Study Abroad Sometimes in Our Internet Age

Study Abroad

Sometimes in our internet age it seems that we don't ever need to leave our own homes to experience the world. Google can let us drive in a virtual way down nearly any street in the world. We can chat at any hour of the day with residents from any continent about any subject. We can even craft online selves that allow us to become more interesting, more educated, and more urbane than are our actual personas.

So why -- given the complexities, unavoidable drudgeries and occasional miseries and sometimes even outright dangers of travel -- should we ever venture any significant distance from our homes? Because there is still -- and surely there will never be -- anything comparable to travel to teach us about the varieties of the world. Without meaning to disparage the wonders of either online information acquisition or reading about other places and other peoples, I nonetheless believe that my life will be substantially ameliorated, and my understanding of our moment in history will be immeasurably expanded, by the chance to study abroad.

I do not believe that there is any place in the world to which I could travel where I would not gain important new perspectives. (I also know that I would bring my own knowledge, experiences, and values to share with people whom I meet and I hope that they might in some small way benefit from learning about my corner of the world.) However, I am particularly interested in traveling to China to study for a number of reasons. Some of these are no doubt shared by many other people, for China is obviously a place of immense political, economic, and cultural importance at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But in addition to these general reasons for wanting to study in China, I have both specific interests and skills that compel me to want to travel to the world's largest nation to live, study, and learn.

My desire to study in China can be traced in no small measure to my grandmother and her stories. Not only did she relate her stories to me, however, but she was responsible for educating two generations of San Francisco students. She wrote a book titled China Gold that described the essential role played by Chinese immigrants to California during the early decades after statehood as the state was defined in its first years by the Gold Rush. She also taught Chinese immigrant students in San Francisco for 39 years. She described to me her experiences teaching these students and how they expanded her world and that of the other people with whom they came in contact even as they learned to appreciate a new country. Since I first heard her stories about her students I began to think about studying abroad myself some day.

My preparation for studying in China has not been limited to thinking about the broader aspects of cultural and psychological education but has encompassed practical aspects as well. Primary among my practical preparations has been my study of Mandarin Chinese: I hold a master's in Mandarin from Stanford University. I believe that all travel is beneficial, but I also believe that the more that one knows about a culture before one travels, the more that one can gain from the experience.

I believe that this is especially true in regards to speaking the language. While I would no doubt find many beautiful and fascinating things to look at in China if I simply went and could not speak to anyone or read any of the signs or newspapers, I know that my ability to profit from time I spend in China is substantially magnified by my being able to speak to people without having to rely on a translator or the possibility that there might be an English speaker around where I might be.

I know from personal experience the value of being able to speak one of the major Chinese languages when visiting the country because I lived in China for six months in 2005 on a martial arts and cultural program. I was in the country with a group of fifty foreigners, all of whom were in China to learn about the cultural aspects of WuShu. WuShu is in many ways an ideal entry point to understanding China for a foreigner: It is a combination and modernization of different traditional Chinese martial arts. It originated in 1949, at the very birth of the modern Chinese state as the Communist government sought to find ways to bring China into the modern world in a way that was respectful of the nation's ancient traditions and traditional strengths.

I have not participated in WuShu in a casual way but have in fact used it as a way of coming to a more profound understanding of contemporary Chinese values and goals. I have earned a certificate of achievement in WuShu-swords (one of the forms of competitive WuShu). As a member of the U.S.-Chinese WuShu Association, I have participated in a number of national competitions.