Hi everyone

Every blog that I've read has a purpose statement but mine started so late that I think I'll just include a blurb: Apart from the obvious purpose for this blog, that the US Embassy in Beijing gets fewer phone calls about an exchange student who doesn’t call or write home enough, I also want to keep a log to share my travels, studies, and noteworthy experiences with my friends and family while I'm in China. And, who knows? Maybe I’ll keep this blog going for future travels and whatnot.

First, I want to say that I’m sorry that this took so long to set up. I thought starting a blog would be difficult so I put it off for a while but it turns out to be fairly easy. Currently, I am safe and well in Beijing. For those of you who would like a clearer description of what exactly I am doing here, I am studying through a William & Mary partner program with American University and Beijing University called the China Studies Institute, which focuses on teaching Chinese language and culture. My daily schedule: I go to Chinese 301 in the morning on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for about three and a half hours, to Chinese Arts & Cultures every Tuesday at 6:00 pm until 9 o’clock, and then Doing Business in China on Thursdays in the same time frame as A&C. Most of the students in the program are from AU, about forty of them, with a few from other various schools – apart from me, there are three other people from William & Mary here.

Overall, I’ve had a good time these initial three weeks. (Once again, sorry for the tardiness of this blog.) After taking Chinese for one year, I feel surprisingly comfortable finding my way around town and buying food – I even joined the Beijing University Weiqi club (Go/Baduk); though CSI has also dutifully taken care of my and everyone else’s needs. So far, we have found language partners (mine is studying the American Constitution and the Civil War era (from Richmond, couldn’t have worked out better!)); we’ve been to the Summer Palace and Tiananmen Square/the Forbidden City, and we’ve even celebrated some birthdays (more noteworthy than this sounds). This post seems crammed due to the outpouring of events that can't fit into this first post but I promise that I’ll get into more as I find time. For now, here's a taste. This is my orientation group by the entrance to a nearby Carrefour:

(From the left: Ashley from DePauw, me, Alex from AU, Poppy from George Washington, Tamara from GW, and my roommates Dave and Matthew from GW as well.)