Bye China! 再见中国!

February… 6 months into the scholarship… hate to state the obvious but that’s half a year away from Scotland, away from my family, away from my friends…

So far I have experienced the weirdest and greatest 5 months of my life, and now I think it is time to say… Goodbye China (No, not forever) and set off to explore what the rest of Asia has to offer.

So in February I packed my bags to continue my travelling, this time exploring the outside of China for a whole month, leaving on the 5th February and not returning until semester starts on the 5th March (here's praying the plane makes it in time).

Travelling was an insane adventure, I did some parts solo, some as a duo and other places in a large group, and throughout my travels I actually met and travelled with every scholar possible (if there is such a thing as Scholar bingo, I win!). What was interesting about being away from China was seeing how different everywhere else is to China.

In each country I visited there were similarities, whether it was through Asian or Western tourists influence, there were hints of things I recognised from China in each place. With Japan and Korea I found that their temples and palaces shared the similar ancient design to Chinese temples, a similarity I had recognised with many ancient Asian buildings. However whereas Chinese really focuses on the use of Red colours and gold in its buildings, the Koreans used bright colours of green/blue/red to portray Royal buildings, and duller browns to portray less important peoples living quarters in their palaces.

Each place also had insanely different food! When people picture Asian food they always picture rice and noodles, and that is a true representation. Whether it was Thailand, Japan, Korea or China I knew I would find a variety of rice/noodle dishes. However each country cooked all its food differently, along with different flavours and etiquettes. My favourite food during my travels would definitely have to be Thailand’s Pad Thai (Noodles with nuts and meat) or Korean BBQ (where each table has a private BBQ and you cook varieties of meat, kimchee and vegetables to immediately eat after cooking). I did feel though that every country I visited had more flavoursome food than China, but that might be because I’ve become too used to Chinese food.

So travelling around taught me that not only are Asian countries nowhere near the same as each other, they do have some minor similarities.

One place that I found particularly interesting was: Hong Kong. It was a perfect combination of the UK and China merged into one, some places I wouldn’t be able to recognise whether it is Scotland or Hong Kong if I looked at a photograph of it. It was insane, to Sam and I’s delight we even found Marks & Spencers!

(Below: Very happy with our Percy Pigs)

During our time in Hong Kong it was Chinese New Year, so we enjoyed watching the parade throughout the city and seeing how people in Hong Kong celebrated. Unfortunately the NY fireworks (which Hong Kong is famous for) were cancelled this year due to a bus crash to mourn the victims, so I will definitely go back in the future to see the display for itself.

After experiencing different pieces of Asia I am very excited to start Semester #2, especially now that I’ve visited the countries that some of the international students will have come from. But after 2 months of not using Chinese or doing University work… I am praying I will be ready for when class starts.

Till then,

再见

– Claire 可兰