It’s been twelve years since Chris Roithmayr and Kasia Kordas went on their first date in the Spring 2011 semester at TBC, although the two of them disagree on which meal they shared for it. Now married for over five years and with two children, Chris and Kasia Roithmayr chatted with TBC about their study abroad experience, their love story, and their passion for food.
The Beijing Center turns 25 in 2023.
Professor Howard Hao, martial arts master and Tai Chi teacher, began with TBC in 2002 and has seen over twenty years of students come and go since then. Before being a professor, he was mentor, tutor, and roommate to American students. He’s well-known in the martial arts education world for his novel pedagogical approach, work towards bringing Wushu to the Olympics, and a client list that includes TBC students to celebrities and everyone in between.
In celebration of TBC’s milestone, Professor Hao – who is known by his students as just Howard – shared his story and his fondest memories with TBC.
TBC Spring 2016 alumni Meili (nee Burns) and Dominic Van Dyke tied the knot in June 2022, embarking on a lifelong journey that found its roots in their shared time abroad. Both graduates of Loyola University Chicago, Meili studied biology and is now a student at the Illinois College of Optometry. Dominic studied political science and international studies with minors in history and Chinese Language, and now works as a business intelligence analyst in cybersecurity.
What have you done that changed your life?
Recently, TBC sat down with Fall 2007 alum Meagan Breidert, a graduate of Loyola University Chicago and Indiana University, to talk about her experience during and after The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies. After a ten-year career as a management consultant, she is currently working to lead Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) efforts for a company. She is based in Washington, D.C., and attended the August 2022 Washington, D.C. TBC Alumni Meetup. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Sina Weibo, often dubbed “China’s Twitter”, is one of China’s largest and most popular social media platforms. Just like Bilibili, which we covered in a different blog post, it was launched in 2009 by Sina Corporation – hence the name Sina Weibo, although it is more popularly known as just ‘Weibo.’ Despite the nickname, Weibo is more than just a replica of Twitter or a microblog platform. It’s a social media tool that combines rich multimedia information and resource sharing, varied idea exchange, and online conversation.
The Beijing Center is surrounded by over thirty restaurants, all bursting with good and interesting food. At many of them, especially the ones closest to campus, meals are fast, cheap, and most of all delicious.
A student favorite for many long years until it closed its doors in late 2017, the restaurant affectionately nicknamed ‘Green Beans’ was a great place to get a variety of warm and filling dishes – but most famous (and thought to be most delicious) of all was its Stir Fried Green Beans with Minced Pork.
Bilibili (哔哩哔哩) is China’s largest pop culture and entertainment community for young people. Founded in 2009, it used to be a platform for sharing social content like videos of virtual idol Hatsune Miku and animated series, but now it’s an online pop culture community that spans anime, cartoons, games, music, painting, fashion, life, technology, to name a few genres.
This month, The Beijing Center attended the IAJU 2022 Worldwide Assembly at Boston College. What a week! The International Association of Jesuit Universities was started in 2018 and approved by Fr. Arturo Sosa, Superior General of the Society of Jesus – who also played a big role in TBC’s participation at the conference. After all, it was Fr. Sosa who personally recommended our Executive Director, Simon Koo, be a member of the Task Force on Peace and Reconciliation.
The Chinese social media ecosystem is fast evolving, but if you live outside of China, you’re probably using a different set of social media sites.
Chinese online culture is flourishing, with its own internet terminology and suite of apps that can help Mandarin learners improve their Chinese. Spending just a few minutes a day on your favorite Chinese social media app can help you improve your language skills.
In China, social media platforms perform comparable services to global platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube but in slightly different ways.
Wuxing (五行), also known as the Five Elements, is a traditional Chinese conceptual scheme. It is used to explain an array of phenomena, from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs. It originally refers to the five major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, and Venus) that create the five dimensions of earth life. The 5 elements of it are jin (metal), mu (wood), shui (water), huo (fire), tu (earth). These elements are normally around 73 days each and are used to describe various states in nature.