Happy New Year-新年快乐!
2018 is here and for us “lucky” scholars that means… exams… yay?
Yup a few days into 2018 and our second set of exams had begun, unlike midterms these would be graded and scored so the pressure was on not to mess up. I’ll be honest, because there’s no point in lying, I didn’t study as much as I should have. I think this is because I was so afraid of messing up that I avoided studying? But alas, I passed! However my advice would be for anyone, always study and always put in the amount of work for whatever you want back, my results reflected how much Chinese I naturally know (which impressed me) but there’s no point not applying yourself, so next semester I’m going to focus less on what is going on around me and more on studying in between classes,and really concentrating on getting higher marks in my exams and getting my HSK qualification.
(Below: Studying is really hard okay?)
(Above: Group Shot of 初级三班 on our last day)
But anyway…
Exams are over, LET THE TRAVELS BEGIN! We now have a 2 month break and as sad as it was to say goodbye to the scholars (some tears were surprisingly shed during goodbyes), everyone was excited to part ways and set off on adventures across Asia. The 1st stop for myself and 11 others was Harbin: a city to the north of China (and 18 hour train ride from Tianjin) quite close to the Russian border. The main attraction to this destination was the “Harbin Snow and Ice Festival”, the biggest ice and snow sculpture festival in the world.
The main festival is huge, before arriving in China I had made it my No #1 travel destination to go to, and it didn’t disappoint. You have no idea how large the event is until you’re there. The entire festival has buildings built of ice, and is full of sledging and skiing activities along with lightshows and music. We even got to meet artic foxes and snow wolves up close!
What was interesting for me was how different Harbin was to Tianjin; Tianjin has very European influences whereas you could feel how close we were to Russia in Harbin, due to the architecture and surrounding culture. Churches and Markets were often modelled after Russian buildings and it wasn’t uncommon to find Russian food in the shops. This reflected for us that due to how big China is, each place will be vastly different due to the surrounding influence. The only way to say you’ve seen China is to quite literally: see all of it.
Once back from Harbin I had 24 hours to pack for my trip to Bali in Indonesia, and we luckily made it in time and headed off on our first non-China destination of the year. It was odd to be leaving the country I had called home for the past 4 months but I was excited to see a country that wasn’t China. After a week away in the scorching heat of Bali it was back to Tianjin for 10 days for a rest stop before travelling in February.
(Below: Bit far from home)
One thing that started to pop up during my short week break in Tianjin was homesickness. Because now several scholars had family/friends visit, or had them coming over and it hit me that I was seeing nobody for the full 11 months we are here. So Tianjin started to feel a little lonelier with no family and less scholars being around, so the remaining scholars and I hung out more and made the most of our time in Tianjin with no university responsibities.
But never mind as February rolls around I am starting to pack my bags and say Goodbye China and hello the rest of Asia! So heres hoping I will have some interesting tales for the next blog.
But until then,
再见
-Claire 可兰