From a small town called Hebei, junior Jiaqi Wang had just moved to America with her family last year. Wang has found that it’s a little bit of a struggle adjusting life in America, with different cultural and social barrier she has spent her time here trying to adjust her daily rotuine to fit in with her new lifestyle. From her hobbies to the food she eats everyday Jiaqi is adapting to the changes she faces coming to the United States.

“It has been a struggle adjusting in America” junior Jiaqi Wang said, “everything is so different here from what I’m used to back in China it’s gonna take some time getting used to.”

What she enjoys most about moving here are all the big malls there are to go shopping in. In China there weren’t many clothing stores to choose from, but now she loves to go to all the different malls and see many different types of stores with a variety clothes to choose from. One of her favorite malls to go to is Oakland mall, “It has a lot of stores that I like to shop from”, Wang said, “I like to go and walk around just to see what is going on around the mall.” The mall isn’t the only thing she enjoys, Jaiqi also has found a love for tacos. They didn’t have tacos back in China and so she had tried them for the first time when she first arrived to America and she loved them. This shows how normal food to us may not be so normal to those that are from a different country and how everyone has a different.

Some things that she was not a fan of when she moved to Michigan was how the weather is so bipolar compared to where she grew up. It was unexpected to her when the weather here got down to even the negatives. “It was very weird to see all of the weather changes happening over a small amount of time” Wang said. “In China it used to be constant and when it was winter time the temperatures stayed very steady”. Another thing that had come to a shock to her of how different America’s fast food is compared to what she is used to in China. The food are very different for example in China they have foods like egg tarts and even boba tea compared to the food that is served here like cheesburgers or mcnuggets.
Moving to a new school can be very difficult especially when coming from another country. The language barrier makes it even harder to adjust to a new school.

Jiaqi has made many new friends over the past year at Utica. “Jiaqi is such a loyal and helpful friend”, said junior Martina Gojcevic, she is genuine and so nice to everyone”. Learning how to adapt to a whole new enviorment for Wang, but once she got the hang of everything it became much easier for her.
She has made amazing connections with her teachers also, always being so open to answering questions and overall being a wonderful student to have in class. “Jiaqi is a wonderful student”, said math teacher Mrs.Hiliard, “she is very smart and a plessure to have in class”. Jiaqi has been an amazing addition to our Utica High family, she is a very optamistic and unqiue.