Beijing 2011

Greetings all, my name is Lauren Hause and I am a Chinese Major with a Terrorism Studies minor at the University of Maryland College Park. For the past two months I have been studying Mandarin and Chinese culture. The program I am participating in is the first UMD sponsored study abroad to Beijing.

Unlike the study abroad program to Shanghai with the Business School, Maryland-In-Beijing is a language-based study abroad program. Initially, I was very skeptical about signing up for the program. I changed my major halfway through college from Business to Chinese so it has set me behind in terms of graduating. The last thing I wanted to do was jeopardize pushing my already late graduation date even later for a semester abroad. The opportunity for language and cultural immersion, however, was way to enticing for me to say no. So, back in February of this year, I packed up my things, kissed my family goodbye, and headed off to China.

No amount of advice or studying could have prepared me for what Beijing had in store for me. The first thing I noticed after I stepped off the plane was, even after two and a half years of language study, I could not speak a lick of Chinese. Everyone spoke so quickly that it was virtually impossible for me to comprehend what they were saying. It initially was a big hit to my ego because I had expected, after putting in so much time in the classroom, that I would be able to navigate the city just fine with my language skills. This dilemma turned out to be a blessing because now I’ve trained my brain and ears to understand the fast-paced Beijing dialect as well as improved my own fluency skills.

The second thing I noticed upon arrival was the food. To the untrained eye, many Chinese dishes look strikingly similar to some famous “American-Chinese” food dishes back in the States. Upon further exploration, however, the true authenticity of thousands of years of Chinese cuisine is obvious. Each region of China has its own style of cooking; to the south you find spicy and exotic cuisine, the west is famous for sour foods, the east has a relatively sweet tendency, and the north is famously spicy. Beijing however, houses all types of food and styles of cooking. On any given night, you can find anything from spicy Szechuan food, or some spicy curried seafood from the south of China. Almost all Chinese food, however, tends to be very oily, so keeping an eye on your waistline could be a problem.

So, I’ve been here in Beijing for over two months now, and I have been keeping up my own personal blog documenting my experiences, so I’ll probably include some older posts in addition to newer ones that I write for Patch.