NEWS & EVENTS

I grew up in a Buddhist Vietnamese family. As a child, I went to the closest Buddhist temple to my house every Sunday to sit and listen to the morning chants and teachings alongside my family before attending Vietnamese school for a few hours. I grew up wearing necklaces with little Buddha carvings and prayer beads around my wrist. I was raised with Buddhist traditions, and I was told that whenever I felt unsafe, unsettled, or just not right, I should pray to the Buddha. Doing so would calm my rapid heartbeats and my noisy mind. So it was natural for Buddhism to become the belief that I would call my religion for a good part of my childhood.

In its online ads, The Beijing Center promises to take students to the China they weren’t expecting. That has certainly been true for me as an openly gay man studying abroad in Beijing.

I had an expectation, when I decided to study abroad in China, that I was going to travel all over Asia. It was unrealistic because I neglected the fact that I was a part of a STUDY abroad and that I had classes during the week. However, I didn’t want classes to hinder my desire to see as much of China as possible. Also, the Beijing Center purposefully schedules classes Monday-Thursday and gives you three days off for travel and internships.

The decision to study abroad is not always easy. There is more to it than applying to a program. You are faced with the reality of being immersed in a culture that differs from your own. Maybe the language is different, the food, the style, the etiquette…

By Alexa L., Stonehill College, TBC Fall 2018 Student

In China, the first week of October is the National Holiday. Many businesses and schools close for the week. Given this free time, some of my friends and I planned a 6-day trip to Seoul, South Korea!

Step 1: LOGISTICS

When I first saw the recruitment article for Chinese Roommates (CR) by The Beijing Center (TBC) in my WeChat Moments feed, little did I know that it was going to be an experience that would completely change my college life. TBC’s semester study abroad program provides its students with the option to live with a local Chinese Roommate, an experience which I’m proud to say in most cases, ends up becoming the student’s favorite part of their semester in Beijing.

The first week of October is the Mid-Autumn Festival in China, a national week-long holiday.

Our TBC students utilized this period to explore distant destinations across Asia. In the end, our TBCers settled in 5 locations: Bangkok, Tongling, Shanghai, Seoul, and Palawan & El Nido. A member from each expedition describes the logistics of their travels below.

Este semestre tuve la oportunidad de viajar por una parte de la gran Ruta de la Seda, viaje incluido en mi intercambio a China con The Beijing Center. Durante los siglos XIII y XIV DC, esta ruta fue la principal de comercio entre oriente y occidente. La ruta empezaba en Xi’an, y terminaba en Venecia. Es increíble haber caminado por esa misma ruta, 700 años después dehaber sido la única conexión por tierra entre estos dos hemisferios del mundo.

Hello, everyone! Welcome to my blog! For the fall semester of 2018, I am participating as a student in the Beijing Center (TBC), a study abroad program based in Beijing’s University of International Business and Economics, or UIBE for short. I’m so excited to bring all of you along with me through this amazing experience studying abroad in Beijing, China.