Alexa Styers' Blog

When I initially arrived in Shanghai, it was the night before the New Year’s festival, 2:30am, and I do not want to be dramatic but I was more or less knocking on Death’s door, I was STARVING. In my memory it took about four or five days to get to China (I later realized it was only about 15 hours but when you’re as hungry as I was the hours turned into days). Exhausted and starving I mindlessly made my way through customs and into my new life as an immigrant living in the biggest city in the world. As someone born and raised in a small Kansas suburb Shanghai was a far cry from the yellow brick road I knew and, against my will, loved. So without further ado let me tell you a bit of what I wished I had known before I had come that would have made the transition infinitely easier. People ogled at me like I was the second coming of Christ moon-walking on water. What I came to understand was that this was completely normal. To the Chinese, foreigners might as well be a B-list celebri...

One of the main realizations I had in China was the lack of dairy products, mainly cheese. Everywhere I turned there was a noticeable lack of dairy whereas in America we are bursting with our dairy filled products. According to maketingtochina.com the cheese industry in China is actually on the rise, in fact its expected to triple in by 2022. China currently has a cheese consumption rate of 69,000 tons which is nothing compared to the United States' 3.71 million tons. Cheese recently became popular again in China because of how desperate the chinese are to be like Europeans, who consume cheese daily. Prior, cheese was only known to be "good for pregnant women" but now it has become much more popular. Had I known about the lack of cheese in China, I would have packed a couple of Kraft Mac & Cheese boxes in my carry on before I lived there for five months. Briefly, China actually banned cheese from foreign countries due to the "presence of unwanted bact...

My main passion in life is to travel. When I was young I lived in Surrey, England for several years. Afterwards my family moved to Kansas City, where we have lived since. When I was 10, my parents took my brothers and I on a trip to the Galapagos islands in South America. We traveled through Ecuador first, then took a boat to the islands. My senior year of high school my mother and I went to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. A month later we took a cruise around the Caribbean. In two weeks, my family will be off to Berlin, Germany to visit my brother who moved there after his graduation. As you can see, travel has been a large part of my life since I was born. After graduation, I hope to travel throughout Indonesia, the Philippines, and more. I find that staying in one place for too long makes me restless so I try to travel every chance I get. I feel that American culture does not allow for people to travel internationally as often as people living Europe and Asia can. The world is enormous, ...

Hey there y'all! My name is Alexa Styers and I'm from Kansas City, Kansas. I will be a senior this fall at the University of Arkansas. I am an International Business Management major with a focus in Mandarin. I was not at the UofA for this past spring semester, instead I was  studying at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics in China. There's a lot I can say about my experience in China but I won't bore you with the details. All I will say is that you really do not know what you're capable of until you move across the globe with minimal language skills and an affinity to misfortune. Right now I need a break but in the future I would like to work as a liaison between a company and their branch office/distribution centers based in China. One day I would like to be paid to travel throughout Indonesia, the Philippines, and southeast Asia. Traveling is always better when it is on someone else's tab. I would also like to study more languages, I have always ha...