-"I received scholarships from 4 different places and I was not quite sure which to choose from. I had no idea about China, but I chose Shanghai JiaoTong University. You know why? My father was an engineer and he had a lot of Chinese friends. China has already been a quite succussful country since 2008. So my dad once told me if you ever have got a chance to study abroad, you have to go to China. I remembered that, and I made this decision just as what he told me."
-"But to be honest with you, so far I am 30% positive but 70% negative about my life here."
-"First, communication problem. I have been in Shanghai for couple of months and I feel that it is a very difficult and complicated city. People do not speak English here. I can speak 6 languages. I can easily pick up other languages, like Spanish or Italian. But I still feel really hard to learn and memorize Chinese. You heard me saying Ni Ne(你呢 means How about you), right? I have to memorize it with my ex-girlfriend’s name Nina! I really want to talk to Chinese people, but I cannot. The very first time I looked for my university, it turned out that I was standing right in front of it! There was a sign in Chinese nearby but I could not read it. I had a map from the university, apart from the main gates written in English, the rest of the small roads are all in Chinese. My suggestions to the university: if you admit a foreign student, please have it all in English as well."
-"What is worse, my courses are in Chinese! How was I supposed to study? Imagine me having 3 classes per day and just listening to Chinese 12 hours from morning to evening. How would I feel? chi chi chi… It just sounds like bumming. The professor told me, nobody speaks English here so you'd better try to learn Chinese. This is our goal: to make foreigners speak Chinese. I was like, why do not you tell me this before? This is cheating. For this particular reason, I want to go home. Sometimes I ask myself, why do I come here? I rejected 3 other scholarships, and I am not happy about my life here. Look at my hair, I did not want to dye my hair like this, I just want a tiny part of it dyed. Plus I wanted a dark brown color instead of this color! But I cannot make the barber understand me, so I just sat there ended like this."
-"Second, I feel Chinese girls want more attentions from the boys. Sorry to say this to you, but this is how I feel. For example, if I were your boyfriend, I would be like a 24-hour servant. I would have to talk to you all the time. I used to have this female friend, she would ask me everytime, 「where are you? when are we going to meet?」 OMG. I do not understand. In my country, you do your work and I do my own work. When we both finish our work, we make plans afterwards. I am certainly not a servant! Another time, I was with this 『Where are you』 all the time type of girl. She was busy with her mobile. And I received a text from her. OMG, she was sitting next to me! I sensed that she wanted to be my girlfriend. But I want to have space with her because of that reason."
-"Third, please write this in your article, in my opinion, Chinese are like machines. They are not like human beings from other countries. Because we enjoy our moments very much. My aunt used to tell me, your life is about experiences. If you want to go to China, go ahead. Everybody has only 4 days in their lives. 20 years for one day. On the first day, we know nothing about this world. When we got to the second day, we know what is love. For boys, it is time for us to chase after girls. By that analogy, we really should enjoy every moment of our lives. But here, I see many people just being busy with their mobiles! I know this is part of your government responsibility that only one child is allowed in one family. I have brothers and sisters. We grow together, love each other and kiss each other. We share so much more feelings. But Chinese people do not have this type of feelings. I see couples sit together, playing mobiles. Come on, if I were with my girlfriend, I would set my mobile to mute. I would take my gf’s hands and tell her you are my everything, you are so beauiful. But here? How do they express love? In my opinion, Chinese boys are better than the girls. Sorry to say that, I see that many times. Sometimes boys do express feelings, trying to touch the girls, etc. But girls rarely respond. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this is part of the culture? Your system gives you this type of life. Sometimes I wake up early in the morning, I open my window and stand on my balcony. I see girls are pedalling so fast to their class. It is 7.30 in the morning, and they are in a hurry! I also have a class at 8 and I feel really bad. I am a Ph.D students. Why should I have class at 8? It is good for undergraduate system but not for the postgraduate system."
-"Fourth, you do not have international TV channels here, right? Your government changes your mentality. If I ask some Chinese students, they only know about maximum 10 countries. I am not talking about geography. For example, I ask a lot of Chinese students in my university. They do not know much about African countries. They even do not know about Mongolia! You know what do the Chinese think of Africa? They say, jungles! And I feel every Chinese wants to go to USA. I just do not understand. Why USA? Why not Germany, Australia, Canada? Dubai is richer than USA, why not go to Dubai? USA is not good. It is just good for their own people, not for foreigners! But these Chinese people do not know about this. You cannot live like a King as you do in your own country."
-"I believe in humanity. If you are a good person then I respect you. I know at some points I might be wrong. But it is seriously not good if you have no knowledge of other countries. Apart from what I said before, I really like Chinese. Do not get me wrong."
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