BEIJING -- When Baltimore student Brandon Fleming returns this month from a semester of study abroad, he'll carry a new view of China.
"I didn't really know what to expect," said Brandon, 17, a senior at Polytechnic Institute. "A lot of peasants sure, but not streets full of bikes and cars. It doesn't feel like a socialist country with everything under government control. And it's far more colorful than books suggest."
He and 17 American classmates recently ended a remarkable semester, arranged by School Year Abroad, a nonprofit organization that offered a trial immersion in the language and culture of the world's most populous country.
Brandon, who wants to be a doctor or engineer, jumped at the chance to put his Chinese studies into practice. He won a scholarship covering half of the $12,000 trip, and over the summer his mother, Edna Fleming, waged an aggressive fund-raising campaign.
After an article about that campaign appeared in The Sun in July, Morgan State University and several individuals contributed enough money to cover his remaining costs -- and even provide some spending money.
On Sept. 1, he began life at Middle School No. 2, attached to Beijing Normal University in the city's academic northwest.
The school presented a microcosm of today's China.
The entrance sat near a construction site. A coal dump blackened the outdoor table-tennis games fought by Chinese students eager to practice the English language skills so vital for future job prospects. And every morning their individual goals yielded to regimented mass exercises.
Brandon lived in a concrete room shared by three other classmates -- as opposed to eight in Chinese dormitories.
American SYA teachers patrolled the halls, keeping their charges on a tight leash with a workload comparable to that in a U.S. boarding school.
The day began at 8 a.m. with the English, math and history necessary for credits back home, plus Chinese language and calligraphy.
Evening study, from 8 p.m. until the 11 p.m. curfew, was preceded by a welcome physical release, the ancient martial arts of wushu.
Cutting the air with iron palms, Brandon sought to emulate the Hong Kong master Jackie Chan, famed for his cup-trembling "drunken master" routines.
Brandon and his classmates tended to avoid the dull canteen for a street restaurant nearby, where bowls of dumplings steamed. Fried scorpions topped the menu -- "they taste like dirt," he said -- at the home of Brandon's host Chinese family, where he spent some weekends for a fuller immersion in Beijing life.
"Their hospitality is amazing," he said. "If you say you like something, they think you want it and get it straightaway."
Beijing carried some hints of American life.
A bag of goodies from the Hard Rock Cafe revealed where Brandon got his fix of Americana. And a five-star hotel buffet catered to the group's Thanksgiving needs.
As an African-American, Brandon was prepared for the rigorous staring that anyone "unusual" must endure in China.
"I tell them I'm American, but they insist I must be African," Brandon said, noting that universities here accepted African students long before China opened to the West.
"Racism hasn't been a big problem, as we go out together and one of my friends is a tall blonde who attracts enough attention of her own. But in the countryside, I could feel it on my back, people following me with their eyes," he said.
Yet he appreciated the chance to travel, taking trips to major historical sites such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Army at Xian.
Brandon's favorite was Inner Mongolia, for the saddle-sore pleasures of horse riding on open grasslands and sleeping in traditional yurt tents.
Now, Brandon and friends are spending a fortnight in Vietnam. As part of the trip, they're attending history lessons given by U.S. and Vietnamese war veterans.
Then it's back home to Northeast Baltimore for "Star Trek," steamed crabs and a Christmas reunion with family.