Narelle MALLETT

University of New England, Australia
Exchange to Shaanxi Normal University, China

The Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Awards program gave me the fantastic opportunity of living and studying in the culturally rich and ancient city of Xian, China. What’s more, I took with me my two children aged 6 and 3. Our adventure was absolutely “mind blowing”. Both myself and the children gained so much in terms of experience and knowledge that we came back to Australia completely transformed.

The Awards program placed me at Shaanxi Normal University to study a full semester of Chinese language. The university is set on a beautiful campus covered in an oasis of gardens and lovely shady places to study. The facilities were great, with a wealth of activities available. The faculty for teaching Chinese to foreign students provided high quality teachers with a range of interesting units for study. The course has been specifically designed for foreign students, which made it very accessible and fun to learn. I loved it and didn’t miss a day!

Living in Xian itself was also fascinating. Apart from the ancient cultural attractions such as The Big Goose Pagoda, the Terracotta Warriors and The Old City Wall, traditional Chinese culture is alive everywhere. For example, going on a simple trip to the shops, you might see a lady in “the crane position” practicing Tai Qi. Walk a little further and you could see a man blowing toffee into the shape of a dragon, beside a couple playing badminton. Walk on further and you might see a crowd doing a “fan dance” on the street. We were awestruck by the wealth of history and culture around us everywhere in Xian. After every adventure outdoors, the children and I brought back, to our 8 story apartment, a little bit of culture with us. When we came back from The Terracotta Warriors for example, the children started playing warriors together and when it was my birthday they threw a sheet over themselves and did a “lion dance” for me.

The children both attended normal Chinese schools here, which I found very easy to arrange. Within six months, the children were speaking fluent Chinese. The Chinese people absolutely adored them and the children’s characters really developed, to became more confident and outgoing. We made a great number of friends who bent over backwards to help us.

Overall our trip to China was wonderful for both increasing my Chinese language skills and for broadening my whole family’s outlook on the world. But, perhaps, most importantly, we all developed a great thirst to keep learning more about Chinese culture, language and society.

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