{"id":3699,"date":"2018-09-27T10:06:30","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T14:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crosscultural\/?p=3699"},"modified":"2018-09-27T10:18:21","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T14:18:21","slug":"china-making-my-way-in-the-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/2018\/09\/27\/china-making-my-way-in-the-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"China: Making my way in the crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 27, 2018<\/p>\n

Top Questions Asked By Year at 黑料正能量:
\nFreshman year – “What’s your major?”
\nSophomore – “What are your plans after college?”
\nJunior – “Where are you going for your cross-cultural?”
\nSenior – “No, seriously pick one. Why haven’t you gone yet?”<\/p>\n

I remember picking my destination for cross-cultural in the fall of my freshman year. I was a naive 18 year old from rural Ohio who had never left the east coast, and I was ready to explore the world. I marched into the cross-cultural office as soon as I had mustered up my freshman courage to ask where it was. I pointed dramatically at the first person I saw and declared “Where can I get the most culture shock!” Perhaps my memory is a bit foggy on the details of my inquiry, but I do know I left that office with a definitive answer: China.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>They say that if you keep a routine for twenty-one days, you will form a habit. However, they do not say the length of time it takes to assimilate yourself into a completely new culture.\u00a0 I woke up this Monday morning and walked to the bus stop to have our early morning class thirty minutes away. As we waited the fifteen minutes with vacant stares for bus 22 to reach our stop, Anna turned to me and asked, “Do things feel just…normal now?”<\/p>\n

For one of the first times in my life, I didn’t immediately have something to say. I looked to my right and there was the usual pop-up shop that sold magazines and \"\"<\/a>various breakfast breads enshrouded in pork floss. To my left were some locals who had pulled out their phones and were taking pictures of the thirteen foreigners who were waiting for the transit. The sound of the endless honking of cars communicating their whereabouts to each other filled my ears along with the sizzling of various meats being cooked, skewered, and sold for 3 yuan per stick; an inexpensive 50 cent breakfast for North Americans. I looked back at Anna, shrugged, and offered, “kinda.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Last evening, I was attempting to get onto a bus back to the university at the same time the primary school let out at 9:00 pm. The bus driver looked at the three foreigners and two locals on the steps waiting to scan their bus passes and looked back to the collection of children whom we would spend the next hour standing beside. He shouted something I can only imagine to mean, “Make some room!” I was the first one to board the bus and saw a wall of children hanging onto each other and onto the nearest support, so I did what I had learned in the past four weeks in China to do; I pushed.<\/p>\n

In Mandarin, there is no phrase for “excuse me” to use in a crowd setting. The closest we have learned is “qing wen” which literally translates to “please question.” So we must push our way through only muttering “dui bu qi” (sorry) when we accidentally make a wrong move and cause the other person pain. While moving through a crowd, it is less of asking people to part the Red Sea, and more of swimming through Dr. Seuss’s famous Oobleck. I have been able to wiggle my way through, but been restrained by my backpack being stuck between two people.<\/p>\n

Curiously, I am less anxious getting onto busses or pushing my way through the sidewalks, invading \"\"<\/a>people’s personal bubble. I think this is due to the expectation that this is how to get from point A to point C when point B is blocking your path. There isn’t the awkward hand on the shoulder and slight bow as you excuse yourself\u00a0by someone. I think I always feared the social repercussions, responsibilities, and constant apologies that needed to be said.<\/p>\n

I feel that China has made me more comfortable with asserting myself. I may be illiterate, but I have gained the confidences of at least two Finns.<\/p>\n

-Finn Wengerd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 27, 2018 Top Questions Asked By Year at 黑料正能量: Freshman year – “What’s your major?” Sophomore – “What are your plans after college?” Junior – “Where are you going for your cross-cultural?” Senior – “No, seriously pick one. Why haven’t you gone yet?” I remember picking my destination for cross-cultural in the fall of....<\/p>

Read more about China: Making my way in the crowd<\/span><\/path><\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":3705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4114],"tags":[4039],"class_list":["post-3699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china-2018","tag-featured","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3699"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3708,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions\/3708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}