COLUMBUS – Walk by the Confucius classroom on the lower level of Polk County High School and it’s common to hear Chinese being spoken from inside.

Four students from the PCHS Chinese classes were offered the trip of a lifetime this summer, immersing themselves with the culture and atmosphere of Beijing, China during a two-week trip July 8-23. This trip followed an HSK test for Chinese proficiency the students went to Raleigh to take.

It was an all expenses paid adventure offered by Chinese Testing International for four student scholarships and one teacher scholarship that was “life changing,” according to junior Eli Edwards.

Edwards went with three of his classmates including Brianna Richardson, Hayden Gary and former PCHS student Leah Stockdale who now attends Appalachian State in Boone, N.C. Polk County High School teachers Jon Ezell and Lou Qiaoying accompanied the group to China as facilitators.

Ezell, who has been honored as Teacher of the Year for the 2016-17 school year, said his role as facilitator was about safety first for the students, and to show them around Beijing.

“Safety was first, and trying to keep the kids safe and contained by giving them parameters, which worked most of the time,” Ezell explained. “These kids knew what they wanted to do and they really maximized the use of every minute of every day. Usually when I’m taking trips outside the country, the kids get so clingy that you have to push them away and try to get them to do things, but not this group.”

The students took a variety of classes in a Chinese school ranging from language to art, and they lived in dorms while they were studying, according to Edwards. The students also visited the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, to name a few places.

“We had a 12-hour flight out of Chicago, and it was the first time I had ever been out of the country,” Edwards explained. “That was probably the longest flight I’ve ever been on. It was neat associating with the Scotland kids who also went to China. They had the same scholarship and so they did the same things.”

Richardson added she thought it was fun to ask the Scotland group how life is there compared to American life.

Being Americans visiting China also meant having Chinese residents constantly coming up to the group to take selfies, which delayed the group for as long as 30 minutes, according to Gary.

“It was like talking with people mostly, even those who knew a good amount of English, you could tell they were thinking differently,” Edwards said. “It’s hard to explain, but you could just tell they have a different mindset.”

Edwards said the amount of pollution in China came as the biggest shock to him. Ezell agreed, saying one could not see more than 200 yards ahead due to the pollution.

“There was an overcast day and you could look up at the sky and barely see the sun,” Ezell said. “There was so much pollution, even on a sunny day. I felt like you couldn’t even blow your nose without black coming out.”

The weather too, Richardson and Edwards said, was hot and humid and the lack of air conditioning, which Ezell said was “designed to make you sweat less,” made conditions worse sometimes.

Eating seasoned squid on a stick from the market was all part of the immersion into the culture and cuisine. Most of the time, though, Ezell said the group would only get one risky thing that was unusual to eat, and only one meal during the three-week vacation felt really authentic to the Chinese culture.

“I feel like they catered to the western taste a lot for us,” Edwards added to Ezell’s comments about the cuisine. “I thought that was upsetting a little, because I wanted to experience their food. I kind of wish they didn’t.”

Gary said the bartering system at the marketplace was his biggest culture shock, as each shop owner in the market would want to negotiate prices with their customers starting at a high price and going down.

“The whole bartering system was really weird,” Gary said. “You could tell they were kind of taking advantage of you not knowing what it would be worth in Chinese money. If you gave them a price and they were like ‘okay’ really soon, you started to think maybe you agreed way too soon.”

Ezell and the group recounted their summer adventures in China, from the culture to the way the Chinese drive (with no lines separating lanes) for an hour before coming to the conclusion they would go again “in a heartbeat.” Edwards said if they do go back to China, he wants to explore the western side of China, which is more mountainous and less populated.

“I think we could speak Chinese good enough for people to be able to understand us proficiently on the street,” Edwards explained. “But most of the Chinese people there thought it was so cool and were shocked that we were Americans in China speaking Chinese to them. Even now, I’ll go to games sometime and start speaking Chinese and think, ‘No, I’m in America now.’ I would go back. I would do it again.”