I opened my laptop, adeptly activated my Freegate [an application that enables Chinese internet users to view government blocked websites] and logged into Facebook. As I waited for the webpage to show up, a fact suddenly dawned on me: I don’t need a proxy server anymore. After a fourteen-hour flight halfway across the world, I was already outside the great firewall of China. I wanted to yell with joy.
This was after my first day at the Episcopal Academy. The nine months passed as if in a flash, and now I’ve been back home for another five months. Reflecting on my junior year, I found that the small anecdotes I told in chapel couldn’t even represent a millionth of what I felt and learned. My gratitude to my teachers, friends, and host families is beyond words.
When I saw the surprise good-bye presents from English class or the disk containing my host mom Betty’s secret recipes, warmth filled my heart. I had become a part of two of the nicest families on the planet—as my friends said, “from the Wu’s to the Hu’s.” Outside the classroom, they helped me break through the invisible wall that separated me from American culture.
Most importantly, my newly gained knowledge unquestionably altered some values I had held for seventeen years. This summer, I volunteered at a cross-cultural event in Beijing and met an American man who speaks Mandarin as if he never left China. When I told him that his Mandarin is almost standard, he was amused and asked: “What’s standard Mandarin? I feel like Chinese people have a standard for everything. They tend to take things black or white, without the gray area in between.”
I was shocked at the truthfulness of his words and couldn’t help recalling one of the questions my friend asked me on my first day back. With deep interest, she asked me: “So, do you think you’re in the mainstream in your American school?” I fell silent at the question because all of a sudden, I felt confused.
What is “mainstream?” Does it mean being invited to parties? Then, probably yes. What if I tell her I also spent a considerable amount of time in the library? Does that also count as “mainstream?”
I thought about this question for so long, until one day I realized that there actually was no “mainstream.” If I have to pick something, the diversity of America is the mainstream. It is not just racial diversity, but it is the ability of American culture to embrace all kinds of values. I can be both nerdy and social; I made new friends from Hungary, Germany, and South Africa, without having to meet a certain standard or worrying about peoples’ judgment.
I remember telling someone in my class about America’s emphasis on humanities while enduring his sympathetic too-bad-now-you-suck-at-math look. Afterwards, I fiercely expressed my frustration to my dad about how the Chinese education makes people single-minded.
“Just because you’ve seen the world outside, it doesn’t mean everyone has a widened horizon,” he told me, “You are biased as well. You have to look at a question from multiple perspectives.”
II prefer an American education because it suits me better, but there are people who are fine with the Chinese college entrance exam. I tried to imagine applying the holistic evaluation method to Chinese universities, and shuddered at the potential widespread corruption.
When her sophmore year in America began, I read one of my friend’s posts : “Back in the country with free toilet paper!” This was intended to be humorous, but it reminded me that I once romanticized America, like many people do.
Now having seen the real America, which does have many desirable aspects, I feel lucky that I can still see my homeland’s problems with a balanced eye. Now when I hear Chinese people complaining about not having a social security system as good as the American one, or Americans criticizing China for being socialist, I no longer haste to pick a side. Too many complicated cultural factors lie behind peoples’ values.
If I am to summarize my exchange year at the Episcopal Academy, it can only be life changing. It’s not about improving my English, having more Facebook friends, or finally learning how to dance less awkwardly. It’s about realizing one simple fact: everyone, no matter how politically free his or her country is, lives within a certain wall built with the differences in language, ethnicity, and culture.

PDF Download