ICS China

What was the highlight of your ICS in China?

The highlight of my In-country study in China was making such great friends with the locals and engaging in their culture. By participating in their hobbies and day-to-day activities I was able to feel closer to the country I was living in.

How did your language and intercultural skills improve?

My language skills improved immensely. Language classes helped with grammatical syntax and formal language, but I saw larger leaps when speaking with other students. I learned certain slang words and the way in which language is used colloquially.

What skills have you developed in the past year that will benefit your personal life and/or career?

Skills including cross-cultural communication will benefit my future career. Learning social etiquette and other intricate cultural norms will benefit my personal life too.

How did university life in China differ to Australia? 

In China, the universities are utilised more by students than in Australia. For example, the students take advantage of extra classes, or optional units, and public spaces in the university. 

How did you finance your ICS (e.g. scholarships, loans, budgeting)? 

I financed my ICS year by saving hard before leaving and by being fortunate enough to receive a scholarship for extra financing.

What’s an assumption about your country that you found to be untrue? 

One assumption about China everyone has is that it is quite unclean and unsafe. However, the public spaces, gardens, metro, stations, buses, etc, are all extremely well cleaned and tidy. Safety was never a concern for myself and I felt the locals all wanted to help in any way they could. 

What was your research project and what were the findings? 

My research project was titled ‘The contextual influences on the zeitgeist of Suzhou and how they have influenced human behaviour towards foreigners’, and was about what / how contextual influences have they influenced human behaviour in China in regards to attitudes towards foreigners.

If you were going through a tough time, what support did you receive or access? 

The support available was immense. Both universities offered an array of help including school psychologists. Other students were also always happy to lend a helping hand with homesickness. I also received care packages every two months filled with Aussie goodies including Milo, Vegemite, Tim Tams, etc.

If you could redo ICS, what are some things you would do differently?

If I redid ICS, I would prepare my language skills better before leaving. At the start of the year, not being able to speak as well as I could at the end of the year, sometimes prevented me from doing certain activities, or having confidence in asking locals a question.

Why should BAIS students choose China for their ICS?

China is the future, and relatively unseen from a student’s perspective. The friends you make there are for life. The food, culture and people are second to none.

Anything else you would like to add?

谢谢你们。[Thank you all]. 

“Why China?” They ask.

“You could have gone to France, Italy, even Spain and you chose China?”

These questions only motivated me more to pursue this country and language. I believe that the road less travelled makes all the difference, and I intend to make the most of my time throughout my UTS In-Country Study.

I live in the city of Suzhou (苏州), 30 minutes by fast train from Shanghai (上海). Suzhou is considered to be a prefectural city which is the third ranking of Chinese cities in terms of population, yet Suzhou boasts a population of 11 million people. Such is China...

I am studying at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University or more commonly seen as XJTLU or 西交利物浦大学. The University is a recent joint venture between the Xi’an Jiaotong University and the Liverpool University. The campuses of XJTLU are less than 15 years old and offer state of the art equipment and learning materials. Day trips from Suzhou to cultural and historical landmarks are cheap and in surplus. Thousand-year-old gardens built for Emperors and Pagodas worshipped in by monks for hundreds of generations are easily visited.

I had never been to China before and my first visit will be for 12 months. After the first two months, I have had time to reflect on the differences between my life in Suzhou and my life in Sydney. However different their societies are, it will not be the defining culture shock that I find myself undertaking. I find I can adjust to language, cuisine, activities, and culture after even just a short adjustment period. Interestingly and unbeknownst to me, I have discovered that I am having a harder time adjusting to flora and fauna, navigation, un-organic city sprawl, and topography of all things. This has been an unexpected but nevertheless fascinating discovery.

With many more months to come, and equally as many reports I am intrigued to find if I can better understand my findings and perhaps find reasoning. In the next report, I hope to understand better the psychology of my initial findings about the emotions that are brought forward when comparing the urban structure of Suzhou and Sydney, as well as the flora and fauna connection that I have with the noises they produce. Perhaps I will never answer these questions, but it is good to know they exist. These traits are not consciously seen but vicariously ‘sensed’. I find that these areas are where one can truly connect with foreign lands.

A large part of Chinese culture revolves around eating with a large group. Rarely would I ever find myself eating alone. A staple meal in China is huoguo (火锅), literally ‘hot pot’. This is a meal with a communal pot in the middle of a large table seating up to 8 people. The pot is split down the middle, half spicy half broth. In the yin yang shape. Throughout the meal you cook your own various vegetables, meats, and noodles, and for the adventurous they offer brain, intestine, and heart.

Hotpot is a great night out of communal eating and sharing stories over beer and baijiu, a rice wine (白酒). Often we would travel to authentic hotpot from locals people from the Sichuan (四川) province, where the and dish originates. There will often be a round of toasts as we all celebrate a warm and hearty meal and appreciate the relationships that we have formed around us. Occasionally some other diners will come to our table of foreigners and welcome us to China with a toast and a cheer of ganbei (干杯). It is custom to return the gesture a few minutes later, and this must be done in Chinese and is quite difficult at the start, but everyone appreciates the sentiment and tradition anyway.

I should mention the University I am staying and all it has to offer. Located in the new SIP District of Suzhou (苏州) XJTLU is a joint-venture between Xi’an Jiaotong University in China and Liverpool University in England. The campus is located in Suzhou in the Jiangsu Province. The North campus was built only recently and boasts modern equipment and classrooms.

The university campus is like no other and is easy to get around. There are numerous shops on campus and several smaller shopping villages in the surrounding. The teachers are all extremely friendly and accommodating to the international students - all 500 of us! There are also some western restaurants in and around campus that afford the ability to escape into a lasagne or burger.

A large part of the success of my travels and studies in China can be attributed to the generous scholarships I have been awarded. Especially the prestigious 2018 Endeavour Cheung Kong Student Exchange Program Scholarship. This scholarship is a unique program supported by the Australian government and the Cheung Kong Group to support student exchange between Australia and Asian partner universities. This award has allowed me to broaden my travels and has eased my way in studying abroad, thank you to all those involved!

My university XJTLU will hold monthly culture trips to allow the international students to engage with local cuisine, culture, tradition, language, and more. I have attended every trip with excitement for the unknown. Some memorable trips include learning about kesi (缂丝) a traditional method for weaving silk.

Kesi means ‘to cut silk’ and creates a visual illusion of unblended areas of colour when woven with great mastery. This custom dates back to the Tang Dynasty in 618. After a demonstration from some dedicated artisans in their workshop, we were given the opportunity to try it out for ourselves. We wove the silk in and out of these relics and had help from the instructors when we were in a spot of trouble which was often for me.

Another memorable culture trip was to a traditional tea house. Here we were given a presentation about the many ways to serve tea to important members of society and how the different teas are supposed to be enjoyed.

For example, oolong tea (乌龙茶) is rolled and dried into small pellets and is released over time so it is a tea that tastes better the longer it boils in the teapot. Another tea is pu’er (普洱茶) and is from the Yunnan province. This tea is unique because it is aged and fermented before drinking. The smell is musty and almost stale because the bacteria will attack the tea during the ageing process and once boiled will release all the medicinal properties into the tea and to be honest, was not my cup of tea!

Living in and amongst the local peoples of Suzhou has been a blessing.

Suzhou is translated as the Garden City and for good reason. Within the city are countless gardens that have been awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site Listing. Known as the Venice of the East, Suzhou’s canals of the old town are still in use today and one can easily find themselves in ‘wanderlust’ as they float down the canals with their guide singing old folk songs.

There is a saying in Chinese "上有天堂下游苏州" this translates to "Above there is Heaven and down here there is Suzhou". This is said to have been coined by Marco Polo in his travels to China over 700 years ago.

My favourite place in the city is the Suzhou Museum. The museum was designed by Chinese architect I.M. Pei who is also well known for his other works including the Louvre in Paris. The museum holds works of art and relics that are over 8000 years old!

Next door is the Humble Administrator’s Garden where I spend hours walking around and finding the best photography shots. Often domestic tourists flock here and marvel at the generosity of the original Administrator to be humble enough to let the general people be allowed to walk his garden, as the story goes.

Local cuisines in Suzhou include many dumplings. They can be in a variety of styles including 饺子，包子，小笼包，with differing ingredients of pork, chives, Chinese cabbage and more! One can never have enough dumplings!

Travelling in China is cheap and easy. The country has high-speed rail networks to every major city that accommodates for the 1.4 billion population. These fast trains enable travel to Shanghai for a shopping spree in 25 minutes from Suzhou. I did some travelling while in China and with a group of 5 friends we caught the overnight train to Xi’an.

Here we visited the famed Terracotta Warriors and the tomb of Qi Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. You can also cycle on the city walls of Xi’an. We rented a tandem for added fun and rode the 14km around the four gates and four corner fortresses, how beautiful!

We were then onto the capital city Beijing to visit the Forbidden City, the White Pagoda, and Tiananmen Square. We also enjoyed a day trip to the Great Wall of China. We visited the Mutianyu (慕田峪) section from Beijing and spent the day imagining how magnificent it would be to travel back in time and see the fortifications in battle.

From here, we travelled to Urumqi (乌鲁木齐) in the Xinjiang (新疆) Province. Urumqi is unique being so close to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and there are notable influences from those regions. Cuisine consisting of East Turkic spices and Soviet architecture fusing together was tremendously interesting.

In Chengdu we visited the Panda Sanctuary and instantly fell in love with the furry fellas. We tried to convince the handlers to let us take one home with us to no avail.

Travelling in China is amazing because of the sheer size and magnitude of differing cultures in one country. One can never see all of China – even in an entire year! I still want to see Tibet, Harbin, and Guangdong, perhaps another time.