CHINA: Katherine Arrived Today!

We did not get to see [Katherine, our program manager,] much since we had class all day long. So for this post, I will talk about my impressions of Peking University and the classes so far. I think it is clear that we are all very impressed by the infrastructure of Peking University, the organization of the DBIC program, and the expertise of all of the professors.

The campus is really beautiful. I particularly enjoy the enormous climbing wall conveniently located on campus and 5 minutes away from our hotel. So it's been very easy to take advantage of the one hour lunch breaks to play around on the wall, and even make friends with some other Chinese student climbers.

I think everyone also really enjoys the food on campus so far. Lunch is amazing. Every day, there is a wide variety of both Chinese food such as dumpling, sesame chicken, pig ears (delicious!), etc... and more Americanized options like pizza. We are fed almost every 2 hours with mango, papaya, dragon fruit, and delicious Chinese pastries during breaks between class. Needless to say, for anyone who was worried, we are definitely not starving!

The classes have also been really good and entertaining. We have a different professor every day. Today, class was taught by professor Li-An Zhou, who gave an interesting lecture on economic development, government, and the business environment in China. I find it very interesting to hear the various perspectives that the professors have on the Chinese government, but also the reasons behind China's fast economic growth.

Tomorrow is going to be a very exciting day since we are going to go visit the Great Wall and the Summer Palace!

-Tiphany Rigaudias