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President's Message |
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 uring
the fall 1999 semester, fourteen CSU, Chico students journeyed into a land
that continues to conjure images of profound beauty, majesty, and power.
Professor Frank Li, English, led the students on the university’s first Beijing Semester, a sister program of the nine-year-old London Semester. During their four and a half months there, the students found themselves immersed in the intricacies of Chinese culture and society. They carried a full load of courses, studying Chinese language and civilization, Beijing’s public spaces, Eastern arts and ideas, and modern Chinese society. “Beijing Semester is a unique program because, unlike other travel abroad programs, the students lose no time toward getting their degree,” notes Brooks Thorlaksson, associate dean in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. “While in Beijing, students study the Chinese language and take three other courses that can fulfill graduation requirements here at Chico, depending on their major.”
DuPratt says that every weekend they had one and sometimes two field trips; he recalls visits to the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Ming Tombs, Luguo Bridge, Xian, and Shanghai. Other areas the students visited included the Longmen Buddhist Caves; Qufu, home to the Kong family for sixty-seven generations and birthplace of Confucius; and Loyang, the location of the White Horse Monastery, Buddhism’s first home in China. An Asian studies major, DuPratt was not new to traveling abroad, having previously traveled to Thailand and Nepal. Surprisingly, he was the only Asian studies major of the fourteen students who took part in the semester abroad. Four of the students were art majors. For Carissa Carman, 22, a senior majoring in fine arts, the decision to go to China was a sudden one. “The Beijing Semester kind of popped up,” she says. “I wanted to challenge myself.” And that’s just what the program did. The group studied and stayed in the facilities of the Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU). They interacted with the rest of the school’s students on campus and during meals, but were separate during class time. “The course load was pretty tough,” says DuPratt. “We were definitely there to study more than anything else.” In addition to the required courses, DuPratt—unlike the other CSU, Chico students, who took twelve hours of Chinese language a week—took a twenty-four-hour-a-week intensive Chinese language course. “It’s very difficult,” he notes. “You can’t learn the Chinese language without the Chinese culture. You have to suspend everything you think you know. It has nothing to do with English whatsoever.” The language was a challenge for Carman as well. “My tongue didn’t know what to do for the first couple of weeks,” she laughs. DuPratt believes that the language was one of the biggest barriers for some of the program’s students. “Unlike a lot of places in the world, not a lot of people speak English there,” he explains. “It was amazing,” Carman says of her time in China. “I think none of us really knew what we were getting into, which was fun.” How did everyday Chinese people react to the Americans in their midst? “People were so kind and so curious,” reports Carman. Originally from Porterville, California, DuPratt admitted to some culture shock when it came to living and studying within Beijing, a city of 12 million people. “In America, we are so independent,” he says. “When we need some space, we can find it. [Living in Beijing] meant always being around people. I’m from a smaller town, so living in a city of 12 million was culture shock.”
Carman adds: “Beijing was a really neat city. It took us about a month and a half to learn the bus system and to get the courage to just get lost.” Asked about the influence of Communism in China, DuPratt explains that its importance seems understated in daily life. “China is far more Chinese than it is Communist,” he says. “Daily life is based far more on Confucianism and Chinese tradition than it is on Communism.” DuPratt and Carman report making many friends during the course of the trip, both in their class group and among other foreign students. DuPratt says the faculty and staff at Beijing Language and Culture University were extremely professional and generous. “They gave us their best of everything,” he reports. “They invited us all back.” Founded in 1962, BLCU is the only university in China dedicated mainly to educating foreign students in Chinese language and culture. Each year more than 4,000 students from all over the globe study there. With distinctive strengths in language teaching and program management, the university has served as the national center for teaching Chinese to foreigners and for training teachers who specialize in teaching Chinese as a second language. Professor Aiping Zhang, a native of Shanghai and faculty member in CSU, Chico’s Department of English, will lead the fall 2000 group. “Beijing Semester is a fantastic opportunity for students who are looking for a challenge and who want to understand the Chinese culture,” notes Zhang. “It is especially valuable for Asian studies, international relations, and even business majors who are interested in working for companies operating in the Pacific Rim. It is especially interesting in China right now because of the dramatic changes occurring between the traditional culture and Western influences.”
“I see myself as a kind of bridge, having lived in both cultures for a fairly long time,” says Zhang. “I can serve as a guide for our students, and I have this unique perspective of seeing what is good and what is not so good on both sides.” History major Brendan Welsh, 22, is one of the students signed up for the 2000 semester. He sees learning about China in China as a fantastic opportunity. “Studying the language will open all sorts of doors,” he says. “The fact that we’ll actually be there, seeing things, will give a real tangible feel to the history. And being forced to explore these new things will open up a lot of new ideas to me. There will, of course, be some book education, but I think the life education is what I’m really excited about.” This will be the second foray into international study for fellow history major Josh Neves, 22, who attended the Latin American Studies program in Merida, Mexico, last year. He’s never been off the North American continent and sees the exposure to a country like China as being very valuable. “It seems like a great opportunity to get to travel and to go somewhere like China, which isn’t usually where American students go to study,” he notes. “Everything’s going to be so different, including the language; it seems like a great way to see it from a different angle.” CSU, Chico has a long tradition of international study programs that offer students the opportunity to study in seventeen different countries, within a variety of disciplines. For more information, contact International Programs at 530-898-6880. For information on the Beijing and London Semesters, contact Brooks Thorlaksson at 530-898-5351. The Beijing Semester offers a much-needed view into the soul of China, a country whose increasing importance in the world can’t be denied. Just as important, it creates wonderful memories for young people, memories that will inform their world view in the future. “I feel like I could talk forever about it,” concludes Carman.
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As
part of their studies, the students were also treated to a “grand
tour” of China. “We saw everything,” says Jacob DuPratt,
26, one of the students in the program.
He
adds, however, that his time in Beijing gave him the opportunity to interact
with foreign students from more than 100 countries. “You feel you’re
in the pulse of the country,” he says. “You can definitely feel
the energy.”
Because
Zhang lived in China for nearly thirty years and in the United States
for the past fifteen, he sees himself as providing a connection between
the two countries, especially with his background in American literature.
