Tag Archives: travel

The Mom Figure(s) in my life

By Leah King

[3 minute read]

The first time I went to Taiwan was during the summer of 2017. My mother is originally from Taiwan and is quite an interesting character. She is selfless and loyal, but growing up she would work late hours, go on work trips, or go back home to take care of her mom. Because of this, I didn’t really see her that much when I was younger. In Asian culture, supporting family comes first even if that means not seeing them for a while. My dad and my aunt became the “mom” figures in my life. They would always take me to school, take care of me, and play with me. I was never mad that she wasn’t there, but I was often sad and a little confused when she would leave. She would miss every holiday and family trip. I remember one time my mom left for a modeling trip in Asia (she was a successful Asian model back then). The night before she was supposed to leave I asked her to stay, but she couldn’t and she also had to make money to support us. And in the morning when I woke she had left. She would always call and cry saying that she missed me.

Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash
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Teaching English to Migrant Students in Shanghai

By Jasmine Zahedi

[4 minute read]

While studying abroad in Shanghai, I had the incredible opportunity to work with Stepping Stones, a non-profit organization through which I taught English to grade school students at various Shanghai migrant schools. Through my experience, I learned that there is a huge influx of migrants moving from the farmlands and agricultural areas into Chinese cities, with Shanghai having one of the highest concentrations of migrants in China. In recent years, the government created many new schools to provide the children of migrant parents with access to education they might otherwise not receive. In theory, the idea is a good one, but there are still many underlying issues affecting the quality of education these students are receiving.

Photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash

Stepping Stones placed me at Huabo Lixing Hang School, an elementary school about an hour away from the university campus at which I was studying. When I first arrived, I immediately noticed that the area was much poorer than the area in which I lived in and went to school. I noticed that even the inhabitants looked recognizably different (or distinguishable) from the Shanghainese people I normally saw in the city, probably due to the fact that they originally came from inland provinces such as Anhui, Hunan, and Sichuan.

The government chartered school I worked at clearly stood out from the rest of the environment. Its modern architecture seemed out of place among the surrounding buildings and shops. The classes were packed with students. A normal class size was around 60 which, as one might imagine, made teaching English incredibly difficult. The children were extremely excited to learn, but there were many daily challenges in the classroom. Having so many peers, the students were often rowdy and distractible, and the ones in the back of the classroom had trouble understanding what was occurring at the front. Furthermore, the children were all greatly varied in their English abilities. This is a common characteristic in migrant schools, as students who weren’t born in Shanghai have a wide range of educational history. One of the Chinese volunteers who worked with me in the classroom told me that her elementary school was nothing like this. She said everyone was always well-behaved because parents reinforced their children’s behavior at home. Unfortunately, with parents that often have to work late, these children tended to have very different home lives, and these differences translated into the classroom.

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Global Medical Brigade: Honduras

By Mia Price

[3 12 minute read]

In December 2018, at the end of the most difficult semester I had faced in college yet, I traveled to Honduras as a part of the Global Medical Brigade team at USC. By this point in the semester, I was ready to return home for the holidays, and going to Honduras for 9 days was one of the last things I wanted to do. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was going to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

The nine-day brigade consisted of three categories of activities: clinical, water, and public health. The first three days of the brigade were the clinical days. The typical clinical day started with a 5:00 AM wake-up. We had a freshly made Honduran breakfast consisting of beans, eggs, tortillas, and fresh juice. We then took a 3-hour bus ride to the rural village that we were assigned to provide medical attention to. Upon arrival at a local school in the area, we set up supplies for prescription pick-up, basic check-ups, as well as dental and gynecology exams. As students, we completed basic tasks such as taking blood pressure and measuring height and weight. For the more complex exams (dental and gynecological) we watched Honduran doctors perform them. For three days we treated patients until around 4:00 PM, and throughout our clinical work, the USC team and the Honduran doctors saw over 500 patients. 

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