Senior Drake Materre had one interesting summer vacation. He was sent by the Kappa League for a four week study abroad in Tianjin, China.  The Kappa League is an academic support program in which Materre has participated throughout high school. The program also prepares students for successful transition to college.

Materre viewed his summer as a great opportunity to view another part of the world, since he “had never been out of the country.”   While he was a bit nervous, he also was glad to take responsibilities “like taking public transportation on my own.”

While in Tianjin, Materre stayed with the Li family, who welcomed him with open arms as if he were their own child. Their apartment was in a poorer part of the city and surrounded by shacks.

Even though Materre had been taking Mandarin for the last 3 years at Mount Carmel it would have been difficult to communicate with the Li family since he wasn’t completely fluent. Luckily for Materre, the goal of his summer travel was not to learn the language, but rather to “broaden the participant’s cultural awareness,” and Mrs.Li happened to be an English teacher.  That made it much easier to communicate with Drake about all things from college and politics.

Materre spent many days roaming the streets of Beijing, and visited many interesting spots such as The Great Wall.  He admired the structure of 10,000 mile long wall, but not knowing the altitude he immediately climbed down as soon as he reached the top.  As an African-American, Drake felt like a celebrity in Beijing, where he was stopped constantly by pedestrians for a picture because of the lack of diversity in China.

After a while Materre became homesick, especially missing American food.   “Nothing could compare to the food here at home.” Although the Chinese food was unique, he tried almost everything, but avoided tofu soup, his least favorite dish.