Are you an American student based in Beijing interested in volunteering for the U.S. Embassy? We were informed about a great opportunity that we wanted to share with the Pengyou community. More details below!

Calling all U.S. students based in Beijing!  Are you willing to volunteer to share American culture with ordinary Beijingers, while making some new Chinese friends?

The Beijing American Center has started a series of “coffee hours” twice a month, in which American students volunteer to lead conversation tables with Chinese people who are interested in talking with them.  Our goal is to increase opportunities that Beijingers have to interact with “real live” Americans, giving them a chance practice English by chatting with students about their studies, time in China, life back home, U.S. culture and education, etc.  This is casual, informal conversation rather than any sort of presentation.  We’ve had three very successful sessions, drawing up to 80 attendees each time, and the feedback from attendees has been great—we keep getting requests to have more!

These events have proven to be a great chance for Chinese people to learn more about the United States—and for U.S. students to continue their cultural exchange with the people of China.  If you’re interested in participating in one or more of the sessions, please email BeijingBAC@state.gov.  The time commitment per session is only a couple of hours.  Here are the upcoming dates we have scheduled—please also let us know if you’d be interested in participating over the summer months:

• Friday, April 26, 3pm – 5pm
• Wednesday, May 8, 3pm – 5pm
• Friday, May 24, 3pm – 5pm
• Wednesday, June 5, 3pm – 5pm
• Friday, June 21, 3pm – 5pm

The Beijing American Center, part of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, is a public outreach space, with frequent cultural and educational events as well as a reading room and multimedia lab onsite.  Our hours are Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm, though we also have frequent evening and weekend programs.

Our most up-to-date event information can be found on our Douban page: http://site.douban.com/127124/.
Address: Suite 2801, Jingguang Center Hu Jia Lou, Chaoyang District, Beijing
A map of the Center is available here: http://g.co/maps/6tazp

We are always eager to have Americans residing in China get involved with our programs.  Please be in touch—we always welcome ideas for how we can better share U.S. culture with the people of Beijing!