Studying abroad helps shatter cultural barriers

It is a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Iowa City, Iowa, and all my elementary school friends are playing soccer. I am sitting in a dusty, dimly lit apartment basement, preparing to take a dictation test on Chinese characters. Every week, under the "strong encouragement" of my parents, I spend three hours learning Mandarin along with other Chinese-American kids. I don't understand why my parents want me to hold on to the country where I was born while I strive to embrace the country where I am being raised.

Fast forward to my senior year of college. Now I am enrolled as an international student in Peking University's School of Economics through the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), the first study abroad program established at Peking University. Instead of a single afternoon every week, I am spending the entire semester taking classes in Mandarin on ecological economics and China's foreign policy.

The journey from then to now is a long story, but a turning point happened my first year at the University of Iowa. Before school started, I volunteered to pick up international students at the airport and help them get settled in to their dorms. I am a member of a Chinese Christian church in Iowa City, and we help students from China with anything from finding a place to stay to applying for a bank card. Empathizing with the struggles of international students to overcome language and cultural barriers, I began noticing how those barriers manifested in divisions - and even discrimination - between American and international students.