Zhe
Dear Tsinghua University campus,
It has been two years since I left China to complete my high school in Irvine, California. Two years passed really fast and the Tsinghua University campus has changed significantly as more halls and canteens are built in many familiar areas I used to go to when I was in elementary school. The library is renovated and a new building as the third generation of the Tsinghua’s main library is added and connected to the old library build a hundred years ago. The fast food restaurant I used to go with my friends is changed to a cafeteria with three floors serving a variety of foods. The computer science and information technology buildings are finished and I can see many people coming in and out from the glass building. They are new, bright and vigorous. The old Tsinghua buildings, classrooms and the streets from my memory consistently remind me of how Tsinghua has changed in the past wo years.
“You lived in the campus in the past, so you didn’t realize that the campus had changed a lot,” my mom said to me. I had been living in Tsinghua from elementary school to the first year of middle school. It’s not only a prestigious university as to most people but also a home somewhere I belong to. I wandered around the lotus pond in the summer nights, made snowmen in winter, watched the leaves falling like a golden rain in the late autumn and smelled the fragrance from the lilacs in the early spring. Too many memorable experiences in Tsinghua…It’s similar to a small community, peaceful and organized. I am familiar with almost every route on campus because I had walked ton those streets for thousands of times. The map is never necessary. It’s in my heart, deeply preserved, no matter how many years I was not living on campus. Even if I get lost sometimes, a tree, a store, an old lady taking a sun bath can remind me of home.
This week I am with many other freshmen and current UW students to revisit this beautiful campus. As a tour guide for my new friends, I led people to the no name streets I walked when I was little, pointing to the residence halls I had been living in, the canteens which I had countless times of dinner and lunch with my mom. I am proud to be a tour guide to the place I feel grateful for providing me a wonderful education and life experience. I wish I can still be here next summer!
Sincerely,
Zhe
