Part Two - Day Trips, Halloween, and Everything Else!
As for other things we’ve done this month apart from our big holiday, our Comprehension class took a class trip to a Tianjin museum, which I’d actually been to last summer on the immersion trip. It was nice to visit again as someone now living in the city, as instead of getting on a coach and being driven through nameless streets to our next location without knowing my way around, this time I knew how to take the subway home, and knew that the sight of the Tianjin tower in the distance meant that that was the direction to cycle in if I chose to use a bike instead!
Speaking of bikes, I took a bike ride after class one day when our second lesson was cancelled to go to WuDaDao, or ‘Five Great Avenues’, as I’d been wanting to see some of the more well-known places in Tianjin. The previous day had been absolutely miserable with dark grey skies and harsh wind shaking the windows, but that day was absolutely picturesque, very cold but with a rich blue sky and not a single cloud. It took a long time to get there, but I eventually found the right address and spent some time walking around seeing the nice buildings before heading along to the river, then walking/cycling all the way along to the Tianjin Eye before crossing the bridge and heading off home.
Lots of places around this area look similar to this, I felt like I was in London!
The Tianjin Eye, and the bridge that it sits on
A few weeks ago, we also got the chance to meet with a big group of Scottish pupils who were visiting Beijing and Tianjin when they stopped off at our university to hear about our scholarship and speak with us for a while! Sadly they arrived the same week as the cold weather did, so Tianjin was probably around the same temperature as Scotland (which is saying something), but nevertheless I hope they all enjoyed visiting Tianjin, getting to see the area and also hearing about our scholarship. Additionally, it just so happened that one of the girls in the group used to be in the year below me in Primary School! We recognised each other right away, and it was a lovely surprise to meet someone from primary school in my university halfway around the world seven years later. Myself and some others from my class had to leave early to do a small speaking test so we missed saying goodbye to everyone, but it was still great to share about our experiences and speak to people who may very well be doing the same thing as us, or similar, next year.
Another notable thing about this month has been celebrating Halloween, which was a great success! We had a party in our floor’s common area, with all of us and some friends from our classes and other people on our floor, and the F class teacher and her son also came along! Some of us had costumes to wear, and I was unprepared but seeing everyone else dressed up as something scary or themed I quickly got some eyeshadow, lip balm, and other make-up to throw together a quick zombie-victim look, which was Halloween-themed enough to work. We carved pumpkins (I had only tried this once before, so making my very own Spiderman-themed pumpkin was great fun), played some games and had lots of fun and music, and at the end we took a great group photo! Halloween isn’t celebrated in China, so it was our teacher’s first ever time celebrating it, and I’m glad to say she and her son enjoyed it very much.
The two group pictures of our Halloween party!
And now, the past week has been spent studying as much as I can for our exams next week! I’m not too worried about them, mostly because I’m not sure what format they’re going to be in or how difficult they’ll be. But there’s no harm to be done from learning (or trying to learn) as much as I possibly can from our books, so even if that means spending hours at a time at my desk it’ll be well worth the end result. One drawback of staring at books for a long time and staring at my phone screen doing flashcards on Quizlet, however, is that my eyes get pretty tired, and I left my glasses behind in Scotland! I don’t wear them usually, but with all my studying they’d probably be a good idea, so I’m asking my mum to send them to me when they send over a parcel, which I hope will make it safely here with my glasses and some Scottish sweets that I’ve been missing. A few of the other scholars have received parcels from home already, so I’m looking forward to getting one myself if we can work out how to send it. For now though, I need to power through and learn all the words and characters that I possibly can. Wish me luck!
DEUTSCH – Wie lernt man eine Sprache, wenn man zu Hause ist?
Letzter Monat habe ich gesagt, dass es oft schwierig ist, in China Möglichkeiten zu finden, Deutsch zu sprechen. Aber seit ein paar Wochen versuche ich jeden Tag auf irgendeine Weise Deutsch zu nutzen, und ich habe herausgefunden, dass es ziemlich einfacher ist, als ich gedacht habe! Ich habe vor kurzem eine Serie auf YouTube geschaut, die “Nico’s Weg” heißt. Diese Serie besteht aus drei Folgen, auf A1, A2, und B1 Niveau. Das heißt, dass Anfängern sie schauen können, und dadurch Deutsch lernen können! Ich höre auch deutsche Musik, z.B. Max Giesinger und Adel Tawil – sie sind zwei meiner Lieblingsmusikern. Es gibt auch Netflix und YouTube, mit so viele Videos die man schauen kann, z.B- Zeichentrickfilme, Nachrichten, LetsPlays, und Videos von Kanälen wie EasyGerman, die Deutsch lehren.
And now for the questions from Stirling High!
I’m happy to hear you’re all improving in your Mandarin, I hope you all enjoy getting to learn such an interesting language! Studying the language here in China definitely is quite an experience; in one of my blog posts coming up I intend to talk more about what it’s like learning and living the language while being here. It’s not an easy experience to put into words because it’s very unlike learning a language while back home in Scotland, but it’s better in so many ways and I’m so glad I have the chance to do so. And there certainly is a lot to do in Tianjin – I read before I came that there wasn’t all that much compared to other big cities, but every time I go out I see or experience something new, and it’s all wonderful. I’m going to put your questions into bulletpoints now, and do my best to answer them!
Q- What surprised you the most about China? Any unusual cultural differences or things you needed to adapt to so you can thrive there?
A - There are so many things that are different about life in China; when we’re living here, we get so used to things being the way they are that it’s hard to pinpoint specifics! What surprised me was that there are many things you see here that simply would not happen in Scotland, and even though they’re very normal and acceptable here, you can’t help but feel quite surprised when you see and hear people loudly spitting in the streets, and see little animals and birds in their cages outside shops, for people walking past to look at. One of the biggest lessons we’ve been made to learn for life in China is ‘Be flexible’ - with the way bureaucracy often works here and finding out last minute about things we need to have done by a certain time, and of course when there are problems with communication and misunderstandings, being flexible and not letting things get under our skin certainly are changes we’ve had to take on board in order to thrive here.
Q- 你最喜欢中国什么？(What do you like most about China?)
A – One of the things that’s great about China is how integrated technology is into everyday life. I can head outside with only my phone and use it to pay for my shopping, message friends in China and Scotland, translate, hire out bikes, call a taxi, and much more. I don’t remember the last time I paid for something with cash, WeChat Pay is so useful and is accepted everywhere you go!
Additionally, everything we need on a day-to-day basis is right there around us, and when class ends at half eleven most days we have the entire rest of the day to spend however we want. Whether that’s getting food delivered to the uni within half an hour, going out to one of the many food places within a ten-minute radius, revising, or simply spending time in our rooms, the choice is ours and I love the sense of freedom we have. Partly it’s the change from living at home while attending high school to now being in dormitory accommodation while in university – I think there’s definitely a cultural aspect as well, though, simply with the way life is here. I love cities even though I’ve lived almost my whole life in a village on the outskirts of one, and the mood that our section of the city has is so wonderful, and it’s so easy to get to other parts of the city that are busier/more metropolitan, or even parts that are a lot quieter and more peaceful.
Q- What’s been the hardest thing to adjust to?
A – Honestly, there hasn’t been much that’s been difficult to adjust to so far. There are things that are very different from back home, but when we’re living here they all become a normal part of life, and the only thing that’s really foreign is us! People talk about how many things are ‘foreign’ and different here, but I think it’s important to recognise that the way things are in your own country is not the default, and keeping an open mind to such things is beneficial not only to helping you cope with daily life but also in your attitude towards other lifestyles and cultures.
Q- Anything you like better in China than in Scotland? What are you looking forward to doing the most?
A – I like the prices of things here! Food is cheaper and a lot easier to buy than in Scotland; I can nip along to a little food place near the uni and get what we like to call ‘green parcels’ (I don’t know their Chinese name, I keep forgetting to ask!) for 2 yuan each, then turn around and get a bunch of bananas for 4-6 yuan. You can buy a lot of things on taobao (an online shopping site) for pretty cheap, and there’s another shop nearby that sells notebooks for very cheap. It’s very handy when you’re on a student budget!
There are lots of things I’m looking forward to, and quite a few relate to being able to speak Chinese at a level much higher than I’m at now – with greater knowledge of a language comes greater opportunities to be able to take part in things that you otherwise wouldn’t have the chance to. In terms of something less vague and open-ended, what I’m looking forward to is going on the Tianjin Eye – if it were a clear day, I’m sure you’d be able to see for miles and miles, it would be fascinating! Outside of Tianjin, I’d love to visit Shanghai as it seems like such an amazing, vibrant place to be.
Q- Are there aspects of the Chinese lifestyle that you prefer to your native one?
A – Yes, there are! I’ve noticed that when I walk down the street or cycle along the road, I tend to go a lot faster than everyone else around me – I have to slow down and think, what am I hurrying for? Even with so much time in the day, I always make such an effort to get to my destination as quickly as possible, to save time for whatever else I might be doing that day. Yet when I stop and look around me, I see many people (granted, mostly older than I) simply ambling along at peace, often by themselves or quietly with others, with a destination in mind perhaps but nevertheless taking their time. Or they’re sitting in a park, on a bench, simply letting time pass by in peace – after getting some takeaway noodles one evening from one of our favourite places near the uni, I stopped at the end of the little street and just sat down in the wee bench area that was there, instead of rushing home like I normally would. I watched the traffic at the intersection, ate with my feet up on the bench, and generally just let time go by without worrying about ‘wasting’ it. Although it felt strange to deliberately set time aside to do almost nothing, it was a very peaceful break from the day, which is often overlooked. So even though I mostly haven’t adjusted/changed my behaviour to suit this one yet, I do appreciate that kind of attitude towards daily life; different from Scotland, where everyone you see in Glasgow is loudly chatting, rushing around to get somewhere!
I hope my answers were interesting to read, and I’d also like to apologise for how late this blog post is! I seriously underestimated how long it would take to write about our holiday, and getting pictures sorted and this whole blog typed up with often intermittent access to WiFi was quite difficult, not to mention how long I had to spend studying every single day for our tests. But now as I’m writing, exams are over and I’ve decided to start writing my next blog a lot earlier this time!
As usual, if anyone has any questions or comments feel free to get in touch in whatever way and I’ll give you my reply in my next blog!
Goodbye for now, 再见！