A College Send-off in China
A Reflection with Dr. Cevey
The normalcy of these last several days of being back at home on my sofa in my living room have made the events of the past week seem even more of a dream disconnected from reality, but whose proof of having really happened is the intermittent sensation of vertigo that my mom says is jet lag and my son's actually tidy bedroom whose door now is always open because he's not in it.
Just over a week ago, my son Josh and I set off from San Antonio on a 30+ hour trip (including airport layovers) to Hangzhou, China, an exhausting trip that was also colored by conflicting feelings of anxiety and anticipation (probably more on his part than mine). As we rode the taxi the hour from the airport to the hotel, navigating between numerous Teslas and other EV's on a web of highways surrounded by skyscrapers whose neon lights at night rivaled those of downtown Dallas, I realized that his new home was actually in a much bigger city than San Antonio!
Registration started the next morning, with the sauna-like temperature and humidity completely erasing within minutes the makeup I'd applied that morning, but it didn't really matter because all attention was focused on my son anyways, as one of eight incoming international freshmen out of a total cohort of 98 incoming freshman. For me, the experience was completely different than my experience last year of my daughter's freshman registration and drop-off at Baylor. In both experiences, it was clear that my presence as a parent was actually rather superfluous, as at both schools my children were ushered by university staff and upperclassmen through the necessary steps to get them established in their dorm rooms and their new schools. In Josh's case, they even arranged for a Chinese telecommunications company to have a table at registration to get him and the other seven international students Chinese SIM cards and a local Chinese phone number. I did have a role in that step, lol ... shelling out the money for that subscription. But while at Baylor I had felt a sense of camaraderie with the other parents dropping off their kids even though we were all strangers, I felt an immense sense of isolation here at Westlake, probably somewhat due to the language barrier between me and the domestic parents dropping their kids off, but also due to me not being able to identify with the experience of ever having studied or ever moved abroad. Much to my relief, after an hour and a half of feeling alone, I saw a Scandanavian couple who were obviously the parents of another international student (from Sweden!) and started to find my new community to identify into (a parent of a Western student who chose to go to college in China).
Still, the only remaining official activity for me on this trip was at the end of the next morning's new student opening convocation ceremony, when each international parent (or set of parents), followed by our individual children, made our way onto the stage to shake the hand of the president of the university, symbolizing our delivering our children into his and the university's guidance and mentorship for the next four years. Comparatively, the Chinese students' parents watched in the audience as their children were "handed off" by their high school principals, so it did seem like Westlake recognized how much more emotional it was going to be for us international parents to let our babies go. But let go I eventually had to, and actually sooner than I anticipated, because of how full his orientation schedule continued to be and how tightly controlled campus access was. Regretfully, over the next three-and-a-half days, I never got to help him set up his room or actually really even see it after dropping off his suitcases on the first morning, and our planned meeting for lunch at one of the campus dining halls on my last day in China fell through because his morning activities at a sister campus ran longer than expected. We did get to meet, just not to eat, and more just for a rushed recap to see if there was any information that needed to be exchanged in either direction one final time before I had to say goodbye, but he looked happy and not too stressed, so that made me feel better. It also made me feel better to know that while his new city of residence was huge compared to the city he'd just left, his immediate surroundings would be a very protected closed campus of just under 1500 acres. And equally comforting were the speeches at the new student ceremony, in which the university administrators recognized the turbulence of China's current political status versus the rest of the world, yet still held onto the idealism that their university could bring together globally recognized top scientists and experts to teach students from all around the world to collaborate in cutting edge research and in doing so, prevail to make the world a better place.
I look upon Josh's decision to intentionally embark on a new chapter with so many unknowns with admiration (since I know I couldn't have made that choice at 18 years old) and honestly, some confused surprise. I don't know if he just didn't have a realistic view of how awkward and unfamiliar it would feel to try to get normal things done in another culture (like paying with a different currency and actually even a different commerce platform) or if my husband and I maybe actually successfully raised a child with the confidence to travel outside of his comfort zone for an adventure from which he is sure to gain a crazy awesome learning experience. Reassuringly, I at least have the personal cell phone numbers of two of the university staff members assigned to the international students, as well as the email of a third staff member, and am in a group chat with most of the parents of this set of international parents (especially the Swedish ones who actually will be living in relatively close-by Shanghai!) all of whom are going to be my lifeline to keeping an eye on how he's doing over the next four years.
Sincerely,
Dr. Cevey
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