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Being a Celebrity in China

- Christina Tran

The children in China make me feel like a celebrity!  At first I did not really feel like a celebrity since I am an Asian American, but through time I did.

When our group of seventeen diverse looking people traveled together, I felt like a rejected celebrity in China.  We were all sitting on benches at the train station waiting for our train to come.  In a row there were Jim, Erica, me, and Peggy.  They were all blonde except for me.  Then, a little kid decided to walk around and take pictures.  He went down our row, took a snapshot of Jim, a snapshot of Erica, totally skipped me, and then took a snapshot of Peggy.  I thought it was funny and felt rejected at the same time.  At that point, I felt offended because I was still an American despite the black hair and I felt like I was just as interesting as the blonde haired people.  Later through time, after working at the camps, my view totally changed.

During our time here, we said good-bye to three groups of students. The last two days of camp was always chaotic.  Each teacher had a challenge saying good-by to their own students, but despite that we all had to deal like being a celebrity.  It was not unusual to have students we did not know run into our trail on the way to your destination and ask for an autograph and email.  After awhile it kind of became annoying because it was a delay on what we had to do.  I remember many times being stopped on my way to class because students I did not know wanted me to sign their books.  There were plenty of times I felt bad for telling them I just could not sign it because I had to go.  At other times, I would see a teacher with a crowd of students with notebooks waiting for signatures, and totally went the other way so I would not get bombarded.  I remember wondering why they wanted my email because they do not even know me.  What can the possibly say?  That was when I knew how celebrity felt and at times it was not fun.

Although there were times where I felt a little annoyed, I later realized that this might be one of the rare occasions these students would be able to meet Americans.  Although, we might not think it is very special, it is very special to the students.  That is why making them happy and teaching them as much ask we can for the short time we are here is very important.  Plus, it is very rare for us to be treated this way back in the States and we should be grateful for it.