Pre-departure:
I am a final year Electronic Engineering student at Stellenbosch University and went to the Renmin University of China summer school in June 2015. I heard about the PGIO summer schools from a friend of mine who went the previous year. He said that it was one of the most fantastic experiences he had ever gone on and that I should enter no matter what. So I did just that, and filled in all the forms and made my video. I waited until the April holidays to get feedback about the summer school and then even longer for my application to RUC to be approved. RUC finally let me know I was fully accepted about a month before the school was to start, so once I was accepted I immediately had to book tickets and decide on my itinerary.
As this was my first trip abroad I decided to go a few days before the school started and explore the city and surrounding tourist sites. Getting a visa was very quick and easy, and the consulate in Cape Town took only 3 days to process my visa. Besides only having a very broad and general plan of what to do while I was there and what to see, I had no idea what to expect in China. Tripadvisor helped out in this way by offering a fantastic service which helps you pick out which places are good to visit or even which hostels to stay at. I used it to book a hostel (The china box) in Beijing to stay at for four nights before going to the school. This hostel turned out to be absolutely fantastic and If you are going to stay in Beijing ever, I would really really recommend it. The english of the owners is very good and the place is absolutely beautiful inside. A real getaway from the craziness of Beijing.
The university assigned ‘partners’ to us, who were also students studying at RUC, however they had taken at least one year of English and so we could communicate with them while there. This turned out to be very useful, as my partner, JingJing, told me to get WeChat before arriving in China as that is the messaging platform that is used there. She also informed me that sites such as google, youtube, and facebook are all blocked in China. This turned out to be a major issue at one stage as I downloaded a translator app on android which then couldn’t work in china, presumably because it tried to access google translator. While there however I learnt that the internet issue can be easily overcome by downloading a VPN on your phone and laptop, but this has to be done before you get into China.
Experience at Summer School :
Upon arrival in China I was aware of a few things all at once. English is barely spoken there, it’s super hot in summer and ordering food can be a massive mission, usually resulting into a large sign language match. To explain briefly what I mean, for my first meal in China I decided I wanted to have an authentic chinese food experience and so found a tiny restaurant in a side street in Beijing. Once I had ordered my food with a multitude of hand signals I sat down and waited for the food with a chinese beer. I wasn’t entirely sure what I had ordered but was quite surprised when it turned out to be chilli, tofu and octopus tentacles. A pro tip I would offer is to learn the words for Chicken (Ji Rou) and Beef (Niu Rou) in chinese before arriving there. This became very helpful to me as I continued my stay in China.
I toured the city and made great friends at the hostel I stayed at. We went to visit all of the major attractions including the Great Wall, which is honestly one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had and is an absolute must when in Beijing.
After my first few days of sightseeing I arrived at the university, and was actually a little bit shocked at how different it is to Stellenbosch. Firstly there was no common element in the architecture of any of the buildings in the entire university. It also felt almost as if every building was just erected for its own singular purpose without ever considering how it would look next to the other buildings. Secondly the sports facilities were bustling late at night with people playing basketball and exercising at the running track. And thirdly, the campus had a feeling of liveliness about it, with random street vendors selling fruit and just everyday people going about their business on the campus grounds.
After much talking on WeChat, I finally got to meet my partner JingJing in real life, and she was amazing! We took a tour of the campus and bought some fruit which we ate while watching people practice traditional chinese dancing. Getting to know my partner at the university really helped in the first few days as she was able to translate for me and also order food when I didn’t understand what was on the menu. She also invited some of her roommates to eat with us at dinner which was quite cool as I got to make a few more chinese friends.
The international students at the university were also awesome. They were from all over the world, and eventually I became good friends with a girl from London, a guy from Canada and a girl who was raised in Beijing but was now also studying in Canada. We all became very tight and did all sorts of things together.
The main highlight of my trip was probably watching the sunrise at 4 am from the Great wall of China. I had been given the nickname of the ‘crazy South African’ and so in order to live up to this name, I decided we needed to go and sleep on the great wall of China. So we hired a car, drove for hours, got absolutely lost and eventually landed up in the most beautiful part of China with an extraordinary piece of wall all to ourselves which we promptly slept on. Watching the sunrise that morning was an experience I will cherish forever.
Return:
Or should I rather say the crazy shift in life! On the way home, our plane was delayed out of Beijing due to a massive thunderstorm, which meant that we missed our connecting flight back to South Africa. We were put up in a hotel for the night and got to explore Hong Kong for a day, but because we only left the airport at 4 am due to lost luggage and such, upon arrival in Hong Kong, sleep deprivation was beginning to play havoc with my system.
Upon returning to South Africa, I slept for almost 2 days straight and would love to have stayed at home for longer, but unfortunately class had already begun so I left home to come back to Stellenbosch. I immediately felt at home back in SA however, with smiling faces all around and familiar restaurants to order food at. Its suprising how much you miss your own people when you are in a foreign country. And one thing I realised while touring was how different our language here in SA is. We use so much slang that the rest of the world has no idea what most of what I was saying means.
The euphoria of been back home however wore off quite fast and for a while after I was back I felt slightly depressed by the fact that I had literally just been in China, touring around and having fun and now I had to get straight back into working hard on my projects and such. My friends were a great bouncing pad as well as my parents and I eventually pulled out of it to get back into reality.
My trip made me appreciate how truly diverse SA is, and how privileged we are to live in what is truly the most beautiful country in the world. In Beijing the air pollution was sometimes so bad you couldn’t see further than 100 metres in front of you. We are truly so blessed to be able to enjoy blue skies and stars at night time.
I would recommend this summer school to anyone who wants to see the ‘other’ side of the world!