Bringing the Semester to a Close at CET Beijing

Photos taken by Jalen Walker (Washington University in St. Louis), Student Correspondent for CET Beijing, Spring 2024

Great Wall with Middlebury in Beijing

It’s possible that no trip to China, and particularly Beijing, is complete without a visit to The Great Wall (长城, chángchéng). To close out April, we once again joined forces with the students in the Middlebury in Beijing program and took on the 慕田峪 (Mù tián yù) portion of the wall.

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Taking the Fun Way Down

After trekking up what felt like a stairway to heaven to mount the Wall and spending a few hours exploring that portion of it, I was overjoyed to hear about the slide that returns visitors to the bottom. As you can see in this picture, that joy and the relief of being off my feet carried me all the way back down.

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Old Friends

One of the most meaningful parts of my study abroad experience has been the relationships that I’ve built inside and outside of the classroom. Even though our travel seminar to Chengdu has long since passed, I’ve been able to stay in touch with 建业 (Jiàn yè), one of my language partners from Southwest Jiaotong University. I even got a surprise visit from him in April while he was in Beijing to see friends.

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Clear Day in Beijing

As the spring progresses and the days get warmer, you also notice the gradually clearer air that graces Beijing as a byproduct of strong spring winds. I always appreciate having a clear vantage of the mountains in the distance, which contrasts with the bustling and sprawling expanse of the city.

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Prince Kung’s Mansion

During the second half of the semester, we’ve been able to combine our course material with real-world language practicum experiences through visits to museums around Beijing. The first of which was 恭王府 (Gōng wángfǔ, Prince Gong’s Mansion), where we were able to utilize some of the vocabulary that we picked up earlier that week about Beijing’s traditional architecture.

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Class Photo

After a week of discussing US-China relations, our most recent 语言实践活动 (Yǔyán shíjiàn huódòng, language practice activity) included a visit to 中央礼品文物管理中心 (Zhōngyāng lǐpǐn wénwù guǎnlǐ zhōngxīn, Central Gifts and Cultural Relics Management Center) where we viewed many of the diplomatic gifts shared with China throughout history. We were all so awed by the exhibition items that we forgot to take a group photo there—which we quickly remedied upon our return to campus.

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Morning Stroll in the Park

As much as I can in the time that remains, I try to use my camera as a tool for further exploring new areas of Beijing and learning more about the daily lives of locals. I’ve found a particular appreciation for the calm but lively environment of the city’s various parks in the morning when people of all ages are out exercising and beginning the day in community with others. It’s typically never long until I stumble upon a handful of intense ping-pong matches, complete with a host of onlookers and others waiting for their next turn.

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Week 13 Chinese Table

As the semester winds down in the coming weeks, one of the things that I know I’ll miss the most is Friday’s Chinese Table lunch. For our penultimate weekly lunch, we took the opportunity to return our taste buds back to China’s 东北 (Dōngběi, Northeast).

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Language Exchange

Recently, we had the opportunity to engage in a language exchange activity with students at one of Beijing’s international high schools. During our time together, CET students gave presentations on our home universities and then spent time answering questions in Chinese and English. Here, I’m pictured with fellow CET student Sophia after we gave the students our introductions to Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Mississippi.