Nancy Tang feeling right at home. Photo courtesy Nancy Tang (click to enlarge)

Note: For Nancy Tang's first-person account of her year in China, click here.

THANKS TO THE Internet, I kept in touch with classmate Nancy Tang during her 2008-09 stay in Shanghai.

Tang, now a 15-year-old junior at Uni, had a very different life in China compared to America. She described her time there as "fun, extraordinary, and unusual."

Even with all of the cultural differences, Tang loved living in China and the exciting opportunities it presented.

"I like pretty much everything about China," Tang said. "In particular: the people, culture, history, language, food, and opportunities to travel. Also, how everything is within walking distance. And potstickers. Those are always good."

Tang definitely had to deal with a different culture. Shanghai, the largest city in China, introduced a drastic change of scenery for Tang, who went from the cornfields of central Illinois to a municipality of more than 18 million people, where it took her nearly an hour just to get to school.

Though fluent in Chinese, she attended the Shanghai American School, which offered similar courses to the ones she had in Uni. In addition, everyone at her school spoke English in class, but that was where the similarities between her education at SAS and Uni ended. Her school was bigger, and the students came from all around the world.

"There is a jumble of different languages spoken in the corridors," said Tang, "so you learn how to function in an environment where you don’t always understand what everyone is saying."

Her school in China also kept up with some of the top American events, mainly the 2008 presidential election.

"It was actually a big deal," she said. "The United States is a huge global influence, so the international and even local communities in Shanghai took the election really seriously. During my English class on Election Day, we were following the polls online and everyone started clapping when Obama won California during the middle of class."

In moving to China, Tang was forced to give up her own presidency. She had been elected president of the sophomore class for 2008-09, and because her parents told her that the possibility of her family moving was small, she didn't think it would be a problem.

"I was totally psyched to be class president, and I had really looked forward to it," she recalled. "I had lots of ideas and changes I wanted to bring to Uni. … I visited Shanghai during the summer, and basically my parents decided that I should stay for a longer time. Obviously, I was irritated beyond belief at first, but excited to be back in China. Not being able to be class president is still what I regret the most about moving."

Tang didn't forget all of us back in America and is thankful that she was able to keep in touch with friends. When asked how often she got to talk to her American friends, she said: "All the time! That's what Facebook is for! Honestly, when you live internationally, Facebook is your best friend."

She wasn't kept apart from her friends for too long. When she returned to America this past summer, to visit her "laid-back" roots, she faced the hard decision of choosing whether to spend her last two years of high school in Shanghai or in America.

"In Shanghai there are more things to do and it's more diversified, but I wanted to come back to Champaign to go to Uni," Tang said. "The fact that it was so sudden made it so that my brother, mother, and grandmother couldn't move back with me, which made my decision [to move] harder."

Now that she's back at Uni, she settled into a routine very quickly. She is an active member of Students for a Better World, Life Club, and United for Uganda. Most of all, she's happy that her classmates have enthusiastically welcomed her back.

"It's like I never left."