At first, I have to admit, I was not sure I was going to like living in Baltimore. I wasn't sure it was going to be the right place for me, wasn't sure if I could handle it. But as I reflected back, I decided that I needed a change of scenery. I'll explain –– it all started last summer.

I walked out of the movie theater and into the chaos of the mall. Blinking my eyes rapidly to adjust to the light, I looked around and saw a jam-packed Abercrombie store, a woman eating a juicy McDouble and a tween girl decked out in I-love-Justin-Bieber attire. The more I looked, the stranger it became. The thing is, though I was surrounded by American culture, I wasn’t in America. Rather, I smack dabbed in the middle of Xi'an, China –– the last place I expected to hear Nicki Minaj. Yet after spending almost three weeks traveling the country, I had come to see the similarities between China and America, not the differences.

When I returned home, many of my friends wanted to know about my experience. With grave faces, they would ask, "Was it weird?" "Did you feel like you didn’t fit in?" "Were you afraid of communism?" It was then when I really began to wonder why so many saw China as a scary place. At first, I assumed it was a lack of information and familiarity. However, weeks later, when watching a Fox News segment on the explosion of the Chinese economy, I recognized it wasn't the lack of information.

Instead, it was the

limited perspectives of the media and the American-centric viewpoints taught at my school. It seems China is often portrayed in a negative light and always in comparison to the US. But why do my peers turn China into America's "competition" instead of our partner? Why is Chinese burgeoning economic success portrayed as a threat on the nightly news? Why do we personify difference as bad, as opposition?

It’s the community, the diversity of thought. You see, growing up in North Carolina, I’ve become quite familiar with conservative opinions. I’ve sat by as my neighbors trumpet the need for stricter immigration policies, and I’ve overheard too many insensitive expressions of prejudice aimed at minorities. And so now with the freedom to choose, I want to be in a community where my beliefs will be broadened, where my views can be developed –– and that's why I love Baltimore. Yes, the city of neighborhoods, or Charm City, really has charmed me. And the thing that I've come to realize is that it's not about Baltimore itself, but it's more about the abundance of different people, the abundance of different perspectives and backgrounds that I'm exposed to, that makes Baltimore so great.