I don’t speak Chinese 我不会说汉语
After 25 hours of flights, waiting, bus journeys, waiting, sitting on suitcases, waiting, a nap on the floor, waiting, a 3-hour bus journey and… more waiting, we were finally here. 22 jet-lagged Scots had dragged their suitcases into the lobby of Tianjin Foreign Studies University, the place they are about to call home for the next 10 months.
We arrived at the University on the Friday night after 11pm, and unable to sleep in such an empty room I proceeded to unpack my entire suitcase to make it feel more like home (I’m sorry to my room-mate who was probably preferring the idea of sleep).
Day 1 was an adjustment period, however it hadn’t (and still hasn’t) fully hit me that this it: you’re here in China, for 10 months. No going home and no turning back now, and to be honest I don’t know if it ever will. I was still eerily chilled about the whole thing on the first day, even now 3 weeks in I’m still not missing home and haven’t felt stressed to phone home. At this point I’ve still not called anyone from Scotland; the only communication with friends and family is any social media posts, the daily snapchat “streak snap” and a couple of “Mum I am alive” messages to the family group chat every week. I genuinely feel like the excitement and new surroundings of Tianjin and it’s people has managed to keep me distracted enough to actually not miss the rural emptiness of Elgin. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss home, but it just means there isn’t any tears or longing to get on a plane (although a chippie supper would be a life-saver right now).
On the first day my roommate and several others decided to take the opportunity and explore around the campus. If there’s one piece of advice I can give you about studying abroad it is this: EXPLORE. Familiarise yourself with where you are, and what’s around you, find the shops, talk to the people, practice the language and find some cool hidden away spots.
The entire first and second week we made sure to go on a daily walk, at different times of the day, and each time we’d return to the other scholars at our university, buzzing to tell them about something new we’d found or some tales of our adventures. Some of the gems we found when exploring Tianjin included: a giant mall featuring so many designer clothing stores and… a rabbit mall (something told us the university wouldn’t be happy with the scholars buying a pet bunny), a cat cafe, a running track with built in restaurants and nightclubs, an underground coffee shop, and a frequently visited street food kebab shop (our first visit was done with some hesitation due to some of China’s… questionable street food).
Literally I can’t fault this journey so far, there have been a few hiccups along the way but if you aren’t going to be slightly open-minded and are unwilling to travel away from your comfort zone now and again, are you really ready to move halfway across the world?
BUT it was about 6 days in I realized one problem. The one thing that so far had occasionally caused some issues on our adventures and out and about, but now being in classes where the teacher only speaks Chinese to you I realized this one very big problem: My Chinese is… not the best.
I had the basics nailed and could pick out a few characters in a sign, and could quickly rattle of my name, where I am from, and my age etc (你好我叫可兰，我是苏格兰人，我十八岁。). But everything I’d learned in my textbooks and in my online course were no help in real-world China; where the teachers are talking to you at 100-mph and the locals are so enthusiastic to talk to a “为国人” (foreigner). Soon enough they’re asking you all these random questions and in real-world conversation you can never tell where the conversation is going, and to be honest it’s a little intimidating to try and create sentences on the spot. So yeah, a week in I realized my anxiety removes all knowledge of Chinese and I occasionally make an eejit of myself. But I immediately began studying, throwing bits of Chinese into every conversation I could, talking to my Korean neighbors in Chinese, and learning 3 characters a night. Then it wasn’t until this week I realised that I can actually understand what my teachers are saying!!! I still can’t give brilliant replies though, but hey it’s a start.
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“TRAVELLING THE WORLD”: Claire’s Brief Guide
RULE 1: WHEN STUDYING ABROAD, KEEP SPEAKING EVEN IF YOU FEEL LIKE A FOOL!
RULE 2: GET LOST AND GET LOST AGAIN, MEET THE LOCALS AND FIND COOL PLACES! (Maybe make sure you have a friend with you though)
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3 weeks in though and classes are getting easier day by day, I’m no longer feeling stressed about not understanding because I realize that I’m here to learn the language, not to prove I am already fluent in it, and all my classmates are just as clueless as me (if not more). My intensive reading teacher even gave me a Chinese name: 可兰 (Kelan), which somehow made me feel even more like I fitted in here. We can work our way blindfolded around campus, and stroll through the streets to the shops and restaurants. At this point a few of us can even hold a basic conversation: even if it is through using basic words and body language, that’s at least better than not trying at all.
Who knows by next month maybe I’ll be able to understand when the teacher is telling us when we have homework and when class is cancelled (a mistake that was unfortunately made last week).
But til then, 再见
-Claire 可兰
