Hello again, Beijing
Written By: Daniel Yates
Location: Beijing
Major: History
Hi!
My name is Daniel and presently I’m a Senior at WMU majoring in History with a minor in Chinese. While I didn’t begin my collegiate career at WMU (I transferred with my Associates Degree in Political Science in 2018) its here that I’ve been able to expand my horizons well beyond Dunbar and Brown Halls.
In the fall of 2018, I, along with nine of my peers participated in a short term study abroad program in Beijing, China led by Dr. Xiaojun Wang and sponsored in part by the Confucius Institute. While at WMU I have found those courses which invoked the greatest passion and enthusiasm to me, to be those pertaining to my pursuit of fluency in Mandarin. Therefore when the opportunity arose to travel to China on a short-term basis, allowing me to test the waters as it were, I was thrilled. Through the course of less than three weeks, I felt my life change around me. I had been thrown in, to sink or swim, and swim I had. I’d found myself on the streets of Beijing using whatever Mandarin I could conjure, relied upon to translate and broker deals. I was in love. In that place I’d found happiness, academic fulfillment, and love. As I boarded the plane home, I looked back across the City. It was not a question of “if” I would return, but only “when”.
This calling would be my driving force as I worked through each day of the fall semester, working closely with the phenomenal Yumi Takahsi-Ede in the study abroad office. Little by little I inched toward my goal - a full semester spent honing my linguistic skills in Beijing.
Pushing through term papers and tests I told myself; let Beijing be your reward for a semester well done.
Yet as I made my final preparations in the middle days of January, disaster struck. The Coronavirus had spread like wildfire from Hubei Province and reached into Beijing. As statistics rose, the news I dreaded arrived - my semester had been postponed by my host university. My heart sank. Yet as I cried over the thought of missing the thing I had dreamed of, I was consoled by the examples of those individuals who had most inspired me to take this leap in the first place; my Confucius Institute teacher; Aiyun Zhang, WMU world language department faculty Dr. Xiaojun Wang and Dr. Shu Yang, all of whom encouraged me through any difficulties I encountered in my journey. If they believed I could do this, I should too, I told myself.
Thus you find me. Waiting for news which I am eager to receive. News that will push me to bid my beloved WMU farewell for a time and allow me to journey across the world to where I left a piece of my heart on a warm August night. I await that the most. Out there, on the streets of a city so far from home, as the stars glow dimly above, one is overcome by a sense of awe. I long for that. I long to feel my mind’s embrace of new knowledge and new ideas. To encounter new wisdom, people and places and in a sense, to encounter my true self. A self which is being transformed beneath those dim stars and the cloud filled night sky.
Categories: History. Beijing, Fresh Start