My name is Jeremy Vandenberg, and I recently graduated from Middlebury College with a Conservation Biology major and Chinese minor. Much of my time in school was spent out in the field conducting macroinvertebrate surveys or bird banding, in the lab, or in my room studying Chinese. In my free time I enjoyed hiking around the beautiful state of Vermont, going to the climbing wall, and swing dancing. In the past, I have volunteered at a nature center rehabilitating wildlife, and at the Hudson River Park in New York as an environmental educator. In the future, I hope to go to grad school and eventually work in wildlife conservation.

While studying Chinese at Middlebury, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to improve my language skills and familiarity with Chinese culture and environmental issues when I studied abroad in Kunming (昆明) in the incredible province of Yunnan (云南) for 4 months. I took classes on China’s environment and development, studied the country’s geography, environmental regulations, agriculture, pollution, and conservation. As an independent project, I researched the conservation of endangered species in China, focusing on the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey and the Yangtze finless porpoise. I also had the opportunity to visit and interview park rangers living and working in a mountainous nature preserve for the Yunnan snub-nosed monkey.

Playing with elementary school students at a school for the kids of migrant workers.

In my free time, I joined many sorts of cultural activities such as Jeet Kune Do and tea ceremonies, and also conducted a meticulous, in-depth study of Chinese cuisine. I fell in love with mixian (米线), a type of rice noodle typical of Yunnan cuisine. After hearing so much about the legendary Sichuan cuisine (四川菜), expect lots of tidbits about the food we eat in my blog posts.

My favorite dish was 豆花米线 (dòu huà mixiàn), a Yunnan specialty. I am so excited to start working with the pandas and living in China, as well as sharing my experiences with you all!

Jeremy-