Catching Thoughts

你好 from Beijing, and the beginning of my year as a Princeton in Asia Fellow! I’ve been here for just under one week now, and what a week it has been.

I’ll start with what brought me here: the job. After spending the weekend before in Bangkok visiting some wonderful friends, I got off the plane last Tuesday morning and headed straight to my first day of work training. Training, which ended Friday, was a whirlwind of meeting co-workers, team-building activities, and learning the ins and outs of enterprise education, the teaching practice that my organization centers itself around.

Atlas Education (which was called TSL until three days ago, when we officially renamed it during a brainstorming session at training) is the umbrella parent organization to which my project, Flourish, belongs. Atlas’s main branch is a for-profit tutorial college called The Learning Tree, which funds smaller social initiatives like Flourish. While the Tree is an after school tutoring center, Flourish is unique because it partners with the government and takes Atlas’s enterprise education curriculum into public schools, sharing it with Chinese students of all different backgrounds, means, and English levels. Starting later this week, I’ll be teaching this curriculum to entire classes in about five different Beijing public schools, which is an extraordinarily rare and special opportunity in a country like China.

I initially felt a bit awkward trying to make friends in an established organization where the majority of people already knew each other, but training did its job, and I really love the group of people I’ll be working with this coming year. My favorite thing about Atlas is how passionately everyone believes in its mission: to educate the whole student, to give them the skills they need to be adaptable and successful in anything they pursue, and to support them in all elements of their lives, not only in the classroom. I feel so lucky to be part of this, and I can’t wait to begin with my first official day of work tomorrow!

To cap off a great week of training, we all went on a retreat to what Atlas calls the Mountain House, which is exactly what it sounds like: a house in the mountains northeast of Beijing, up near the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It’s extremely remote; we had no cell service for the 24 hours we spent there, and our only company was the hundreds upon hundreds of millipedes that encroached on us from the surrounding forest (I have never seen so many in my life—but they’re actually kind of cute?) (update: just found a live millipede in my duffel bag hours after returning to Beijing fml). It was so much fun, and a great way to get to know my co-workers better. Here are a few pictures from the weekend!

The Mountain House!

A fiercely competitive game of Settlers of Catan (which I won, of course)

A homemade Chinese feast made by our Chinese staff.

Lunch with some co-workers!

Aside from training, I’ve spent most of my free time this week looking for a place to live. Right now I’m in an Airbnb in Dongzhimen, an amazing neighborhood right in the center of Beijing close to the Flourish office and to the schools where I’ll eventually be teaching. In Beijing, it’s best not to try to find a permanent apartment before arriving—you’ll want to tour your options in person first to be sure you’re getting exactly what you’re looking for. In the evenings this past week I’ve visited listings on my own and with agents, and I’m happy to say that this morning I confirmed my permanent home for the year. On Sept 13th I’ll be moving into a big duplex apartment with two awesome roommates and the cutest dog (!!!), also in Dongzhimen and about a 15-minute walk from work. After four years of living in Harvard dorms, I am so excited to finally have a real apartment!

Since I’ve been so busy with work and housing, I haven’t had much time to do touristy things yet, which is a shame because the weather and air quality has been fantastic this week—some of the bluest skies Beijing has seen in a long time! I did make it up to Jingshan Park for sunset on Friday evening; it’s a hilly park in the center of Beijing that overlooks the Forbidden City, and it’s absolutely beautiful. I didn’t get to go my first time in Beijing three years ago, so I’m glad I made it there in my first week back.

View of the Forbidden City from Jingshan Park.

Sunset from Jingshan Park!

I’ve had so many more observations, thoughts, and feelings since moving here that are impossible to string together in any coherent way, so here’s a general list of musings:

View from my current Airbnb; I’ll have one more temporary place before I move into my permanent apartment on Sept 13th.

Raffles City Mall (otherwise known as my home away from home)

So that’s Week One in all it’s messy, new, exciting glory. I cannot fully express how happy I am to be here—this big thing I’ve been working towards for the last few years is finally happening, and it just feels right. There’s still so much to get used to, but that little thrill I feel when I find a place I’m looking for, actually speak with someone in Chinese, or even just walk down a busy city street on my own erases every single one of my doubts: right now, this is exactly where I’m meant to be. I love Beijing, and can already feel it starting to become home. Leaving the U.S. was hard, and I wasn’t sure about it before, but now I really think PiA found the perfect place for me. I’m unbelievably excited to continue finding my footing in this incredible city over the coming year.

One week down, ten months to go!