Joe Adendorff

Macquarie University, Australia
Exchange to Fudan University, China

I have been lucky enough, mostly thanks to my parents, to have travelled around most of the world – Africa, North and South America, Europe and even Antarctica. But none of these places can even be remotely compared to China. With well over 2,000 different language dialects and even more places of interest, China never leaves a dull moment. From the inspirational peaks of Huang Shan (Yellow Mountains) to the Terracotta Warriors of Xi’an, China offers a range of different activities and sights that will surely meet and raise the expectations of anyone.

In one month’s time I will have spent close to 5 months studying Chinese in Shanghai, an experience that will prove daunting to even the most avid linguist. I have tried to immerse myself in as much Chinese culture as possible, eating street food from a local alley, forging close relationships with locals, and traveling the countryside to as many places as I can. Chinese culture is one of those things that can be covered in a few months, but takes decades to master. There are some aspects of the Chinese language and culture that even people who have studied it for years cannot understand. However, those aspects which I do understand have somehow managed to enrich my cultural experience far beyond what I would have expected. It is almost impossible to compare life in China to that of Australia. In Australia, taxi drivers don’t dart in and out of traffic like they’re in a race, they don’t challenge buses and win, and they actually try to avoid hitting people. In Australia, everything is a fixed price. You can’t buy a tailor-made woollen suit, with your choice of style and fabric for A$70. You can forget about an “all you can eat and drink” Japanese teppanyaki restaurant for A$20, and you certainly won’t be able to find markets the size of large shopping malls, with everything from shoes to sunglasses at a tiny fraction of the price you’ll find in western countries and surprisingly little difference in quality. In Australia, you will rarely find yourself calling your friends from your bathroom for days on end, asking them to bring you some more toilet paper because your initial 3 rolls weren’t enough to get you past that stomach bug.

Dormitory life in China is somewhat surprising. Arriving at my dorm room, almost nothing was provided. No pillows, no mattress – unless of course you can call a half inch piece of fluff a mattress – almost nothing else apart from a table and a wooden bed base. Everything had to be purchased separately; albeit at very low costs, but purchased nevertheless. Life is however convenient with a half store, half liquor shop at the base of our 22-storey Foreign Student Tower, selling everything from sandwiches to Korean noodles.

Weekend or week-long trips are a must around China, with either cheap airfares or relatively comfortable sleeper trains, which are experiences in themselves. Beijing was totally different to Shanghai; Xi’an was rich with what I expected Chinese architecture to be; Huang Shan, despite being a difficult climb, was breathtaking; and both Suzhou and Hanzhou, while being culturally similar to Shanghai, offer a diverse range of attractions that make the respective trips well worthwhile.

China is one of those places that will continually tempt you back with wonders that you never thought possible. My exchange experience has certainly been one that I will never forget, from the friends that I have made to the places that I have been to. I highly recommend that everyone experiences China in one way or another in their lifetime. This is pertinent with the upcoming Shanghai World Expo in 2010 that will surely make you wonder “how did they do that?” Make the trip to China and have the time of your life!

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