My name is Annika Wolff and I am a Christian Caucasian girl and a junior at Carmel High School. While I may not be a second generation, I have an obsession with all Asian cultures. Also, I have first hand knowledge of being thrown into a whole new culture. This summer I went to China through a bridge program funded by Confucius Institute for two weeks with 700 other high school students. The following is a list of the top 10 most interesting experiences from my trip:

10. Unclean water: The water in China is so dirty that foreigners are often told to bring their own water because we would get sick if we drank un-bottled water. Even Chinese residents don’t drink water from the faucet. I was also warned not to open my mouth in the shower or I would get sick. As a side note, the toilets were in the shower. Anyways at every meal they offered Coke, Sprite or tea.

9. Great Wall: There is only one way to describe the section of the Great Wall. I saw and that would be steep, very, very steep. Some of the stairs on the wall would be about an inch high but the next step would reach my knee. When people say that they climbed the Great Wall they are being serious, climbing is involved. Our tour guide also told us the most famous folk tale related to the wall.

Back when the wall was being built soldiers would kidnap poor farmers or criminals and force them to work on the construction of the wall. The night of the marriage of a young girl and her fiancé, the fiancé was kidnapped and forced to work. After a year of his absence the girl went to the wall and asked where he was. The overseer told her he was dead and inside the wall. Back then it was common for workers to die and be put in the wall because it was cheap and filled the wall faster. The girl hearing this cried and her tears ripped down a 30-mile section of wall and she was able to find her love. After giving him a proper burial, she committed suicide. The End. Cheerful, I know.

8. Old and the New: This was something I was not used to. Occasionally we would walk down allies and realize the cobblestones we were walking on and the shops we were seeing were probably older than those in America. It was weird to think that people used to ride their carriages down the roads we walked on. Also, these places would pop up out of nowhere. Sometimes they would be across the street from office buildings or in between two.

7. Tiananmen Square: This square is famous for the Tiananmen Square massacre but it is also the resting place of a mummified Mao Zedong. There were many sellers walking around with tourist merchandise like watches and calendars related to the square. My friend wanted a watch with Mao Zedong’s face on it to give to her friend back in America so I had to bargain in Chinese a watch down from 150 Yuan to 50 Yuan. One Yuan is approximately 2 cents in US dollars.

6. Shaolin temple: Part of the program was teaching groups different skills based on what province we were in. My group ended up in Henan, which is the birthplace of Chinese Wushu or martial arts and the location of the Shaolin temple. I was taught kung fu. We also learned the purpose of Wushu is to perfect certain parts of the body. Some monks are able to puncture tress simply by poking them with their fingers. We got to see one of these trees while there.

5. Strangers telling me I’m pretty: This is my favorite but not the most interesting experience from China. As a pale white girl with big eyes most everywhere I went people would tell me in Chinese that I was pretty because of how uncommon these traits are in China. This actually isn’t interesting at all but it made me happy so deal with it.

4. Speaking Chinese: I just entered my third year in Chinese class so my speaking skills are pretty good. Whenever I tried to speak Chinese to an actual Chinese person I usually couldn’t get past Hello which in Chinese is “Ni hao” before they start telling me in English how good my Chinese is and asking me to practice with them. Eventually I learned the best way to do this was to have conversations where I would speak Chinese and they would reply in English. Everyone was really kind and also really proud of me for being able to speak his or her language. Most of them found it to be very unexpected.

3. Eating duck: Many of the places we went out to eat would try to serve American food as well as Chinese food so we saw a lot of chicken and French fries next to spicy tofu and dumplings. One day I was not aware that the chicken had run out and saw the dish next to the chicken plate. Let me make one thing clear: duck looks surprisingly like chicken; however the taste does not relate to chicken in any way. I don’t wish to offend anyone but the duck tasted disgusting. I tried to covertly spit it into my napkin but, I decided that was rude so I swallowed the bite I took and secretly put the remainder on the plate of my friend who was sitting next to me.

2. People taking pictures of me: This was definitely the weirdest thing that happened to me. Whenever I was a few feet away from the group, someone would come up to me and smile while pointing to their camera. I was a little confused the first time but said yes and after the person understood his three children popped out of nowhere and stood next to me as they took a picture. This happened three times on the same day. It never stopped. China is not as accustomed to diversity in appearance as America so this happened quite often. I like to imagine them coming home from vacation and showing my picture to their friends while saying, “look, I caught a white girl on camera.”

1. Squat toilets: In China they have a very special type of toilet, which is basically a hole in the ground you literally have to squat over to relieve yourself. About once a day someone will come in to remove the contents. I was not a fan of these so I was unable to go to the bathroom most places we went. I managed to survive because thankfully the hotel had western toilets as well as museums and other such places with many western visitors would have at least 1 toilet I was used to using.