This past summer at The Beijing Center (TBC), students from Marquette University took TBC’s Chinese language courses for college credit. TBC’s program offers an intensive, immersive curriculum in the heart of Beijing.
This past summer in China, TBC connected students from Notre Dame School of Manhattan and Xavier High School with some of Beijing’s local elementary students. The young children were shy at first, but they eventually loved interacting with their new American friends.
This past summer, The Beijing Center (TBC) accompanied Loyola Blakefield High School, Boston College High School, Xavier High School, and Notre Dame High School to tour multiple famous attractions in China, including Beijing’s Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, and Great Wall.
In the summer of 2026, The Beijing Center (TBC) hosted Loyola Blakefield High School, Boston College High School, Xavier High School, and Notre Dame High School for visits to renowned attractions and immersive experiences in Chinese daily life.
This past summer, students from Loyola Blakefield high school and Boston College High School travelled to Yunnan Province with the company of TBC staff. The experience was very different from the busy metropolitan area in Beijing, as students got the opportunity to immerse themselves in a much more rural area with diverse ethnic culture and daily life practices.
This past summer, students from Loyola Blakefield High School, Boston College High School, Xavier High School, Notre Dame High School, Wah Yan College Kowloon (Hong Kong), and St. Ignatius High School (Taiwan) visited the Tomb of Matteo Ricci during their time in Beijing. Father Matteo Ricci, S.J., was a very influential figure on modern Chinese society, and he is credited for being one of the main introducers of European culture to China.
For the first time for one of these blogs, I’m taking on a new challenge: exploring without the involvement of The Beijing Center! This past weekend, I took the chance to take a pre-finals breath of fresh air and vacation for the first time in China, to the city of Tianjin.
I’ve written about my cultural exchange experiences in Beijing and at Minzu University before, but recently, I added something new to my roster: introducing my own culture to others.
If there’s any historical landmark related to China someone remembers learning about as a young child, odds are it’s the Great Wall of China. I have distinct memories of sitting in my third-grade social studies class, learning about this ancient marvel of engineering that was large it could be seen from space.
Beijing’s Temple of Heaven may be one of, if not, the most iconic tourist sites in Beijing. Constructed starting back in 1406, around the same time as the Forbidden City and the other respective temples of the Sun, Earth and Moon.