ZWISCHENBERICHT 2016-2017 TONGJI UNIVERSITY, SHANGHAI, CHINA Master Angewandte Politikwissenschaften CH-2016-J3GK7-w Sunset at the Bund, Shanghai Wie waren Ankunft und die erste Woche in Ihrem Gastland? Gab es Einführungsinformationen und waren diese Hilfreich? The Winter term started on the 12. Of September and I landed in Shanghai on the 10. It s not the first time that I m in China so I was not that stressed out as much as last time. It helped a lot to know that I had a room reserved for me in the international dorms of the campus. That way I knew exactly where to go and that I didn t need to look for an apartment myself, which can be really hard in China. In the first weeks I could really feel the effects of the jetlag and because of all the formalities that needed to be arranged, it was a rather difficult time. Thankfully we had previously gotten a lot of information and help per e-mail, for example a registration guide that amongst others mentioned all the documents needed for the
registration at the university or the residence permit application. However, I have to say that some procedures were really messy and unclear, for example concerning the Health check needed for the residence permit. Konnten Sie alle Formalitäten (Kurswahl, Versicherung, etc.) klären? All formalities could be arranged in the first weeks in China, even if not always without problem. For example to register at the university you need to pay for a health insurance (400 CNY per Semester), on which there are no contracts signed and no information given, except for an insurance card that doesn t even have your name on it. Thus even if you already payed for an international health insurance in your home country. Because I m in China for a Chinese language program, I just had to select the difficulty level of my classes. This happened in the first week, where you could freely take a look at the different possibilities and decide which one suits best your Chinese level. Was war das Highlight Ihrer ersten Zeit? In the beginning of October there was the Golden Week, which is the Chinese national Holiday. We had a week of vacation and I went to Peking with the other exchange student from Freiburg. We had the chance to visit the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace, the Hutongs and so on. It was amazing experience! The Great Wall, Peking
Was finden Sie gewöhnungsbedürftig, fremd, anders als in Deutschland? A lot of things are different in China, but the most difficult for me to get used to is the amount of people and the size of the cities. The roads, the buildings, the campus, the shopping malls Everything is so much bigger than in Europe and there are much more people walking around no matter which day of the week it is. For someone who grew up in a little village of 300 inhabitants, it is a challenge! Overcrowded Hutong during the Golden Week, Peking Beschreiben Sie bitte kurz den Ablauf eines typischen Wochentages. Bitte senden Sie uns eine Kopie Ihres Stundenplans und erläutern Sie kurz die Unterschiede zu Ihrem Stundenplan an der Universität Freiburg. Wie wird ihr Wochenplan für das zweite Semester aussehen? We have Chinese classes Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 12:00. It will stay the same for the next term. There are for different classes; elementary Chinese, the main class where we learn grammar and idioms for example, then there are the Speaking and Listening class, the reading comprehension class, and the Writing class.
Schedule of the Chinese classes After the classes I usually eat with some of my classmates at one of the several canteens on the campus, or at restaurants close to our school. Usually I take a little time to rest after that and then I do the homework with a classmate or alone. We have a different teacher for each of the classes and they all give us separate homework from day to day, so it can get quite a lot. Until the end of October it was possible to do the homework outside on one of the tables that are a little everywhere on campus. It was really nice! My schedule in Freiburg was very different: I just had 4 hours of Chinese classes a week because it is not my major, the rest of my classes were seminars. Overall I had a less hours of classes in Freiburg than in China. Erzählen Sie uns von einem tollen/prägenden Erlebnis. There are around 20 students in my class from more than 10 different nationalities all over the world: Korea, Togo, Soudan, Ecuador, Madagascar, Yemen, Japan, Italy, Ukraine, etc. The atmosphere is very good and everybody gets along very well! Sometimes in class we get assignments to present something from our country to our classmates: culinary specialties, traditional songs Every time it is very interesting to learn more about those countries from which you would probably never talk about otherwise. I particularly liked the week where each
of us had to present a typical song from our country, explain its meaning and give the classmates the opportunity to listen to new kinds of music. Bitte vervollständigen Sie folgenden Satz: Am meisten vermisse ich I m missing the most my family and friends. Even if there are a lot of possibilities to communicate, it is still not the same as being with them. The biggest struggles are the time difference and the internet connection that is not always very good. Luckily there a lot of very nice people here! Gibt es andere Dinge, die Sie gern berichten möchten? Even if it can seem scary and stressful, going abroad is definitely worth it. It is the opportunity to discover more about a country, its culture and its language. I would definitely recommend it to anybody! I ve had great experiences and I will definitely have some more in my second semester. At the Summer Palace, Peking