Finn
A day in the life
A regular day as a Tianjin scholar is quite a busy one. For me it starts at about 8 in the morning with getting ready for and heading to class for an 8:30 start. The walk is thankfully only around 5 minutes long on average; our classes are held in two different buildings depending on the day. Monday through Wednesday’s classes are in an older building a little across campus, while Thursday and Friday’s classes are in a building right next to our dorms, which makes it actually only a 2 or so minute walk.
I usually get to class a little before 8:30. What class we have first depends on the day, but it is usually either Elementary Chinese or speaking class. Both classes are quite self explanatory: Elementary Chinese covers bits of speaking, reading and writing and the teacher gives us frequent tests that cover all these main topics; speaking class is focused on two main things, pronunciation (with a particular focus on tones) and practicing conversation through reading scripts from a text book or coming up with conversations ourselves. The first class (which consists of two periods and a short break) lasts about an hour and a half, sometimes more if the teacher is finishing off a section of work. After that we have a 20 minute break which is often used to go to the nearby shop (Wu Mart) in order to get something small to eat and drink.
The second class which has more variety in what it could be: either culture class, writing class or one of the prior mentioned two. Culture class goes over different elements of Chinese culture such as mythologies (and their adaptations into modern media), famous art works, unique artistic practices, etc., and writing class focuses mainly on learning how to write the characters with the correct strokes and stroke orders, and teaching us how to identify and name the different components of the characters and what type of character it is. This is also split into two periods and a short break. After that is the end of my classes for the day typically. The higher level classes have afternoon ones, and we occasionally go on trips around the city, but those aren’t too common.
Classes finish up around 12 which is pretty good timing for lunch, so most head straight to the canteen. Some get takeaway (or, as they say in China, 打包 (pronounced dabao)), but I typically sit in and eat at the canteen with others for a little while. After lunch, it’s time to head back to my dorm to relax for a bit; this usually is followed by a few different things me and my friends often do. A lot of the time we will watch three or so episodes of a TV show we’re watching in a group or play some volleyball (though this was more common when it was less cold). That usually takes things to around dinner time where I’ll either eat in the canteen or one of the nearby places in the night market (my favourite being this really lovely, cheap Muslim restaurant); sometimes we’ll head into the city, usually to Heping or Nankai, to look around some shops and get something different to eat as there are a lot of really delicious food spots. After dinner/coming back from the city centre it is usually time to do any homework I need to get done, which I usually do in a group of two or three. After that is typically around 10-10:30 and time to go back to my room and get ready to do it all again the next day.