While in China, I visited Luoyang, Henan. During my time there, I got the chance to spend the entire day with my new péng yǒu Rain. I was able to walk the noisy, busy streets of Luoyang and view the bright, beautiful city at night. We went to her home where I met her wonderful family…
Discipline. Strength. Grace. Three characteristics all Kung Fu boxers must obtain. While I was abroad in Henan, China for a 10-day camp, I learned many life long lessons, and the most important lesson learned came from my Kung Fu instructor, Xiao Wei. When performing Kung Fu, he demonstrated discipline by executing his movements precisely, displayed…
Although I believed learning Mandarin would be extremely difficult, once I began taking classes I found learning it to be enjoyable and became ready for any challenge. Singing songs with my lao shi and group members helped me to easily remember Chinese words, phrases, and numbers. Furthermore, learning how to create Chinese characters and understanding…
Learning Kung Fu was so exciting. Being capable of doing martial arts is something I never imagined myself doing. However, over the course of several days I discovered the beauty and creativity within such art. In addition, I developed discipline and respect to authority through the strenuous routines and movements. With these skills I can…
In China I had the opportunity to participate in various cultural activities. Those that stood out to me the most were calligraphy, the tea ceremony, and shuttlecock. It was interesting to see how greatly Chinese people valued their style of writing and language, tea making and its remedies on health, and the sport of shuttlecock as…
One of the attractions I was most looking forward to seeing in China was Tiananmen Square. After doing a project on the Tiananmen Square Protest, I was instantly intrigued by the history of this place. While in China we visited this attraction and our tour guide have us background on the place itself. She told…
I have to sadly admit that before this trip, I’d never been on an airplane and I’ve never been out of the country. All the credit for these two accomplishments being completed goes to MJYF. I’d taken Chinese before going on this trip, but being in China is a completely different experience. There were days…
As our trip came to a closure, we spent our final days enjoying Beijing’s attractions. On August 1, 2014, I, Xayla Wilson climbed the Great Wall. Granted, I didn’t make it to the top but I went pretty far. There were two paths that we could take the right/easy path or the left path which had…
As our duration in China came to an end; I wanted to note the differences from China and America. The first difference was the language. As we boarded our 14 hour flight headed to Beijing, the flight attendants on Air China spoke very little English. We entered into a nation who’s main language was Chinese.…
After leaving Beijing, our group headed to Henan Province to further of knowledge on the Chinese language and martial arts. Every day we woke around 6 AM to eat the hotel’s breakfast before packing into bus. We were hosted by Shaolin Vocational School and our teachers for the next few days were students.Just after the…