The Introduction and 1st language classes (Leaving my accent behind).

The day after arriving we spent a lot of time getting to know the surrounding area and meeting the new arrivals before attending our welcome meal, filled with a lot of the stereotypical Chinese dishes including sweet and sour dishes, various types of beef, noodles and of course “mĭfàn” (rice), as usual in Chinese cuisine there were some dishes which required a second look including a full fish, head and all and for many the prawns were a new strange dish which just happened to be the nicest at the table.

After various team building games which included my room-mate performing my favourite version of Barbie girl to date we were told we had the rest of the day free. At this point we split off into various groups and each made our own plans, after much thought I decided to join the group looking to experience the nightlife of Beijing and thus after a few of the 青岛啤酒 (Tsingtao beers) we decided to try our luck with some nightclubs, I'm not sure I'll ever know if the plan was to go to the nightclub called Mix or the one called Vics, but the similarity of the name along with the proximity of the clubs effectively split the group into 2 only to thankfully meet up after an hour or so of confusing phone calls. This was a great lesson in prior planning and having written addresses that would see us organise every day out from then on which much greater success than the stressful first night.

The following morning with many students nursing minor hangovers we attended our Opening ceremony where we heard from representatives from BNU, the British Council and the organisers for Study China including our lifeline on the trip Lucy. Once the opening ceremony had finished and the slightly rainy group photos were taken we split into our Language classes and began our first lesson.

In our first lesson we were introduced to our teachers who were friendly if a bit eccentric and given our Chinese names to use throughout the 3 weeks, in my opinion 罗佳宁 (luó jiā níng) was certainly one of the more difficult to pronounce and will require some mastering. The most difficult task when entering these classes for me was to get away from my Northern Irish accent, while not as broad as some is still limiting when attempting to pronounce “nĭ hăo” and instead saying “knee how”. After a couple of hours of sounding out the basic syllables and learning about the various accents which can be the difference between referring to your mother or to a horse I was feeling confident about the next few weeks of learning.

After my language lesson I separated from many of my classmates attending the Teaching module and joined my room-mate

to attend the Social Development and Public Policy class. Before arriving I was unsure of how this interesting class would be and how enjoyable but was instantly hooked learning about the colossal changes and challenges China has gone through in the last 100 years, from the cultural revolutions to the drastic change in economic policies to the modern day globalisation of Chinese culture I was completely fascinated.

The first day of classes has left me looking forward to all that’s coming and all that I can learn.