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你好Cambusbarron! My first month in Tianjin, China has flown by, and I can safely say that Tianjin has become my new home.

At first the thought of being in a foreign country for ten months was naturally daunting. But, when boarding our eleven hour plane journey to China I could not help but be excited for what lay ahead. When we arrived in China we had a three hour bus journey from Beijing (北京) to our accommodation in Tianjin (天津); home for the next ten months. We were all nervous to see what our rooms would be like, but we need not have worried. With the addition of fairy lights and a Scotland flag from my roommate Suzie, it felt like home already. Plus, we were given a free kettle.

Our first month(月) has been spent doing a lot of different things from visiting the ‘Ancient Culture Street’ and have a traditional Tianjin breakfast snack called jiānbǐng,, to regular visits to various banks trying to set up a bank account. Even though this was quite the challenge, we managed to see quite a bit of the city and used the subway for the first time. We worked out that this was the cheapest way to get around the city and only cost us around 20p each time. We are also growing accustom to the Chinese traffic which is bonkers, with the green man not being overly helpful. However, with a certain type of determination and the motto ‘control the traffic, don’t let it control you’ in our heads, we found the easiest way was just to cross and make them stop. We also have the comfort of health insurance on our side.

I had the amazing opportunity to celebrate the Mid- Autumn festival with a Chinese family with a few of the other scholars. This involved us helping them make dumplings (餃) which is surprisingly difficult and is a true life skill. The young boy had mastered dumpling making at the age of eight, which did wonders for all of our egos. I can say that I have never eaten more food in my life than I did that night, with there being so many amazing Chinese dishes to try, especially the moon cakes which were like nothing I had ever had before. Earlier in the day we went to a market to pick all the food to eat that night. The market was like nothing we have back home in Scotland, with there being so many different stalls with vegetables and fruits I didn’t even know existed! We later went for a walk along the Haihe river at night which was quite the experience, with many people doing the same in an attempt to see the moon at night.

We started classes three weeks ago and we met all our teachers for the first time. Thankfully, they are all lovely and I feel like I have learned so much Mandarin in such a short period of time! We have all been given Chinese names, mine being 艾瑞 as it sounds similar to Erin. Our university (大學) has a lot of foreign students from various countries all over the world, from Uzbekistan to Thailand, all wanting to learn Chinese (中文). It has been really interesting learning about these cultures, which are so different from our own. Next week a lot of us are travelling to Xi’an, a city in China, as we have a week off school. Although the journey to Xi’an is 19 hours by train, we are all still buzzing for it and know it will be worth it when we reach or destination and get to see such things like the Terracotta Warriors, or so we keep telling ourselves...

再見 Erin