TY from the INSIDE
By Jiang O’Neill - TYI Ambassador 2017/18
I was adopted from China when I
was very young and brought to
Ireland. As you can imagine, I had
no memories of my birth country
but I have always been very driven
to visit it.
For years I have been planning to
go to China with the UCC and
Shanghai Scholarship
Program and was delighted
to be chosen to go.
The “Study in China Easter
Camp Program” is a two-
week program in Shanghai.
It is jointly organised by UCC
Confucius Institute, Irish
Institute of Chinese Studies
(UCC) and Shanghai
University and sponsored by
the Headquarters of
Confucius Institute. It
provides an opportunity for
non-Chinese students in
Irish second level schools
(mainly Transition Year
students) to visit China and
to learn its language and
culture.
out.
Accordingly, there was no
need for parents to be ringing
China as soon as we landed
enquiring if we were safe!
So on the 22nd of March I
embarked on a flight full of
strangers, a stomach full of
butterflies for a 14 hour flight.
Jiang O’Neill .TYI Ambassador .
One Foot in Each Camp
difficulty for him. He seemed to
just give up on me, I guess I did
not look like much of a threat. In
any event, our buses arrived to
take us to our, hopefully, luxurious
accommodation. I instantly fell
asleep on the bus and when I
opened my eyes we had arrived at
our dorms and I had
missed my first glimpse of
Shanghai.
Our
rooms
were very nice but when I
tried to jump onto my bed,
like an idiot, I found it was
hard as a rock.
Once our bags were in our
rooms we went into
Shanghai City. It still had
not hit me that I was
halfway around the world.
Shanghai is an amazing
city but my first
impressions of China did
not match my imagination.
It is hard to know what
informed my imagination
on this subject but possibly
Crouching Dragon Hidden
Tiger was high on that list.
Returning to China
I was really looking forward to
experiencing the different culture,
learning more about China and
wondered if I might even discover
a kind of “feeling” for the place. Actually, I found it kind of enjoyable
and during the flight I got to know
some of those strangers who were
to be my companions over the
Easter.
I knew that culturally it would be a
different but how different was very
clear when - On our orientation
day, 104 students were told that
should our flight go down then our
parents will be deemed notified as
the media would be covering it
instantly. So we should rest
assured that our parents will find I was like a zombie when we
landed in Shanghai, having been
up for 24 hours. I was not in the
mood for a debate with passport
control about my identity. The
official could not comprehend why I
could not speak Chinese but
looked Chinese. I tried to explain
my adoption but this posed
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