Our staff sat down with Junior, Austin Martz and talked to her about her life while living in China.

The Wrangler: Why did you move to China?

Martz: Because my dad works for an oil company and there were job openings there so my family moved.

The Wrangler: When did you move?

Martz: 2010.

The Wrangler: So the end of sixth grade?

Martz: Uh huh.

The Wrangler: How long were you there?

Martz: Four and a half years.

The Wrangler: What did you do while you were there?

Martz: Went to school and played soccer there.

The Wrangler: Who did you play for?

Martz: It was just the school team.

The Wrangler: Was it different than here?

Martz: Yeah, they didn’t have like school practice, it was after school things. And also over the weekends there was this like, a club that you could go to and play and we would just do scrimmages. I played forward

The Wrangler: How was traveling across Europe?

Martz: It was really awesome because- it kind of sucked ’cause I lived in China, it wasn’t a nice place honestly- but there was a lot of upsides because we got to travel all around Asia and also go to Europe. We had a lot of opportunities like that. It was the best four years.

The Wrangler: What was your favorite part about Europe? Specifically your favorite country?

Martz: I liked Paris, we went to France and I loved it. It was so olden-timey and pretty.

The Wrangler: Did you go to the Louvre?

Martz: Yeah, it was awesome.

The Wrangler: I noticed you said something about where you lived, what was bad about China?

Martz: It’s really, really polluted. There were days at school where we had to stay inside. They didn’t let us go outside and do activities because it was so polluted and it was dangerous. Like here- they have this scale and here the pollution is in the twenties in particle size, but in China it’s four hundred, especially where I lived.

The Wrangler: Where did you live?

Martz: In Chengdu, it’s in the middle of China.

The Wrangler: Did you leave any friends behind?

Martz: Yeah, I met some of my closest friends, but it’s kind of weird because you can make really close friends but everybody that lived there was similar to our family, they moved around a lot. So you would meet someone- my best friend that I met there, she left a year before I did to a different country in Asia- so it’s kind of hard because you know eventually either you’re going to have to leave or they’re going to leave.

The Wrangler: So it was a school where most of the people moved around?

Martz: Yeah, it was an international school.

The Wrangler: Can you say anything in Mandarin?

Martz: I can say ‘My name is Austin’.

(Says ‘My name is Austin’ in Mandarin). I’m not fluent though. (Laughs)