the language barrier

This next blog post isn’t as much about glorifying a Penn State event as it is telling a story about capitalizing on one.

My roommate is a Chinese national. That may seem like a strange detail to kick off this post – but it is entirely relevant. He doesn’t speak a ton of English, keeps ridiculously abnormal hours, and spends most of his time in our room. To be perfectly honest, I can count the number of (actually engaging) conversations that we’ve had together on one hand.

All of this is true so much to the point that I didn’t even know that it was his birthday until about three hours after I woke up… and I found out on Facebook.

I don’t want to sound like I’m pitying the kid, because that’s not my intention, but I did feel bad that he was going to have to celebrate his birthday just as he would any other ordinary day – in a foreign country, in his dorm room, without his family and friends.

That night, was a Penn State basketball game (and one of the things I do know about my roommate is that he loves basketball), so myself, and a few of my friends on my floor, convinced him that he should come with us.

That night was one of my favorites of my freshman year. Shiwei looked like he had the time of his of life, and I definitely had never seen him so animated. In my head we had simply gone to a Penn State basketball game, and a Penn State basketball game, albeit a good one, is still rarely a spectacle to see.

But to Shiwei it was much more than that. And that’s something I’m glad I could be a part of. The population of international students on this campus is pretty high. A lot of people even complain about it, I know I have at points. But that night I realized how hard it must be on a lot of them, and how much they were perhaps unaware of what they’re missing out on.

Regardless, it was one of my favorite nights here that I’ve ever had. I spent it at a Penn State sporting event, with some of my closest friends, and with the roommate I’ve been aiming to make one.