A World of People Come Together to Learn Chinese

---

We found ourselves in the midst of a world of people coming together with one common purpose: To Learn Chinese. Everyone had a connection to Beijing Language and Culture University. With over 12 counties represented at dinner, I'm certain our students learned it's a global affair and we can have a place at the table. I (Angela) was definitely the eldest at the table but never have I been happier to see young students from America see so many young high school and college students from all over the world. While everyone's thought was surely to have fun and chow down, my first thought was to take pictures of everyone and get a list with first names, email addresses and countries. I was in awe. I didn't want to miss gathering as much information as possible. Silly old fashion me! Why would you eat at a time like this, I thought mingle! In China, you dig in when the food comes or else you may miss out. One of the students setting beside me, Pierre, said "it will go quickly when it comes, you better move fast". I proceeded to make my rounds to see what brought so many young adults there. And when I got back to the table, he was right. The food was almost gone but they took care of me and put some on my plate. Ok! I ran back and forth between tables each time a new plate came so I could learn a little more. I was fascinated to learn that students came from various places around the world like France, India, Vietnam, United Kingdom, Norway, China, Switzerland, The Philippines,The Netherlands, Austria, Italy, and USA. They were studying careers ranging from economics, business, law, languages, fashion design, and physics. I asked the two girls from Italy -- why Chinese? What will you do with it? They said, 'We don't know but you must study Chinese to get a better job. Every young person does in our country'. Everyone felt that learning Chinese language would give them the edge. Wow! Wow! Thumbs up for Chinese Language.

---