My experience studying Chinese has been important for my academic and personal interests. I studied Chinese for fifteen years with a brief break during my senior year of high school to take Spanish, which ultimately made me miss taking Chinese. When I was six years old, my parents enrolled me as a kindergartener at a Chinese immersion school in Minneapolis called Yinghua Academy, which carried out many educational practices of a traditional Chinese school. My nine years at Yinghua fostered my love for Chinese culture, history, and language. As a Chinese adoptee, this experience was important to me. Then, I attended the Blake School in Minneapolis for high school. I struggled in high school to feel interested in and motivated to continue learning Chinese. Therefore, during my college search, I was not focused on looking for a school with a Chinese program. 

     While Chinese programs did not heavily factor in my college search, the Chinese opportunities available at institutions made me view the schools favorably. Since my parents both went to St. Olaf and met there, I told my mom in high school that there was absolutely no chance I even applied to it. Understandably so, this caused some tension between us and the greater family. Then, I decided I would simply tour St. Olaf and ended up loving the welcoming and tight-knit community. It was a really hard place not to like. All my words from high school on St. Olaf definitely did not age well today. Now, I could not be happier with my college choice and how it has reconnected me with my Chinese studies!

 

     In my first year at St. Olaf, I took Chinese 301 and 302 (2019-2020). I enjoyed these courses because they focused on writing and conversational skills. These language courses were beneficial because I felt as though my Chinese was ‘rusty’ because of having a year off during my senior year of high school. I also took Political Science 245: Asian Regionalism, which ultimately made me want to double major in Political Science and Chinese. However, just like everyone else, my spring courses were online due to the pandemic. I think the pandemic was good in a way for my language class because I was determined to stay engaged and learn as much as possible in these unforeseen circumstances. 

     During my sophomore year (2020-2021) and junior year fall semester (2021-2022), I took Chinese 320, Asian Studies 237: Modern Chinese Literature & Society with Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC), and Asian 201: Chinese Diaspora with FLAC. While my classes were still affected by the pandemic, either having online classes or being masked in person, I always looked forward to my Chinese and Asian Studies classes. In Asian 201, we had a unit on Angel Island which was impactful to me. I felt that I got a really holistic understanding of the courses where I had the opportunity to take FLAC. Then I spent my spring semester in Dublin, Ireland to study Political Science and Law which I like to call my “Chinese sabbatical”!

     Now, in my senior year (2022-2023), I have selected my final classes in the Chinese major. During the fall semester, I took the seminar Asian 397: Human Rights in the Asian Contexts, where I wrote my independent research paper on the 1994 Female Inheritance Movement in Hong Kong. This topic was mentioned briefly in one of our early readings so it made me want to learn more about it. I really enjoyed my topic on the Female Inheritance Movement – so much so that I was one of the few people that talked about it. But in all seriousness, this made my research process difficult, and also since the movement happened in 1994 many sources were a bit old. Researching this topic was challenging at times, but I was interested in the topic and learned a lot about it. 

     This spring semester, I am taking another Chinese language course and Asian calligraphy. Since I have not been enrolled in a Chinese course for a year and a half, I wanted to utilize this opportunity to take another Chinese course before I graduated. I wanted to take Asian calligraphy because of its historical and cultural significance. However, I do not think calligraphy is in my future – it really tests my patience at times! 

     I spent my senior year interim in San Francisco studying Asian Americans through history, culture, and art. This trip was amazing because I saw so many places and things that I had previously discussed in class, to name a few: Chinatown, Asian American artists, and Angel Island. It was surreal seeing all of these different places in person which I had studied in a classroom before. Also, spending Chinese New Year in San Francisco felt vibrant with firecrackers and Chinatown full of people. I wanted to mention two parts of the trip that were memorable to me. 

     First, we went to Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center to see the Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI) exhibition tour with the curator, Aleesa Alexander. She focused a lot on the stories of Asian American arts which were oftentimes overlooked in the art community. The art in the exhibition was gorgeous! I enjoyed works by Bernice Bing, Chiura Obata, and Ruth Asawa partially because of how memorable their stories were to me. At this point in the trip, we had discussed heavy topics concerning Asian American discrimination and injustices including the Chinese Exclusion Act and violence against Asian American women. This exhibit was helpful to remind me that not everything in Asian American history is so intensely sad. While of course, these more serious topics must be addressed, this art museum reminded me of many people and things to celebrate in the Asian American community. This exhibit acknowledged and celebrated Asian Americans through storytelling in art. 

     Second, we visited an exhibit called "We Are Bruce Lee" where the exhibition was from our tour guide’s own personal collection of Lee. Our tour guide, Jeff, shared his experience from childhood when he struggled to transition from a prominently Asian school to a white school. He continued to state that Lee was his role model and guiding figure through this difficult time. While his personal story is unique, I think many people identifying with minority groups can relate to his experience. After learning about Bruce Lee and Jeff’s experiences, it highlights their strength to disrupt Asian oppression and endurance to have their voices heard in society. 

 

     My time at St. Olaf studying Chinese is somewhat hard to articulate because I feel as though I have grown the most in these courses both academically and personally. I have had opportunities to learn and engage with Chinese language, culture, and history both inside the classroom and in San Francisco. While my plans after graduation are not set at the moment, I hope that I will be able to utilize these classes in the future. These experiences have made me love learning Chinese again!

     While it has been a pleasure for me to reflect on my academic experiences in Chinese at St. Olaf, there was a significant element of my studies that was important to me on a personal level as a Chinese adoptee. After growing up in a predominantly white household, attending a predominantly white college, and living in a predominantly white community, it was meaningful to study Chinese again. My family is multicultural with my parents being white and my brothers both adopted from Seoul, Korea. I have spent a lot of my life trying to confirm to others that families are not limited to DNA and are created in different non-traditional ways. I struggled with insensitive comments people made about my ‘real’, referring to biological, family which diminishes my family simply because we do not share DNA. Since I was so focused on defending and proving my family as ‘normal’, I perhaps unintentionally neglected my individual ethnicity. The opportunities at St. Olaf have been wonderful to embrace and celebrate my Chinese identity again. Regardless of my future plans, the opportunity to study Chinese for four years in college will always be something very special to me.