On January 2, 2009, I will set out on the greatest adventure I have never known. I will leave behind all that is normal and comfortable, and challenge myself culturally, academically, and perhaps even emotionally by studying abroad in Shanghai, China. I plan to explore the many treasures of the East, while enhancing my knowledge of the Chinese language and people. On this blog, I will be sharing the stories of my many travels.
This experience promises to be an exciting opportunity. I am thrilled to be diving into something so... foreign (literally!). It has been a whirlwind thus far with planning the trip, learning Mandarin, worrying... Despite my urge to travel into a Communist country, I expect I will find it to be quite liberating.
My Chinese education has been a sort of release for me. The environment is vastly different from that of the business school. I'd like to share a story that I've carried with me from day 1, as a sort of humourous reminder of the uniqueness of the situation.
While I know that many have heard the story of "Bai Mei," I feel that for posterity, it's a good place to start. I began studying Mandarin my freshman year. Day 1's agenda was to get assigned Chinese names, a common practice in language classes. The Chinese name pattern goes surname, given name. So the professor took mine to be Barbin, Meaghan. She then would assign characters based on the phonetic sound of our names. For Barbin, she roughly translated the common surname, bai, which means white. For Meaghan, she chose mei, from meiguoren, the Chinese word for 'American.' The root word, mei, can be translated to mean 'beautiful.' This all was unknown to me, as my fellow students all began to snicker when they first heard my name called. They had taken it to mean, 'beautiful white person,' an embarassing reminder of how out of place I was. I can accept that physically I will not fit in with the average Chinese person. Mostly, I just hope that I don't spend 6 months missing all the good jokes. Furthermore I hope they are not all at my expense :o(
In reality, I have no idea what I will learn, no clue how this will go. But no matter where my path takes me, I want all of you to know, that I will be missing you dearly. You have all inspired me and encouraged me to do so much with my life, and this is just the beginning. This is my attempt to keep you close, even though we may be far apart indeed.
I love you all. Wish me luck.
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