I have recently returned home from a school trip abroad to China. My classmates and I were there for about two weeks. The program was sponsored through the Confucius Institute (CI), an organization sponsored by the Chinese government whose purpose is to expose people in other nations to Chinese culture and language.
The USM CI branch cooperated with our partner university in the Chinese city of Dalian. We stayed at the Dongbei University of Finance and Economics for about ten days, attending both language and culture classes.
The classes were relatively easy but very interesting and enlightening. Our laoshi (teacher) was extremely helpful and made the whole experience that much more enjoyable. With light homework and a thin schedule, we were afforded many opportunities to strike out into the city and explore on our own.
The city of Dalian is located on the Liaodong Peninsula. Surrounded on three sides by water and with a thriving city center with numerous historical sites to explore, the city is a popular tourist destination for Chinese people.
The city, in its current form, is relatively new. That is not to say that the city's expansion has grown stagnant, on the contrary, it is growing larger every day. There are even plans to construct an artificial island in on of the city's many harbors for a larger airport to be placed on it.
During our short stay, we were able to visit one of the city's many amusement parks, a massive karaoke-bar complex, and a couple of Dalian's numerous city squares/public parks. All of these sites were easily accessible via the easy-to-use metro lines. Cheap and clean, they were a great way to traverse the city.
Living in China for two weeks was like living in a totally different world.
There were too many differences between this place and the United States to count. For one, most of the toilets were squatting-only. At restaurants, only hot water was served. Probably most importantly, all of the internet platforms that are considered staples in the United States and around most of the world are blocked.
Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram are all inaccessible there.
To make up for this, they have developed their own innovative social network platform. It is called WeChat and it actually came in very handy during my stay there.
It is a jack-of-all-trades within the world of mobile apps. First and foremost it is a messaging service. Calls and texts can be sent to others who have the app and are connected to wifi. Users can also share and like content much like Facebook and Twitter. The apps another main feature is its advanced QR scanner.
Everywhere we ventured we saw QR codes. Some when scanned only gave information or linked the user to some website. Others were portals for the user to use the apps final and most important feature; mobile payment. Some vending machines only accepted this form of payment and most businesses accepted it as well.
After our stay in Dalian, we spent four days touring the major historical sites of Beijing such as the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace.
All in all, the experience was amazing.
While I may not have been a fan of everything Chinese culture had to offer, it is definitely worth seeing for yourself firsthand. I for sure have a very different view on China now that I have visited.
