Adapting to a Drastically Different School

Photo Credit: Brienna Romero

Jinlin surviving high school in the United States.

Brienna Romero, Staff Reporter

Until recently, Jinlin Yang lived his whole life in Sichuan, China. Sichuan is a southwest province in China. It is filled with beautiful mountains. The area size of Sichuan is 187,260 miles squared.

Yang is starting his new life in Nebraska. Due to his mother’s marriage, he moved to Schuyler, Nebraska. No longer would he hear of the Chinese myths. He mentioned three popular myths such as Jingwei Reclamation, Houyi Shooting Day, and Nuwa Butian.

Jingwei Reclamation is a story about a young girl who died in the water of a harsh conflict. She was resurrected into a phoenix bird. Her persistent goal was to contribute with wood and rocks into the sea. Her message was to tell others to not give up.  Nuwa Butian is a chinese goddess in a form of a snake with a human face. This myth was to believed that Nuwa Butian created humankind along with birth and marriage. Yang doesn’t believe in a god, therefore he has no religion customs or traditions he is continuing to assist here in the United States. Hou Yi Shooting Day expands into a deeper meaning of mother nature. This myth was spread about  Hou Yi destroying the 10 suns as a result of allowing one sun. The queen of heaven, also known as Wangmu gave him a potion of elixir that could have transformed him into a god. Hou Yi saved the portion, yet Wangmu convinced Hou Yi’s wife to drink the potion. Peng Meng transformed into the moon that allowed closure to her husband.

 One of the biggest contrasts for school in China compared to Schuyler is the class requirements. According to Jinlin Yang, his high school in China required taking eight to nine classes. Their options for classes are Mathematics, Chinese, English, Physics, Chemistry, Sports, Art, Music, Ideology, Society, Geography, Biology, Computer, History, Politics, Class Meeting, and Self-study. Each class is 45 minutes long. In China, the school duration is from 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. In general, students complain about school time, but Yang had no time to fool around. He said, “The pressure of study is less in the United States than that of me in China. The teachers are very responsible.”

Another difference in the Chinese and Schuyler school is their uniforms according to Yang. All over China, students are required to wear uniforms. Depending on the school, students are supposed to wear their uniforms Monday through Friday. Luckily, some schools allow students to wear their uniforms only Monday and Friday. Overall, the weather he misses from China is the warm winter and cool summers. Also, he misses the management of big developed cities and transportation.