It’s our last day in Beijing! I cannot believe that it’s over already. And unfortunately, I picked this day to be sick meaning I missed out on the Lama Temple and our last night together. The culprit was possibly the worst invention in China…McDonald’s delivery. I have never heard of McDonald’s delivering in America so this is perhaps a humorous cultural difference.
Basically the only thing I could do today was attend our fifth and final lecture. It dealt with current events in China. I was very shocked to find that journalism is the second most deadly occupation in China. I cannot emphasize enough how different this is from journalism in America. It is not what we generally consider a dangerous occupation. We also learned about the elementary school killings which are sweeping through China. These murders are a devastating act which echoes outrage against the government, something that also is not likely to occur in America either. We all said goodbye to Claudia, our amazing lecturer. I learned so much from every meeting.
Finally we had our farewell dinner. We had an amazing spread of food items and wonderful company from Tsinghua University. Unfortunately I was too sick to enjoy most of it. We said goodbye to all of our new friends: Vivien, Claudia, and Ruby. I am going to miss them as well as all the new friends I’ve made from the Univeristy of Pittsburgh. It was a long, great trip and I am so thankful to have been a part of it.