Meady Chiem

Contact

meady@wharton.upenn.edu

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My PGS WIP China was my first time leaving the United States. I absolutely loved the entire travel component but I especially loved the 21 new friends I made. Our class immediately clicked after the first day and I felt so insanely lucky to experience it all with them, including the good of toilsome hike across the Great Wall of China and the bad of navigating the squat toliets. If the students want to ask about one piece of advice from me, it would be try to make an effort to talk to your classmates because ultimately the trip was so fun but it was especially amazing because I was able to spend it with them.

As for my semester abroad experience, it was my first time being away from home in Philly. I was the only Penn student to exchange at Tsinghua University that semester and the first student to go after 6 years. I was extremely nervous since I did not have anyone to ask about their experience; I was mostly blind going in. Not only did I need to navigate my new life in China, but I was also recruiting at the time. Honestly, it was overwhelming trying to adjust to the new culture alongside needing to find an internship for the summer. I felt like I wasted my abroad experience when I skip social events or turn down friend hangouts so I could prepare for interviews or apply to jobs. Thus, I ultimately decided one month in to completely stop recruiting and just enjoy my semester, which was ultimately the best decision I could’ve made for myself. It felt like I huge burden was lifted off my shoulders, and I was able to cherish every moment I had with my new friends and even take the time to meet family for the first time in China. So, if any student is concerned about recruitment while you are abroad, I would say it is very difficult to do so, therefore you should finish recruitment before or after going abroad. I was still able to find an amazing internship in the Spring when I returned to Penn, so everything does and will work out in the end!

My Experience Abroad

During WIP China I was a sophomore and during my semester abroad I was a junior. I would say both experiences related to my major in Marketing as everything I need about consumer behaviors was based on how Americans react to marketing strategies and what are successful to them. However, many of these strategies that work for American consumers won’t for people in other countries, in other cultures. Instead of reading about life in China, experiencing it was the best way to understand what goes through a Chinese consumer’s mind before making a purchase. For example, there was a date bread store outside Tsinghua University that always had long queues lasting over 2 hours. Walking by, I constantly thought how popular and delicious it must be. But in reality, the store only had one oven and after a batch is sold, they need to make more which causes the long wait times. However, you don’t realize that immediately until you are waiting in line (like I did); to those passing by, it looks like the store is very popular. This is a marketing tactic I saw everywhere in China: purposely long wait times. Another example is how Oreos in China are not as sweet and are sold in smaller packages. This is because Chinese consumers rarely eat sweets, and especially don’t like their sweets too sweet. I would say I learned a lot when it comes to marketing to consumers internationally: not every strategy works across countries, as you may need to tweak it or cater it to the culture you are working with.

Other Highlights

For my semester abroad at Tsinghua University:

• The biggest highlight was meeting my extended family. When my mom came in the U.S., she left behind all of her family in Hainan, an island in China coined as the “Hawaii of China.” Growing up, I only knew of their existence through WeChat calls and pictures. Because they were so far and not present in my life, it was as if they were complete strangers. However, my abroad experience allowed me to go to China not only to learn about the country and its culture, but also gave me the chance to meet them. Traveling to Hainan and going to the village and seeing them for the first time, I remember I was very overwhelmed. They all knew who I was, greeted me in smiles and tears, but I didn’t know who any of them were. To make learning who everyone was harder, my mom was the second youngest of 9 kids. Since my aunts and uncles had kids and their kids had kids, it really felt like I met over 35 family members that day. Compared to Beijing, rural areas of Hainan were much poorer. My extended family there grew everything they ate and sold what they harvested. They even raised so many live chickens and ducks, which I never saw before growing up in Philadelphia. They weren’t rich but they were so happy because they had enough and most importantly had each other. Though they never met me until now, they treated me so well from the first day I arrived. I felt so much love and it was so hard to leave them when I came back to the states. I realized I could finally somewhat understand how my mom felt; why she cried so many nights being in America when all of her family were back home in Hainan. Being abroad taught me so much about the culture and life in China, but most importantly gave me this opportunity as a FGLI student to finally go meet my family for the first time.
• Another highlight from my experience was learning about how digitalized life was in China. Beijing generally is very big and I can’t imagine getting around without my Baidu Map. Even in restaurants, you order by scanning QR codes and pay through the app. With that being said, don’t ever lose your phone in China. It’s as if my whole life depended on it during the whole trip. Additionally, because everything was digitalized, people are constantly glued to their for entertainment. In the dining halls at Tsinghua University, I was surprised to see so many people on their phones watching shows out-loud or just scrolling. Even if they were sitting with friends, all of them would just scroll on their phones with minimal interaction. This is probably the biggest shock I had as it was so different from the loud chatter in Penn dining halls.
• Another highlight is all the friends I’ve made during my time abroad. Thankfully, I found out that the exchange student size was 200+ students during my Fall semester, which was much larger than Peking University’s. This meant there were more opportunities to find friends who click with me and had similar interested. Shockingly, I haven’t met many Americans but many Europeans that were very sweet and taught me so much about their own unique culture, including Cristina from Madrid and Beatrice from the Netherlands, my closest friend and most amazing roommate in the world. Beyond making friends in my exchange student bubble, I really wanted to make an effort to befriend full-time students so I joined many clubs and put extra efforts in talking to classmates. I ended meeting a lot of international full-time students, like Carmen and Connie from Indonesia, Jiale from Malaysia, and also local Chinese students like Lydia, Jess, and Luka. Though traveling around China was my initial plan studying abroad, I ended up spending much of my time in Beijing exploring it with all my friends, and even joined some clubs where I took on many roles from working in stage crew for Tsinghua’s 2025 GALA Night Show to helping set up for Tsinghua University’s School of Economics annual student festival sponsored by Miniso. I have definitely met really cool people and developed relationships that were very hard to leave by the end of the semester. They all made my experience very fun while also teaching me so much about their own cultures, whether it was Chinese, Indonesian, Australian, German, or Spanish. I really met so many people so many countries including China, something I was least expecting but was very pleasantly surprised.
• Finally, another highlight would be the food in Beijing. When you travel to new cities in China, you will taste a wide-ranging variety of cuisine. Going up in a Cantonese household, my parents would make very clean, healthier, and blander dishes with minimal strong flavoring. Going to China, I expected it to be somewhat similar. Little did I know that the Northern parts of China has so much spicy ingredients in about 98% of their dishes. I remember going to a hot pot and ordering a spice level of medium because that is the level I often get at restaurants in Philly. However, I quickly found out that a medium spice level in China equated to about an extra extra spicy level in Philly. Needless to say, my bathroom trips were not pretty. However, because almost every dish in Beijing was so oily and so so so spicy, my spice tolerance grew so much when I returned to the states. I realized how much I missed the healthier and “bland” dishes my parents made. Also, when I returned, because I spent 4 months eating only Chinese foods and different variations of Chinese food when traveling to other cities in China, I ended up eating a lot more Italian and American foods during my Spring semester after.