SYNDIELY BLOG, April 11

Why Travel?

This past Wednesday and Thursday our group headed to the Xiu & Tang Hotel for our Mid-Trip Reflection. These two days were about getting some rest, spending some time as a group, and reflecting on our first week and half in China. We’ve all had a wonderful experience so far, our host families have been extremely welcoming, the school visits have been so exciting, and our farm work has been rewarding. To help guide us, our trip leader posed us two questions: why travel (specifically, GSL type travel) and what do you do when our belief system and/or culture clashes with another community’s belief system or culture. I’ll leave you to ponder the second question, but I want to share what we came up with to answer the why travel question.

1.      Uncomfortable situations force growth

We are all very lucky trip because we have been studying Chinese for at least 3 years which is different from many GSL experiences.  Many of us can practice our Chinese at home with parents but some of us are only able to practice in classroom settings. To travel to China and be able to practice our language skills everyday with people who use this language to communicate every single day is an incredible opportunity. But it is also challenging and scary. The first few days here, I was nervous to use my Chinese. I didn’t trust myself and it felt hard to communicate if I didn’t know the exact words for what I wanted to say. But as the trip has gone on, I have learned to put aside those fears and just try. Everybody here is so kind and so excited to host us that even if I make a mistake, my host family is excited to figure out what I may be asking. Beyond language, we have learned how to use different types of bathrooms, learned how to manage the fascination many people have with outsiders, and more.

2.      You learn adaptability

As we put ourselves in new situations, we learn more about ourselves and our capabilities. An example another student gave was that when he traveled to a city that was super cold, less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit, he was forced to learn how to adapt and keep himself comfortable in that temperature. During that same trip, he went to then went to a city that was super-hot, nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day. Prior to these trips he likely would not have wanted to travel to cities with such extreme temperatures but now that he has had that experience, he won’t automatically say no to an offer to go to an extremely hot or cold place. I thought that was a great example of learning adaptability and using your experiences to become a better person. While this weather example may seem trivial, we can apply that same mindset to many other ideas and see that traveling to new, sometimes uncomfortable, places will help you learn how to deal with different discomforts.

3.      It’s fun!

Finally, we travel because it is fun. I would say a highlight of this trip has been the host families and the community that we are living in. In my host family, we live with our host dad, grandfather, mother, and sister, we also have a host-brother but he primarily boards at his high school. Zara and I have had many laughs with our host grandfather as he teases us about not liking his food, even after we’ve finished the whole bowl, or pranks us into setting up a game of cards (that he promised he’d play with us!) just to walk away laughing. We’ve gotten to see our host dad pose with a hilarious pink wig that his daughter brought him as well as take us to cultivate bitter carrots, which means to pick bamboo shoots, but WeChat translate had some difficulties. We had a blast helping our host brother with his English homework preparing for the Gao Kao, even if we weren’t perfect helpers. I am sure that the rest of the group has had equally rewarding experiences that help make this trip worth it.