Meeting Vera Wang, a Fashion Icon

Vera Wang: "American fashion designer based in New York City"

On September 11, 2013, I approached Union Grounds prepared to meet a young lady by the name of Vera Wang. I expected to see somebody decked out in exquisite clothing and smelling like a goddess, but instead I found a very modest looking girl quietly listening to her iPod among the hectic afternoon BLUU crowd. Rong “Vera” Wang is my Intensive English Program conversation partner from Shanghai, China.

After our formal introductions with each other, I immediately followed up by simply asking Vera how she is enjoying living in the United States so far. I explained that I was quite similar to her because I came to Texas Christian University from Boston, MA. We connected over the fact that Texas lifestyle in general moves at a much slower pace than the hustle and bustle of city living, and she also noted how much different the work ethic seemed to be here than back home. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit when she said that her typical work day back in China meant that she would wake up at 7:00AM and go to school and study until around 12:00AM every day. We exchanged even more laughs when I jokingly told her that I probably don’t do that much work in an entire week’s time, and she probably thought I was serious.

Most of our conversation discussed the general topics about our activities and aspirations for the future, and Vera told me how she hoped to perfect her English (which at the time was very broken) and then proceed to study at the University of California: Berkeley. She plans on taking the SAT in a few months, and she already told me how she is expecting a perfect score on the Math portion of the exam. Right as I thought she was only going to talk about school though, I was surprised to hear the next topic get brought up: Fake IDs. According to Vera, almost all of her international comrades have at least attempted to obtain a fake identification in order to go out to bars on the weekends. She asked me if many of the American students had them, and then proceeded to ask about what we did for fun at night outside of the classroom. When I tried to explain fraternities and sororities though, there was definitely a lack of understanding. That of course was to be expected though.

One of the most interesting points in our conversation came later on when she casually told me that it happened to be her birthday that day. She explained how all of her friends from the IE Program sang to her that morning and presented her with a cake and several small presents. The only thing that Vera talked about being rather awkward was the fact that it was September 11th, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our country. She was unsure if it was appropriate for her to be celebrating her own birthday on a day marked with such tragedy in the United States. I totally understood where she was coming from, and truly felt sorry for those feelings. What I ended up doing was actually explaining that she could most definitely celebrate her birthday, and changed the subject to much more of a happy topic from there on out.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed my first conversation with Vera Wang! I hope in the future we can talk more about funny experiences that have happened to her since being in America, and maybe go out to a couple bars on the weekends (only joking).