The Home of the Free - Some Personal Reflections Following My Arrival in the U.S.

We are so blessed to live in America. Don’t ever take that for granted.

After having the opportunity to live and go to school in China for a month, it overwhelms me with great joy to be back in America. It’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference. My parents and sister picked me up from the airport a few days ago and we went straight to our favorite Mexican food restaurant. I had to have me some chips and salsa, Tex-mex, and sweet tea. On Saturday, as I sat on the plane waiting to fly out of Hong Kong, tears started coming to my eyes, happy to know that I would soon be home but also knowing that I was leaving the wonderful and beautiful Hong Kong. The lessons, culture, and friends I acquired from my summer abroad however will stay with me forever.

My first night home I had the best shower I'd had in five weeks, and for the first time in over a month I slept back in my own bed. My unnecessarily wonderful, comfy, and large bed. I haven’t watched much television since I’ve been home. I’ve never been much of a tv person, but after living without it for over a month, it doesn’t seem like something I absolutely need to incorporate into my everyday life. Why do we get to enjoy these pleasures and people on the other side of the world will never have them?

I never realized how important where you are born is, and how much of a difference it makes. I looked around and saw these people in China who will never know, who can’t even fathom, the type of life we live as Americans; not because they aren’t willing to work hard or because they don’t deserve it, but because they are stuck. They are stuck in Communist China, or Thailand, or even Hong Kong, or wherever, and they will never have the opportunity to live a better life. They are content because they don’t know any different. And that breaks my heart.

When my friend Ellen asked a man on the subway what he wanted most in life, he answered, “To learn English.” Out of everything in the world! That’s what he wanted. When we spoke to a different guy we met (also at the subway station) who was asking us all these questions about America and our government and how things work, we asked why he doesn’t move to America, and he said, “I want to.” It’s the little things in life, people. It’s the simple fact that we were born in the United States of America. We are given, granted, and blessed with freedom and the right to choose from the very moment we are born. Those are things many, many people across the world will never experience. So don’t take it for granted. Don’t badmouth your country. Go live across the globe for a month, hell- for a week, and then tell me what you think about America. Your perception will definitely change.

I have never felt so much pride, so blessed, to be an American. I can’t tell you how many customs forms I had to fill out amidst all of my traveling, and every time I had to fill out which country I was from, I always smiled. It’s a privilege. It’s a blessing. It’s not something to throw in people’s faces and say “I can act/do/say _____ because I’m American.” Don’t be ignorant, and don’t take it for granted. Just be happy you’re American, and love your country. I know I sure do.

“I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I won’t forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today,
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land.
God bless the USA.”

-Lee Greenwood

As My Journey Comes to a Close...

It brings a little sting to my heart when I think about leaving Hong Kong (and Asia in general). I have truly learned so much about the world, people, and cultures and am so thankful for this amazing experience. It would not have been possible without God and my parents and my wonderful business school at UT. I knew I would be a changed person after having experienced life in China, but one can’t really anticipate how they are going to change or how another culture is going to affect them until they’ve seen it with their own eyes.  If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people are fundamentally the same everywhere. Yes, their cultures are very different, and their tendencies and customs are different, but people are people, and that’s what has made me feel close to home even all the way across the globe. Aside from the fact that not many people speak English here which has made communicating difficult at times, and living conditions and day to day life is a little different, I have often times not even felt like I’m on another continent. Undoubtedly that is due to the fact that I am living and traveling with many new friends from back home, which has given us all a little American bubble and haven. If anything has made me feel more disconnected from back home it’s probably the difference in food. America has the best food in the world! I can’t wait to have barbecue when I get home….

It’s been one month since I’ve been in America, and thinking about it now, I think of everything in more color, with life and vibrancy and freedom and happiness. I’ve always been in love with America, and Texas has my heart, and I can truly say that now I hold America, and Texas specifically, much more dear to my heart than I already did. It sounds cliché, but there is so much we take for granted, without even realizing it sometimes, because we don’t know any better or any different. The American Dream is a beautiful thing. I totally understand it now. Opportunities and freedom abound in America more than anywhere else in the world, and I am overcome with pure joy to call it my home.

The people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made through my study abroad program have shaped my experience and truly made it the time of my life. I can’t imagine how it would have been without them. I’ve made memories to last a lifetime. Never have I been more crazy, laughed so hard, slept so little, or walked so much, as I did in the past month. Even though I’m so, so happy to be boarding a plane to go home, Hong Kong and Thailand will always have a little piece of my heart. It’s a bittersweet feeling leaving it all behind, because I know I will probably never return. Live life while you can, travel while you’re young, and take everything in. Everything.

I want to close with a beautiful quote from Mary Anne Radmache that I can now identify with, more than ever before:

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”

Thank you, friends, for reading my blog and my experiences I’ve had while in Asia. I hope you’ve enjoyed it! See you soon, but in the meantime, have some BBQ and Tex Mex for me!

The Great Wall & other Beijing Adventures

This blog is only like two weeks delayed, but anyway, a group of five of us traveled to Beijing and stayed there for the long weekend three weekends ago (we didn't have class Friday and Monday was a holiday here in Hong Kong). It was incredible, but the weather was hazy all weekend, which did not make for great photos.

I had my first hostel experience while in Beijing! We arrived at our hostel Friday afternoon, where we found our bathroom to be a small room with a toilet, sink, and shower head hanging on the wall. There was no separation by a wall or shower curtain or anything; you literally shower inches away from the toilet, so that was different.

Our hostel was just a couple blocks away from the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square so we walked over on Friday and explored the sights. The locals in Beijing stare much more than people in Hong Kong. White people aren't too uncommon in Hong Kong, and much more people speak English. In Beijing, we were literally like celebrities. We couldn't go anywhere without crowds of people wanting to take pictures with us. It was pretty cool for three days, but I could never be a superstar and have to deal with that all the time.

On Saturday, we had booked a guided tour to see the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. Our tour guide told us a lot of Chinese history and kept telling us we would be heroes once we climbed the Great Wall (Asian people repeat themselves a lot). The Great Wall was awesome; I only wish the weather would have been clearer so my photos could do the Wall justice, because the view was amazing! It was SO crowded, too. Maybe because it was a holiday weekend, but I was surprised.

"He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man."

After the Great Wall we visited the Ming Tombs. It was interesting to hear about all the history of the Chinese dynasties.

We went to some tea tasting at a famous place called Dr. Tea where Queen Elizabeth and numerous other famous/important people have drank tea, then broke away from the tour to explore the Olympic Park on our own. The Olympic Park was awesome! We visited the wall of medals while there and found Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Ricky Berens, Shawn Johnson, and many other Americans' names.

Me in front of the Bird's Nest at Olympic Park (2008 Opening Olympic Ceremonies)

The next day we went to the Temple of Heaven and spent hours there. It was beautiful and much larger than we expected. After a long day, we headed back to the hostel and had none other but a microwavable cup of ramen for dinner, because everything was closed by the time we got back.

It was a great weekend all in all, and now I'm a hero of the Great Wall!

There Are No Words - Thailand Part 2

Day 2 in Thailand was a tourist’s dream. Our first day there we saw a girl in our hostel wearing these awesome flowy Thailand-y pants, and we had to get some. The markets in Thailand were better than any markets I’ve seen in Hong Kong so far, and we bought multiple pair, among other things. All of us girls wore our pants on our tour the next day and looked absolutely ridiculous with our pants, tennis shoes, cameras, and “I Heart Bangkok” tank tops. It was a great day.

Our tour guide picked us up from the hostel and our friend Matt was going to sit passenger. He walked over to the driver’s side (regularly the passenger’s side in America) and sat down. It took him a second to realize he was in the wrong seat, and our tour guide almost died of laughter.

The driving here in Thailand is much more civilized than in China. Pedestrians actually have the right of way, people actually use blinkers, drivers are much nicer, and I hardly heard anyone honking. It was a nice change. Lots of people drive little mopeds and the ladies ride sidesaddle. It’s quite impressive!

Our tour consisted of floating markets, a magic show, elephant show, crocodile show, and ended with elephant riding! The floating markets were awesome! All 8 of us got a covered, wooden, canoe-like boat with a driver and he drove us around the river past floating markets and trinkets galore. The vendors have these hooks on sticks and the aggressive ones just pull you in, whether you wanted to look there or not. It was such a cool experience.

The magic show was really weird and not really even worth writing about. There was the magician and his assistant, who never cracked a smile and walked very slowly and dramatically. It was more of a comedy show, really.

The elephant show was awesome! The people who work at the park reenacted a lot of history that Asian and African elephants actually went through. Then the elephants danced and played soccer. We couldn’t stop laughing.

Next we saw the crocodile show, where these two guys stuck their hands, and HEADS, in crocodiles’ mouths. It was insane! They almost like hypnotized the crocodiles with pressure points and their mouths would stay open. Still, I would never….

And then for the grand finale, and obviously our favorite part, the elephant riding. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard as I did on the back of that elephant with Melanie. Our “driver” of the elephant turned around to make sure we were ok because we could hardly breathe. He didn’t understand English very well and probably thought we were extremely weird. He was laughing a lot too, though; I think we’ll be his most memorable ride ;) He was really funny and we enjoyed him, until he got super sketchy at the end of the ride. He kept saying “tip-tip” and it took us forever to realize he wanted us to tip him “and the elephant.” He stopped the elephant while we were still hidden in all the plants and trees until we paid him, so I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to ask for money. It was so awkward, but we just paid him off anyway. Just that whole experience… I’ll never forget it!

That night we went out to Royal City Avenue and spent the whole night just at this one club, Route 66. It was huge! And it was like a light show in itself. The Thai people loved us, and there were a ton of foreigners. We met a couple people from England and danced the night away. I’m gonna go ahead and add Thailand to my list of favorite countries. It was such an incredible weekend, there are no words….

Thailand Part 1

We arrived back to Hong Kong tonight from our weekend in Thailand, having had too much fun and wishing we could’ve stayed longer. My experience in Bangkok was one of the most fun times of my life; everyone needs to go!!!

We started out by meeting a man from Jordan in the Hong Kong airport who was looking for our same flight to Bangkok. He could tell from our accents that we were foreigners and asked where we were from. When we said Texas, he asked where our cowboy boots were and why we don’t walk funny, as he demonstrated the strut of a cowboy who just got off a horse after riding bareback for like 6 hours. We informed him of the terrible Texas stereotype, and I think we fooled him into thinking that we were pretty normal. On the flight there, there was a man whose snoring was louder than the plane engine itself sitting RIGHT behind me. My three friends and I were watching a movie on the flight and could hear it through our headphones. It was like a beast coming out of hibernation; it was quite impressive, actually.

Taking a taxi to our hostel was a challenge and kind of terrifying to be honest. The driver didn’t speak English and we had no idea where our hostel was. He just started driving when we got in, so we didn’t know where he was taking us since he didn’t have directions yet. We were trying to point it out on a map on our iPhone and he pulled off the highway into the grass and just stopped the car. All kinds of bad thoughts were going through my mind, but he looked at the phone and after a while we finally found the hostel. The hostel was really awesome. It was big and had good food. Oh, and everything is SO CHEAP in Thailand. The ratio of Baht to the US dollar is 32:1. We were eating big, nice meals in malls and restaurants for like eight bucks. It was awesome.

Even aside from the taxi situation, our weekend in Bangkok actually started out pretty rough. We woke up Friday morning and ate breakfast at the hostel and went to walk around and explore Bangkok on our own for the day. We were walking around the markets near our hostel trying to find where we can catch a cab to Ayutthaya, the capital of the Ayutthaya province of Thailand, to see the Siamese ruins and temples. We were eventually directed to this sketch van and we decided to take it. On the way to Ayutthaya, we experienced bad rain and flash flooding, which we thought would ruin our plans for the day, but it turns out it made it all the more fun! Over an hour later, the van dropped us off in the rain, literally in the middle of nowhere on the side of the highway and said this was the Ayutthaya stop. We were greeted by random men who were helping us and giving us directions, but they turned out to be tour guides so we decided to do a tour with them in this microscopic buggy that was supposed to fit nine of us. We were very skeptical but we all fit! So there we were, riding along the highway in the pouring rain in the back of a tiny buggy truck, laughing so hard at whatever it was that we just got ourselves into. The guide took us to get umbrellas and ponchos before we began the tour, but the rain stopped before we got to the first sight of the tour anyway.

Some of us girls needed to go to the bathroom (typical) before we began the tour. The “bathrooms” our tour guide took us to were so disgusting that I would rather pee in the holes in the ground like we did in mainland China…. There were dogs in the bathroom just lying on the floor, no sink, no soap, and no toilet paper. It’s a girl’s worst nightmare. We were too scared to go in alone, so Ellen and I shared a bathroom, and it was quite the bonding experience.

One of the places we went to was a big reclining Buddha lying down on his side. I went to take a picture in front of it lying down like he was and the locals who were selling flowers there starting screaming and waving their hands. Apparently you can’t lie down there…so this picture of me standing will have to suffice.

-Ashley

Mainland Factory Visits

I'm going to try to keep this post relatively short. However, this post is basically the main reason for this entire program and my summer in Hong Kong. I'm taking two supply chain classes here in China, and this past week I got to see multiple supply chains at work firsthand.

We spent Monday-Thursday in Mainland China, visiting Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Dongguan, touring factories. It was really interesting to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes into one seemingly simple product, like a baby doll or a calculator. My class is following four products backward through their supply chains on this trip: an Eat & Sleep baby doll, a TI calculator, a Melamine kitchen plate, and a pair of Mossimo jeans, all sold at Target, who partners with McCombs for this program.

Our first factory visit was to Hong Kong City Toys where we saw thousands of baby dolls and other toys being made. The process of molding their heads, to painting on their faces, to sewing in each strand of hair is ridiculous....something I had never even thought of before.

Baby doll head molds

Me and some classmates touring the factory

A worker sewing hair into doll head

After lunch we rode our charter bus to Dongguan and toured Kinpo Electrics, Inc. to visit the calculator factory. The factory was pretty high-tech with advantageous work conditions compared to the other factories. There were so, so many workers, and all so young, most younger than myself, who go to work after graduating high school, rather than going to a university.

The next visit was on Wednesday 6/26/13 to Dong Guan Thousand Perfection Melamine Ware Co., Ltd.

 where we got to see Melamine plates and other kitchenware being made. This factory was very interesting as well. Once again, I never knew, or even thought of for that matter, how much work went into a little everyday product that we take for granted. For example, I witnessed a woman working at a machine drilling numerous holes through hundreds of colanders and strainers, and men working barehanded with dangerous machinery to smooth the edges of plates and bowls. These visits have truly given me a new way of thinking about and appreciating things, and have definitely made me even more grateful for the life I have.

The last visit was to Panyu-Cheng Wah Garment Company Limited. This tour has literally changed my shopping experience from now on. In this ONE factory we saw shirts being made for Abercrombie & Fitch, and jeans being made for Target, J.Crew, Madewell, Michael Kors, Calvin Klein, and more. It's amazing to know that these jeans of all different brands, stores, and social standards are all made and sewn on production lines just feet away from each other, and sell for hundreds of dollars apart....

*No pictures of the last three factories are posted because photos weren't allowed.*

Chinese Malls, Chinese Driving, and Chinese Food

So, the malls here are amazing. They're unbelievably large. And when I say unbelievably large, I literally mean UNBELIEVABLY large. And crowded. Think of Baybrook Mall or Barton Creek during the weekend before Christmas. That's how it is every day here, times 15. Our group gets separated at Sha Tin (our main mall) every time without fail. So, Sha Tin has like a network of malls that are all connected and branch off one another. We would have to tackle the malls one level per day if we wanted to even attempt to go shopping, because there are seven levels of about seven malls that are all connected. Also, the stores are micro stores. I don't even know how they sell and restock because some stores only have two racks of clothes, because that's all they can fit. Therefore however, there are TONS AND TONS of stores in the mall, because they're all so tiny. Only about six people could fit into some of them. They also have super nice high-end stores here, and lots of brand names we have in America, like Forever21, H&M, GAP, Burberry, etc. I've noticed that the Chinese are quite fashionable. They don't wear sweats or Nike shorts and T-shirts. The women all wear dresses/skirts and nice blouses and heels. I don't know how they can do so much walking in heels!

The markets here are also really cool; I really enjoyed going. They have all kinds of markets: food markets, souvenir markets, knock-off brand markets, junk markets, everything! We went in this one place with fresh fish, and in the picture below, you could still see the heart beating of the fish on the right that are sliced in half.

Fish market

Squid

Markets

The drivers here are outrageous. We quickly found out that pedestrians do not have the right of way here, except to their death. Cars don't slow down for people in the streets and EVERYONE honks. Constantly. Even if nothing wrong is going on. They must just truly enjoy honking, and for about 15 seconds straight sometimes. The drivers are also really aggressive (or really careless, I don't know) and drive super close to other cars/structures/walls/tunnels/people/etc. It goes without saying that taking a taxi ride is usually an experience here....

And lastly, for the most interesting part of this post: the food. So we left for mainland China on Monday, June 24 and stayed until Thursday, June 27. In China they serve and eat food family style, with a big glass turntable in the the middle of the table. So the waiters and waitresses just bring bowls and plates of food and put them on the turntable and you turn it and get whatever you want and put it on your plate. This may work in China, but for Americans, it is a very inefficient system. Americans are impatient and love food, so it became a debacle trying to decide which way to turn the table and how fast to turn it and so on. And we had four days and four lunches like this. The very first plate of the very first meal we had in mainland China consisted of buffalo tongue, a fish with scales still on it, some animal's ear, stomach, chicken head and feet, and a big bowl of twig soup. Ummm, yeah, I ate rice....

The lunches got slightly more appetizing, and we also became slightly more adventurous and willing to try things. I mainly stuck to the rice, noodles, veggies, and pork and fish. I'm not a picky eater at all back home, and I really thought I would be adventurous with my food while in Asia, but when you see a chicken head on a plate in front of you, still with a beak and everything, staring at you and a fish head with eyes still in it, being adventurous remains just a thought.