout at him at the dinner table. He thought he had done something wrong, but later realized that she wanted him to decide between hot and cold rice.
"Everything they do is passionate and full of emotion," said Mr. Weiser, who now uses his hands in talking as his hosts did. "That's what's so great about the country."
Mr. Weiser enjoyed one 17-day visit during the winter holidays from his parents, Lisa and Larry, while he was in China.
"When we were there, he was carrying on conversation in Chinese," Mrs. Weiser said about her son. In addition to becoming fluent in Chinese, he developed his writing in English and produced a continual stream of on-line blogs.
In one blog, he wrote about the day he had to carry a danzi, or pole, with a load of vegetables. "It was a bit nerve-wrecking because the path down was an almost vertical path and we had these huge sticks on our shoulders now. We made it down barely and began the 45 minute hike back into the village. I figured out a good way to carry the pole across both my shoulders and then I was back in 30 minutes. Gavin (another student) and our guide were truly surprised by my speed."
His final blog said it all: "I will miss everything. There isn't one thing that I would change about this year. It has been perfect. It was the best experience of my life."
Mr. Weiser advises anyone who wishes to visit China to "go in with an open mind. Don't be afraid to eat bitter. Get involved."
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