Working in Student Affairs Abroad

With the start of my second semester here, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the job as I’ve experienced it thus far. Working in a study abroad program is more different than working at a four year college than I had thought.

In this field of student affairs, the clock resets itself frequently. Every August/September a new batch of students arrive, and we go through a pattern that has some routines - we have the same programs or events around the same time (Parents’ Weekend, Monologues, homecoming, study breaks, etc.) and the same issues around the same time (homesickness, exam stress, career stress, etc.) And then May or June arrives and we have a couple months to breathe, plan, and reset for the next year. 

Here, the reset happens in half the time: a vast majority of the students here only stay for the one semester. So in September, 195 of them arrived, we did Opening Tour, some programs and events (cooking classes, calcetto tournament, etc), weekend travel and the end of semester banquet. Then, in December 168 of them got onto airplanes and went home. Instead of two months to breathe, plan, and reset, we had eleven days in China and then 127 new students arrived and we did an abbreviated Opening Tour and we have our first cooking class tomorrow. We’re already scheduling the calcetto tournament, we have completed one out of six weekend trips and we’re starting to think about the end of year banquet. It all is moving at an incredible rate.  

When at Lynn, even though students were there for four years, I usually got to know them only for one or two years (with the RA staff and my VM cast as the major exceptions). Sure, there were some who I would get to see grow up over the years, which was absolutely lovely, but most of them I only knew while they lived on campus, for the year or two.  It was always nice though, to have students return in the fall and stop by to say hello; or to see students at graduation that you knew their first or second year. You got to see growth and development as they matured over the years (well, that was the hope, anyway). 

Here, the students are gone too quickly. It is such a short glimpse into their lives, and they go back to their home campuses and their maturation continues there. I won’t really know who they have become when they graduate - what career path they have decided to pursue, how their study skills have progressed, or whether their partying has become more controlled. Being in Student Affairs means wanting to help students develop into the people they want to become. Most of the time I have had the opportunity to actually witness that happening, or so I hope. 

Now, that I will not be seeing that move towards transformation, what does that mean? I know that studying abroad can really be a developing experience for a student - they are far from their safety net, exposed to new cultures, and learning to be more independent. But when they’re only here for a semester, how much of that do I actually get to see? Not that it should matter, right? Because if they learn from this semester; if they gain a greater sense of self or help to fine tune their goals or purpose, then it doesn’t matter if I get to see it. And it’s true. It doesn’t matter, the development still happens, and I can hope that I have contributed to it in some way. But, I can’t lie, it’s nice to see the changes. 

And who knows, I’ve only seen one group come and go, and hopefully I’ll get to follow the paths of some of them. They may come back here to visit after graduation, or ask for a letter of reference, or advice. And there’s always Facebook, where I can follow what they do or who they become. . . . Things to keep in my mind. 

China!

On December 21, 2011 I traveled with thirteen students and two other staff to China for the 2011 Christmas Tour. It was an incredible experience; interesting, fun, long, strange, frustrating, educational and fascinating are all words that I would use to describe the trip. Without taking the next hour of your life in reading, I will try to recap some of the events, sentiments, and reflections of my trip.

Traveling:

Traveling definitely deserves it’s own section. We took a mini charter bus from Florence to the Rome airport (approximately 4 hours), leaving at 11am. We arrived at the airport to find out that our flight was an hour delayed, so everyone split up and met back up to board. We then spent another 40 minutes sitting on the plan before it actually left, which meant that when we arrived at our layover in Istanbul, the departures board posted the flight was closing. I was the first staff member off of the plane, so I sent one of the students sprinting ahead, told one student to wait for everyone else in our group, and took the 8 that were with me and we ran through the airport. It was fairly frantic, and we all had to go through security again at the gate. It all worked out fine, we think they were waiting for us (probably easier for the airline to be a little delayed than to have to rebook 16 people and put them up for the night). 

We flew Turkish Airlines, from Rome to Istanbul and then from Istanbul to Beijing.  If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend Turkish Airlines. We had a full dinner on the flight to Istanbul, then another dinner and breakfast on the flight to Beijing. They even provided a menu with meal options. The food was surprisingly good, the staff were all really nice, and the entertainment was excellent. I managed to get a couple hours of sleep and the flight seemed to pass quite quickly. Actually getting out of the airport took a while, with collecting luggage and going through passport control (we were all on a single group visa, which slowed things down). We arrived in the new terminal built to accommodate the influx of visitors for the 2008 Olympics. It was really big and open and quite cool. At one point we had to walk slowly through an area that checked temperatures of people, looking out for illnesses - Bizarre! Our guides were waiting for us and led us out to our bus, and it took about an hour and a half to get to the hotel. We walked into the hotel at 6pm the day after leaving, which, with the 7 hour time difference, meant that we had spent exactly 24 hours traveling from leaving campus to arriving in the hotel!!

Beijing:

We had a guide, Lin, with us the entire time, and then we also had an additional guide for Beijing, and then one for Shanghai. Lin had worked with our group before, when Christmas Tour came to China five years ago. 

The Forbidden City

Annie, our Beijing guide, was fantastic! She was young, very informative, and had great energy.  In Beijing we went to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, and a Ming Tomb. We visited a pearl factory, had a tea tasting lesson in a tea house, and we spent a day at the Beijing Language and Cultural University, with a calligraphy lecture and a paper cutting lesson (which was so cool). 

Double Happiness!

We also saw a Kung Fu show one night, which was not, as we had anticipated, a demonstration of Kung Fu, but rather a really beautiful and creative dramatization of a legend. 

I really enjoyed all of the sites that we visited in Beijing, they were so incredibly beautiful and well preserved. The city itself is massive - absolutely sprawling - which is no wonder as there are approximately 17 million people living there!  Wow.

Shanghai:

We transferred by plane to Shanghai on Tuesday, December 27th. We said goodbye to Annie and said hello to Mao (who wanted to be called either Mao Money or Jerry - ?!?). Jerry was not as good as Annie, but definitely interesting. Quite the character!  

On the bund, with the PuDong area behind me

In Shanghai we did more modern and western touring, which was an interesting contrast from Beijing. Shanghai is much newer and we walked through more of the downtown areas. It was really our own opportunity to wander around on our own, and it was nice. We also did tour things like going to the Temple of the Jade Buddha, and an overnight trip to Suzhou (which is called the Venice of the Orient, but shouldn’t be). We also saw an acrobatics show in Shanghai which was spectacular. Our hotel in Shanghai was not as nice as the one in Beijing, or even the one we stayed in at Suzhou, so that was sort of a shame as we had a lovely hotel in Beijing. 

Anecdotes

Annie kept using the word “later” when she meant “now”. So she would say “later I will give you break to take pictures” and we would just stand there waiting for her to keep talking, when really we were supposed to go take pictures right then. After a day or two we figured it out, but then it got really confusing when on the last day she said “later” and meant “later”!! 

We were basically celebrities in China - everywhere we went people stared, and many wanted to take pictures of us or having their pictures taken with us. Anytime we would assemble for a group picture, all of these other people would gather round and take a picture too (I wonder what they ended up doing with the picture of the random group? Maybe they have a collection?!?) One of the female students was about 6’ and she was a big attraction (pun intended) - so many people came up and asked to take their pictures with her. So strange. 

 All of these people are taking pictures of our group!

Jerry brought us all a New Year’s Eve toast of snake wine, which is not at all wine, and is probably stranger than what you’re imaging. Snake wine is some sort of hard alcohol that has been infused with snakes, seahorses and antlers. Yep, you read that correctly. I drank one shot of that at dinner and that was more than enough for me.

With the exception of snake wine, most of the food we ate was pretty standard chinese. Our guide reassured us at the beginning that you have to pay extra for delicacies like dog and such in China, so none of that appeared on our table. The way that meals worked was that we would sit at big banquet tables of eight with a lazy susan in the middle and we would be brought plates of food to share. I really enjoyed the food in the beginning, but unfortunately by the time we left Beijing for Shanghai we had all grown really bored of eating the same dishes with the same flavor at every lunch and dinner. Thankfully we were able to arrange for two dinners that offered more choice - one was a buffet and at one we even had menus!  One thing I really do miss is chopsticks - we all improved with our chopstick skills, and I spent the week returning feeling like a part of my hand was missing. Oh, and on New Year’s Eve, we all tried pickled jellyfish - which didn’t have a strong flavor but had a really, really weird sort of crunchy texture - don’t try it!

Reflections

The very first thing we did in China was to visit Tiananman Square and it was such a strange feeling being there. It is massive - our guide told us it can hold one million Chinese people in it! 

Also, it is surrounded by all of these famous buildings, which I have read about or seen on television. Add to that the history of the place - as a gate area to the Forbidden City, its use for public events, and then the demonstrations and protests - it was surreal to actually stand there. There is a giant banner of Chairman Mao hanging over one of the buildings, staring down at the square - his presence is everywhere. 

Christmas in China was a bit strange - there were decorations around, more so than I had expected, but still, it did not feel like Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went to midnight mass at [one of?] the only Catholic church in Beijing. That was actually really nice, although it was completely packed and in fact we almost didn’t even get in, but then our guide told a nun that we had come all the way from America by way of Italy to come to mass, so we all stood in the side. 

It was both similar and completely different. There were some aspects of the mass that are exactly the same, as one would expect. But the chinese also sang a lot more than I’ve ever seen, with a lot of sung responses. It was cool to hear Christmas hymns in chinese, we all sang along with the English words. 

I was actually surprised by how strange it didn’t feel to be in China. I have been thinking about that quite a bit, and I have a couple of theories. One, we were there in a big group, with tour guides who shuttled us from place to place, and for the most part we didn’t actually interact with too many people anywhere. Two, we stayed in Beijing and Shanghai, two major cities which means it is bound to have some similarities to other cities in other parts of the world. Three, the world is becoming smaller and smaller and therefore is becoming more homogenous? And four, I have been doing so much traveling recently, everything is seeming less strange.  I’m not sure whether any or all of these are at play here, but it definitely gave me some pause. 

Highlights:

Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve night were my highlights of the trip. 

Lin bought us all light up bow headbands for our nighttime boat tour and that totally set the mood for an awesome NYE. It was really fun to see all the headbands throughout the crowd, we took some awesome pictures (and many were taken of us too). 

It was a really fun night, and a good way to end the trip.

Christmas because of the trip to the Great Wall, which really is incredible. We had some free time to explore the wall and it was nice to be with some of the group, taking pictures, singing Mulan songs, and exclaiming over the sights, but it was also nice to walk off on my own, try to take in the immensity of the Wall, and reflect on the year that has brought me all over the world.