AIESEC Yale meets China MC!

Hey everyone! This is Ling, and I am currently sitting at my desk at my internship in the Haidian District of Beijing, China writing this blog post. Beijing is playing host to a large number of Yalies this summer, and naturally there are also some AIESECers in the mix. Last Wednesday the Yale AIESECers (me, along with Korn of OGX and Helen of ICX) met up with the China MC for their weekly team dinner!

I had contacted last year’s MCVP TM (Member Committee Vice President of Talent Management), who I met at WENA (Western Europe and North America AIESEC Conference) over spring break. She put me in contact with this year’s VP TM, Mini, who invited us to dinner. However, Mini ended up with a broken foot a few days before our dinner, so couldn’t make it back to the MC apartment. She told us to go ahead and meet the rest of the MC anyways though.

Finding the MC apartment was actually a bit of a struggle. Mini had sent me very vague directions (which I totally failed at following), which led us down a small dirty road (the wrong one). I ended up calling the MCP (Member Committee President), I was super intimidated, and unknown MC members for directions. I was told I would see old men sitting around playing chess and people cooking 羊肉串 (lamb meat on sticks?). In her email, Mini told me that the MC apartment was located across the street from a place offering "special services" (read: they have prostitutes hanging around their apartment constantly). What I saw instead was a baby poop on his/her mother, so sad. We finally found the MC apartment, located inside this semi-sketchy and very dark apartment building.

Despite the outward appearances of the apartment, the inside was actually huge. We didn't want to take pictures lest we seem creepy, but the MC apartment houses 18 MC members plus the CEEDs that were living there.

Each Wednesday, two members are assigned the task of cooking and feeding everyone else. When we got there, the food preparation process was already well under way. This is Michael, one of the MC members responsible for cooking that week, chopping up veggies. (Yes I am in all of these pictures).

We met most of the MC, and they were all soooo nice! They also had two CEEDs there: one from the US who'd been in China for a gap year and one from the UK. Here is a picture of us with the CEEDs (all of these pictures are credited Korn).

There ended up being SO MUCH FOOD, and it was all very delicious, despite Michael and Alex (the other chef for the night) going on about how they didn't know how to cook. We ended dinner with a really sweet and delicious and chocolatey dessert brought by the Chilean member of the China MC.

Overall, we had a fantastic time meeting the MC and eating a really delicious dinner, I hope we get to meet them again soon! Hope everyone is having amazing times all around the world!

Happy July 4th!
Ling