Sofia Orlando, left, and Rachel Alter, right, were 2014 PiA fellows in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
f a college student is lucky, he or she might be able to spend a semester in a foreign country. Those who have the opportunity to bunk in with a family are even luckier, getting a close-up look at how those in different cultures live, work, and play. A program based out of a small suite of offices on Princeton’s Nassau Street takes the concept even further. Princeton in Asia, which has been sending young people to Asian countries since 1898, awards fellowships to some 150 people a year, sending them to such far-flung locations as East Timor, Kazakhstan and Myanmar. Settling in for a year or more, they teach, study, and work in fields including education, media, public health, environmental conservation, and international development. This is immersion taken to a new level. “I formed really strong relationships,” says Alex Jones, who taught seventh grade English for two years in China’s rural Yunan Province after graduating from Hamilton College. He also taught music, introducing his young charges to punk, reggae, and classic rock and alternating singing a Chinese and English song every week. “It was easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done,
and I think about it every day,” he says. “It was unlike anything I had ever experienced—much more difficult and much more rewarding.” After returning from China, Jones joined the staff of Princeton in Asia and now works alongside other PiA alumni. “I heard about the program from a friend who had gone on it,” he says. “I fell in love with the culture and the spirit of the organization.” While fellows come from 70 universities, the largest contingent comes from Princeton University, where the program was begun by a group of undergraduates who raised $500 to support the YMCA in Tientsin (now Tianjin), China. In 1898, Robert “Pop” Gailey ’96 went to China and started the program, enlisting the help of his classmates. Eight years later, he and Dwight Edwards ’94 established the first YMCA in Peking. Over the next 30 years, students worked on famine relief programs, organized the country’s first athletic associations, opened the Peking School of Commerce and Finance, and established the Princeton School of Public Affairs at Yenching University in 1923. Later called the PrincetonYenching Foundation, the program had to temporarily cease operations in China in 1949. It
was then that the organization branched out to include other countries in Asia. The China connection was kept alive through the awarding of scholarships to several students from Hong Kong to attend Princeton University. The name “Princeton in Asia” was coined in 1955. While the program has grown and embraced technological advancements that keep fellows only a text or phone call away from each other, the aims of the organization have remained the same. “The mission has not changed,” says Maggie Dillon, PiA executive director. “We’re here to exchange the best ideals of east and west and to be a meaningful contribution to the community. Humility is a big part of it. It is so important in Asia, and so valuable for people to learn.” Dillon, who graduated from Princeton in 2006 as a German major, looked into PiA because she wanted to do something different. “I wanted to be pushed out of my comfort zone,” she recalls. “I was interested in teaching in Singapore, but the executive director at the time said, ‘Try Laos.’ I had played rugby at Princeton so I went to the National Rugby Foundation in Laos, and stayed three years. It totally changed my life.” MARCH 2015 PRINCETON MAGAZINE
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