Written by Natalie Chen (Washington University in St. Louis), Student Correspondent for CET Shanghai, Spring 2024
A couple of weeks ago, CET Shanghai was fortunate enough to be sponsored by the government to pay a visit to Xi’an, a beautiful and historic city in the North-Western region of China. We left on the fastest high-speed train early Thursday morning. Then, we were immediately greeted by representatives from Xi’an Normal University and their filming crew for an advertisement. We were not aware that we were supposed to star in it, although it ended up being all in good fun—the video is hilarious.
Over the course of four days, we ate delicious foods, saw Xi’an’s striking mix of ancient and modern architecture, went to several famous historical sites, and probably broke a record for our combined number of naps taken on buses, benches and any other available sleep-able surfaces we could find. We successfully crammed so many experiences into a short period, but here are some of the highlights!
Exploring with a Xi’an Normal University Student
On the first night we arrived at Xi’an, we had the opportunity to wander around after dinner and get acquainted with the city. We were split into small groups, somewhat based on our Chinese speaking level, and a student from Xi’an Normal University accompanied each group. To make the most efficient use of our time, we would be given approximately 30 minutes at different locations before meeting up at the bus to go to our next destination. Our group leader, Max, was punished and had to sing a song in front of everyone (including the camera crew) when a boba run resulted in us arriving at our meeting point a few minutes late.
Bikes and the City Wall
My personal favorite part of our Xi’an trip was when we had the opportunity to bike along the city wall. Although most students opted to use single-rider bikes, a group of us decided it would be funny to ride tandem bikes. At first, it was a bit jarring. Thankfully, I was one of the riders sitting in the back, which meant there was less pressure on me to steer! We biked for about two hours. We stopped periodically to look at the view or the lanterns that were still up from Chinese New Year celebrations.
Terracotta Warriors
Finally, we were able to see the famous Terracotta Warriors. The first emperor of the Qin Dynasty commissioned the construction of 8000-plus warriors to accompany him in the afterlife. They were discovered by a farmer in 1974 and are still being excavated today. Morbidly, after they were built, Emperor Qin Shi proceeded to kill all of the approximately 400,000 people who constructed the warriors to keep the place of his grave secret from the world.
Overall, our trip to Xi’an was quite a success thanks to the hard work of the CET program staff and teachers, as well as the Xi’an Normal University staff and volunteers. I now realized after nearly a semester of weekend traveling, that it’s not easy to plan and execute a trip like this! I think I speak for all the CET students when I say we were very grateful for this opportunity, as it was definitely a highlight of the semester.