I woke up today still in awe that I had the opportunity to participate in the study tour and visit China. There are no words that can explain the gratitude I feel to all those who made this possible for us at CSUN. We’ve been here two days and I am learning a lot from the daily interactions I have with Chinese students and people. Today, we started out by having breakfast together at the usual time at 7:45am. I had a hard time sleeping due to the jet lag and kept waking up throughout the night, but it’s all part of the experience and I’m soaking it in. After breakfast, we started our day by going to class and listening to Dr. Degravel’s lecture on management consulting. Dr. Degravel’s lecture was my first time being introduced to management consulting and I found the topic/lecture to be very interesting. The lecture gave us insight into what management consulting is all about and I feel that any of us, regardless of what major we are studying, can get into this field. Management consulting allows individuals to be entrepreneurial and to build their own brand and reputation. Following the lecture, I gained much interest in management consulting and will be doing my own research so that I can possibly engage in this field in the future. After the lecture we had lunch back at the foreign exchange student dorms and then had a lecture that introduced us to our case studies.

The case study lecture was informative and broke down how we should analyze our cases. Dr. Degravel clearly stated how the cases should be analyzed and gave us frameworks to follow. Once the lecture was over we had free time for activities. We all headed back to the dorms to relax and freshen up before heading out on an adventure to the French Quarter, also known as the French Concession in the city. To get to the French Concession we took the metro subway which takes you throughout the city. The metro subway infrastructure that China built for Shanghai is highly advanced and practical, as all the lines are connected to each other and travel relatively fast. Upon seeing and using the metro system in Shanghai I realized that we had much to catch up on back in Los Angeles regarding infrastructure. When we arrived to the French Concession the first thing I noticed was how  beautiful the streets looked lined with trees. Walking through the Concession was surreal as I still couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be able to travel to China. As a group we explored and walked around the area before finding a place to eat. Some of us broke up into smaller groups and went to different restaurants. My group went to get Pho and the food was very delicious. One thing that as difficult was the language barrier, but that made the experience even better as we had to resort to other means to understand one another. After eating we explored some more and went back to the dorms around 10:30pm, as the last metro line that we needed to take stopped running at 11pm.

The moment we arrived in China I realized that I couldn’t read, write, or speak the native language so in every interaction I had I tried to learn little key words here and there. Communicating with people was a great experience as I was able to communicate through other means, I attempted to speak Chinese, and the people I tried to speak to would laugh with me as we realized through trial and error what we meant. As I walked through the streets of China and interacted with people and the environment I pictured myself in my parents’ shoes and realized how they must have felt when they arrived to America. My parents immigrated to the United States due to the civil war in El Salvador, and when they arrived they didn’t know how to speak, write, or read in English. Being able to experience what my parents went through opened up my eyes up more to the sacrifices they made in the pursuit of a better life.  Through it all, my parents were able to adapt and create their new life. This experience is a clear example of what we are capable of as humans, and that no matter what obstacle is in front of us we can get through it. It’s humbling to be put in that situation where one can’t read, write or speak, and I believe that gaining experiences such as this can help bridge the divide we see occurring today. One thing that I’ve always known and that the trip to China reinforced is that regardless of the differences in cultures, practices, ethnicities, and skin tone, at the end of the day we are all the same just humans trying to better ourselves and live and maintain.