Thrust into China
I walked into a classroom I was sure was a remodeled janitor’s closet. Two skinny rows of desks and chairs barely fit fifteen international students, all eager to deepen their understanding of the Chinese language through the Pre-College program before moving on to Peking University’s prestigious undergraduate program. Sitting in the front row, I knew if I stretched my legs out, the teacher could easily trip over my feet. It felt too close for comfort.
Everything felt too close for comfort here. The crowds, the lack of personal space. Big cities just felt more squished. Coming from suburban Los Angeles, where the population is spread out over thousands of miles, China’s big cities felt condensed. I was being compressed into a box of conformity, aware of my foreignness, and weighed down by the cutthroat academic competition. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to retain my shape.
When I first walked into that small classroom, back in 2018, there were still about 11,000 American students studying in China. Little did I realize that this number would plummet to 211 American students in 2021; 211, including me. What began as a simple choice to learn Mandarin Chinese brought me so much more. I experienced a multitude of cultures through interactions with other international students, an identity crisis as a Chinese American studying in China, and two contrasting government approaches to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Choosing to study in China changed the trajectory of my life and altered my perspective on the world.
During my first year in China, I felt conscious of my Americanness everywhere I went, particularly in interacting with my international classmates. I asked a Vietnamese classmate about pre-college education in Vietnam. I remember her long pause and the look of genuine confusion on her face when I asked that question. She clearly did not expect to encounter such a question in China. Was I too nosy? Was my curiosity annoying to her?
American society is heavily extrovert-oriented, often discouraging introversion. Outgoing traits are celebrated, while shyness is often looked down upon.
But I quickly realized that China is the opposite. For the first time, I felt like my extroversion and efforts to “bring people out of their shells” was subtly discouraged. My outbursts of energy to liven the atmosphere or my genuine enthusiasm seemed to overwhelm my peers. Their stares seemed to say: “There goes the American again.”
True to an American extrovert, I bought Christmas presents for my Pre-College classmates, December 2018.
Quarantine, and Time Warps
When I returned to California in January 2020 for the Chinese New Year holiday, the world was blissfully unaware of the impending pandemic. What began as an extended winter break soon became a new reality, with no clear end or solution in sight.
I struggled to take classes on Beijing standard time–which meant they began at 2 am in California–while remaining present in my everyday life in America. Time felt warped and distorted, as if I was a dog chasing its tail, unable to catch it.
The alarm jolted me awake to cram for an hour before my 7 pm final in Beijing—3 am California time. My head was pounding and I felt like I might throw up.
There were no workarounds, no retakes. My Chinese classmates in Beijing had complained of unfairness when hearing that some international students were able to take finals at a different time, prompting the School of International Relations to require all international students to take their finals according to Beijing time. Absolutely no exceptions.
Some professors took pity on us sleep-deprived international students and accommodated our time zones. But others dared not overstep the higher-ups’ decision. “This is out of my hands,” they said, or “没办法，没办法” (meí bàn fǎ) in Mandarin. Other professors administered finals at a different time, but chose more difficult questions for us to compensate. We felt crazy. Was it too much to ask for final exams to be administered during waking hours?
There were silver linings. I was watching a recording of my International Relations History class, which was held on Christmas Day. (Chinese students don’t have winter vacation until Chinese New Year.) The professor pointed out to the students that it was Christmas Day, and that he was completely fine with those who celebrated the holiday to miss class that day. He encouraged the class of Chinese students to learn about foreign holidays and their significance to other cultures, even if China doesn’t celebrate them. To a lonely American student watching the recording on the day after Christmas, these sentiments warmed my heart and restored some hope in my university’s faculty.
When university students in China returned to classrooms in the fall of 2020, international students felt brushed aside by professors and administration. We were often an afterthought during classes, forced to remind professors to turn on the online class for us. Even when the professors did turn on the livestream, many complained. It seemed to me that Peking University had forgotten about my cohort of international students.
Photographed at 12:49AM, another late night exam.
Beijing is Home
Finally in 2021, I was able to return to Beijing to resume my studies in person. But first came a mind-numbing 21 days of quarantine in Guangdong, plus another seven days at Peking University. Once I emerged from quarantine, I was able to “freely” move through China. But, under China’s zero-COVID policy, there was a catch. At the entrance to almost every establishment, I had to scan a QR code and present my green health code.
The day after coming out of a 28 day quarantine, I attended my first post-pandemic, in-person class. I was coming off three semesters of online classes, often held in the middle of the night, due to the time difference. I will never forget donning my mask and walking across the footbridge that links international students’ dorms with the university campus. When I stepped into my classroom, only a few people were wearing masks. It struck me that perhaps China was indeed a zero-COVID utopia. I felt so safe, and the fear of infection did not plague my mind as it did in America. I was beginning to admire how the Chinese government had responded to the pandemic. But I was too hopeful, too soon.
Photo from the footbridge linking international students’ dorms with the Peking University campus.
I don’t remember clearly when the opening and closing, reopening and reclosing of universities began, but it always felt abrupt. Each time we closed again, I felt disappointment and fear. The disappointment of not receiving a “normal” college experience paled in comparison to my genuine fear of never-ending quarantine and routine testing mandates. For months at a time, I was required to stay in my room. The only exception was to walk downstairs to take a COVID test or to pick up food prepared by the school. My classmates and I felt like prisoners. Rumors swirled in Chinese media about the disease spreading through cats and dogs, or through shipping packages. People were growing restless. Their patience with China’s performative policies was wearing thin.
Chinese people uphold an important principle that transcends various aspects of their society, culture, and politics: 忍 (rěn), meaning to tolerate, endure, or put up with. Keep your head down and do what you need to do; this is how you survive. Unfair and inhumane working hours? If you leave your job in protest, the next person in line will gladly take your place. Stringent COVID policies? Just do what the government says and it will pass. As time went on, however, many Chinese citizens felt a growing displeasure and a desperation to be free from the government’s strict COVID policies.
For the first time, I heard a Chinese student tell me point-blank how disgusted she was with China’s stringent COVID-19 policies. People felt hopeless and powerless to do anything, until they did. On April 22, 2022, a video called The Voice of April (《四月之声》(Sì Yuè Zhī Shēng), was posted on YouTube, depicting the extreme quarantine regulations in Shanghai. For the first time, the video showed citizens expressing frustration with China’s zero-COVID policy. I watched with tears in my eyes and felt the pain of the people and the absurdity of these policies.
Soon after, the Sitong Bridge protest emboldened Chinese citizens to speak up. I heard only admiration for the lone protester, coupled with some pity for the consequences this man and his family were certain to face. For weeks after the Sitong Bridge protest, at least two security guards guarded every footbridge in the Haidian district.
Next came the white paper revolution. My friend from Tsinghua sent me a video of students holding sheets of white paper outside the cafeteria across from her dorm window. Shortly after, a photograph spread on Instagram, depicting red characters painted on a wall in Peking University. The words–
“不要封控要自由 (No lockdowns, [we] want freedom.)
不要核酸要吃饭 (No COVID tests, [we] need to eat.)
务实不是躺平 (Pragmatism, not “lying flat.”) Here, “lying flat’ (躺平) refers to a popular slang term among young people, who felt compelled to lie down passively as opposed to stand up for their rights.
眼睛看看世界 ([Open your] eyes and see the world.)
动态清零 (Dynamic zero-COVID…
终是诺言 …is ultimately a promise.)
早日转向 (Changing course earlier…
还有缓冲 …leaves room for buffer). This statement was largely inspired by the Sitong Bridge protest slogan.
The university quickly covered the words with gray paint and parked a delivery truck in front of the wall for weeks. I had previously feared that China’s younger generation, on the whole, favored toxic nationalist ideas. But seeing the message on the wall, my heart swelled with hope for Chinese youth. There was still a line in the sand. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had crossed it, and had started getting nervous.
Red words on a staircase to Jiayuan Canteen in Peking University — which were promptly covered with gray spray paint.
After the horrendous COVID-19 lockdown in Beijing, China finally opened up in December 2022, welcoming all international students to return to Peking University. And yet, the dark shadow of COVID-19 restrictions lurked in the background. I couldn’t forget what I had seen in that era of control, even while much of Chinese society was trying to.
Still, during my last semester of university, there was a semblance of normalcy. My cohort of international students were reminded why we came to China in the first place. Feeling the warm summer breeze while riding our electric scooters through campus, sharing a dry pot 麻辣香锅 (má là xiāng guō) in the canteen which we could not get anywhere else in Beijing for quite so cheap, and laughing heartily when every. single. taxi driver complimented our subpar Chinese language skills. These moments and more earned Beijing a special place in my heart.
China is a complex country, and my feelings toward it are complex too. As a child of Chinese immigrant parents, it was always part of my identity, yet it was amplified by experiencing China as an American person. China’s homogenous culture had difficulty perceiving me as a person of mixed culture, so I was just American to them. When I returned to my Chinese American bubble in suburban Los Angeles, I became “too Chinese” for them. There was no convincing people otherwise, so I accepted both perceptions. I was just as proud to be “too American” for Chinese people as I was to be “too Chinese” for American people. I knew that I was both. I tried to provide a picture of a multicultural and beautiful U.S. society in conversations with Chinese people who only saw America as all guns and hamburgers. I tried to guide Americans to look past communism and giant pandas to see China through the eyes of the Chinese people and their tenacity in the face of historical and societal adversity.
Beijing at sunset
I’ll never forget sunset in Beijing, watching a group of construction workers squeeze into the back of a small truck to head home. As the stars emerged, street vendors appeared at the school’s east entrance, selling roasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes from a three-wheeled motorbike, ready to flee if the police caught them selling illegally.
When people in the U.S. speak of China as a stereotypical villain in international affairs, they don’t think of the cleaning ladies (保洁阿姨, bǎo jié ā yí) working hard in our dorm buildings to make a wage for their families. They don’t think of the security guards (保安, bǎo ān) sitting in our dorm lobby all winter night with just a space heater to keep warm. The food deliveryman (外卖小哥, wài mài xiǎo gē) whizzing past me to deliver food efficiently doesn’t cross their minds. Despite my initial culture shock and aggravation with government policies, these people and their persevering spirit will always be China to me.
