Dr Yusuf Valentino KANETI

Joint Postdoctoral Fellow at
The University of New South Wales/Monash University, Australia
Exchange to Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, China

Hi all. My name is Yusuf Valentino Kaneti. Before I received the Endeavour Fellowship, I was working as a joint postdoctoral fellow of UNSW/Monash University in Australia. Firstly, I would like to thank the Australian Government and the Cheung Kong Group for providing me with the fantastic Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Research Fellowship. Because of this prestigious award, I was able to conduct exchange postdoctoral research at the prestigious Graduate School of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, China, for a period of 4 months from February-July 2016. It also provided me an excellent opportunity for me to exchange ideas, complete joint manuscripts, and develop professional as well as personal connections with Professor Quan-Hong Yang and his lovely students during my stay there.

My time overseas on exchange was so much fun! What an experience. To be able to live abroad for the first time has really widened my life perspective and helped me to embrace challenges in life. The experience of living abroad was scary at first, however after I settled in, I had such a wonderful time in China. I searched about China on the internet a lot before arriving and I must admit I was nervous because of my poor Chinese language skills. However, I was very happy to find out that Chinese students at the Graduate School of Tsinghua were very welcoming and were also kind enough to help me familiarize with many different equipments. Furthermore, they were very enthusiastic to practice their English communication skills with me and similarly, I was also able to practice and improve my Chinese speaking skills by speaking to them. They were also kind enough to throw me a BBQ welcoming party not long after I had arrived and took me to many wonderful places in Shenzhen such as Coco Park, Wonder of the World, Folk Cultural Village, and Sea of the World on the weekends. I was also involved in many sport activities such as badminton and tennis with the research students at the Graduate School and regularly had lunch and dinner with them at the many canteens and restaurants in University Town of Shenzhen to try out the delicious local delicacies.

During the fellowship, I was also fortunate enough to be able to explore many beautiful places in Hong Kong such as Stanley Market, Floating restaurant, Lantau Island where I took the cable car to see the second biggest statue of Buddha in the world and bought many wonderful souvenirs; Victoria Peak where many rich people in Hong Kong live (I even passed Jackie Chan's house!), Taio fishing village to take a boat ride which was scary yet exhilarating and to visit the wonderful Memorial hotel which used to be a prison! Hong Kong is also an excellent place to shop as they have many good shopping centres.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Quan-Hong Yang, Professor Yanbing He, Professor Baohua Li, Dr. Wei Lv, Mrs. Misao Goto, Mr. Osamu Goto, Dr. Zheng Cheng, as well as many of my wonderful friends at Tsinghua University such as Pan Zhengzhe, Shilin Wu, Viola, Chong Luo, Auger, Zhijie Wang, Yu Qipeng, Wang Fei, Qinbai Yun, Yuxiu Liu, Junxiong Wu, Heng Zhao, Huifa Shi, Lei Yu, Zhengjie Li, Zhang Chen, Zhao Yan, Allen, Cathy, Jiaojiao Deng, Xiaoliang Yu, Cliff Wang, Wenjie Han, Jun Zhang, and Terry for the wonderful and everlasting experience that you have given me during my stay in China!!! I recommend future Endeavour scholars to come to China to study or conduct joint research :)

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