These past couple weeks have been very eventful and busy! We learned where our classes are, formed groups with the Chinese students for future projects, and I have found quite a few favorite dishes already. I definitely recommend the tomato and egg soup, and the egg noodles if you’re a vegetarian like myself! Also, we got our Chinese SIM cards and bank accounts set up, so we are now prepared for the semester 🙂
The professors are all kind and go out of their way to make you feel involved, and many of the students are very shy (haha). If you can, I recommend studying some Chinese before coming here so that you can connect with people on a deeper level. Apps are certainly useful, but when you speak to someone in their common tongue (even if you aren’t that great at it yet) it means a lot more to them. Furthermore, there are a lot of mistranslations with the apps, so sometimes you may get wacky messages.
As I am writing this, three friends and I have set off on a trip with stops in Hangzhou and Shanghai for the holiday. I was very nervous at first since we had not traveled without our wonderful and patient mentors yet, but everything has gone smoothly so far, and I’m glad we took the opportunity to travel! *More updates will come on this during my next blog*