Catelyne Feenders: my study experience in China

It is incredible how fast time flies. About six years ago, I set foot in China for the first time with strong eagerness to learn and experience Chinese language and culture. I was 19 back then and had just graduated from high school about two weeks before. I was amazed at the differences between China and the small town in northwest Germany where I was born.

My story with China all started when I was around 13 years old. When I was young, I watched plenty of different documentaries. From them I learned about a Chinese province called Yunnan, the cultural diversity of which fascinated me deeply as I dared not believe that a place like that really existed. From then onwards, I started to read books and articles about China. They got me so interested in China that I was thinking of studying Sinology in Germany for my undergraduate degree. Before I took that step I decided to spend a gap year in China to know more about this country through personal experience. Thanks to an exchange program, my wish was fulfilled and I ended up studying in Guangdong Province in 2013.

It was at that time that I first realized how difficult it was to learn Chinese. Therefore, I was considering studying Chinese in Germany, but I quickly gave up this thought because of the lack of language environment. However, Guangdong Province was also not an appropriate place for me to study Chinese, so I decided that I wanted to go further north to study Mandarin. As most universities in China require a certain level of Chinese proficiency, I had to prepare for my Mandarin test. In Beijing, I quickly found some friends who were willing to help me study Chinese. In 2015 I finally made it into Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), where I could finish my undergraduate studies. During my four years in BLCU, I met incredible people, some of whom now are like family members.

After graduation, I decided to move to another city to see other places in China. Therefore, I chose to continue my studies at Nanjing University. I encountered a completely new studying experience there. During my studies in Beijing, all of my classmates were foreign students and I met most of my Chinese friends outside the school, while in Nanjing University, there were only five foreigners in class and we studied with twenty other Chinese classmates. It was more challenging because I had to discuss topics with native speakers on a postgraduate level taking into account that I only studied Chinese for 4 to 5 years.

My experience in Beijing and Nanjing left me many unforgettable memories. Beijing Language and Culture University provided me with an invisible platform for cultural exchange. I shared with my friends my own culture and my understanding of Chinese culture, through which I also understood my own culture better as we were encouraged to share and to compare. This valuable experience later helped me better integrate myself into the classes I took in Nanjing. I was able to overcome the cultural boundaries, and made some lifelong friends there as well. I remember that once in Nanjing, I went on a weekend trip with two Chinese classmates and two German exchange students. This trip showed me the beauty of sharing different cultures. The two German girls had just started learning Chinese, so when we were talking to each other, we would mix Chinese and English. It turned out that it was not about how much you know or how good your language skills were, but rather the willingness to communicate with another person.

I would argue that for most of us who decided to study in China, the willingness to share might be one of the main reasons for success in learning Chinese. We need to be aware that it is not the language itself that we need to learn, but the culture and the stories behind these words and phrases to understand what we are trying to say in Chinese. For me, this was the key to successfully mastering Mandarin. It might be easier for some to quickly memorize vocabularies, but if one doesn't know anything about the country of the language that one is studying, it will be difficult to see the little details in everyday communication and one may not be able to completely integrate oneself into the society. I would always recommend someone who came to China to study Chinese to travel around and visit different places in China. As for me, speaking to local people, experiencing their local customs, and listening to the local dialect helped me to get a deeper understanding of China and its culture. We can only grasp a language when we truly understand the culture behind it.