Sydney Estey-Dedell Class of 1997

An American in China. “If I lived in China, I would go crazy.” This is something I hear fairly frequently from visitors to Beijing. And when I look at it from their point of view, I can see why: China is dirty, noisy, smelly, and difficult. It's overwhelming and confusing. And let's face it Chinese people can sometimes be extremely irritating to deal with. If I lived in that China, I would go crazy, too.

But the fact is, I don't. At least not most of the time. The China I live in is pleasantly bustling ( “renao” in Chinese, meaning “hot and noisy”), stretches my social limits daily, and is very, very alive. This morning I drag myself out of bed into the increasingly chilly Beijing morning, and see my elderly neighbors practicing tai chi, beating themselves with poles to increase circulation, and chatting over their songbirds in traditional wooden cages. I walk by the shores of the ancient lake in my neighborhood; what was once lined with monasteries and temples is now lined with cheesy bars, but at 6am the only ones frequenting the place are the lao Beijing-ers, taking their early morning swim. I dodge swarms of bicycles carrying people of all ages and styles (the old man in his cotton-padded clothing, the modern young woman on her cell-phone) to work and school, and I buy steamed buns for breakfast from a local restaurant.

This is modern Beijing; integrating new and old; chaotic yet peaceful; suffering severe growing pains, yet somehow accepting its new place in the world without missing a beat. In the endless buildup for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing incessantly puts forth the slogan, “One World, One Dream.” And while on the surface it's difficult to see Beijing as a representation of this “one world”, it is, in some ways, a perfect mirror of the world today.

The capital city of what was once a completely isolated kingdom, Beijing is now a mixture of cultures, traditions, and values. Brand-new skyscrapers sit next door to six-hundred year old monasteries, and men driving horse carts while talking on cell-phones is not an uncommon sight. In a country that's run by a communist party, everyone is an entrepreneur. Women stand on more equal footing in the workplace than they do in western countries, yet their husbands still wouldn't be caught dead in the kitchen. I walk out of my apartment in the morning to ongoing construction, and often stop and wonder if that building/sidewalk/street was there the day before.

In part, this ability to look past the stereotypes and initial impressions of a place comes from education and background. In an education that really began at Hilltop, I have been taught to question and dig deeper than what I initially see, and always look for the broader picture to give a context to what I'm experiencing. In a place like Beijing, that has enabled me to look not only at the speed-of-light development or the centuries-old-traditions, but the amazing change that is taking place, how it affects the people on a day-to-day basis, and to search for an understanding of the integration and adaptation that is going on constantly, if somewhat under the surface.

“Nothing is static,” Beijing seems to be telling me. “You can fight it all you want, but change is inevitable. Look past the obvious problems and see the new and vibrant culture that is emerging from the chaos.”

Editor's Note:

Daughter of Alice Estey and Hilltop's Middle School Director, Paul Dedell, Sydney has made the world her university over the past five years. Since graduating from BUHS in 2000 she has been an AIDS prevention educator in the remote villages of South Africa, an inner city Seattle youth counselor and tutor for Americorp, and now finds herself in Beijing where in her words she is "working, studying, and just generally experiencing life in this bizarre and fascinating country…a country deeply connected to its rich history, running on subtlety, and almost completely impenetrable to a foreigner". More specifically Sydney is editing a newspaper for Chinese students learning English. As in South Africa where Sydney raised funds to send a young woman to university, she is again raising awareness and championing HIV/AIDS prevention by committing to raise $1000 for Prevention Through Education.