by Patrick Wee, Beijing Summer Program participant

Normally, Xaverians spend their summer playing their PS3s, Wiis and DSs, apart from updating their Facebook accounts daily. Well, I, for the past three years went to Xiamen to try out something new. I had fun, but comparing the three summers to the one now, I’ll have to say that this year is the summer well above the rest.

Believe it or not, I was planning to go to Xiamen, again, for the fourth and final time, until I heard from our Chinese teacher that Xavier is offering a special summer program. At first, I didn’t want to go, but, in the end, after I heard that we were going to Beijing, I finally decided to cancel my Xiamen Tour and try this new thing out. Who said I wasn’t adventurous?

The activity was set from April 1 to the 30th. Packing was quite hard for me, considering that only 19 kilograms was allowed for us to carry going to China. Wherever go, my family and I, for that matter always have overweight baggage. One friend speculated why this was so. He told me that since we were physically challenged in size, our clothes and other things will ultimately be bigger, and since on earth, mass is equal to weight, so, you get the equation.

But luckily, on the day we were going to fly to Beijing, all went well, and my baggage was 19.0 exactly. Our accompanying teacher or laoshi as we call her, had a baggage three times the allowed weight. When I looked around, I found that she had to bring with her two extra boxes of Dried Mangos to bring for the school authorities in Beijing. When one of my friends asked, why Dried Mangos? My laoshi paused for a second, and finally answered: “Basta, gusto nila ‘yan!”

We got to Beijing successfully and after an hour’s ride, got to our school. The college we were in was one of the better colleges in the city. In fact, when we got there, we were welcomed into a hotel-like dormitory already filled with our South-east Asian soon-to-be-friends from Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia and Thailand. The dormitories were very comfortable with hotel-like standards. Our rooms have a TV set, a refrigerator, but best of all, a beautiful view of the city skyline outside our windows. It became the home we knew for the month we were going to stay in Beijing.

Classes started as soon as we got there. In Day 2, we had our diagnostic test, and true enough, all Xaverians became part of the intermediate and advanced classes. See, Xaverian’s Chinese isn’t too bad after all. For the next month, we had intensive Chinese Language Training, Chinese Painting, Chinese Calligraphy, Chinese Arts and Crafts, not to mention, special computer classes and sports periods.