So, I've arrived at University - I've registered for my student card, my roomkey card, my canteen card, my laundry card, my TV card, my transport card, my Chinese bank card - I'm a full card-carrying student at Fudan University. So many cards in fact, that I have to buy a new purse!
The University is enormous - especially when I think of the tiny Bournemouth campus - it's also very beautiful with carefully planted gardens, small fish ponds with elegant oriental bridges over them and even a few kitties for me to terrorise into giving me a cuddle!
It takes around half an hour to walk from one side of the campus to the other - about as long as it took me to walk from my flat in Hackney to my office in the City. I'm sharing a room in the Foreign Students' Dormitory with a lovely Korean girl called Soo Ah. The view from the top (23rd) floor of our building is incredible - you can see Pudong - the redeveloped financial district of Shanghai with its famous skyline. If I'm honest, I was just excited that my student halls weren't on top of a car park like the delightful Glenfern House in Bournemouth!! Our room is great - it has a bath tub (what student luxury!), a balcony, air conditioning - but the bed is only 1.5" of foam mattress away from being a wooden board.
Last week we had to take language tests to see which classes we should take - there are 8 different levels from A (the beginners' classes) to H (for students who are preparing to do postgraduate study). I was really nervous about taking the test - my reading and writing are non-existent and most of the people around my have studied Chinese at school or University. It really puts my sporadic evening classes into perspective. I was surprised (but also really pleased) to be put into the B classes - because my speaking and listening are OK - but the teacher who assessed me warned me that I would have to study really hard to catch up on the reading and writing. She was not wrong!
On Monday I was totally mortified when my teacher asked me to stand at the board and write a sentence that he would dictate to me. The board remained very blank until I was allowed to sit back down and he picked on someone else. This was enough to spur me in to action - I've done 3hrs of reading and writing every day this week and last night I managed to read (and understand) my first full sentence (for those who are really interested it was "last night I went to see a basket ball match with my friends") without using the dictionary or guessing at any of the words. It feels like progress - even if it's just teenytiny steps. Next Monday, I have to give a 3 minute talk about a topic of my choice in Chinese. It's so funny spending several hours a day having conversations with my classmates that go along the lines of:
"what did you do last night?"
"last night I ate dinner, then I watched TV, and I studied Chinese. What did you do last night?"
"last night I also ate dinner and studied Chinese. Do you like football?"
"Yes, I do like football. Do you like to play tennis?"
"No, I do not like to play tennis but I do like to play basketball"
"Have you ever been to Beijing?"
"Yes, I went there last year. It is a nice city"
I've been spending time with a nice group of students (Spanish, Korean, Italian and Philipino) and I'm sure you would all find our excitement at managing to have the above conversation - or something similar - each day very endearing. I shall leave you that thought...
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