The First Minister and a food festival

Now that I am coming to the end of the 8^th month here in China, it does feel like I’ve been here forever, yet still barely scratched the surface of what China is really all about and has to offer.

My update on how things are going...well, even though the University canteen is one of the things that has helped me through the sudden change into student life, after 8 months, I have truly exhausted all the food options and have now resorted to making food with the resources we have. As for my Chinese, today I sat my first mid-term exam and it safe to say it was very difficult.  I am really learning that I will never get better if I don’t challenge myself.

This month we got to meet the First Minister of Scotland and this was such a great and privileged experience. We gave Nicola a presentation about our life in China and then she spent time with us all, sitting and chatting with us at our individual tables.  This was one of the highlights of my time here in China. This month the University also hosted a food festival where each country with students at the University had a stand and the opportunity to make food from their country. We Scots made tablet, stovies, and tattie scones.  I think everyone loved the food.

We also all wore some sort of tartan clothing, kilts, hats and I wore a scarf. We also played some music and, of course, that was the Red-hot Chilli Pipers. I got to enjoy all the other countries foods from Italian pasta, Thai green curry, French crepes to ‘American’ tacos it was all really nice and it was really cool that everyone got to show off their countries food and culture. Overall this was a good month and I’m really happy about the fact that the temperature has got a lot warmer and we can go out and enjoy Tianjin’s parks and places to hang out a lot more. Hope everyone had a good month too and I’ll talk to you all again soon.