Voices

May 23, 2012

Taking a Chinese Friend to Lancaster County

posted in Helen Hutchens

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Definition: BOMA (noun)- family, village, animals, community, culture, environment, and the essence of a place. Origin: Maasai

This March, Jason and I were selected to be one of the three pairs of students this year participating in Project BOMA. Our goal is to show each other our boma.  Along the way we learn about each other, how our families live, and the regions in which we live.

Jason and I are both mechanical engineering majors coming out of our freshman year at Lafayette. He comes from Dalian, a city in northeastern China. I come from a suburban and rural area of south-central Pennsylvania, and I spend my summers in the Rocky Mountains southwest of Denver, CO. In our project, we plan to contrast the lifestyles of not only a Chinese and an American, but also a city boy and a country girl.

The first leg of our journey took us to my home in Lancaster County where I have lived for all of the 18 years of my life.

I was really nervous about bringing Jason home with me. I know that Jason and I get along really well, and that we have been living in the same dorm this year, but I didn’t know how my home life would mix with my college life. I wasn’t even sure how much I have changed over the past year and how it would be for me to come home and revisit the places that were central to my life a year ago.

Now I know that home is still home even though I have changed so much during my freshman year. The places stay the same and the people continue on with their lives. However, as I have grown this year, my perspective has changed.

We went to my high school several times, and it all seems so small now. I show Jason my AP classes and talk with my teachers, but he tells me of how his entire high school was as good as those select students whom I considered the intellectually elite group a year ago. The fields, farms, and trees that I took for granted are now places of peace and slow quiet life after living in Easton for the school year.

As I take Jason hiking through the forests, I relax and blend into the environment where I grew up and spent many weekends throughout the years. I see memories around every corner as I tell him about catching crayfish in the streams and writing poetry by a waterfall. As I walk with him around my neighborhood, each house holds a story for me. Those memories make this place really home to me.

Now as we continue to my grandmother’s house which is my summer getaway in Colorado, I look forward to making many new memories with Jason.

2 Comments

  1. I very much enjoyed reading your blog, finding it fun, interesting and revealing. Jason’s comment that his entire school was likely on a par with our intellectually elite students may be more accurate than many Americans would be comfortable admitting. It’s a pity this comparison doesn’t spur U.S. students to put forth more academic effort. Incidentally, I was relieved to hear that you found Penn Manor has become physically smaller since I’ve suspected this for a number of years but have been reluctant to speak out to avoid unhelpful comments about my diminishing intellect or increasing size. Keep up the splendid observations! I look forward to checking your future BOMA blogs.

    says Jim Yearsley
    May 24, 2012 at 11:27 am

  2. Mr. Yearsley, please note that Jason does come from a magnet school that pulls from the best students in his city of 6.5 million people based on a standardized test they take in middle school. There probably isn’t as big a difference if you look at truly comparable schools in both countries. As a counselor, you know how big a difference there can be between individuals at the same school. There is a big difference between the populations of different schools in the same city. I really don’t know whether American students or Chinese students are smarter, but I do know that Jason’s school was more competitive than mine could be in our rural and suburban setting. However, I think that I did learn a lot from the diversity at Penn Manor that he didn’t have.
    I’m glad that you enjoyed it. More updates coming soon.

    says Helen
    June 1, 2012 at 9:01 pm
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