Blogs

The most recent scattered blog post was written in the confusing daze of jetlag and I realize that I need a proper introduction.

As an Asia-Pacific Studies/International Relations student at the University of Toronto, I received a Faculty of Arts: Dr. David Chu Scholarship to fund Mandarin study at the Beijing Language and Culture University. The school was founded solely for educating foreigners in Mandarin, so its population is extremely international. After a week in Hunan surrounded by Chinese people, BLCU's students are a familiar reminder of Toronto. I've met people from: Australia, Thailand, Greece, Italy, Tunisia, the US, Russia, Japan and a French guy from Hong Kong. There is also a massive South Korean population as well.

I'm blogging now from Zhangjiajie, a city in the province of Hunan.

My arrival was an interesting introduction to China as what greeted me at the end of my 14 hour flight was food poisoning, although the culprit was most probably Air Canada, rather than any local cuisine.

Welcome to my blog about my quest to learn Mandarin in Beijing. Without an explanation, the title is a misnomer: It has nothing to do with harmony in the dictionary definition of the word, it’s a tongue-in-cheek take on the Chinese Communist Party’s use of the world “harmony”.

When political dissidents disappear or are put in jail, it is said that they are being “harmonized”. President Hu Jintao has presented China’s foreign policy, including its relations with rogue regimes, as striving to build a “harmonious world”. When China competes with other countries for access to oil supplies through soft power, it is said to be a challenge to Beijing’s “harmony”. Official censorship is euphemistically called “harmonization”.

Given all these opportunities to get in touch with the world outside, many of my classmates are very eager to study abroad after graduating from Fudan. I believe this is the same for most of the Fudan students as well. One example is that when you enter any bookstore on or nearby the campus, you can easily spot the different kinds of studying aids for GRE and TOEFL tests. Students also sign up for courses in preparation for gaining different kinds of foreign language qualifications (e.g. College English Test).

Studying and living in such a competitive environment, many students can now speak and write good English. They are trying hard to “internationalize” themselves in order to become more competitive in the future.

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Today’s focus will be on the trend towards internationalization at Fudan University. Universities develop a steady supply of talents for the society; so seeing how internationalized Fudan currently is, firms my belief even more so in a statement made by a lot of scholars– Shanghai will become an international centre for trade, finance, culture… in the near future.

It is not surprising that Fudan, as the best university in Shanghai, attracts many foreign students and scholars to come and conduct research or pursue further studies every year. Now that I am studying with the local students everyday, I am able to get a glimpse of how they are exposed to the outside world, and are trying hard to “internationalize” themselves. Below are some general observations I have made.

It is kind of late to start blogging in March when the semester ends in July. So I have decided to update more frequently before the cramming period starts. Well at least I should get all the introduction-to-my-school-life-at-Fudan entries done asap. So let’s get started.

On August 26, 2008, I arrived at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport, and kicked off my year-long adventure in China. At the beginning I really had a hard time dealing with everything on my own. Fortunately I survived all the challenges, and settled down quickly. Since then, life at Fudan has been fun.

Hello everyone!

In this “debut blog entry”, let me introduce myself first. I am Nicole Leung, a third-year Asia-Pacific Studies student currently studying international politics at Fudan University in Shanghai, China.

Born and raised in Hong Kong (once a British colony), I never had strong emotional ties to China. Therefore, I take this exchange year at Shanghai as a golden opportunity for me to rediscover China, as Shanghai is the most spectacular city in this emerging country, experiencing immense cultural, social, political and economic changes. In fact, it was not until I arrived at this dynamic city that I started to realize how little I knew about China.

We’ve been back in Toronto for over a month now, and I’ve almost gotten over missing Seoul. It took me about a week to get over the jet lag, but much longer to get used to being back. There’s just something about South Korea that really resonated with me, and I know I’m not the only ASI400 student who wants to go back.