The word "exploring" does not just mean traveling to me, but it is more about putting myself into lives of people who live in different cultures. To hear my story, let's start with the life that I have lived for 15 years.
Sixty students in one small classroom, six thousand students in just one grade, hundreds of them having PE class in a regular sized basketball court, pretty hard to imagine, isn't it? Well, that's exactly what my junior high school is like. I cannot say it's a bad experience, although it may sounded like one, but I actually always enjoyed living and studying in such a big family, especially with some of the best friends I made and very dedicated teachers. For the three years I have had classes with the exact same 60 students and 7 teachers, I used to sprint to the dining hall to be in the front of the line at lunch time every day, and I will never forget all the whispering with my 7 roommates in the middle of the night (of course, we were not supposed to chat at that hour, but we just had too much to talk about!). Another typical significance of Chinese education is, I have to mention, that we study HARD. The high school entrance exam is the only way we can have a chance to get into high school, and in this populated and competitive country, 50% percent of the students have to go to career school. So for this only chance, studying around the clock and even not participating in physical exercise is not something unusual to us.
And then I thought, why not go to another country and live a life I have never lived before? Why not know people from different culture by just being them? So in the fall of 2022 I came to America as an exchange student and then go to 11th grade as an international student.
For all these years I have considered myself as a flexible person, but the first day of school was still a big surprise, everything is just so different! I have never thought about studying in a class that I can almost count the heads with my two hands, having time to do sports in school teams and writing creative essays instead of doing exercise only. I participated in many clubs, school activity including art shows, sports games and all the countless activities that made me feel like I'm not just a student, but more like a complete person.
This was when I started to think about lives of teenagers my age around the world.
Interested? See the "understanding“ section！