Foreign students yearn to learn more about China - inside the classroom and out

　　By Matt Bowden

　　For most people, the urge to learn a language comes from the desire to communicate with people in that language. I'm learning Chinese so I can communicate with Chinese people and better understand their history and culture. For me, being at a Chinese university but uninvolved in Chinese student life is downright frustrating.

　　That's why I recently jumped into the deep end and joined a Chinese undergraduate history class. My language skills aren't good enough to understand everything. The teacher's handwriting makes as much sense as Egyptian hieroglyphics at times. My classmates may often wonder what on Earth I'm doing there. But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

　　I love every minute of it. I carefully watch classroom behaviour, the ways students communicate and what they talk about. I've learnt more this term than in the previous year-and-a-half put together. Most importantly, I've learnt about my Chinese contemporaries. For two hours a day it's like I'm one of them and not a foreigner. I have also managed to befriend many of my new classmates, even if the friendships are based more on mutual curiosity than on genuinely having things in common. I'm certain many initially became my friends out of a feeling of pity towards the foreigner.

　　Still, seeing eye-to-eye with my Chinese classmates is not easy, not least because I'm about a foot taller than most of them. Different cultural backgrounds, upbringings, living conditions and attitudes towards life - all these things contribute to making it tough to find any common ground upon which to lay the foundations of true and lasting friendship. It may also explain why many foreign students complain about being here for nine months and still not having Chinese student friends.

　　Should it be so difficult? We're all students, we're all citizens of an ever-shrinking world and many of us share similar likes and dislikes. Too often the foreign and Chinese student populations are separate entities on university campuses across China.

　　There has been a massive rise in the number of foreigners coming to study here. One of the world's fastest growing economies, combined with a tantalizingly interesting culture and history, has lured students from countries as far away as Ethiopia and Estonia, Mexico and the Maldives. My school, Beijing Normal University, has about 1,000 foreign students and increases every year. Universities have tried to keep pace in developing ultra-modern, eye-catching amenities. The Liyun Apartotel on Beijing Normal's campus more closely resembles a three-star hotel than a student dorm. There are foreign student canteens and foreign student bars. The sign on a window of an Internet cafe here states, "Foreign Students Only." Its message is representative of the segregation of foreign and Chinese student facilities on campuses all over China. Many classes for foreign students take place in special buildings. Our accommodation is different: Chinese students are confined to cramped six- or seven-person rooms, which cost 650 yuan per year as opposed to 590 yuan per month for a luxury foreign dorm room.