The students of the Faculty of Humanities shared impressions of the first week in Shandong Plolytecnic University — Minin University partner in China:
The first week in China was adaptational. Luckily, adaptation is successful. The five-hour jet lag has less and less effect on our health, but the acclimatization is still felt - in Russia the summer was not so warm this year, so the Chinese autumn heat was a surprise to us. We are very grateful to the University authorities for working conditioning systems in the classrooms. I t is extremely hot outside – but the local pond is not suitable for swimming ( only for walks and photo sessions).
The campus territory, which comprises residential buildings, educational buildings, dining rooms, shops, sports and concert halls, seems to be unusually huge, so at first it was easy to get lost during shopping for food or "exploration" of the route to a particular attraction.
We are looking forward to getting special student cards which will allow renting bicycles and scooters and having a discount in fitness-club as well. Now we are limited to strolling and jogging. The local cuisine, which is nutritious thanks to the popular combination of meat and gluten (Chinese daily diet includes noodles, rolls, numerous varieties of dumplings and rice dishes) forces us to train and keep fit.
Hardly had we settled and had a look around, when we were sent to have our level of Chinese to be tested. One group of 30 people may include representatives of at least five nationalities, with Chinese teachers conducting classes exclusively in their own language, in extremely rare cases switching to English. We study five days a week, having 2-3 classes a day, each of them taking 2 hours. We got used to the fact that the lessons start at 8 o’clock but it is difficult to accept the two hour lunch break in the middle of the day, here in Russia we usually have “ a ten minutes break” for that.
These are our impressions of the first week of life and studies in China. We are crossing the calendar line and continue to learn the local traditions, try new dishes and discover new places, gaining impressions for the next report!
