When I stumbled into Colleen Berry鈥檚 4000 Asian Studies class, I had no idea what I was in for. It was not just because as a freshman, I wasn鈥檛 quite sure what this 4000 meant on my roster, but rather how paradigm shifting the experience was.聽 My educational background had been one of those preppy, conservative classical charter schools that thought 鈥渃lassical鈥 necessitated 鈥渨estern,鈥 鈥渆urocentrism,鈥 and perhaps most insidiously 鈥淐aucasian.鈥 After all of high school, my knowledge of Asia consisted of my 12th grade history teacher proclaiming that the U.S had to drop the atomic bomb. He also mentioned his own experience--a weeklong trip in Japan where his opinion as a westerner reigned supreme. (His ideas not mine). I was aware that I had a giant gap in my education that was stock full of biases even if I did not have Edward Said鈥檚 words to describe them yet. I showed up to Dr. Berry鈥檚 class and learned ...a lot. I had no idea where Cambodia was, let alone it鈥檚 history of tumult. I learned about Tiananmen Square for the first time, I had never even seen a picture of Pudong鈥 or Beijing鈥 or any city in the Asian region. When Dr. Berry noticed my hunger to fill these embarrassing holes and invited me to apply to a trip to China, I was intrigued but my pocket money was slim. It was an indescribable joy to find out that the Tang scholarship would cover most of the expenses, and I could go. And as cheesy as it sounds, I cannot express how grateful I am to the family for this incredible experience of a lifetime. It is one thing to read in class about 鈥渇araway places.鈥 One can intellectually understand her own biases but in order to start unravelling them, more physical evidence is a perfect catalyst. Having your own internalized racism picked apart and shoved in your face is a marvelous event. Our class and reading material aided to this process like nothing else. Our topic was the discussion of Modernization as opposed to Westernization in urban China. This reasonable idea had always made sense to me on paper. But, I seemed unable to get past my own perception of China as a mere imitation of the US. When I got to China however, it immediately made itself clear to me how distinct, modern, global yet culturally specific both Beijing and Shanghai were. I do not claim that 3 weeks in a couple Chinese cities made me qualified to make judgements on the country in any capacity. But I do think I that it helped me start towards acknowledgement of my own ignorance and fed my desire to know more.
Arriving in Beijing, felt like a dream. Everything felt uncanny: so simultaneously normal and different. I was shocked by how it felt like a normal city. Except there were barely any advertisements, it was so clean! There were so many beautiful flowers on the side of the road. I think in my brain I secretly thought everything would look like old town China, with bowed roofs, and traditional garb. Again, Said was very important for me to read. As an English Major, literary theory is very concerned with Said鈥檚 work and dissembling our western vs. eastern binary. It has been so helpful for my classes to have this background knowledge and to engaged in that discussion. Going to the universities in Beijing and Shanghai helped me un-exoticize China as well. Being able to meet and interact with other college students was a fantastic experience, especially for the people in our group who were graduating with degrees in Chinese. But for me it was so cool to meet these amazing people across the world who were so easy to relate to despite a language barrier.
Every day, Dr. Berry had us keep a journal with specific study questions to digest and contemplate on our experiences. Looking back, this was a brilliant way to engage our minds in the day to day activities; it turned what could have been tourism in to a full-fledged research. Our research papers also created a sense academic rigor. As we were allowed to study what we wished, the whole trip turned into an intellectual enterprise. The entire city was our classroom. Dr. Berry made this more apparent when we would present to the class on the significance of the sites in the classroom, right before heading off to it. This tactic was so helpful for me who knew nothing about the art district, the forbidden city, or the bund, etc. It is so easy when travelling to snap a few selfies and maybe read a few plaques and then go. But, this trip, while was so fun, was rich with academic stimulus.
If we were riding a gondola up to the Great Wall, of course we were videoing our friend Garmai hilariously freaking out about the height, but we were also considering the nature of tourism. Who put the gondola there? Did Western tourists see this as disgraceful to the 鈥淕reat Wall?鈥 Did intra-national tourists see this as an amazing addition? These questions were accompanied by great articles about debunking the western gaze around the Great Wall and the history of its importance.
Strolling alongside the Empresses palace was lovely, but having Dr. Berry explain to us all the symbols dividing the rich and the poor, the marble boat鈥檚 pointless purpose, and what bats, sparrows, and colors signified made it enthralling. Tiananmen square was beautiful and I enjoyed snapping a million pictures of my friends. And then the sobering realization would hit me of the square鈥檚 sad history. The documentaries we watched and the books we read made my knees go weak, and incited discursive bus rides questioning the nature of the Western world reaction or potential over-reaction to the tragedy. Even eating Chinese food became a site of discussion around authentic and non-authentic. What did the desire for authentic, old Beijing delicacies indicate about the country鈥檚 desire to be connected to Beijing, what did it say about tourism? These usually happened over the bowl of delicious noodles and those were my favorite conversations.聽 I could give a thousand examples: every day was a blast, an adventure, a lesson.
Many of my friends on the trip expressed how traveling with our class made them feel prepared to travel on their own. When I asked my friend Mac if the trip had impacted him in the long term he said, 鈥淚t really made me more and more aware of China's history and how that history is still relevant to this day. It also taught me how to travel through some of the world's biggest cities.鈥 Erica, my roommate on the trip, expressed something similar. She said, 鈥淭he program with Dr. Berry did create a lasting impact on my life. The immersion aspect of the course gave me a much deeper understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture, history, and society. On a personal level I felt much more capable of traveling and navigating a new culture because of Dr. Berry鈥檚 teaching style.鈥 The focus on learning from our surroundings and analyzing as we went gave the trip both real world applications and academic ones. Colleen鈥檚 trip showed us all that we had the capability to travel and gave us the necessary skills to be a good traveler. Navigating the subway, finding new places, ordering food in a language I had never practiced, gave me the confidence to learn from more countries.
Dr. Berry encouraged us to go out on our own following the logic that large groups are not conducive to meeting people. One of our assignments was just to wander for an hour and it this was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Wandering through markets, I got pulled into a Tai Chi class, invited to a lovely grandmother鈥檚 home, someone asked to buy one of my drawings and I commissioned a sketch, people would try out their English for the first time and I would poorly stitch Chinese phrases together, I made friends with families, and got lots of directions from helpful strangers. All these may sound like cutesy experiences but all them were imperative for me in de-othering China.
I thought I would pull another quote from another student, since he said it better than I can: 鈥淭he biggest way it impacted me can be summed up well in the phrase "the century of humiliation" and realizing how much China has been through and how rapidly it is still changing. This helped me have more empathy for China's...positions in the world now.鈥 Sean鈥檚 words really ring true for me. I believe our culture is saturated with fear of China, communism and its potential to 鈥渂eat鈥 the U.S in the global game. Heading to Suzhou our guide told us a story about a new Chinese airplane. He was talking to another tourist about the plane and mentioned how good this was. The American tourist responded 鈥渨ell鈥 It鈥檚 Good for you guys.鈥 Our tour guide was confused because the new invention would actually be better for everyone increasing travel efficiency and lowering the cost. In that moment, I recognized myself and lots of people back home. I saw my Dad stressing over Chinese government changes after reading the newspaper. I looked at thought patterns of how dangerous, and other China was. We have made China a subconscious enemy in our minds. And if we are to work together to create a better global future, we have to expand our view of China.
A moment where I truly realized how much there was to learn from China was when I went swing dancing in Shanghai. I was curious about the revival of the 1920s and I love to swing dance so it felt like a perfect combo. After a little internet searching and planning a route with Dr. Berry, I set off that evening. And while the event was spectacular and enlightening for me to see the nostalgia of that era, the amazing bit was the subway ride there and the taxi ride home. I was alone, it was night, and I was completely unafraid. The crime rate for Shanghai is ridiculously low for having over 24 million people in it. I also had not been catcalled or leered at the entire trip, which is not something I could even say about a month in Boulder. My travels in Europe and the U.S have included stalking, harassment, and unwanted attention. It was so bizzare to see how safe I could feel as a woman and further to realize that gender dynamics are not set in stone. China鈥檚 public safety shows there are alternative possibilities. The experience furthered my interest in Gender studies and has helped me sculpt my own path in gender politics and theory. I believe seeing the gender behaviors in China will inform my honors thesis on gender expressions and sexuality. Additionally, this helped further break down my notion that China was the 鈥渂ad guy;鈥 it also helped me see China as more advanced than the U.S.
I also began to question the us versus them binary in the Jewish Quarter which was one of my favorite parts of the trip. Our guide was thorough and well spoken, his mission being to create a memorial for the Jews鈥 tombstones who had been sequestered during WWII in Shanghai. The existing memorial was beautiful, clearly explaining the lives and listing out the names of everyone who lived there. Finding 鈥淗erzog鈥 among them was shocking. Herzog is my mother鈥檚 maiden name and one my siblings and I wanted to take out of a love for our amazing grandparents. I had no idea that we had Jewish ancestry; I had always assumed that our family in Germany were most likely Nazi鈥檚 in the war. This started lots of conversation with my grandparents about our family tree. The connection made me think about what it would have been like on a to live in one of the cramped quarters with no privacy.聽 History becomes so much more powerful for me when it鈥檚 shown on the individual scale and life. The tour was incredibly powerful because it focused so much on an intra and interpersonal lives.
Being in China also helped me flip the narrative of seeing China as backward. It is almost impossible to see Pudong in person and think 鈥渨ow that looks so much like New York.鈥 Taking the efficient overnight trains, the impressive skylines, and the comprehensive subway showed me China was anything but backward. In Shanghai we went to the city development museum and seeing the small scale replica of Shanghai would make anyone question their own bias. To have a fully functioning, safe city that contains a such a vast population that is so beautiful is frankly mind boggling.
聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 But our trip focused equally on the past and future. Visiting long standing temples in China was particularly impactful as it was my first time in Confucian, Buddhist temples seeing giant sandalwood buddhas. I was completely unfamiliar with these beautiful, magnificent structures despite the fact that they equaled or surpassed Notre Dame, or the pantheon. It inspired me to take more religious studies courses to supplant my knowledge of Christian history. An excerpt from my journal the day we met at a Tibetan temple, 鈥淭oday was amazing. It was the first time I had ever really seen incense and prayer wheels used. During the stroll through I could not help but feel minorly frustrated at my ignorance. I wanted to know what everything was. Who is the white goddess with a pink lotus? Why some gods had skulls on their heads? Was it related to the reminder of death? Does it tell you which god it is? Thankfully, some things were cleared up by our lecture later in class. But this trip has awoken in me a desire to know so much more.鈥
And finally, while I know this is not an academic reason, I cannot help but agree with my co-traveler Lauren that, 鈥淭he best part of the trip was our group. Maybe just how the program brings together people with similar interests and mindsets! It definitely was awesome to share the whole experience with a group like that!鈥 The trip established connections and memories with people I will not forget. Traveling with others creates strong bonds. You see everyone at their most tired, their most excited. It was an honor to travel with them all and make lifelong friends. And these strong connections strengthened our academic discussions. As previously mentioned my roommate was Erica who was graduating with a women鈥檚 studies degree after the class. Because of our shared interest we would pull each other with excitement to see how bathroom stalls could have been gendered differently in different cities. We鈥檙e nerds.
So let鈥檚 get serious: What are the particular long term implications on my career? As expressed, this trip gave us all confidence to travel more. I now have the courage to spend a whole semester abroad in Scotland and am receiving Certificates for that initiative. This trip changed the way I see the world. It helped me start to balance non-essentialist and essentialist view on the global world and engendered in me a desire to learn more. To learn so much more that now I think I have to pursue an Asian studies minor.聽 I hope to continue to fill the gaps in my education and I am so thankful to the Asian Studies department for making this happen. So truly, thank you and I cannot wait to explore your department more.