{"id":9588,"date":"2022-07-29T14:54:46","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T18:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=9588"},"modified":"2022-08-10T16:55:49","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T20:55:49","slug":"global-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2022\/07\/29\/global-citizen\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Citizen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

University Marks Milestone With Chinese Language Graduate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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There have been many firsts at Georgia Southern University. Cody Turner represents another. He is the first undergraduate in the University’s history to earn a bachelor’s degree in the Chinese language concentration. The scholar graduated in the fall of 2018. Two months later, he was in China teaching English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Two of the transfer teachers who partnered with the Chinese language section also teach English at the school where I now teach,” Turner said. “On graduation day, one of the teachers told me the school needed an English teacher. I left for China the following February.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turner teaches college-level students in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province in central China. He has embraced the opportunity with enthusiasm and says what he most enjoys is sharing the real side of Western culture with his students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course, I always talk about my college life and where I went to school while in class,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Turner acknowledges that life on the North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power campus is very different from what he experienced \u201cback home.\u201d Coming from the small town of Stapleton, Georgia, the alumnus now lives in a bustling city of 12 million people. What does he miss most about being so far from home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne thing I miss for sure is the minimal population,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are so many people over here and it can feel overbearing sometimes. I also miss grits. I can\u2019t really find them over here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turner entered college as a geology major but switched when he fell in love with Chinese studies. He didn\u2019t take any courses in education at Georgia Southern but takes his inspiration from professors in the University\u2019s Department of World Languages and Cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhat I took with me was the fact that I had just graduated, and I was going to teach people who were at most three years younger than me,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I teach my class the way that I know students will enjoy. I also took many styles that Professor Zuotang Zhang, Ph.D., used while I was in his class learning Chinese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhang has been teaching at Georgia Southern since fall 2013. He says he is proud to have had Turner as a student and he praised the accomplishments of the international teacher who embodies the University\u2019s True Blue spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCody keeps honoring our Chinese program and he is representing Georgia Southern in a very positive way,\u201d said Zhang, adding that he was recently featured in a provincial TV program in China. The documentary focused on the food and life in the city where Turner lives. In addition to his classroom responsibilities, the alumnus handles a lot of translating for the school, whether for books, articles, academic papers or events. He uses his free time to nurture his plants and play Super Smash Brothers at the semi-professional level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am currently number one in my province as well as the potential second-best Bowser (the character I use) in China,\u201d he said. \u201cThe most challenging thing for me has been the lack of freedom to come and go as I please. It is very easy to travel here in China due to the large-scale bullet train network, but COVID has put a damper
on this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turner remains unsure about where his career will take him, but he is making plans to form his own translation and interpretation business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University Marks Milestone With Chinese Language Graduate There have been many firsts at Georgia Southern University. Cody Turner represents another. He is the first undergraduate in the University’s history to earn a bachelor’s degree in the Chinese language concentration. The scholar graduated in the fall of 2018. Two months later, he was in China teaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":9592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-9588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-up-front","tag-fall-2022"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}