In China, there are a lot of rituals of transition in different community(To give a simple example, China’s traditional customs in the north and south are very different.). For me, my parents organized a big birthday party when I was 12. I had seen a lot of relatives who I only heard about before my 12th birthday.  I also had been invited to my friends’ 12th birthday, it is also a big birthday party. The 12-year-old is considered a very important moment In traditional Chinese society, as important as your wedding ceremony. It is a transition point from childhood to adolescent. From a legal perspective, 15 years old is an age which criminal responsibility can be assumed. When you are 21, you can legally marry. From the actual situation, I found that Chinese society has some harsh attitudes towards women age. Most women who are not married more than thirty will be called as “women who has been leftover”.

Personally, I have gone through all rituals of transition except marriage right now. The first ritual of transition in my life is my 12th birthday. To be honest, I didn’t have any deep thoughts at that time. This transition for me just a big real-life show for the people outside my life. There are two moments that really make me change my mind. The first change was when I was in the seventh grade, a transition from elementary school to junior high school. I was physiologically at the very beginning of my teenage years, and I started to get a lot of acne on my face. My weight increase in a fast way. When I came to menarche, my body is not used to this change. All these transition came so fast. When I was in elementary school, my Chinese and English were ranked high levels in my class. However, my grades were not continued its brilliance in junior high. In China, the educational resources are not available for every student. The Public school supported by government, with professional teachers and finance. It is always the first choice for all the families. To decide who can enter the better school, get famous teachers’ course and learning facilities, like chemistry lab, you have to use your GPA to strive for the limited position. According to the huge population base, peer pressure is full of contradictions in every different age-level school. Because this already happened a long time ago. The ending of this story is that I have raised my grades back to the game according to my own efforts and tutoring classes that paid by my parents. In this seemingly happy ending, I had suddenly burst into tears in the middle of homework assignment. This situation almost happens every week. I felt all the happy time in my childhood should be the best time in my life. Looking at it now, I am really distressed by the loneliness and pain I experienced at the time. Sometimes it seems trivial to others, but for those who experience it is something that is unforgettable in their life.

The second moment is in my college experience. After I chose to do an international student, I feel that the idea of belonging-liminality-belonging probably express different viewpoints in different person. In college, people has their own schedule and time to do their things. Everyone is independent and individual, which means their thoughts depends where they belong. They freely expressed their opinion about gender equality, freedom, and race. When I was a freshman, I went to the film salon. People came from different places share their thoughts and experiences related to this film. They are more willing to use their feelings to get close to or explore the film themselves. In MSU, people show their care about sexual violence and sexual harassment. There are health center to help people about their mental health and bad experiences about sexual violence. As a college woman, I personally do not received any implicit and explicit messages about how a woman or man should behave based on their gender. I only heard some things from others(my friends, instructors, and teaching assistants). Therefore, I am glad about my campus experience and all the nice people I met in college. And we are continuing to maintain this environment through the study of social sciences and anthropology.