From October 1st to October 8th, Chinese people get an 8-day holiday because of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival. This is the longest short break of the year. Chinese students may plan to go back home, stay at school or travel to other cities. But how do foreign students spend this holiday?
Sophie Han, a student of a Dual Degree program in Global Communication, joined a 3-day tour with Laowai, a foreign travel group containing 90 people, to Kubiqi Desert and Xilanmuren Grassland in Inner Mongolia. In this trip, she experienced the Mongolia ceremonial toast, Camel-riding, Horse-riding, Desert Zip-line, Sand-sliding and many other local activities. For Sophie, the wonderful visit and the great cultural shows accompanied by music, dance and fireworks were memorable.
Instead of travelling, some students choose to stay in Beijing to explore the city. Tionge, student from IMIC program, visited a traditional Chinese market in the vicinity of Drum tower and found many attractive traditional Chinese handicrafts.
Coincidentally, Edoardo (from International Journalism and Communication) and Fady (from New Media) also chose to visit the Drum Tower, but they also visited the Houhai Bar Street. These places are two of the most typical traditional places in Beijing. At the top of the ancient Drum Tower, one can see the modern side of Beijing, which is “quite an amazing feeling”. In Houhai Bar Street which is designed in a completely different style, they saw a more leisure life in the center of the busy city, which helped them know more about the city that they are going to stay in for quite a long time.
Another group of students that stayed in Beijing took a wilder trip by biking to the Great Wall and camping there for 3 days. This trip was originally initiated by Du Changyan, Zhenya Mishakhin(both from Animation Art, Master) and Sean Zholbarys(from Advertisement, Bachelor) about two weeks before National Day holiday. There were 17 participants in this tour in total. It was the fifth and might as well the last biking tour during school-days for Du, which makes it more significant then ever. The three initiators are all about to graduate soon, and Du values their friendship a lot. He hopes that the biking trip can go on and be a routine activity in CUC someday.
Apart from travel and leisure, a grand ceremony was held. Zhangyue, a PhD student in Communication, went back home to Thailand for her wedding. On September 27th, also August 8th on the lunar calendar, which was selected by a Buddhist monk, her ceremonial Thai wedding which took a year to prepare for, was held. A few days later, on October 3rd, she held a wedding in China. Although, she didn’t deliberately pick the date, it took place in this holiday. Certainly, this wedding added some joy.
Although most students had travelled for relaxation and entertainment, there were also some students that stayed in school. Haojie, from International Chinese Education, spent this holiday preparing for his HSK exam. For him, it was an intense but meaningful holiday.
With the development of China, more foreign students tend to study in China and experience Chinese culture. And in CUC, many foreign students are trying to be engaged in our unique campus culture.
