I am attempting to come up with reasons why I wanted to go to China. I did not know the reason then, and I still do not. It was one of the few spontaneous decisions I have made. I needed an escape. I wanted to meet new people, and I am always looking for new and exciting ways in which to challenge myself.

I am also incredibly passionate about getting to know and understand others. One of my biggest takeaways from China is my new and developing understanding of relationships: how they work, why they might not work, and which ones will always stay in your heart, even when the physical person is no longer there.

China was everything all at once all of the time. We only had ten students and two leaders, but by the end of the trip, both leaders’ significant others had joined us. In addition to all of us Americans, Meryl Byer’s friend, Hong Tao, accompanied us in many of the larger cities and unfamiliar locations. We spent about five days in Beijing.

After Beijing, we traveled to the Sichuan province, where we spent time in Nanchong with host families on the weekends. During fall break, we took a break from Nanchong. We traveled to Chengdu, Xi’an, Xiahe, Lanzhou, Jiayuguan, and Dunhuang before going back to Nanchong for another three weeks. We visited pandas in Chengdu for the beginning of our second travel. Afterward, we said goodbye to our host families and visited Lijiang, Nanjing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

During the trip, I walked on the Great Wall, haggled for a chess set, talked to some pandas, spent too much money at Hong Kong Disneyland, and made some of my closest friends. Although it was difficult at times and adjusting back was another kind of challenge, I am grateful for the whole group that went to China with me. I would go back.

EMU puts so much emphasis on cross-culturals being a life-changing experience. After returning from China, I do agree, but the challenges are never emphasized. This was difficult for me to understand until reflecting on the emotional roller coaster of my cross-cultural. For me, the good outweighs the bad. I would return. I loved my group. Even the downside cannot hold a flame to the love that I still have for my group and for China.

While in China, I sometimes had difficulty expressing my emotions: more specifically, any homesickness. Instead of addressing the emotions that were constantly coursing through my veins, I often chose to ignore them. Most of the time, there were plenty of distractions. One of my relational distractions was my host family.

It is difficult to explain to someone who has never had a strong relationship with a host family what it is like. With this particular relationship, we did not connect with love. Instead, we connected by caring for each other. Forming a relationship based on care, instead of love, is similar to how forming relationships with teachers or peers works.

I respect these individuals, but it is not as strong of a bond as it would be if that relationship were based more on love. Because my host family lives in China, that relationship is now paused, which is similar but less extreme to what happened to the relationships I held with people here in America who did not go to China with me.

I am introverted, so I have a close-knit group of friends here at EMU. I also have a wonderful family and a loving boyfriend. When I went to China, I left all of these relationships behind for three and a half months.

In the much larger scale of things, that time was nothing. Leaving was a challenge and homesickness did hit because of the amount of love that I was used to.

I grew closer to myself while in China because other people had no way of supplying the level of love that I was used to receiving at home. I relied on my own love to function. I was able to learn more about myself because of this.