Stories from China that come from out of Africa

Four young Africans studying at Peking University, not content to feast alone on everything they have discovered in China, are sharing it with people around the world on a website they have set up.

Wadeisor Rukato from Zimbabwe and her three friends, all in their early 20s, have spent about nine months in China with Yenching Academy, a foreign student project of Peking University which started in late 2014.

"We were keen to start a blog to share our China experiences with our families back home," says Nothando Khumalo from Swaziland. "When we got together to discuss this, it just made sense to collaborate. We shared ideas, set goals and that is really just how we began."

The website, From-Africa-to-China, which went online in December, has attracted thousands of readers, not the stratospheric numbers some popular blogs can boast of, but enough to delight and encourage the four women.

"In December we had only 49 views," Rukato says. "Six months later we have had nearly 2,000 views in May, and we have some regular visitors."

They will work hard to increase the reach and impact of the website while studying and enjoying themselves in China, she says.

The women update the website at least twice a week, mainly writing about their trips exploring the country and their thoughts on academic life.

A recent study trip took them to Tibet autonomous region, which produced a rich harvest of stories and pictures for the website.

In a red-lacquered traditional Chinese house with wood-frame windows on the campus of Peking University the four pondered over what should go up on the website.

"Tibet leaves a lasting impression on its visitors with its captivating atmosphere, an atmosphere that can only accurately be described as spiritual," says Sihle Isipho Nontshokweni from South Africa.

"It (pulls) you in, demands that you be present and engages you, fully engaging your senses."

Dressed in Chinese-style clothes, seated around a solid wooden table and reliving their Tibet trip, it was as though the four were veterans of travel in China rather than having been in the country for just a few months.

Nontshokweni says she was particularly touched by the flags on the mountains on their way to Tibet, which speak of the depth of its spirituality, she says.

"I didn't even realize that they were flags at first, but after learning so much more about the culture and the history and the spirituality of the place during the days there we realized that it has special meaning to so many people."

These flags are a traditional way for Tibetans to offer prayers seeking blessings, similar to better-known prayer wheels.

When the four were in Tibet they themselves became something of an attraction for the locals, who would have seen few Africans, the women say.

"When we posed for pictures, people approached us with cameras in hands."

As they made a video they attracted such a large crowd that police intervened, says Ththukile Mbanjwa from South Africa. They had become used to drawing public attention after several trips to Shanghai, Nanjing and Shenzhen, she says.

As the only four African members at Yenching Academy of Peking University, Rukato, Nontshokweni, Mbanjwa, and Khumalo, who all studied at the University of Cape Town, say they appreciate the opportunity to live and study in China.

It was not easy to enroll because hundreds of students in Africa applied for the Yenching project when it was founded, Mbanjwa says.

John Holden, associate dean of Yenching Academy of Peking University, says: "The admissions committee was extremely impressed by the four mature girls with outstanding social skills, who showed us that the program of China studies would add significantly to their professional qualifications in their fields of infrastructure policy making, engineering and international relations."

In selecting students the academy seeks outstanding young people with academic excellence and leadership potential, he says.

Few African students get the opportunity to study in China, Rukato says, but numbers have grown in recent years, especially now that more and more college exchange programs are opening to African students.

Even as the From-Africa-to-China website's logo shows lines linking African countries, the four women are endeavoring to connect African countries with one another and with China.

yandongjie@chinadaily.com.cn