Tensions were running high at LAX; anxious parents stood muttering in groups while overstuffed luggage sat in a pile. Sixteen students (one eighth grader, 11 freshmen and four sophomores) along with the two Chinese teachers, Qinru Zhou and Binbin Wei, were about to leave for two weeks on the spring break China Trip.

After spending more than 12 hours on a flight from LAX to Seoul, Korea, an additional three hours on a flight from Seoul to Shanghai plus a train ride into the city and a trip on the subway with luggage, we were officially in China.

We had our first group meeting in the middle of the Shanghai subway station. Jetlagged and hungry, we listened as Zhou explained what the trip was going to be about.

“This will be the real China experience,” Zhou said. We had heard this before at the trip meeting a few weeks before, but now standing in the middle of a subway station with our luggage, we realized he was serious.

At the subway station, transportation was arranged for our luggage but not for us. Being the American tourists we were, we thought tour was synonymous with bus ride. We did not realize that in order to have “the real China experience” we were supposed to walk.

We got over our disappointment quickly as we wandered the streets taking pictures of everything we saw, overwhelmed by the size of the crowds and the city. The rest of the day passed quickly as we visited everything that could be fit into one afternoon in Shanghai, ending the day when we fell asleep at the dinner table.

On our second day in China we took a bus to Suzhou to visit two gardens and a silk factory. The gardens were beautiful, especially since the flowers were just starting to bloom. After a brief education on Chinese architecture, the day continued with a trip to the silk factory where we learned the ancient and modern techniques of producing silk.

As we prepared to leave Shanghai the next day, we discovered that the train to our next destination, Hangzhou, was completely full. Ignoring this setback, we opted for the private bus that had eluded us the first day in Shanghai.

Our arrival day at Hangzhou was a blur of switching hotels and exchanging money at banks. Despite the problems we encountered, we managed to tour a temple and a garden before dinner. The city’s position next to the lake made the temperature cooler than in Shanghai, and that night we were treated to our first Chinese banquet dinner.

The second day in Hangzhou was for me, the most memorable day of the trip. That morning I woke up with a fever and nausea and was completely miserable. While the rest of the group toured Hangzhou’s parks, pagodas and temples, I went to Hangzhou’s number one hospital. Since we were leaving on a sleeper train that night, the teachers wanted to make sure I wasn’t seriously sick before we left Hangzhou.

The hospital was thoroughly modern and any doubts I had went away when I saw the inside was almost identical to UCLA’s. I had no qualms until a man came in holding an unattached finger in one of his hands while the other was dripping blood right next to me; truly a new and exciting experience. After getting my temperature taken and my blood drawn, I was given pills and tea and we departed. Talk about the real China experience.

We made our trip to Qufu (Confucius’ home town) via sleeper train. When we arrived, we quickly discovered that the temperature had dropped again. Now used to the quick pace of our trip, we soon began touring Confucius’ home, the home of his 76th grandson and the graveyard where Confucius and his family are buried.

We were off again the next day. This time, our destination was Taishan Mountain. On our way there, we stopped at a hotel in a nearby city to put our luggage in a hotel room. As we headed out of the hotel, the group was accosted by a wedding party who insisted that our whole group take a photo with them. Strangely, this wasn’t a new request.

Since the day was rainy and cold, we took a bus halfway up the 1500 meter high mountain and only walked halfway up, only to discover there was still a good amount of snow on the ground. Once we examined the carvings made by previous emperors, we went to bed early in preparation for our 4:30 a.m. wake up call to watch the sunrise. Though the next day was cloudy, our position at the top of the mountain allowed us to watch the sun rise over the clouds. It was truly an amazing experience. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the view and departed for Beijing later that afternoon.

We arrived later that night and Zhou announced that Beijing was “where the real learning process would begin.” In other words Beijing represented “the real China experience” or the real immersion into Chinese culture.

The first morning we saw the Olympic stadium, fields and dorms. The city was bursting with excitement and enthusiasm for this summer; vendors on the sidewalks tried to sell us paperweights, hats and shirts all reading Beijing 2008 while restaurants posted hygiene ratings in an effort to entice more foreign customers.

That afternoon, Zhou led us to the first of many promised shopping excursions. Throughout the trip Zhou had restricted our shopping warning us that we would want to save our money for Beijing. To say we were excited would be making a huge understatement.

After a quick dinner and an acrobatics show, we prepared for yet another early morning in order to watch the National Banner Rising. Though we arrived at Tiananmen Square before 6 p.m., it was already packed and we had to wrestle with the crowd to watch the monthly banner raising.

The rest of the day was spent touring the Forbidden City, having an imperial lunch and taking a paddleboat across Behai Park. At the ancient imperial park we encountered men practicing calligraphy with water on the pavement and people flying miniature kites.

The next day we spent the morning at the Beijing Zoo, mainly for the Panda exhibit. The rest of the afternoon we were given free time to go shopping in two designated spots in Beijing. This was the real China experience we were promised.

We were given freedom we rarely get at home. Excited, we all planned our afternoon activities. In order to get to the destination, we would have to use our bus passes and knowledge of the city to go shopping and return to the hotel by 5 p.m..

The 16 of us split up, each choosing different routes, methods and destinations. Even so, by 5 p.m., we were all in the hotel ready to go to our next activity. That night, our activity happened to be dinner with Harvard-Westlake alum Adam Presser ’05.

Presser took Chinese during in high school and continued to study Chinese when he went to Yale. After graduating last year, Presser is spending a year in Beijing.

“The great thing about China is that they take young people seriously,” Presser said.

After dinner, we were treated to the Peking Opera, another example of the real China experience.

Our last day in China was a bittersweet one. We spent the morning climbing the Great Wall, and after lunch made our way to the School Year Abroad School. We met kids from all over America who are spending a year away from their homes, attending school in China and living with Chinese families. They are truly going through “the real China experience.” Once we listened to their presentation on their community service work in rural China, we were split into groups to eat dinner with one SYA student and their host family.

Each Harvard-Westlake student was presented with a different dinner. Some prepared dumplings with their host families, while others were served enormous amounts of homemade Chinese food. Watching the host student switch between English and Chinese in order to communicate with both sides of the table was the perfect ending to our trip, demonstrating exactly how American and Chinese culture can come together.

As the only Chinese-American on the trip, I was approached many times by strangers who expected me to be able to speak fluent Chinese. After being told by a stranger in the Behai Park that I had a Chinese face so I must learn Chinese fast, it became clear that alienating myself from my Chinese roots was a pointless exercise. Though I am a fifth generation Chinese-American, there is no reason why both my cultures can’t combine in a way similar to the SYA households.

By the next day, we were packed but not fully ready to go. “Real China” had affected each of us.