“Mulan! What happened to your hair?” Mushu asked almost panicked. I sighed, Mushu and I have been friends since we were born; not only are we best friends but also cousins and he is now becoming my travel companion. I got accepted to a school in the states called the S.S.R.K.; this is huge for me. Our families agreed to have Mushu go with me so I won’t be lonely in this new world. The only thing about me going to this school is that I’m listed as a boy. Since I was a little girl my parents have been treating me like a fragile doll. As I have aged Mushu has helped me enter in an all boys karate dojo. The first step was changing my name to Ping. Every time I would attend practice or championship I would tie my hair up and as I’ve gotten older I’ve had to start wrapping my chest but Mushu says it makes me look muscular.

I had him meet me at the small airport outside our home town. I touched my now short hair, it was cut into a shaggy bowl cut and I have to say it looks horrible. It used to be down to the middle of my back but…

“I cut it. It wasn’t meant to be this short, but I’m not very good with scissors.” Mushu’s mouth hung open.

“You cut it? By yourself? Why?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“I don’t know. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing.” As a voice came over the loudspeaker telling us that it was time to board; I picked up my carry on and we boarded the plane. The plane is small and packed. I feel the blue carpet-like material covering the seats as we squeeze past other people to get to our section. Mushu put my carry on in the little cubby above our seats while I settled in the spot near the window.

I’m excited about my first trip to America, but I’m also nervous. I’ve traveled a lot throughout China, but have never been outside the country. I pulled my headphones out of the small bag that I kept in my lap and put them on my head. I turned on my favorite song and gazed out the window. It was an hour before we took off and then another fourteen hours before we reached our destination.

“Mulan, wake up. The planes about to land, let’s get ready.” I sat up in my seat, still not quite awake and pulled my white packet out of my bag, wanting to read the paperwork real quick.

“It looks like a rep from the school will meet us at the gate when we unload. They will give us our information and take us to the school.” The plane landed and we filed off into a hallway and into the building. An older woman with long gray hair and dressed in a long red sundress was standing outside the gate holding a large sign with our names on it. We walked over to the women who seemed to be beaming at us.

“Welcome to the united states, you must be Ping and Mushu.” We nodded and smiled. “Here are your packets. We’re going to pick up your suitcases and be on our way.” It wasn’t hard to find our luggage. I only had the one suitcase and the thing is hard to miss. The large suitcase is bright blue with stickers of my favorite anime on it. Mushu’s is just as big but the color is black and he had painted an animated red and yellow dragon on it. We didn’t bring much with us, thinking that we could buy anything else we needed while we were here.

We walked out of the airport and into the hustle of traffic. A black sedan waited for us, we loaded our luggage into the trunk and climbed in. The ride was long and quiet, I looked out the window and watched as the busy city turned into small clusters of homes, farmland and then forest. After a few hours, we turned into a long driveway and followed it for about a half mile. Trees lined the long driveway until it opened in front of a large building. The school looked old, built out of red brick and wood, with large windows stretching across the front while the rest of building seemed to stretch on forever. This place didn’t look much like any school I have seen, but more like a mansion. We walked up the large stone staircase and through the large wooden doors. The women stepped in front of us.

“Welcome to the S.S.R.K. I’ll take you to your dorm rooms so you can get settled.” We took a right out of the foyer and walked down a long hallway. It seemed to me that the decor of the place didn’t change much with dark blue carpeting and cream colored walls. The curtains that hung from the windows were a sheer tan color and hung so they wrapped around the iron curtain rod and hung down to the floor. We followed the hall until we found a staircase. We had to go up about three flights of stairs before stopping in front of the first door.

“Mushu, this will be your room. Your roommate hasn’t arrived, he will be here within a month.” Mushu pumped his fist and grinned at me.

“Yes! A room all to myself for a month.” He walked with us to my room which was just a few doors down from his. A little white board hung on the door with the name Chang written on it. The women knocked and opened the door with her master key.

“This will be your room. Your things will be on the left if you need anything just ask. Have a good night you two.” She left Mushu and me standing there looking into the room. The room was plain with two regular size beds, two dressers, two desks and two nightstands. One side of the room seemed to be taken over. The bed was dressed in blue sheets, books and a laptop on the night stand. Mushu said he was going to unpack and headed back to his room. I put my suitcase on my bed and started to unpack. I didn’t have much, just a few pairs of clothes, a photo album and some of my favorite books. When I finished unpacking I thought about what I wanted to do next, deciding that it was a good plan to follow grams idea in leaving late Thursday night to arrive Friday afternoon giving us the whole weekend to explore.