Diplomacy at Work

It’s been quite an exciting 48 hours of living in Beijing. We have packed a lot in these two days. We’ve done two excursions plus visited three prominent organizations that deal with foreign relations. I mean we are just here for 10 days so to fully experience Beijing you have to pack a lot in one day. Which means longs days and short nights, but hey it’s worth it. I’ll sleep when I am dead.*

For those that don’t know my entire major is called Diplomacy and International Relations. A major part of diplomacy is communicating with people. You meet new people and discussing topics diplomatically (see what I did there) essentially learning new things about people and their culture then coming together to make a resolution to problem. As a social butterfly, my favorite part about diplomacy is the communicating and meeting new people. I love going to new places, meeting new people and learning more about them and their view on the world. Our world is so big and because of experiences 10 different people can look at the same event and have different interpretations of the event. I think that is beautiful.

We had the opportunity to visit our professor’s friend’s house (it was a really a mansion). While there, his wife (who was a straight boss) and he talked to us about different aspects of US China relations. He created a think tank and a magazine that focused on US China relations. Since this is more of a travel blog and you probably care more about my travels than US China relations I won’t too into what was discussed. Once we had a tour (there was so much history in their home) and finished our discussion, we had a huge feast. The best part about the feast was afterwards we all let loose and had so much fun. One of the other guest played a beautiful piece from Butterfly Lovers (the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet) on the guzheng then one of my classmates played the piano. All of us finally got comfortable and we taught everyone the cha cha slide and sung karaoke. It was such a fun night. We all left tired from all the dancing and with huge smiles across our faces. Moments where we can find a common ground and enjoy each other’s company. At the end of the day, we are all human and we have more in common than we think.

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Carpe Diem,

Mallory

*Though I joke about sleeping, I believe sleeping is so important for your health. Make sure you get enough sleep daily.