Stephanie Kendall, a senior public relations major from Singapore, took part in the Baylor in China program this summer. In the sixth in a series of blog posts, Stephanie describes taking part in a race designed to help students learn more about the country and its people.

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The Amazing Race is an annual event that Professor Wang Laoshi puts on as a little fun exercise for the students to experience the country while speaking Chinese. The idea was to see if we could travel through China without extra help, and to see how our conversational skills had progressed.

The overall goal was to use what we had learned in class and see if we could make it on our own — managing subway trains, reading street signs and finding our way throughout China.

Early in the morning of the race we received an email from Professor Wang, giving us detailed instructions about our tasks ahead, as well as hints to our meeting place.

We broke off into different groups and started off on our journey. Coincidentally, we all managed to ride on the same subway train and we found ourselves at the stop for the Temple of Heaven.

After we entered the Temple of Heaven we glanced around to find a group of older people dancing to traditional Chinese music. Once there we had to dance along with them and take pictures to prove we finished our first task.

Down a long straight path lay three arches that led to another section of the Temple of Heaven. We walked down a flight of stairs to find a building encircled within a wall. When we walked into the courtyard we could see Professor Wang standing to the right of the temple.

After a few moments we figured out our final task — finding the three-tone stone at the temple. Once we had located it, Professor Wang Laoshi came over and told us about the significance of the three-tone stone. There is only one only spot in that courtyard where the stone’s sounds can be heard off the walls due to the unique design of the building.

Since all the teams had somehow merged together despite the rules of the game, there was no definite winner of the Amazing Race. Although there was no winning team, Olivia Offringa and Amanda Sawyer played the largest roles in the race.

After determining that there was no winning team, we strolled to another part of the grounds, climbed a few flights of stairs and wound up on top of a flat circular building. In the center of this spot lay a small circular platform, which is said to be the center of the world. We all took our turn standing on the center of the world before leaving the grounds.

Once again, the Chinese architecture was beautifully crafted with bright reds, blues, golds and so much more. It was truly an enchanting place. I only hope that Heaven will look as magical as this place, if not more.