MY JOURNEY TO CHINA

This is a continued blog post from my China series. So, if you haven’t read how I got into Chinese language, READ HERE.

• 

In my previous post, I have described about how I got into Chinese language at the first place, my struggles to study mandarin in the capital city and despite of lack of knowledge, how I discovered and applied for Scholarship.

When I started studying Chinese, I made a friend, Sneha. We studied together in St.Stephens College and also in other private institute and later on we planned to apply for scholarship together. She had a big role to play in helping me through all of this. First, Thanks to her, I was able to go to Vellore, Chennai along with her and her dad to give HSK exams. That time, my father was not that supportive about the idea of me giving any kind of exams or studying further, but on the contrary, my mother was very supportive and she really wanted me to keep studying, so she’d let me go to Vellore to give the exams.

I was in the final year of my college, when I gave my HSK exams. I still remember, during my last semester, around March 2015, this question was often get popped up “So What’s your plan after graduation?”  by my friends, relatives, acquaintances and anyone I met. To everyone’s surprise, my answer was, ” I am going China on scholarship to study Chinese language.” Now the fun fact here is that, I didn’t even started applying for scholarship that time but I had this positivity and optimism in me that I WILL GO TO CHINA, so this answer was constant till the end.
To give a little background, back then, I watched a movie called “The Secret” (there is book as well by same name) which was all about manifestation and law of attraction. So, I was just applying that and literally experimenting with it. 

Well, that experiment along with my hard work proved to be right. I did get the scholarship in June, 2015 but even after going through the hustle of getting the scholarship, MY JOURNEY TO CHINA was not as smooth as it looks.
WHY?
HERE COMES THE TWIST 😉
In October, 2014, I told my parents, if I clear the HSK exams, I can go to China for 1 MONTH (I lied, minimum scholarship was for 5 months but my parents would have never allowed me to do anything if I would have told them the truth). They didn’t really paid any heed to it because they didn’t think I will get any scholarship or even go to China. LOL. I also didn’t think I will get the scholarship.  But in June 2015, I finally got the confirmation that I have received the scholarship to study in China.

I told my parents about it continuing the lie that the scholarship is for 1 month.  I continued the lie till I went through all the procedures of getting Physical examination and Police clearance certificate (this one was pain in the ass, thanks to police who doesn’t do anything without taking some money :@).
Anyways, I completed all my formalities and finally, got my admission letter in hand which was at the end of July, 2015. 

 Now to get away with the lie, I saw the admission letter in front of my parents and I acted as if I had NO CLUE that my scholarship is for 5 months and not for 1 month. Now, at first, the usual happened. They completely refuse to send me for 5 months. I said everything I could, to change their NO into YES, but still nothing really worked. My parents were just too protective and worried about me to go China alone for 5 months.
Luckily, my friend, Sneha also got the scholarship along with me and I tried to convince my parents by telling them that I am not going alone. There is another Indian girl with me who is going to same university with me. Somehow, after all the साम दाम दंड भेद ( efforts and requests), eventually, my mother agreed, but. . . . . .  my father was still not convinced.
So, It was actually just my mother’s support that I was able to go to China and you know mothers, right? They do everything for their Child. So a lot of people or let’s say our so-called Indian society criticized her for her decision to let her daughter go abroad to study and that too not US, UK where you can find some long distance relatives, but CHINA, a country about which Indians or at least people around me really know nothing. However, she is so bold, brave and courageous that she listened to everyone’s taunt, but still didn’t let her mind change, and somehow convinced my father as well (I still wonder how) and let me go and that’s how I finally WENT TO CHINA FOR THE FIRST TIME.

When I started telling people that I am going to China for a semester, some people laughed, some questioned, some didn’t believe, some got very surprised and some just got amazed. There were all kinds of reactions from all kinds of people. I was just enjoying and observing because I knew I was doing something which was not normal as per the society I live in. I was surely breaking some stereotypes too but I really didn’t know where it’s going to lead me because I had a short term goal that I want to go to China and study the language. That’s it.

 What after that?

I had no clue. 

 But that’s the beauty of life. Life is full of surprises. I agree, having goals and clarity is very important to give you a direction and purpose in your life but if you don’t see that clarity yet, then hold on, be focus on what you want to do TODAY, instead of focusing on FUTURE.
May be the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. May be it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. 🙂

My next post is going to be about my life and experiences in Zhengzhou. So stay tuned for that.