Trading Spaces

While being here in Beijing I was able to have a kinda funny experience, having lunch with my freshman year college roommate. At first this seems like a pretty normal thing but this time I was the foreigner.

My former roommate, Weiqing, traveled all the way around the world into the unknown to attend The Ohio State University. All of last year I couldn’t figure out why she never really decorated her side of the room, or why she packed so many snacks with her. Looking at my dorm here and reflecting on my experiences, I now relate to her and completely understand.

Weiqing is from a city here in China called Qingdao, a bit south from Beijing and directly on the coast. We were fortunately able to meet up for a quick lunch while she was here in Beijing for a short time and we ate possibly the cutest mashed potatoes of all time.

As we ate and chatted about how awful our dorm was last year she also asked me about how it felt to come to a completely different culture. During this conversation I really felt for the first time that someone understood how I felt. She completely related to the complete daze of getting out of the airport after 17+ hours of traveling and trying to find your way to your new place, and trying to shove your entire life into two suitcases. Fortunately I was able to get some great packing tips from her (always put the snacks to share with friends in your carry on so they don’t get crushed). We both laughed about the culture shocks that we both had and how much we were dreading our flights back to Columbus. Last year I remember meeting her for the first time and wondering why all she wanted to do was sleep when she first got to our dorm, now I wonder how she was even awake enough to have a coherent conversation with me beforehand.

Our conversation then went to if either of us really felt at home in our new countries. Both of us agreed that our answers were no. Neither of us really felt the need to decorate or have anything besides the essentials in our living spaces because we viewed them as temporary. It was so easy for me to feel at home last year because well, I was only 30 minutes from where I grew up. I was in a familiar area that I could definitely speak the language of.

Being on this internship really helps me understand the struggles of a lot of the international students on my campus. I struggled to be away from the states for 2 months, I have no idea how I would have felt if it was 2 semesters each year.

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