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Reflection

Reflection on Chinese
Course

Chinese Philosophy (PHIL 434)

9 Documents
Students shared 9 documents in this course
Academic year: 2018/2019
Uploaded by:
Anonymous Student
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Gonzaga University

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Final Reflection Essay

Whenever I tell strangers that I know and can speak Chinese, I tend to get

less than favorable looks. Although the language and the culture of China have become a part of my daily life, the average American doesn’t have the most positive impression from the far east asian country. China is one of the the only five countries in modern-day history that identify as communist, along with Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and Laos. The trade war that started during the Trump Administration didn’t make relations with China any better, and China’s involvement within the world-wide spread of COVID-19 further worsened this relationship. Now, China has a new travel policy within the mainland that prohibits foreigners from entering into the country. All of these recent developments within the International relationship between the United States and China has truly questioned my faith as a language learner. Along with this, my experiences being in China and around the Chinese people have changed my perspective of the language and culture, good and bad. I first traveled to China when I was a wide eyed 15 year old in 2014, as a part of a foreign exchange group through my high-school in Atlanta, Georgia. A group of me and 12 other students traveled to Shanghai for two weeks with my high-school laoshi, and we each stayed with host families to enhance our cultural experience. I barely spoke the language at this point, and I was taking in the sights and smells of a new country. But unfortunately, being in a new country and surrounded by an entirely different subset of people 5000 miles away from home weighed on my shoulders. In China, Foreigners as a whole regardless of their ethnicity are considered rare, especially people of color. Within a country where whiteness is a symbol of purity and beauty, a person of color is like an animal walking out of its cage in a zoo. I quickly realized this as soon as I touched down within the Pudong International Airport. Eyes watched me wherever I walked from then on, as I quickly became skeptical to point and stare at. Wherever I would go, people young and old would point and stare, sometimes even taking pictures of me without my permission and oftentimes laughing at my appearance. At 15 I couldn’t begin to understand why this was happening and why I was attracting the level of attention that I was. I found that the longer I was in the country, the more anxious it made me. I didn’t understand why everywhere I went, people would stare at me as if I had tentacles or a deformity of some type. I recall leaving China to return to America with mixed feelings about my experience, and this feeling stayed with me for five years after this trip, all the way until I received another opportunity to travel to China. As a Benjamin Gilman Scholarship recipient, I applied to the U. Department of State scholarship in Fall of 2018. 5 years had passed since my initial visit to the “Middle Kingdom”. I was itching to return abroad, as by this point I had been studying Chinese as a language for

almost six years. I could understand infinitely more spoken Chinese since the last time I visited, so receiving this opportunity was in my opinion a way to test my language skills and truly show me if I had what it takes to possibly make a career within the country one day. As a part of my scholarship, I attended East China Normal University in Shanghai, staying for a month to take a Chinese International Relations class. Within this class, I learned details of China’s International relationships with other countries as well as current Chinese foreign policy missions such as the Belt and Road Initiative. I found particular interest in China’s involvement within the country of Africa, and the amount of Foreign Aid that the CCP gives to African countries. Outside of class, I was in the local Shanghai community trying to use my Chinese as much as possible. This time the attention didn’t bother me nearly as much as my previous visit, but something else did. Now that I had taken Chinese for several years, I could suddenly understand almost everything everyone was saying at any given time. Usually when people would see me, they would say the Chinese word for African or 非洲人 （ Fēi zhōu rén), stare , and take pictures like usual. I would often be picked apart by people around me, then commenting on how dark my skin was and the way my clothes fit on me. I had many conversations with locals about their perception of my race, and these conversations further changed my perception of the Chinese people and language. I learned within my International Relations class that the Chinese pour billions of dollars in forign aid into Africa, and in exchange African citizens come to live in China for work. Unfortunately, the African citizens coming to and from Africa bring drugs and illegal contraband into China creating crime. This and a combination of lack of knowledge has created a very specific stereotype about POC to the Chinese, and I felt this wherever I went. Although one side of me told myself that the Chinese shouldn’t be looking down for the stereotypes that followed my skin color, I understood more about the culture this time. With the country of China being inhabited by 90% of a single Chinese ethnic group, minorities within the country were rare even more so for foreign minorities. How can I ask for equal treatment in a country that is not my own? Did the people and culture that I spent years of my life studying only judge me as far as the color of my skin? Throughout my trip, this question bounced around my head conversation finally manifested itself one day I recall having a conversation with a local on the streets of Shanghai that solidified my desire to promote public diplomacy and language exchange. I stopped for lunch at a local dumpling shop one day and struck up a conversation in Chinese with the shop’s owner. He asked me in Chinese, “Are you Black because you have burned your

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Reflection

Course: Chinese Philosophy (PHIL 434)

9 Documents
Students shared 9 documents in this course

University: Gonzaga University

Was this document helpful?
Final Reflection Essay
Whenever I tell strangers that I know and can speak Chinese, I tend to get
less than favorable looks. Although the language and the culture of China have
become a part of my daily life, the average American doesn’t have the most
positive impression from the far east asian country. China is one of the the only
five countries
in modern-day history that identify as communist, along with Cuba, Vietnam,
North Korea and Laos. The trade war that started during the Trump
Administration didn’t make relations with China any better, and China’s
involvement within the world-wide spread of COVID-19 further worsened this
relationship. Now, China has a new travel policy within the mainland that
prohibits foreigners from entering into the country. All of these recent
developments within the International relationship between the United States and
China has truly questioned my faith as a language learner. Along with this, my
experiences being in China and around the Chinese people have changed my
perspective of the language and culture, good and bad. I first traveled to China
when I was a wide eyed 15 year old in 2014, as a part of a foreign exchange
group through my high-school in Atlanta, Georgia. A group of me and 12 other
students traveled to Shanghai for two weeks with my high-school laoshi, and we
each stayed with host families to enhance our cultural experience. I barely spoke
the language at this point, and I was taking in the sights and smells of a new
country. But unfortunately, being in a new country and surrounded by an entirely
different subset of people 5000 miles away from home weighed on my shoulders.
In China, Foreigners as a whole regardless of their ethnicity are considered rare,
especially people of color. Within a country where whiteness is a symbol of purity
and beauty, a person of color is like an animal walking out of its cage in a zoo. I
quickly realized this as soon as I touched down within the Pudong International
Airport. Eyes watched me wherever I walked from then on, as I quickly became
skeptical to point and stare at. Wherever I would go, people young and old would
point and stare, sometimes even taking pictures of me without my permission
and oftentimes laughing at my appearance. At 15 I couldn’t begin to understand
why this was happening and why I was attracting the level of attention that I was.
I found that the longer I was in the country, the more anxious it made me. I didn’t
understand why everywhere I went, people would stare at me as if I had
tentacles or a deformity of some type. I recall leaving China to return to America
with mixed feelings about my experience, and this feeling stayed with me for five
years after this trip, all the way until I received another opportunity to travel to
China.
As a Benjamin Gilman Scholarship recipient, I applied to the U.S.
Department of State scholarship in Fall of 2018. 5 years had passed
since my initial visit to the “Middle Kingdom”. I was itching to return
abroad, as by this point I had been studying Chinese as a language for

Students also viewed

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