I’ve been living in Taipei for nearly three months so am quite used to everything here. As the weather is now much cooler and I’m used to the cultural differences here, November has definitely been my most enjoyable month here so far. I’m also starting to notice a real improvement in my Chinese level now. An example of this is my listening ability, before coming to Taiwan I used to translate everything I heard into English in my head, but now when I’m in class or talking with locals, I automatically understand what they’re saying, even if they’re using new words.
Taiwanese society has quite a strong concept of “zijiren” and “waiguoren” so making Taiwanese friends was difficult at first, however, my social life here is with time slowly starting to improve. The university assigned me a language partner whom I can practice Chinese with. He’s an English major at the university called Elvis. We meet at least once a week to go and get food and he usually brings his Taiwanese friends. Last week we went to a “small hot pot restaurant” and it was my first time eating hotpot. The restaurant was great and the food was really cheap! It’s also really nice to use Chinese in real life situations outside the classroom and be able to put your language skills into practice.
The university has an end-of-term holiday for one week coming up so I’m planning to go travelling in the South of Taiwan as I haven’t been there yet. I think I’ll go to Kenting and Kaoshiung as I’ve heard that the beaches and weather are good there!
As part of my undergraduate degree in Chinese Studies, I spent the last academic year abroad, initially in Beijing at Peking University. The course in Beijing covered a broad range of areas, from newspaper reading and 20th century literature, to more advanced speaking classes and classical Chinese. Upon the outbreak of COVID-19, my UK university instructed Year Abroad students to move to Taipei where we attended Mandarin classes at National Taiwan Normal University. The teaching at both universities was excellent and I am pleased to see that my Mandarin has improved significantly.
However as I’m sure many other language students who have been lucky enough to study abroad would agree, my most significant learning came outside the classroom.
Peking University had a wide variety of extracurricular activities to get involved with. I particularly enjoyed attending Sanshou Kungfu and Calligraphy classes. In both Beijing and Taipei I was lucky enough to make lots of Chinese-speaking friends, which not only helped improve my Mandarin, but also helped broaden my understanding of Chinese culture and society.
The highlight of the year was without doubt the opportunity to travel widely around China.
Thanks to the support of the John Speak Language Trust, I was able to explore diverse parts of China, ranging from the amazing spectacle of Harbin’s Ice Festival to ultra-modern Shanghai.
I am extremely grateful to the John Speaks Language Trust for their generous financial support this year which has allowed me to really make the most of my time abroad. The chance to live and study abroad is an incredible opportunity and it is fantastic that the Trust is helping students to do this.
A big highlight of this year has undoubtedly been the chances to go traveling. From modern, international shanghai to Luoyang with its rich history, from Yunnan which has been blessed by nature to Hangzhou which has been made so famous due to its West Lake, I have been to lots of unforgettable places. The place that has left the deepest impression on me is world famous Zhangjiajie. After seeing the film Avatar which is filmed in Zhangjiajie, I decided I wanted to see in person this unique scenery. In my opinion, Zhangjiajie seems heavenly and otherworldly.
The main goal for this year has been to improve my Chinese. I believe I have realized this goal and made some marked progress. Reading a Chinese novel a year ago felt like really hard work. Now I’m in the habit of doing it to relax. My favorite Chinese work of literature is San Mao’s “Stories from the Sahara”. In this novel, the author tells some stories from when she lived in the Sahara. She describes local habits and customs and opens the reader’s eyes to North African life and culture. At the moment I am focusing my efforts on writing. What I find trickiest is not so much writing in correct Chinese but rather in writing more natural, elegant sentences that are closer to those of a native speaker. I’ve been practicing this every day. Chinese has a saying that studying is like rowing upstream and that if you are not making progress then you are going backwards. It’s a bit similar to practise makes perfect.
Another highlight of this year has been making lots of Chinese friends. After arriving in China, I did my best to immerse myself in Chinese culture and spend lots of time with native speakers. By doing this, I could practise my Chinese and learn more about local culture. It really is killing two birds with one stone. I don’t think you can seek out close friends but rather you meet them by chance. As such, I am very lucky to have made quite a few good friends.
Overall, this year has been full of all sorts of amazing experiences. I hope that in the future I will have more opportunities to live in China as this has definitely been the most unforgettable year of my life so far.
Every winter, Harbin in North East China hosts the Ice Festival. Harbin Ice Festival is the world’s biggest ice festival which attracts countless visitors from China and abroad every year. The spot that attracts the most people is Harbin Ice and Snow World. Tourists can admire magnificent ice sculptures illuminated with multicolored lights there. My seniors in the UK and Chinese friends had all said visiting the Ice Festival is an unforgettable experience, so I decided to go to Harbin to celebrate my birthday with my classmates.
When we arrived in Harbin, the weather was terrible.The sky was black and the wind was piercing. It was -20 degrees Celsius. Luckily, we came prepared. Before leaving Beijing, I had bought a mountain of me clothes (2 pairs of gloves, a balaclava, thermals etc) as it’s better to be safe than sorry. I was wearing layer upon layer of clothes, but still felt very cold.
The next day, we went to the park which hosted the ice sculpture competition. There were all sorts of sculptures, from a real thermometer and magnificent palaces to Peppa Pig’s car and an enormous Sphinx. To be honest, my favorite was a slide, because we could slide down it on a toboggan! In front of every statue there hung a sign with some information written on it, for example who made the statue or the sculptor’s intentions for making the statue. The thing that surprised me most was that lots were made by university students. I wish I had that sort of talent! Lots of ice sculptures had symbolic meaning, for example the artist’s patriotic fervor or international students’ gratitude to have the opportunity to study in China.
That evening, we went to the Ice and Snow World. Our driver was new to Harbin but was born and bred in the Northern part of Heilongjiang (China’s most northerly province where Harbin is located). When he asked us what our impression of Harbin was, we said we really liked it, but we couldn’t stand the weather. He obviously thought we were making a mountain out of a molehill. In his opinion, you could do without both gloves and hats. He said that the weather then didn’t count as cold, and that in Harbin the temperature could be lower than -30. In addition, in his home town at its coldest it was about -50. That, in his opinion, counted as cold.
Ice and Snow World completely exceeded my expectations. The vast majority of the sculptures were bigger than my house! There were great castles and imposing towers, elegant Buddhas and lively ice bars. In this unusual bar, the building, the bar counter and even the seats were all made of solid ice. We spent a while there, chatting and drinking Harbin beer. The bartender told us he had to keep the beer in a special warm box to stop it freezing!
I will never forget the experience of going to Harbin Ice Festival. I would encourage anyone to go to what is one of the best, if not the best, Ice Festival in the world if they get a chance.
However, if you do go to Harbin, you need to be careful. Harbin is a lot colder than almost any city in Europe so wearing thick clothes and gloves and hat is a must!
From the modern skyscrapers of Shanghai to the the beautiful scenery of Huangshan, from Hangzhou’s lake which is as beautiful as a painting to Nanjing’s bustling city center, China is a country full of contrasts. Last month I went to 4 completely different places. This trip made me consider some of China’s contrasts.
Shanghai is a melting pot of lots of different cultures. When I arrived in Shanghai, my first impression was that this metropolis was very different to other Chinese cities I had been to. Apart from the western style architecture, the ‘modern city’ (Shanghai) also has lots of foreigners. Nowadays, lots of foreigners live in the ‘imperial city’ (Beijing), especially in Wudaokou which is near lots of famous universities and in Sanlitun, an expat hub. However, from what I saw, the number of foreigners in Shanghai far exceeds that of Beijing. In addition, Shanghai also has all sorts of food. For example, I was a little surprised to see Lebanese and Turkish food. Out of all the foods I ate in Shanghai, my favorite were the Shengjian dumplings and the baguettes and croissant. Shanghai truly is an international city!
A land of contrasts
After leaving this modern, tier 1 mega city, I went to Huangshan. Because it was the low season, there were very few tourists. We climbed Huangshan whilst enjoying the bird song and fragrant flowers, the gentle wind and beautiful sun. In my opinion, Huangshan is paradise. Huangshan is definitely one of the most beautiful places I have been to, close behind Hangzhou’s West Lake.
Chinese has an old saying that ‘above there is heaven, below there are Hangzhou and Suzhou. This saying highlights the natural beauty of these 2 cities. Hangzhou is famous around the world because of West Lake. We first cycled on the banks of the lake, then took a boat on the lake. In my literature classes we have studied lots of poems describing West Lake (for example Bai Juyi’s “Xihu liubie” and “Hangzhou huifang”. After seeing West Lake, I can understand why these poets admire West Lake so much. We also went to a village by Hangzhou with field terraces.
Nanjing is very different to Hangzhou. Nanjing seems like a very lively city with a fast pace of life whilst Hangzhou has a slower pace of life where people’s days go buy in a more relaxed way. The activity that left the deepest impression on me was going to visit Sun Yat Sen’s Mausoleum. Under his leadership, China started on the path from being a feudal society to becoming a more modern, fairer country. This pioneer’s enormous contribution to the Chinese people is undeniable.
My Western friends often ask me 2 questions about living in China: ‘how is your experience of living in China?’ and ‘what sort of country do you think China is?’. The first question is very easy to answer (I love living in China) but the second question is more complicated. China is the most populous country in the world. This means there are vast differences between different places. There are modern cities and beautiful scenery. Diverse metropolises and traditional villages. Apart from Chinese food like Hunanese food, Sichuanese food and Cantonese food, there is Western food and Middle Eastern food. There are peaceful lakes and moving memorials. Chinese people and foreigners.
我之所以不能回答“中国是个什么样的国家”这个问题可能是因为中国的关键特征是它的反差。
Perhaps the reason why I cannot answer the question ‘what sort of country is China?’ is because China’s key trait is its contrasts.
Last weekend, I travelled to Luoyang, Shaolin Temple and Kaifeng on a shoestring. After a busy week in Beijing, I was very excited to escape the Capital and explore some places I had never been to before. After finishing class, we went to the station to board the so-called fast train (actually China’s slowest train) to Henan.
Train attendants sell all sorts of products on Chinese trains. From Inner Mongolian milk pills (I personally still think milk is better as a liquid), to train souvenirs, they sell it all. That day’s specialty was preserved Xinjiang fruit. One passenger bought some and gave us some to try. They were pretty good. We chatted with the other passengers for a bit, and then decided to get some sleep because we had an early start in the morning.
Our first destination was Shaolin Temple. Shaolin Temple has a long history and is known far and wide. Shaolin Temple is the ancestral temple for Chinese Chan Buddhism and is the birthplace of Kung Fu. I’ve been interested in Kung Fu since I was little, so being able to go to Shaolin Temple really was a dream come true! Perhaps the most famous part of Shaolin temple is the Forest of Pagodas. There are stone brick burial pagodas from the Tang, Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties as well as from the modern era. The most unforgettable experience was seeing the Shaolin Monk Kung Fu show. They invited some members of the audience up onto the stage to copy the monks’ movements. They obviously were not able to copy the monks’ movements successfully, but everybody supported them and cheered them on! On the next day, we went to Kaifeng to do some sightseeing. I had heard that Kaifeng had lots of delicious food. My favourite was their Xiaolongbao (a sort of dumpling with a soup-like liquid in them). Just thinking about them makes my mouth water!
On the third day, we went to the world famous Longmen Grottos on the outskirts of Luoyang. Luoyang is a city with over 4000 years of history and was the eastern starting point of the Silk Roads. In China, Luoyang is classified as a medium scale city – its population is ‘only’ 7.1 million people! The Longmen Grottos are made up of a series of caves. In the caves, there are stone carvings of the Buddha. According to experts, the Longmen Grottos are “grotto temples”, which means believers went to the Longmen Grottos to pray and worship the Buddha. The Longmen Grottos left a deep impression on me as seeing the Grottos with my own eyes was even more spectacular than I had imagined!
I really love budget travelling. When I’m in Europe, I like to go travelling with my friends. One time we bought return flights to Sweden for just £2. We could not believe it! But apart from being cheaper, budget travelling also has other advantages. The most important of these is that it gives us more opportunities to come into contact with local people. As a language student, these chance encounters are really valuable opportunities, as each encounter provides opportunities to improve my language level and practise speaking Chinese. This is really important as it is only through continuous practise that we can master a language. After all, practise really does make perfect!
Being filmed by Youku (Chinese Youtube) about my life in Beijing
As part of my undergraduate degree, I spent a year abroad in Beijing where I enrolled at Peking University. The course at Peking University consisted of all key areas of the Mandarin language, including areas such as speaking to newspaper reading, and even advancing our skills in classical Chinese. The excellent teaching meant that I continued to improve throughout the year, and could iron out issues that had previously been causing been problems.
Getting my haircut in Inner Mongolia
However, as most students would probably agree, time outside of class was just as, if not more, enjoyable. But also, crucially, I would argue, absolutely vital to my language and cultural acquisition. It was by travelling to various parts of China that I got to grips with the cultural, linguistic and geographical differences of the country. This oft-perceived heterogeneous nation is in fact bursting with idiosyncratic and dynamic cities and provinces.
Hotpot with friends!
Throughout the year, I visited a good number of different cities and areas. I started off visiting the barren ghost city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, in Golden Week, before subjecting to myself to temperatures of -20C in Harbin in December. I then thawed out in Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangxi during the week of spring break. Here, the chance to escape the concrete jungle of Beijing and discover the breath-taking natural landscape of China was a welcome one: hiking 20km with 2km of ascent/descent in Tiger Leaping Gorge was a favourite memory of mine, closely followed by a 40km bike ride surrounded by the imposing Karst mountains in Guilin. Travelling also proved to do wonders for my aural and oral skills; conversing with locals from all over the country made me practise no end and forced me out of my comfort zone. However, it also showed me the gulf I still need to overcome; the Naxi minority of Yunnan (speaking Mandarin as their second language) was especially tricky to understand!
This opportunity to travel has been solely down to generosity of the John Speak grant which relieved me of the financial burden this year. The grant also encouraged me to find an internship related to my future career plans.
At the bottom of the Tiger Leaping Gorge
Consequently, I worked as an unpaid intern at Trivium China, a political consulting firm, which presented me the challenge of reading policy documents, newspapers and other primary sources in Chinese, as well as contributing to bespoke consulting projects within the team. It has confirmed my interest in the field and has undoubtedly been a great asset to my CV! The monthly reports also served to reflect on my time throughout the year but also help practise my writing skills on the topics that were of interest to me. Funding for year abroad students is still exceptionally hard to acquire, thus I am extremely grateful to the John Speak trust and would recommend any student wishing to study abroad to apply for their grants!
Not long ago I saw a notice from the Tsinghua University Ski Association in my dorm. Because I wanted to try skiing in China I signed up straight away. Furthermore I wanted to see how skiing here compared with skiing in Europe. That Friday after class, we took a bus to the Taiwoo ski resort in Chongli district, not far from Beijing.
When China hosts the 2022 Winter Olympics, all the skiing events will be held in Chongli district. Taiwoo ski resort has the largest vertical drop in Chongli, with the highest and lowest points 2160m and 1650m above sea level respectively. There are 10 pistes, with a total length of about 20km. Compared with the ski resorts in the Alps, in Taiwoo the vertical drop is much shorter, and the length of the pistes is much shorter, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t fun! And although skiing in China is relatively new, as the middle-class is growing, skiing is now very popular.
On the second day we started skiing. Because I have never been skiing outside Europe I was very excited. The feeling of being on the snow again was awesome, it really is one of my favourite hobbies! The weather was sunny, although terribly cold. The mountain is not as high as those in the Alps, but it was still minus 17 degrees! And although it was so cold here, it actually rarely snows, so the most surprising thing was that all the snow was man-made! How odd!
After skiing we all got together to eat hotpot, went to the sauna to warm up, and then sang some songs in a nearby bar. It really was a fun day!
The ‘Two Sessions’ are one the most important meetings in Chinese politics. At present, China is facing the difficulties of the Sino-American trade war and economic slowdown. This year’s meeting takes places at the one-year anniversary of Xi Jinping’s amendment of the constitution, where he removed presidential term limits, and also the 70th anniversary of the CCP’s rule. But in 2018, economic growth fell below expectations and slowed to 6.6%. This is the slowest rate of growth for China since 1990 and consequently, Li Keqiang set the economic growth target at 6.0%, 0.5% less compared to last year. In 1990, the Chinese economy suffered the effects of the Tiananmen Square protests, after which lots of countries boycotted Chinese products. China hopes that ‘One Belt One Road’ is the way out: by investing lots of money in developing countries, new consumers, new markets and new channels can be created.
The Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, also said that in the past 40 years, the most important focal point of Sino-American relations is through cooperation both sides can reap benefits. He hopes that if US government can distance themselves from their Cold War ideology, this will in turn lead to healthy competition. And in spite of many future challenges, he still believes that both countries can solve this issue. Wang also supported Huawei’s decision to take the US government to court. In the US, all of Huawei’s products are banned due to suspicions of their link with the Chinese government. Recently, the US also approved Meng Wanzhou’s extradition, who was arrested in Canada last year; from that moment on, Sino-American relations have become progressively worse. I think that Wang’s statement is extremely interesting: unexpectedly, the Chinese government is trying to protect its citizens and companies. But what’s more interesting is that the Chinese government recognises the fact that the longer the trade war continues, the larger the effects will be. Although the US will be affected badly, China will be affected even more, since Chinese companies rely on American technology. If US technology companies are ordered by the US government to stop all interaction with China, this could lead to great social, economic and political problems.
The first day of the Two Sessions vs Third day
Wang also confirmed that Xi would visit Europe next month. Although he said that Sino-European relations were good, he said that it could be influenced by external factors, hinting that Europe shouldn’t follow US’ example, such as pressuring China over trade deficits.
Although on the surface the Two Sessions are serious, they are still some rather amusing (and bemusing things!)– for example there was a rap song which promoted the meeting featuring solely English lyrics. Were the intended audience foreigners, or does the Chinese government think that English songs are more popular? I’m still not sure! But the big problem was that the lyrics didn’t make sense, due to countless errors. Consequently, it didn’t matter the audience, no one could understand it, which makes me think that the idea has somewhat backfired.
In addition, a politician said that Tibet welcomed foreigners and that any restrictions were simply because the government needed to protect foreigners’ health. Due to the Tibet’s geographical and climatic challenge, foreign travellers could have difficulty adjusting to the high altitude. He even said that local people had sometimes found travellers’ corpses in tents!
Finally, just after the Two Sessions had started, I looked out the window, and still saw the grey of the air pollution, which was quite depressing: normally, when Beijing is hosting a large political meeting, a few days before its opening, the government orders the nearby factories to stop production. As a result, Beijing’s sky is blue and everyone enjoys breathing in the fresh air. But this week, it was only two days after the Two Sessions had started that the blue sky appeared. This clearly means that the current air pollution is serious and that it needed a long time to disappear.
After seventeen weeks, I’m finally on holiday. It’s now -5 degrees in Beijing, so people recommended that I go to somewhere warmer like Yunnan, Hong Kong or Macao. But instead I decided to go somewhere even colder: Harbin! I decided to go because from December through to February each year Harbin hosts the International Snow and Ice Festival, which is one the best and most famous tourist attractions in China.
Harbin has an tumultuous history. Before 1896, it was just a small fishing village, but at the end of the 19th century, Russian workers started to build Trans-Siberian railway: Harbin’s railway connected Lake Baikal and Vladivostok. In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, Harbin was the base for Russian military activities. Then in 1917, many Russians came to Harbin to escape the Russian Revolution, thus Harbin had the largest Russian population outside the Soviet Union at that time. Therefore, on the streets there are Russian-style buildings everywhere. For example, Saint Sophia’s Cathedral is the city’s biggest and most beautiful church: it’s dark green dome really is jaw-dropping! I could have quite easily be standing in Moscow! I also tried some Russian delicacies, like borsch, which was tasty.
Snow sculptures
Also, Harbin’s International Snow and Ice Festival is the word’s biggest Snow and Festival. In 1984, at the first festival, it only attracted Chinese tourists. But since then, it has become an international event, attracting people from all over the world. In 2018, 18 million people came to Harbin. The festival comprises of Sun Island and Snow and Ice World. Sun Island has various snow sculptures: despite their large size, they are nonetheless very intricate. As it became darker, I headed over to the Snow and Ice world which had full-size illuminated buildings, made up of 2-3 metre thick ice cubes cut directly from Songhua River. The buildings included temples, Big Ben and the Colosseum! Although it was bitterly cold, and so my phone quickly ran out of battery, I still managed to taken some photos: the contrast between the multi-coloured buildings and the black sky really was something special. But after two or three hours, having seen nearly all the sculptures, I really wanted to go back to the hotel: even wearing three jumpers, two jackets, and four pairs of jeans, I felt absolutely freezing.
The Unit 731 Mausoleum is the most pitiable attraction in Harbin. In WW2, Japanese soldiers carried out atrocious experiments: 3000 Chinese and enemy soldiers were guinea pigs for the experiments; they were deliberately infected with the plague, choler and anthrax. Some of the more horrific experiments include vivisection without anaesthesia. Seeing all the used medical equipment, the photos showing the prisoners with the awful symptoms as well as the accounts from the prisoners moved me greatly. But I also felt angry because I learned that very few Japanese generals and soldiers who carried out these experiments were brought to justice since the post-war American and Japanese governments made a secret deal whereby those Japanese involved got immunity in return for giving the US the results of their experiments.
