Settling in & Campus Life
大家好! This is Leah(莫丽娅) and Matilde(紫雨) reporting back from China!
We are now 3 weeks into our Chinese adventure and loving it here. Surprisingly the hardest thing to adjust to was not the food nor the culture but the squat toilets. You need to be extremely brave to even attempt to use them and extremely stupid to do so in flared trousers. Moving on, the campus is massive and filled with everything you could think you’d want. Including tennis courts, basketball courts, cafes, a library, nature walk and most importantly - 7/11 When we’re feeling slightly less adventurous at mealtime we will go there for Onigiiri/fantuan and sushi or pot noodles. Otherwise we will go to the canteens.
Classes started a week in and are extremely hard work but we feel like we are learning lots in very short amounts of time due to immersion/ making friends with other students. The people here are very friendly and happy to take you to their favourite restaurants/ spots in the the city!
We have explored outside of campus as well, discovering lots of fun activities to do after classes such as pottery painting, playing basketball and badminton or playing pool. however, the best place to be on an evening is the campus’ playground, where we have the chance to run, do physical activity as well as make many great friends. This is the best place to practice our mandarin skills while playing games and getting to meet many different people.
The food on campus is always great, but it is awesome fun to adventure out into TianJin and try new restaurants, to really experience the different types of cuisine, styles of eating as well as going on walks along the night market - who knows, you might find some gorgeous jewellery, fun trinkets and games or try Chinese perfumes.
Each class has several teachers - up to five - to allow us to learn in different ways and test our knowledge, with comprehension and reading classes, as well as overall cultural and surroundings awareness. Our homework varies from learning vocabulary, doing grammar exercises or even making videos to explore all areas that make up china.
The best advice is to expose yourself to as many activities possible, from making friends and going shopping at 天津市和平区, to joining choirs and helping Chinese students through questionnaires/giving interviews. Everyone is extremely friendly, all you have to do is say yes!
Other than making Chinese friends, we have met lots of other international students within our campus with whom we have shared our dorms, for example people from Kazakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Kenya, Czeck republic, Russia, India, Mongolia and many more. It is truly a fully immersive opportunity to learn about all the world, making lots of life long friendships that will stay with you in life as well as shape you as a person. So far, it has been great!
