Now that the midterm exam is over, we can relax a bit. Or at least, we do not have to study as hard as we did directly before the exam.

During the week from the 31^th of October to the 4^th of November, there are no Chinese classes. It is called “cultural exploration week” and the exchange students are supposed to travel around and explore Chinese culture. Unfortunately, this does not release Laura and me from our teaching duties, so we went to Hong Kong the weekend before this holiday.

From Zhuhai to Hong Kong, it is not really far. You can go either by bus or by ferry. Ferry is much quicker but also more expensive.

When we went to Hong Kong, we took a bus to Shenzhen first, then rode the subway to the border. Our passports were checked twice there. Afterwards, we moved to our apartment. We rented it on Airbnb. We traveled together with a girl from Russia and each of us only had to pay 30 Euro for three nights. Admittedly, the room was tiny but, I guess, that's what all hostels in Hong Kong are. We had a tiny shower and a tiny kitchen and a regular sized bunk bed for the three of us but it was okay since we never spend much time in this room and rather went out to explore the city.

On our trips, we saw Victoria Harbour at night, Victoria Peak, the giant Tian Tan Buddha and the Temple, a night market and of course, downtown Hong Kong.

Getting along was easier than it is for example in Zhuhai because, everybody speaks English and also most signs are in English too.

We went back with the ferry and almost missed it because, we were not able to pick up the tickets a Chinese friend bought for us. We had to buy new tickets but we got our money back at the ferry terminal in Zhuhai.

Today we want to eat dinner with all the Chinese students that spend their semester abroad at our home university in Chemnitz and Jessica also from Chemnitz.

-Lisa

Today, we had a big meeting with the ISA (International Student Association). They have a so called "Buddy Program". A buddy is somebody, who is supposed to help you with complicated matters at the university, paperwork or getting to know Chinese culture. It is questionable, if this is still effective after we are already here for almost two moths. But nevertheless, ISA helped us a great deal since we arrived at the airport. Our tutors work for ISA too. A tutor is somebody you're supposed to spend at least 3 hours a week with, to do your homework and improve your Chinese. A pretty effective system, I guess. At least Laura and I did pretty well in the first monthly test. We will see how effective it is as soon as we wrote the midterm exam.

But our buddy is not the same person as our tutor. Our buddy is also not the person who picked us up at the airport and helped us during the first days. Our buddy is a freshman and I guess, they are picked for us according to our mother tongue. At least, my buddy is learning German as a second foreign language. She is a extremely nice and she was very cuddly from the moment I first met her.

At today's meeting, there were some performances from the new ISA members in the beginning and later, there were some funny “Get-To-Know-Each-Other” games. Actually, I am not a big fan of those but this time, it was indeed funny. Laura, I and some of our friends even won one of those games and got Chinese Bookmarks as a prize. Afterwards, we had lunch with our buddies. It is a nice feeling to know so many people and to know that there is always sombody to help you if you are in trouble. 

Teaching is also going very well. Our students are very attentive and being a teacher is an extremely satisfying job here, because nobody every forgets their homework or didn't do the reading. Chinese Students are a bit shy in class but they are also clever.

As I already mentioned, preparing the classes is a bit time consuming and  also a bit difficult because the internet in our room hardly works. Becauuse of that, we have not planed to do long journeys during the semester. In the end of October, we will stay in Hong Kong for one weekend and next week we want to visit the Jintai Temple together with my tutor. Our other plans include: going to Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo in the end of the semester.

- Lisa

We haven't updated our blog in a long time. This is because, we are very busy at the moment. Yesterday, we went to the visa office. We need to change our visa if we want to go to Hong Kong or Macau. Also, if we want to open a bank account, we need a visa with several entries. Everything here is so adventurous!

When we are not currently trying to get along with Chinese bureaucracy, we are preparing our classes. Both of us are teaching three periods of Landeskunde each week. Laura is also teaching listening skills and communication 1 and I'm teaching reading skills and communication 2. This is a LOT of teaching material to prepare. To cap it all, nobody here was aware of the fact that we expected credit points for teaching. So, we still have to figure out how to resolve that. There are also ten periods of Chinese language courses, we have to attend each week, (we are already missing two, because, we are teaching at the same time.) Because of that, it is really difficult for us to attend any more courses.

Like I said, we are very busy at the moment. But next week, there is the so called “Mid Autumn Festival Holiday” which hopefully will give us some free time. We would really like to visit the Hengqin Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. This an incredibly huge auquarium and we are both thrilled to see that.

- Lisa

Last Friday, we finally moved to the campus. The girl who helped us at the airport picked us up and fortunately, we were able to go by taxi. Laura and I share one room. The sink is on the balcony and the room in which the toilet is located is also the shower cabinet. Since we already knew about the bathroom situation, we were not really surprised. Nevertheless, we spend several hours cleaning the room. Actually, we did not pay any rent because, we are also teachers, so it's okay. There is a supermarket next to our dormitory where we can buy everything. At the beginning, we bought pillows and blankets and a few household items. But, they also offer food and many other useful things. Basically, we are missing nothing. Chinese people are very kind and they try to help us as good as they can, even when they don't understand us

So far, so good. Still, there is one big problem. Getting information is really hard. It seems that nobody really understands how things work at this university. Today, we finally got our student ID-Card, which we need to get internet or food at the canteen. But it was a long and difficult process. We are still waiting for our visa and our schedule. There is a lot of paperwork and even if they do their best, our Chinese guides are very often rather confusing than helping. It seems to be a Chinese thing. Luckily, we already know many Chinese students since they are very interested in making friends with foreigners. It takes some time until we actually get correct information but we are learning to be patient.

Tomorrow, we will teach our first German lecture. We already talked to some of our students and they are just as exited as we are.

-Lisa

Yesterday, we arrived at the airport in Guangzhou after a journey of 22 hours. We were picked up by two chinese students and after another 2 hour bus ride, we finally arrived at the Wushunde Hotel of SYSU at 11 pm. Leaving the aiport took really long because in order to show our visa, we were standing in line for more than a hour.

We're starting to get used to the fact that in China, things usually do not work out at the first attempt. For example: we have to leave our hotel tomorrow because it's overbooked. Luckily, we already found another one.

Getting money was also a bit complicated because not every cashpoint accepts our visa card. 

Fortunately, one of the girls who picked us up at the airport also helped us today. Now, everything is resolved so far and we can relax a bit until the semester starts.

-Lisa