On Jul 31, my mom and I left our home in Zhuhai for Beijing. Beijing was our home for eight years, while I was still a student back at Beijing City International School. My family and I moved to Zhuhai a little over half a year ago, but we are already missing it really badly.
So, why do I keep going back to Beijing? Two reasons – Model United Nations (MUN) and the food.
Model United Nations is something that I started to do back in the sixth grade, and since then, I have been attending conferences and always trying to improve myself in that realm. From a nervous delegate who did not even know what she was going to say in speeches to a chair who is capable of fluently chairing conferences that are of HMUN and THIMUN procedure, I have enriched my experiences even more with this trip to Beijing. This time, I am chairing for Yale Model United Nations’ World Health Organization committee at the WE Model United Nations EXPO, held at the Beijing International Convention Center from Aug 1 to 4. Not only did I chair with high school students, but being able to sit alongside students from Yale University and lead the debate of the committee with them was an absolutely memorable experience.
The first day when I arrived in Beijing, I immediately ordered 炸酱面 (zhájiàngmiàn, fried sauce noodles) from my favorite 方砖厂69号 (a 炸酱面 chain in Beijing that is recommended by Michelin). After finishing the noodles, I fell into a serious food coma. I tried to fight through it until 5pm, and I slept until past 7pm when I woke up from a glorious nap. As the name indicates, I was already 23 minutes late to my assistant director training.
I immediately messaged the secretary general that I would be late, and thankfully, she forgave me. When I arrived at the meeting, I was very surprised that everyone was much older than me, meaning that they were at least students who had finished the tenth or eleventh grade. I arrived at the meeting just in time to make my self-introduction, and I stuttered kind of badly, but I realized that my nerves only presented me as not confident enough to talk and work with others, so I decided to shift my mindset and my actions, and be more confident in who I am starting from my first day chairing.
The following days in Beijing were spent chairing two- to three-hour-long committee debate sessions. That was quite a challenge for me because in the past Model United Nations meetings I have been to, the committee sessions were a maximum of two hours long. However, this conference taught me the real value of focusing.
The second day in Beijing, my mom and I spent the morning running errands in the city as the conference officially started at 5.30pm in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time in the morning. I went skating at Yuetan Sports Center, and then I went to the dentist and the ophthalmologist. In the afternoon, when the time for the opening ceremony rolled around, I sat down nervously in the third row of the ballroom. Just as I thought I would be left there with no one to talk to, another assistant director sat beside me and started to talk to me. Then another joined, and I finally felt like I was not alone anymore. After the opening ceremony ended, I walked up to the chairs and they were not the college students that I had imagined – arrogant, introverted and not willing to start conversations – rather, they offered to take me and the other assistant director in our committee to dinner, which happened on another night. During the dinner break, I had another food that I had missed from Beijing – the vegetable-stuffed pancake from 西少爷 Xī Shàoye. Instead of your regular 肉夹馍 ròujiāmóu, the filling was mixed vegetables with a super crispy and flaky pancake. I enjoyed that a lot and finished that before going to the first committee debate session, which ended the night.
The next day, the morning was also free, as committee sessions start at 2pm. Breakfast was something that I have been missing since I left Beijing: 庆丰包子 Chuángfēng Bāozi. Not to exaggerate, but 庆丰包子 makes the best vegetable baozi, and I ate them throughout my eight years of living in Beijing. My mom ordered a portion of that, along with some soy milk, and that was the world’s best breakfast. I spent my morning reviewing the position papers written by delegates, and thankfully, I finished them. That took the entire morning, so lunch time rolled around pretty soon. In my article on eleven foods I miss in Beijing, I wrote that 煎饼果子 jiānbing guǒzi from a grocery store called 果蔬好 Guoshuhao was something that I missed because of the fact that I ate it every weekend when my family and I went to the grocery store. Even though the 煎饼果子 I had for lunch was not from that exact grocery store, I got it the traditional Tianjin way – a soft pancake skin with lots of dark soybean sauce and a 油条 (yóutiáo, fried dough) stuffed in the pancake. The one from the grocery store had the same texture of the pancake skin but with thin fried crisps in them and not 油条, which is more of the Shandong way. Even though the 煎饼 was pretty big, I finished it easily.
The afternoon of Aug 2 was essentially a long 3.5-hour committee session, and when it was dinner time, the directors, along with the other Yale committees’ director and assistant directors took me and my fellow assistant director, as well as the secretary general of Yale Model United Nations, to dinner in the mall beside the convention center. There were quite a few choices in the mall, however, we ended up going to 和府捞面 Héfǔ Lāomiàn, which is a chain noodle bar in China. I got noodles with tomato soup and beef, and everyone else got different noodles and snacks. We had a great time chatting and getting to know everyone, and even though I felt that college students may be a bit challenging when it comes to socializing with them and trying to be friends with them, that dinner made me realize that usually the very elite students are not only students who study hard but also are great friends who know how to socialize with others around them. That night ended with another late committee session, and even after that, I stayed behind with the other directors and assistant director to discuss our plans for the next day and the day after. I was incredibly tired afterwards, but fulfilled by the fact that I got to work with people who are truly dedicated and passionate in what they do, which means more to me than anything else.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast at the hotel, it was immediately committee session time, and that lasted the whole morning. My mom got lunch for me again, and this time, it was from the neighboring hotel. It was a set meal that had mushrooms, a beef and potato stew, rice and another cold dish that my mom finished. The food was delicious, but it was making me miss 老乡鸡 lǎoxiāngjī, which is a Chinese home-style dish chain that does not have any stores in Zhuhai. That night, dinner was simple – just some fruit and a matcha Frappuccino from Starbucks that I got for a meeting. I had not had Starbucks in a century, and even though the Frappuccino was really sweet (and I did get allergic afterwards), simply being able to have it was already amazing. That night, there was a gala, which was filled with performances and music (I have not been in a nightclub before, but I’m pretty sure that the gala, with all the music and the density of the people, was 99.9 percent like a nightclub). To be completely honest, some of the performances were fire, like the girl who sang “Cornelia Street” on the guitar, the two boys who performed “Baby” with the rap, and the secretary general of the conference who performed “Always Remember Us This Way.” The gala ended at 10pm, but I left at 9.23pm as I could not stand the loud music afterwards (I was simply afraid that it would damage my ears, nothing else).
The next morning, the committee session was a big bonding event – we played Hot Seat, let the delegates fill out a superlative form and signed placards while we beat the other committee in a karaoke of the song “See You Again.” One of the directors, Lishore, even taught one of the delegates how to confess to a girl that he liked, which was incredibly fun to watch.
The lunch I had on the last day was, of course, 老乡鸡. My mom got me some rice, their famous edamame chicken stew, and eggplant (I would say that the flavor of the eggplant had changed quite a bit – maybe because of the store location, or simply their change of recipe – but it was not as good as the ones I had before).
MUN helps shape my use of language, diplomacy and my way of communication. The debates on common global issues makes this a great chance for me to educate myself on current global affairs. I strongly recommend more people to get involved in it and to feel how this activity is like. If you want to get involved in an upcoming conference, you may want to sign up for the Harrow Hengqin Model United Nations happening from Nov 15 to 16 on the campus of Harrow Hengqin. You can sign up via email at HHQMUN@harrowzhuhai.cn.
This trip back to Beijing was a blast, and meeting Lishore and Sahra, the directors of our committee, as well as Jasmine, my fellow assistant director was even more special. I would never forget Lishore’s humor that enlightened everyone’s mood in the committee room when we were all stressed from debate, Sahra’s patience and professionalism that made the committee welcoming and safe for every delegate, and Jasmine’s hard work on typing up caucuses and speakers on MUN Command – all of which made this conference experience so unforgettable.
See you, Beijing. See you, WEMUN!
Images: Margaret Yang
