I wanted to provide some background info before I go. I am going to China as part of a group of 17: 13 students (8 guys & 5 girls including me), my trip director (who is an art prof at CSB/SJU), his wife, and two (adorable) little kids. In 4 days, I will be flying from Minneapolis to Chicago, and then Chicago to Beijing. We will be in Beijing for about 6-7 days before traveling to Xian by train. It looks as though we have a pretty sweet itinerary set for Beijing & Xian, which you will of course be able to read more about in the coming days. From Xian, we will fly to Chongqing and then take a bus (I think) to Beibei, where I will be living and going to school at Southwest University. From what I can tell, Beibei is about an hours drive from Chongqing.
I don't know my schedule yet, but my classes will be introductory Mandarin, Chinese history, Chinese literature in translation, and my study abroad seminar, which will be taught by Sam & Annie (my trip director & his wife). One of the big projects we will be doing in this class is a research project called the One Question Project. Each student chooses a topic related to China that we learn more about throughout the semester. After a lot of flip-flopping on my topic, I decided to make my project about son preference (the preference for having sons over daughters); I want to learn more about the history and reasons behind son preference, and also find out how prevalent it is today. It sounds like we have a variety of topics between the 13 of us, so it will be really interesting! Throughout the semester, we will also have several excursions and host a few different events (like a Halloween party and a Thanksgiving dinner). And before coming home in mid-December, we will end our trip in Hong Kong. It's looking like it will be an exciting semester!
I think that's about it for background info! But if there's something you want to know, or you just want to get ahold of me, feel free to e-mail me at dljansky@csbsju.edu or deelee227@hotmail.com!
-Deanna
