When I first became interested in studying abroad in China, I was not thinking about the practical side of my daily life. In the United States nut allergies are very common and restaurants typically do not use peanut oil or are specific about allergens on their menus. In China; however, this is not always the case. I have a peanut allergy, which impacts how I can go out and consume food in China. However, though my allergy is something I now have to think about in my daily life here, it is manageable with a few tricks. This week's blog explores some useful considerations to staying safe with allergies. 1. Know how to say your allergen correctly! The Mandarin characters for peanut are 花生 [huā shēng] and to express my allergy I say “ 我对花生过敏 .[w ǒ duì huāshēng guòmǐn] ” You can say “ 我对 [insert allergen] 过敏 .” Make sure you are pronouncing this correctly and get t...
From April 17-20, three Hopkins-Nanjing Center students stepped away from their academic routines to travel to Hainan for this year's Yenching Global Symposium, themed “Fortitude: Navigating the Tides of Change”. John Steinmetz HNC MAIS '26, Liu Yinuo HNC MAIS '25, and Eddie Witte HNC Certificate + SAIS MAIR '26 were selected from a pool of over 6,000 applicants to be three of the 90 delegates chosen to partake in the event. Launched by students at Yenching Academy of Peking University, the Yenching Global Symposium is a chance for various scholars and professionals to engage in dialogue surrounding current global and national challenges through academic panels and experiential activities. This post highlights John, Yinuo and Eddie’s experiences with the application process, their perspectives on the event, and their recommendations for future HNC students interested in applying. Yinuo, John, and Eddie posing at the symposium (respectively) The Application Process The a...
In honor of the HNC’s 30th anniversary, the HNC has created the U.S.-China Exchange Scholars Fellowship for alumni of U.S. government-supported programs for Chinese language study. These programs include, but are not limited, to the Critical Language Scholarship, Boren Award for International Study, Chinese Language Flagship Program, and the National Security Language Initiative for Youth. We are pleased to introduce our first five U.S.-China Exchange Scholars for the 2017-2018 academic year who have studied Chinese through a number of U.S. government-supported programs. Emily Rivera Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program (GPA) HNC Certificate ‘18 Emily Rivera graduated from Hamilton College in 2016 with dual concentrations in Government and Chinese. The daughter of two first-generation Colombian immigrants, Emily grew up speaking both English and Spanish. Largely because of this, Emily developed a keen interest in intercultural dialogue at an early age and lat...