Students swap tales of life and learning

More than 100 students from the East Coast of the US who have studied in China got together in Manhattan recently to share their experiences.

For most US and other international students, China proved different from what the textbooks and media led them to expect.

"Being from the US, I had lots of stereotypes in my mind because you hear many different things from the news and other people," said Damien Hobday, a graduate of CUNY Brooklyn College who went to China two years ago.

"But when I got there, the first thing I noticed immediately might be the amount of construction going on, the government and the people were putting back into the environment and infrastructure."

He said there weren't many people in China who spoke English like in European countries, but they did help him a lot and he had a really good first impression of the hospitality of Chinese people.

"To anybody who has adverse feelings about China, I say get out there, make the trip, it's a long plane ride, but it's going to be worth it."

Trevor West, a senior from Seton Hall University, first became interested in going to China because, like many others, he thought the country was important to US foreign relations. He studied history and language at Peking University in 2016.

"When I started to learn Chinese and make Chinese friends and got to know more about Chinese culture, I found Chinese Taoism and Confucianism are very interesting and that's what I've been learning more and researching more about," West said.

Amish Vyas, who got his doctor of medicine degree from Wenzhou Medical University in 2013, said he was drawn to China by its extensive cultural heritage.

"When I got admitted into the five-and-a-half-year medical program, my relatives and parents thought that I might feel homesickness or culture shock, but to me, it was the country I had been dreaming of for years," Vyas said.

"There is a special saying that Chinese culture is like an ocean and if you are accepting of the local community's way of life, you will be a happy creature in that ocean.

"I am extremely thankful to my university and the Chinese government for such a wonderful opportunity for education and from deep in my heart I wish to work for China after gaining enough experience here," he added.

"Studying in China is a rare chance for American people, considering the far distance, the difference between the two nations, and the long entrenched misunderstanding," Zhao Yumin, deputy consul general of China in New York, told the gathering at the China Institute last Friday.

"Deciding to study in China needs vision, needs ambition, and it needs guts, but I promise you it will definitely pay off."

James B. Heimowitz, president of the China Institute, also addressed the students and teachers attending the event. "I'm concerned for the state of the relationship between what I view as the two most important countries on the planet," he said.

"The only way we can possibly move forward is by building a deeper understanding, because nothing is going to happen without trust," he said, adding that people-to-people and cultural exchanges are the most important foundation for that.

Ziqi Jiang contributed to this story.