An American’s Experience in pre-Pandemic Beijing
By James McClure
In our current age of socially distant-induced isolation, it can be hard to imagine a world in which one can easily get on a plane and fly across the world to an entirely different country. Luckily, I was able to take this opportunity nearly a year before the pandemic, on a trip to Beijing after my senior year of high school with my three best friends. Although I may never understand why our parents let four 17 year old recent high school grads fly more than 5,000 miles away from their home country for 10 days, I am forever thankful for this privilege.
While our ten day trip to Beijing was an extremely enjoyable and enriching experience, it was not without difficulty and feelings of discomfort from being in an entirely new cultural context. Traveling in a country where the large majority of people look completely different than you and speak a foreign language is daunting, and caused me to feel culture shock sporadically throughout the trip. When we visited monuments such as the Great Wall or the Forbidden Palace, many people wanted to get pictures with me and my Caucasian friends, because seeing a tall, red-headed guy in China is a rare sight. My friends and I were forced to trust my good friend Richard to communicate with most people we encountered during our trip, as he was the only one out of the four of us who was fluent in Chinese. Towards the end of the trip, Richard caught a cold that left him bedridden for the last few days of our visit. The three of us decided Richard’s illness would not stop us from enjoying Beijing, so we embarked out on our own to visit malls and restaurants near us. While traveling without our chief translator and tour guide was stressful, it forced us to be resourceful and figure out how to navigate a city where we could not easily communicate with most people. When ordering food at restaurants, my friends and I often had to result to charades and utilization of google translate to decipher the menu in front of us, and order from a waiter who did not speak any English. In one instance these tactics resulted in us receiving random dishes of meat that included cow brain, pig intestine, and an egg dish that looked and smelled far too old to be edible.
Even though international travel may never be as convenient as it once was in the post-COVID era, I urge everyone who can to take the chance. My trip taught me how to quickly problem solve in uncomfortable contexts, and gave me a desire to get out of my comfort zone and try new things. Whether it be an international internship, study abroad program, or even a casual trip with friends, I encourage everyone to find a way to see the world, whenever it is safe!