Brookline High School in China

Leaving Brookline

Thinking about it now, deciding to go to China for four months was a much bigger decision than I thought it was when I actually made it. Don't get me wrong; I definitely want to go to China if only to get out of the monotony of school and away from the anxiety of applying to college. Yet, the fact remains that I'm going to be missing the entire second half of my senior year of high school. Supposedly, this is the time when our grade will realize this is one of the last chances to gel your friends and become friends with the people you haven't yet. Not to mention, its the only semester where a blind eye is turned to slacking off by the school. Despite the constant stream of complaints we make about Brookline High, I've got to admit I've developed quite a fondness for BHS.

And I'm trading in my last few months at this school for something that I'm not even sure I'll like. I have very little idea of what I'm actually getting myself into. Four months is a long time. For me, it's less about the threat of being homesick than it is the threat of losing that exhiliration of being in an entirely new place. Just like any new experience, I'm excited about that rush I'll get the second I snap on my seat belt and feel the plane rising. It's that rush that usually lasts the entire trip making even the most dismal days and situations interesting and exciting. I compare the rush to the first day of school; everybody is excited and jubliant, but as the weeks progress school quickly turns from a novelty to a grueling marathon.

My enthusiasm for the trip hasn't even begun to dwindle, and I'm hoping to prevent that through a variety of interests of created. This website, that nobody's visited yet, is evidence of one of the many endeavors that keep my mind occupied. Another would be filming the trip which I discovered last summer is something I enjoy doing a lot. But more than those things, I'm looking forward to what I'll be able to do in Xi'an.

Observing the students from Xi'an this year, one of whom lives in my house, I'm getting a little scared that I'll fall into a kind of trap in Xi'an. There are two things that scare me about the value of our upcoming trip based on what I've seen from the Chinese students here:

The first would be the way they've found their niche here in the United States that really does not force them to explore. My exchange student has made friends with another Chinese student at BHS who speaks Mandarin, and they hang out all the time at my house. Also, the only thing he seems to want to do is go on the computer and talk to his friends back in China or play video games. The thing is, he can do all of these things back at his house in Xi'an. At our last weekly meeting between the American and Chinese students, the Chinese students were asked what they had learned from their stay in the US, and the question was followed by a stumped silence. Granted it's not the kind of question that is quickly answered and they all eventually answered, but their answers were more tactful than thoughtful in my opinion. "I would tell my friends in China that if you want to be free go to America." Perhaps it was the langauge barrier but I feel that this answer was truly learned. I'm scared that in China maybe I/we will not really branch out enough to discover what it is like to be living like the Chinese.

The second concern must be my ability in Chinese. I am no where near fluency nor is anyone else in our group. The exchange group from China was exceptionally fluent in English and I think this has helped them a lot. I think that their ability in English has helped them to see and feel what American daily life is like. We, on the other hand, are much farther behind. I'm worried that by the end of the trip, I'm not gonna have the fluency to pick up slang or determine what kind of tone the teacher is taking. That is something that I feel is crucial in being part and understanding of a culture.

Anyways the day approaches and I feel like I wrote too mucH

-dAVID

posted by dAVID @ 1:57 AM