After getting off my fourteen-hour
plane ride I was feeling anxious. I had no idea what to expect, but whatever it
was I was ready to hate it. The smog of the city hit me like a wall with the
sun beating down on me. The humidity of the air surprised me, because it
finally hit me that my family and I were nowhere close to home. Resistant to
any change that would take me away from the summer with my friends, I was mad
at my parents. Little did I know going to China would be the best experience of
my life.
Immediately after walking around
the city I noticed the cultural difference: for one, the amount of people-after
arriving in Beijing, China, I found out there were twenty-one million people
living in the city; New York City has seven million. Everywhere I went, people
would stare at me with big eyes like I was some kind of foreign mystery they
had never seen before, and most of them probably hadn’t. I was told before the
trip people would not be used to the way I dress or carry myself, but I had no
idea it would be to this extent. Some people would even ask to take pictures
with my sister and me, making us feel like celebrities. I could only image what they would do if I
had blonde hair and blue eyes. I learned how fortunate I am to grow up in
community with so much diversity.
No comments:
Post a Comment