Category Archives: Uncategorized

It’s official! I have now finally completed the Fall semester portion of my program! I am elated to be able to take a bit of a breather from all the formal schoolwork. I have definitely noticed that my Chinese has improved quite a bit from all of the writing and presentations that this program requiresContinue reading “Fall semester: Mission Complete!”

The end of the Spring semester here in Nanjing is finally upon us! We have been hard at work for the past couple of weeks getting ready for our final exams as well as writing final essays for different classes. It has been very hectic, and the time has just been flying by! We hadContinue reading “New Years in the countryside”

Last week, I went to a museum called the Imperial Exam museum. This is quite an interesting museum that tells the story of the imperial examination in China. This is a very old exam that started during the Sui dynasty around 581 and lasted for hundreds of years until it was abolished around 1911 inContinue reading “Knowledge is success”

This week I was able to undo a misconception I had about China. In my elective class about the history of Mongolia, our teacher was giving his lecture as usual and was explaining to us in-depth about complex history that the Mongol dynasty has in China. Their dynasty was the only dynasty in China’s veryContinue reading “New perspectives”

This past week we had a class field trip to two very famous sites in China. The first was the Nanjing Yun Brocade Museum of China. This museum is in a class of its own being the only museum in China that showcases the ethnic art of brocade or silk fabrics with colored patterns. ThisContinue reading “A dark page in history”

This past week wraps up almost two weeks of nonstop midterm testing. It has been very stressful and had many of us pushing on with very little sleep, but it has been a good learning process to go through the struggle of midterm exams in China with my Chinese classmates. The testing process seems veryContinue reading “Midterms: Mission Complete!”

Last weekend, when I riding my bike on the way home from lunch, I came across the scene of a minor car accident. The accident was between two middle aged men, one of them drove a minivan and the other was a taxi driver. Even before I pedaled up to the scene, the voices ofContinue reading “Preparing for the afterlife”

I was taking a stroll in a park one day after getting lunch and I noticed the above postings. These are marriage advertisements that parents have posted for their single children. The majority of these personals seem to be for single women but there are also single men postings as well. This seems kind ofContinue reading “Searching for Love”

One thing that has really stood out to me here in Nanjing is how safe this place is for a city of its size. The most notable example of the city’s safety is the city’s take on storing bicycles in public. There is nothing to secure bicycles to and some don’t bother with using aContinue reading “Park and Go”

Today, I had a study session with my one-on-one teacher in my Chinese Writing class. It was our first meeting and I think it went well but the best part of this meeting was the conversation that we had afterwards. During our session, we covered many topics, but there was one topic that was capturedContinue reading “Left-behind children”