No VPN...

The last week before you move is always frantic.  Finish working and teaching, get your host family a teaching plan for the next 2 months, have dinner and/or lunch with 4 people and tell 12 others that you're going to do your best to meet them, even though you know it is physically impossible.  Get a suit from Yaxiu clothing market, where I paid about $200 for a three piece, which might have been a little high but in my defense I didn’t have much time to bargain, “I chose a good material,” and the suit surprisingly came out great.  Get one more $3 haircut. Don’t forget gifts for everyone you have encountered in your time in China.  Don’t forget gifts for everyone back home.  Exchange your currency to that lovely green American paper that we all love, but beware, I found out the day before I left that China only lets foreigners exchange $500 worth of RMB per day.  How 麻烦 (inconvenient) is that? Pack your stuff, lose that bloody VPN, cancel your phone, and finally don’t sleep the night before you get on the plane to accelerate your superhuman ability to adjust to new times zones in 48 hours.

So what have I learned in China?  I have realized that what my boss told me on the first day at USCBC was absolutely correct.  He said, before you come to China, you could write a 100 pages about it, after arriving you can only write a few dozen, after a few months only a page or two, and by the time you leave you can't write anything.  He says this because of how quickly China is churning and also due to the complicated nature of its development.  There are regional and cultural differences within China, different laws and exceptions to rules all over the place, things that would impress you and things that would make you shake your head. But regardless of what new things you discover in China, it is all changing at the speed of sound.  And as much as I appreciate the openness and transparency of Western news media, it does not do a particularly good job of capturing the essence of China's development and new trends.  It tends to focus more on hot button issues such as currency manipulation, which really is only one small piece to the puzzle here.

It has become tradition in the Bejing Office of the USCBC to ask their interns what they have learned while working there.  So over lunch, my manager asked me and told me that I could respond in Chinese or English.  She gave me a moment to collect my thoughts and I was surprisingly able to respond in Chinese by saying that working with the USCBC has given me a firsthand look at the structure of the Chinese government and how it influences all American business interests.  I have gotten a glimpse of the business culture here in China, what challenges American firms face, and what best practices are for conducting business.  I have had the chance to continue using my Chinese both orally and through my research projects.  I have gained so many other noteworthy experiences while here at the USCBC, but it will likely be years before I fully realize all that I have learned or how it will all help me.

I have grown personally.  Navigating another country using a foreign language is no easy task, and doing that while living on your own makes it even more challenging.  This summer, for the first time in my life, I only spent the money that I had earned from working and truly began to understand what it means to "be on your own." It's a critical experience for many of us and I'm glad that I was able to discover it before I graduated college.  I feel like I have strengthened my survival skills and become a more responsible young adult.  In fact, when you finally come to the realization that you have to face fierce competition from every country in the world and that you and only you are responsible for your success within that scope, it is very stimulating.  Before coming to China, I was aware of this notion in theory, but in reality, I had not felt the effects of globalization or the real-life challenges of supporting yourself.

Sitting here at gate E08 of Beijing International Airport, looking at the plane I am about to board stirs up a lot of emotion. It has been a fantastic time in China, and I owe a lot of that to being surrounded by good people, namely a great roommate and his family in Shanghai, great classmates, a generous host family in Beijing, and the diligent staff at the USCBC.  I miss China already and while I don't know how it will play into my long-term personal and professional goals, I do know that it already holds a very, very special place in my heart.  Until next time, China, farewell.