By Jillian Suprenant
This past week was filled with adventures and comradery. After a month of mainly interacting with my fellow Duke Engage teammates only at school, it was nice being able to explore Beijing, Luoyang, and Xi’an with them. This change was a well-needed recharge after weeks of seemingly endless teaching and infrequent opportunities to have full conversations in English, and it served as a good break before hell – I mean dress rehearsal – week started.
Seeing the history that is incorporated into the very fabric of Beijing, Luoyang, and Xi’an was magical. I am from a very historical city – Philadelphia – so I was expecting a similar atmosphere in these cities as there is back home. I was wrong. Unlike Philadelphia, everyone in these cities is incredibly proud of the history and seem to try to incorporate it into their lives. Yes, I could have lived without the copious amounts of unsolicited pictures taken of my “American” looking friends and me at literally EVERY tourist site, but it was worth being able to experience the history of a culture so much different from my own. This trip marks the first and probably last visit I will ever have to The Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Bird’s Nest, Longmen Grottoes, White Horse Temple, and Terracotta Warriors. Because of it, I feel incredibly blessed. Those moments of awe at The Great Wall and Terracotta Warriors, peace at the Longmen Grottoes and White Horse Temple, and beauty everywhere else were new, greatly welcomed, and forever memorable.
This past week did have its downs though. On Friday night, after seeing a beautiful Chinese dance show in Luoyang about love, loss, and sacrifice, I found myself incredibly sad. I was upset that the audience members offered little to no applause to the performers who had just put on a spectacular show. I missed dancing and performing in shows like the one I had just seen. I missed the familiarity of Zhuhai. I missed my host family. I missed my real family. I decided to go back to the hotel early while my teammates explored the city which for a moment made me feel worse. What was wrong with me? Was I being ungrateful? Probably, but that dark tear-filled night taught me two things: 1) it’s ok to take some time for yourself every now and then, and 2) there’s nothing on this earth that cannot be fixed by a good heart-felt conversation with your mom and dad.
Now to the highs of this past week. During the trip, I finally felt like everyone in our group coalesced. After a few incidents of miscommunication during our time in Beijing, we all sat down on Tuesday to discuss our feelings and provide potential solutions to avoid future misunderstandings. Although the discussion was tense and most likely not as clear as we all intended, the conversation and the individual talks with our peers that followed helped; the next few days on the trip, I noticed people who do not normally hang out a lot beginning to spend more time together. As I know this upcoming week will be especially challenging for us all, I am grateful that this conversation happened when it did. Now more than ever, I feel like I can trust my teammates. I know that we will all support each other to get the show where it needs to be by Sunday.
After our group discussion that day, we implemented our first of two surprise birthday party plans. On June 25th, our almighty, beautiful site coordinator goddess, Yanan, turned #&@* years old. She has done so much for us during this trip. We wanted to celebrate her and show how much we appreciated her. So what did we do? We pretended that one of our teammates was very ill and needed her thermometer late that night. We needed an excuse for Yanan to visit one of our hotel rooms, and this seemed like the best way. We had a cake, gift, music, and cards ready. When she entered the room, we surprised her – only to find out that she was on to us all along! Yanan, you know us too well! That night was unforgettable; there was so much joy and love in the air. Our mad dash to get everything ready for the party brought me closer to three of my amazing teammates: Wes, Shelsea, and Jinjie. Nothing brings people closer than having to transport a cake for 50 minutes on a subway that requires multiple transfers. And nothing screams friendship louder than discussing questionably weird topics while waiting for the subway under the false pretense that nobody can understand what you are saying (ifykyk 😉).
Our second surprise birthday party plan was less of a surprise and more of an ambush. After we returned to Zhuhai on the 29th, we had to take a bus ride back to No. 9 middle school. The bus ride lasted around an hour and as we got back very late that night, we arrived at school a little past 12:00 AM on the 30th. And 20 years ago on June 30th our big-foreheaded queen, Bryant Lewis, blessed the earth with his presence. As we got off the bus, Wes attacked Bryant with a blindfold and led him into No. 9 school where Yanan and the amazing Lu Peng set up lights, music, decorations, and a cake. He was completely surprised and seeing his emotional response to our ambush made me forget about how tired I was from the trip. Later that night, we continued celebrating the resident sass-master by seeing the masterpiece, Toy Story 4, and playing in a kiddie ball-pit while confused cinema workers watched us on their security monitors (yes, they have ball-pits in Chinese cinemas – America needs to step it up).
This past week left me feeling invigorated and refreshed. I hope I am able to bring these feelings with me as I embark on the second to last week of this amazing experience.
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