Kingsley Leung, Public Health in China, Summer 2013
It’s only been two weeks since my friends from the Wanxiang program left. We had only known each other for about four weeks. So why is it that I miss them so much? How could it be that whenever I see them post a photo from Hangzhou I can’t help but wish that I was there with them, or that whenever we go on our excursions I wished that our bus was just a little more full? I dedicate this blog post to all my awesome Wanxiang friends who are finishing their program in a week (absolutely crazy how quickly time passed by).
Some of my Wanxiang friends that I have pictures with….here’s Andrew Sonta. Really one of the nicest guys I’ve met on this trip.
Mr. Andrew Lee – what a guy. Fire Emblem and weird senses of humor make for fast friends.
Wanxiang people are quite silly, especially if they are Tim Flavin or Jon Feldman.
Megan calls me 弟弟 (younger brother). Can you tell from this picture?
Even with old friends, our friendship gets stronger in such a short amount of time. Here’s Blake and Gu Laoshi, two of my favorite guys on the trip.
Another two of my friends that I knew before: Alex the Ultimate Frisbee Boss and Casey the Songbird
I think studying abroad brings about something magical. Something incredible happens when a group of people are put into a foreign country in which only a few of us are fluent, some of us are kind of semi-fluent (like me), and many of us could not speak more than ten words of Chinese on the first day of the program. A sense of camaraderie formed very quickly. The more advanced students quickly took the leadership role, looking out for anyone who may be lost in the hectic world of Beijing. But the other students didn’t simply take the backseat. They would constantly be asking, wondering, and learning. One of my favorite parts of this trip was seeing my friends grow from completely clueless in Beijing to recognizing enough characters on the street to know exactly what a store is, or what area we are in. We all help each other out so eagerly, because quite honestly, it would be a bit lonely (at least in the beginning) without everyone here.
One of my favorite groups of people on one of my favorite adventures here in Beijing.
Another incredible group of people…but honestly, take anyone in the trip and it will be an incredible group.
The crazy thing is that most of us go to Northwestern. While I knew some people on the program (about six or seven), there were still more than thirty amazing people to meet. And getting to know them just showed me how much I was still missing out at Northwestern. It is so easy to fall back into the groups of friends we made during freshman year. We are all busy people, and the opportunity to meet each other may not present itself. But here we are, drawn in by our mutual love of public health, political sciences and economics, renewable energy and sustainability, and China. Now, it is impossible for me to imagine never meeting these people – people who I get along with as well as any friend at NU. How glad am I to go back to Northwestern and be able to recognize more faces on Sheridan and have dinner with more people than usual.
Despite the weather, we still managed to play frisbee outside.
Of course, we would have a prom photo.
Anyways, I am done being sentimental. After all, I still have two weeks left with many of these friends, plus I’ll actually see some of the Wanxiang people in three weeks when they backpack down to Hong Kong, where I’ll be after Beijing. But I knew that I would not be satisfied if I had left such a crucial part of this trip out of my blogs. Memories I make here by myself are valuable, but they don’t hold a candle to the memories I make with others.
I was a bit terrified to be put into Chinese 5…but I love this class and everyone in it.
My fellow bloggers are also some of my closest friends here on the trip.
Don’t worry. I didn’t forget Youjin. Despite her love of ding-dong ditches, she’s pretty awesome.
Last but not least, an old friend and one of my best friends, Connor Tatooles. Few things are more fulfilling than teaching your best friend a language you grew up with and watching him improve so rapidly. You should try it sometimes