BIB Student Andreas Klein

Renmin University
Beijing, P.R. China, 2009-2010

First off, trying to sum up my experiences in China in a one-page-story seems like a ridiculous task right now. After having lived in Beijing for 10 months I realize that every single day I spent in this city held enough exciting stories to fill several of these pages.

Being a German citizen, I have spent days pretending to be an American in order to get a higher wage as an English teacher. On other days I got invited to the hometown of the barber who cut my hair. I have spent more than two days one a single train ride.

Due to bad pronounciation I have asked for mother’s milk instead of cow milk. I have eaten snakes, scorpions, a living shrimp and scewered chicken’s hearts.

During this year I have met friends from all over the world who I will never forget.

I have learnt a language that is unrelated to any other language spoken in the western world and I have learnt that I know next to nothing looking at the one hundred dialects spoken in the country. I have lived in a university that has more students than my hometown citizens.

I have travelled to the cold north and the tropical south and met people from a dozen different minorities.

Through all of this I have learnt one big important lesson that has drastically and completely altered my personality and understanding of the world.

I have begun to understand and appreciate how big our world is and how little we really are. I understand now that one may never even begin to understand processes that happen on the other side of our planet without ever having been there.

I strongly advise anybody in university to spend a year abroad. If you think you do not have the time to go somewhere else for a year due to your studies, take a break from studying and go.

The year in China was the best and most interesting one in my life. It feels like I have become three years more mature, but like all good times it was over far too soon.