Albert Lea High School social studies teacher Jerry Bizjak was one of 20 teachers selected for a trip to China to learn about the country and it’s culture.

“There was no best part. It was almost all best,” Bizjak said. “Each thing was so unique and different that there was no one thing that stood out.”

Bizjak’s trip was through the East Asian Studies Center at the University of Indiana. The center receives a grant each year from the Freeman Foundation for the trip. Bizjak said the teachers didn’t know how much the entire trip cost, but each teacher paid about $800 out of their pocket. The Albert Lea School District did not fund the trip in any way. Twenty teachers from across the country were selected to go on the trip. Indiana University offers classes on East Asia in five different locations around the country, and Bizjak attended one of those classes in St. Paul over ten Wednesday nights.

Leading the trip were two Chinese women from Indiana University who organized the trip, and two professors: a professor from St. John’s University and a teacher from the Indianapolis area, who both helped run the trip.

The group left from Chicago and flew directly to Beijing on June 15, a more than 13-hour flight, and they returned July 4.

The group went to seven different cities, and they visited common tourist stops like the Great Wall of China, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Bizjak and the other teachers’ trip spanned from Beijing to the Yunnan Province, a mountainous region to the south that borders Tibet; they went to the cities of Xi’an, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Shang-ri-la and Shanghai.

Over the 19 days the teachers spent on the trip, Bizjak said there were only three free days and only two of the 16 days when they had free time after 5 p.m.

“We got on a bus and we’d go, and some days it was a huge itinerary,” Bizjak said. “I think there were maybe two days when we were on our own at 5 p.m. We had two and a half free study days. We did kind of whatever we wanted. Some people broke up into small groups, but otherwise it was fairly regimented. A day like this was just a brutal day. We were out the whole day. After this performance, we got back at close to 10 p.m.”

Bizjak and another teacher attended a dawn flag raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square when he couldn’t sleep because of the 13-hour time difference.

Over their 19 days in China, Bizjak said the groups tried to see how average Chinese citizens live to learn about current Chinese history and ancient Chinese history, Bizjak said.

Each teacher worked on a curriculum project they’ll turn in to the East Asian Studies Center, and each teacher will use what they learned in his or her classes.

Bizjak’s project was focused on communist leader Mao Zedong, and how he is viewed in modern China. As part of that, Bizjak visited Mao’s mausoleum in Beijing. He described it as a reverent place where there are flowers and other such things, but he said you walk out into a gift shop.

If he saw anything with Mao’s picture, Bizjak said he’d photograph it. He also bought serious Mao memorabilia like plates, and more touristy memorabilia like a lighter that plays a communist song.

“Yes, they still revere him. They think he was a great leader. He united the country. He helped create the foundation for this new China they talk about so much, but that’s it. His ideas in terms of how China’s economy should be run — not at all. … A lot of it is just like us,” Bizjak said.

Bizjak said he read two articles while he was in China: one that said Mao was old history, and another that said Mao’s economic ideas are being rethought during the tough economic times.

“People remember him, but it’s not like it’s this super adoration. He’s not everywhere,” Bizjak said.

Bizjak said that the U.S. and China are more integrated than people think, and he noticed some interesting things in the culture, like how many citizens are NBA fans and wear basketball jerseys. He also said he saw many signs and shirts with English translations where the message was lost in the translation. For example, he saw a sign that said, “watch for landslide,” but meant watch your step.

“They always talk about communist China. If you’re talking economically, China is not really communist,” Bizjak said.

“It is an economic free-for-all,” he added. “We saw people who were homeless. I’ve got pictures of a stretch limousine hummer.”

Despite all the economic similarities, Bizjak said they saw examples of the government control in the country, especially at Tiananmen Square, where there were video cameras and people the group suspected were plain-clothes police officers.

Partially because of America’s tie to European history, Bizjak said it’s difficult to summarize and teach the vast Chinese history to students. He said he’ll try to bring what he learned about China to his classes next school year.

“It’s so hard to do any of it justice, because it’s so big, and there’s so much there — the history. They talk all the time about this 5,000-year-old history. How do you try to cover that?” Bizjak said.

Bizjak will try to summarize what he learned over his trip to his students, but he said that will be difficult. One of the trip leaders told the teachers it will take more than a year to fully process their experience.

“In our first meeting when we got to Chicago before we even flew out, they’re like what do you want from this trip. What’s one word? Tell us what you want this trip to be. My word was experiential. And it was an experience, that’s for sure,” Bizjak said.