Annie Curran is a senior at Annandale High School [13] and the Editor-in-Chief of its newspaper. This past summer, she and five other Annandale students traveled to Lanzhou, China, to participate in an IREX journalism program with 100 of their Chinese peers.
My high school is extremely diverse, which has afforded me the opportunity to learn about a variety of different cultures. I had never traveled out of the country, which is why I was so excited about this opportunity.
When I arrived, I was fully immersed in a culture different from my own. This was an invaluable learning experience for me. When we first arrived, the Chinese students treated us like we were rockstars. They all wanted to take pictures with us and talk to us; it was so flattering. Within the first few minutes, I was invited to stay in the home of one of the students. I will never forget their kindness and hospitality.
The purpose of our trip was for us to work with Chinese students on the concepts of international-standard journalism with focus on accuracy, clarity and fairness. They were diligent and ready to learn, so within a matter of days they had caught on quickly. The teachers taught them about news stories, editorials, Q & A’s, and a variety of other things. My peers and I would walk around and help them with any questions they had. We also served as the topic of many of their stories.
Everyday we would eat lunch with the students. It was a great way for us to learn about each other. We have many similarities, like the fact we all watch Glee and listen to Lady Gaga. There were also many differences, but we were able to get a great understanding of those differences. I admire how hard-working the students are and I relate to their struggles and stresses about applying to college.
Some of the students would take us around Lanzhou after camp each day. We had amazing times eating Hot Pot and karoaking together. This was how I realized that even though we live on opposite sides of the world, we are all just teenagers.
When the students finished their newspapers at the end of the week, their pride was so touching to me. They all gathered around their finished work with such joy. Within one week, they had learned to report the truth and many had voiced their opinions in editorials.
[14]The value of a program like this is the fact that everyone who was involved learned something. The students learned about journalism, and some of the things they learned they might not have had the opportunity to learn about before this program. We learned about China, which I found to be important because the nation is developing an increasingly dominating global presence. The fact that I could be fully immersed in the Chinese culture, instead of just seeing the stereotypical tourist China, proved to be a fantastic learning experience.
I still keep in touch with many of the students that I met. I know that I will never forget the time I spent in Lanzhou for IREX’s summer journalism program [15]. It has sparked the travel bug for me. I now want to travel to other nations to continue to have experiences like the one I received this past summer.