Summer in China

There's certainly no paucity of media coverage on China, but not much of that reporting comes from our own peers. This Monday, four Columbia students share their own first-hand stories about their summer experiences in China, giving us a glimpse into a distant nation through the eyes of people who might be sitting in our classes. Derrick Fu finds himself and his future in China, while Devin Briski gets a more convoluted image of a nation straddling antiquity and modernity. And academic ambitions lead both Deysy Ordonez-Arreola and Rebecca Victor to China, but where China leads each of them once they're there is far from similar. Even though all four writers went to the same country this summer, one wouldn't think so by reading their accounts. So enjoy as Briski, Fu, Ordonez-Arreola, and Victor let you travel vicariously through the complex world of the Middle Kingdom.

• The food in Xinjiang
• Speech on the peach
• The power of education
• The global connection