Most of our class is spending their year abroad at Peking University, China’s most famous university. As the name suggest， Peking University is big ( in Chinese 北大 means Peking University and 大 means big)， with over 30,000 students. Naturally, a university this big has all sorts of extra curricular societies. From sports to economics, art to politics, whatever you want to take part in, you can at Beida. In Cambridge, our time is organized down to the last minute, so I have no time to try all the activities I want to do. In reality, Cambridge students have time to participate in one, at most two, societies. I chose rowing – and our team trains at least once a day.
But in China, I wanted to try something new and start doing activities I’ve always had an interest in but never had the opportunity to do. The first was dance. Beida has more than eight dance teams, including all different types of dance. After going to a few classes, the hip hop team leader said I could join the team – I was so happy! The team dance really well and take part in nationwide competitions every term. At the moment, I am definitely the worst in the class, but I hope I will make progress with some serious practice! We train three times a week in the Peking University Sports Hall, Beida’s largest sports facility. On an aside, it’s quite famous – this is where the 2008 Beijing Olympic table tennis competition took place!
In August 2014 I set off for Beijing for my year abroad at Peking University to continue with my language studies. I’d spent a month in Beijing the summer before and loved it, so I went back with very high expectations of what my year abroad was going to be like. Somehow, my experiences in China still managed to exceed my expectations.
Thanks to the John Speak Trust, I managed to spend many of my long weekends and holidays travelling around China and I saw so many more places than I was expecting to, and met so many locals I otherwise wouldn’t have. I have so many stories to share after these last ten months and these memories will stay with me forever. Of course, living in Beijing did have its occasional low moments – like when it was -13 degrees and the pollution levels were off the scales. Despite this, I am still extremely keen to return to Beijing to work after I graduate, not only just to be back in such an exciting city, but also to make sure I keep up my improved language skills. Going on a year abroad was an amazing way to get out of my comfort zone and I would recommend it to everyone who has the chance.
I’m extremely grateful to the John Speak Trust for granting me this scholarship since it played a significant role in making my year abroad as incredible as it was.
Last week, as I was waiting for my English student to turn up in our usual café spot, the man sitting diagonally opposite me suddenly introduced himself. I thought he looked about 40 years old and based on his designer clothes I assumed him to be reasonably wealthy. He started in English, but later when we realised we both speak Japanese, we switched. At first our conversation contained nothing of note, but the reason I mention this incident is because his views on the relationship between Chinese characters and Christianity left an impression. He asked me a few questions, such as, do you know the origin of the character ‘to ban’, or the one for ‘boat’? How about the character for ‘disorder’? I replied honestly and my ignorance seemed to make him happy, as he went on to explain the close relationship between these characters and the Bible. For example, he claimed the tree radical in ‘to ban’ derives from the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis. For ‘boat’ and ‘disorder’ (which has the tongue radical) he referred to Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel respectively. Although his theory was very interesting, and it made me reflect on the classical Chinese I’ve been doing at Peking University, there were some obvious flaws that had to be addressed; in particular, problems of chronology and geography. When and where did the Chinese language come into contact with Christianity? At that time, didn’t the characters above already exist? Not unexpectedly, he later revealed he was a Jehovah’s Witness. By the time my student came, we had chatted pleasantly for about half an hour.
Lucky Sticks
I went last month with four friends to Guilin and Yangshuo, where we travelled for a week. We took the 19 hour hard sleeper to Guilin from Beijing. Surprisingly the hard sleeper was reasonably comfortable, though we decided in the end a three hour flight back would be more convenient. Guilin and Yangshuo are both beautiful destinations, and I would highlight the Moonlight Hills and Li River in particular. The latter having the scene depicted on the back of the 20 kuai note. I also took part in a cooking class (I was travelling with four girls), where I learnt (tenuous use of the verb) to cook various authentic local dishes – the relevant recipes have already been passed on to my mum. Indeed, in my view, the highlight of these places is simply the food. I especially recommend you to try the beer fish and steel pipe chicken, if you have the chance.
Last week was also Beijing University’s Chinese Performance Competition. All classes had to participate and perform. We went for two songs – the traditional song Molihua accompanied by beatboxing and a Chinese rendition of Disney’s ‘let it go’ – both of which were well received. Even though the majority of us sing truly awfully, we still picked up the prize for best sung performance (don’t actually remember anyone else singing).
The British Embassy in Beijing hosted an event for the election, where they televised the live BBC broadcast of the results. The lively atmosphere and more importantly the delicious sausage rolls and Earl Grey tea made me a little homesick.
