Yesterday, July 18th, we began our journey to IDEAS camp in Qinhuangdao, which is just east of Beijing. IDEAS is a nonprofit educational program which aims to promote leadership, global awareness, confidence, and other forms of youth development through various mediums. Rebecca Pham and several other Duke students partook in this camp last year and had an amazing time, so I was extremely excited for this opportunity especially after the tiring few weeks we had in Beijing. I was ready for a program that had an explicit schedule, all the logistics meticulously planned out, and just everything necessary in order. Unfortunately, however, our trip to IDEAS started out on the wrong foot (or should I say train).
Sonia, Jen, and I woke up to get ready for IDEAS at around 9 am. We were already about 95% packed, so we had plenty of time to finish up – our train was scheduled for 2:12 pm so we had nothing but time. IDEAS had already purchased the train tickets for us, so everything was essentially set. We packed up the rest of our belongings, checked out of our hotel, and headed to Luou’s place around 10:30 where we were meeting to have a short brunch. It was pretty much downhill from here. First, carrying our luggage to Luou’s was simply an excruciating experience. It was a high of 97 degrees outside, we were all handling at least three bulky bags each, and the walk to Luou’s place from our hotel seemed like an eternity (because it actually is a pretty long walk and Nanluoguxiang is always just swarming with annoying tourists, turning any 20 minute stroll into a 20 day journey). Upon finally arriving, we were greeted with a cute little brunch, which was a really sweet idea of Luou and Shu Cao. What we didn’t know, however, was that they also had a “ten-minute “discussion planned after the brunch. Ten minutes never means ten minutes, trust me. We ended up leaving Luou’s place at around 1:15 pm…which was the definition of horrible planning. We still had to walk to the main road, catch two cabs, drive thirty minutes to the train station, wait in the huge line to get inside the building, go through security, and find the boarding station. There was no way we could do that in less than an hour, but hey, I guess it was worth a shot.
Honestly, the next hour or so was just one huge blur of sweat, fear, and anxiety. We were nearly torn apart by an angry mob of Chinese travelers because we cut a huge line without even trying to hide it, had to carry our luggage up and down hundreds of flights of stairs, and had to run as fast as we could through China and through the station, hoping to catch this train. Again, it was also 97 degrees. In the end, we missed our train; welcome to rock bottom. IDEAS had worked so hard to get us to China and to their camp. They bought us the tickets in advance (which included actual seats) and had everything prepared for our arrival. So naturally, we just couldn’t accept such great, well thought out logistics. We just had to screw it up.
Instead of buying another ticket and getting on a different train (because who really even has money), we were told to simply jump on a different train and just “convince the workers that we were on the correct one” (we were basically turning ourselves into criminals, no big deal). Instead of having our own seats and being able to stow our luggage somewhere, we were forced to stand in the hallway of one of the train cars, across from the bathroom, in front of the storage closets, and in the middle of everyone’s way with all of our luggage. The crew continuously came to yell at us and tell us to move, but there was really nothing we could do. I was so scared we were going to be discovered and get kicked off the train or even arrested, but luckily they didn’t check our tickets. This definitely was rock bottom. We stood on the train for the next two hours until finally we made it to our destination.
These logistical issues keep occurring during this program. Everyday, something new comes up that just is a major inconvenience to my experience here in China. Whether it’s not having wifi, having to switch hotel rooms multiple times, or simply not having someone show me the area really to know where to get food, all these factors have made this experience that much harder for me. It’s getting to the point where I’m beginning to regret doing this program. I didn’t sign up to come to China and be stressed 99% of the time for no reason. It’s all just poor planning – from the administrative standpoint, the greater picture seems so grand and impressive, but for the people actually implementing this work (Sonia, Jen, and me), everything is utter hell. I just don’t know how that could happen. If I were creating a program, and had REAL people coming to try it out for the FIRST time, I would make sure every single detail is arranged and perfect ahead of time. It’s not right to essentially sacrifice my experience here for the benefit of future students. I still matter; I’m not just a meaningless pawn in this game.
I had more to write about coming to IDEAS (hence why I started by talking about it), but now I’m just mad again and tired so I’ll just blog about it tomorrow. Trust me, after being here for only two days, my blog about IDEAS will be 300 times more positive.