State-Journal.com - China trip "chance of a lifetime" for students

Photo By Kelly MackeyJimmy Simpson, left, and Freddy Burch will leave for China Tuesday to attend a summer study abroad program.

Freddy Burch and Jimmy Simpson have packed their bags, endured four vaccines and a trip to the dentist, and waited anxiously for passports to arrive.

On Tuesday, the 2009 graduates of Franklin County High School will board a plane to China, where they will spend the next three weeks immersed in language and culture.

“I’m kind of a dork,” Simpson, 19, said. “I’m looking forward to actually taking the language classes and learning a lot - and the food will be good too.”

Burch and Simpson were chosen for the summer study abroad program because they studied Mandarin Chinese at FCHS last year. Their teacher, Fenghua Chen, encouraged her students to apply for the competitive program.

“I had never considered Chinese until I got into her class,” Simpson said, who admits he took the class “as a joke” during his senior year.

“But seeing her passion for the language, it inspired me. When I started to learn it, it’s so completely different from English, it’s been easy for me to pick up.”

Now he can hold a conversation in Mandarin, and he plans to study the language at the University of Kentucky this fall as an international studies major.

Burch, 17, listed the Mandarin class on his schedule as an alternate course. When other plans fell through, he enrolled.

He will major in civil engineering at UK in the fall, but plans to continue studying the language too.

“When I started taking it, I just loved it,” he said. “It will definitely widen my chances for a job. I could work with a company that has foreign affairs, or I could go work in China if I wanted to.”

Hanban, the Office of Chinese Language Council International, sponsors the trip, funding everything but airfare. The Confucius Institute at the University of Memphis organizes students from the southeastern United States.

Students were chosen from throughout the nation - 40 by the University of Memphis. The U.S. will send 700 students to China, and another 800 from the United Kingdom will participate.

To be selected for the honor, Burch and Simpson filled out forms, wrote an essay and spoke in Mandarin over the phone. They also submitted a letter of recommendation.

After traveling for 26 hours, the students will land in Beijing. They will tour the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City and other landmarks before heading to Yunnan province in southwestern China, one of the nation’s major tourist destinations.

The students will study the language for about three hours a day in a Chinese high school. They will learn lessons in paper cutting, calligraphy, embroidery and martial arts, and play sports with native students.
Each student must take a graduation test at the end of the trip.

Simpson has been talking to his former teacher, who has returned to China, online to practice.
“Very little English will be spoken,” he said.

Burch will celebrate his 18th birthday in China.

“I don’t know how many people can say they had their birthday over in China,” he said.

This will be the first time Simpson and Burch have been overseas.

“The food - it’s just going to be totally different,” Burch said. “As long as there’s a KFC around the corner somewhere, I’ll be OK.”

Their parents are excited for the opportunity their sons have earned, but they say they’re a little worried too.

After the recent swine flu outbreak, Burch and Simpson had to submit a list of all the states they have visited in the past few months.

Just last week there were reports of more than 100 deaths from riots in Urumqi, a city in the northwestern part of the country, and an earthquake hit the Yunnan Province.

“I’ve had people say, ‘How can you let him go?’” said Freddy’s mom, Barbara. “How can I not let him go? He is going off to college, and he is 18 years old. It’s the chance of a lifetime.”

Barbara says the students will keep in touch with their parents via Webcam.

“The way the world is shaping up, if they come back with any type of a grasp on the Chinese culture and language, I think it could be a big benefit to them in whatever career they choose,” said Jimmy’s dad, Jim.

“The chance to travel abroad like that is going to have an influence on him for probably the rest of his life.”