Thursday, December 15, 2011

Brady Lenz, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China




Choosing to go to Tsinghua University in Beijing, China was one of my best choices I made during my whole college career. I choose classes within their Business and Chinese departments so I could learn more about doing business and also more about their language and culture. During this time I made many friends from all over the world, and we also had many opportunities to travel to large corporations and learn from Chief Executives how they run companies within China.

Although school was a big part of my learning, taking trips to famous places such as the Great Wall helped to further my learning and increase my knowledge of the culture. They have a saying in Chinese, “ 不到長城非好漢” (Bu dao chang cheng fei hao han). This phrase translated is, “Who never climbed the Great Wall cannot be deemed a Man.” This is somewhat of a true statement because if you get beyond the tourist areas, you will be amazed at the work it takes to get far on the wall. As you can see however, the work it worth the view.

Being able to learn about Chinese culture and religion was very helpful for me by finding special objects that I could then talk about and relate to through my experience. Buddha is a well known spiritual leader throughout all of China which made seeing this statue that much cooler.

On the bustling streets of Beijing you will find many tourest attractions. These stands have thousands flocking to them everyday. Are you daring enough to try one of these special delights?

By the time I was acclimated in the places we lived, I was able to make many friends and meet some very influential people. With my increased speaking level I was given opportunities to discuss business opportunities with CEO’s of large firms.



Once my semester was over I took an opportunity to go to Southern China and see differences in geography as well as people. I found amazing Karst topography in remote areas of Yunnan and had the chance to learn about Southern Chinas land. Once in Southern China I realized the gap between the wealthy city areas and the humble towns of a 3rd world country were quite large. When in Beijing one would never think of China as 3rd world, but once in the rural areas it is easy to see why the clasification is there.