on the 16th of August, AOE conducted a Wechat livestream session with the topic "Challengers and rewards of studying China" from his experience and perspective.

Born in 1989 Peter  is originally from the Republic of Congo where i was born and finished  my study in high school in 2010 after My  graduation I  plan to study abroad and the best plan was china. I got my admission in Xiamen city at huaqiao huawen xueyuan based in Fujian province .

I arrived in China in 2011 /10 /11 from guangzhou international airport and I  was picked by my  uncle who was waiting for me  At  the airport, that was my first experience to travel in such long way around two days of fly cause of the hours differences , stayed in guangzhou for four days experience subway and didn’t really get use to Chinese food at that time , My first impression was the huge population in the street in the subway malls so crowded but well organized, leave guangzhou after four days and lead to Xiamen when everything started the life in china .

session 1 why choose china ?

from the start my father was the first to travel to china for his business , but he travel with  some students who was coming to study in china and he did not talk to me about that , only when he comes back  to my country  after few days he relate the story about hes experience in china and tell me about the students coming to china to study and  show me some evidence videos and pictures,  so by that i ask him to give  sometimes to think about it , after good reflection i finally decided to come to china to study because china as a fast development and  large market in the world so have many opportunities for business Between China and my country , also facinate with the culture food and i wanted to experience The kung-fu That i was watching on movies only .

session 2 study in china

Arrived in Xiamen by bus and reach the school office administration get a room pay the Chinese language fees next morning get all the Chinese language books from speaking writing listening and get to the class for the first time in my life to be around Asian students from different countries so welcomed even helped with some tasks about the study , the good part was the school gives me a tutor to teach me on my free time and practice while outside in market malls bus taxi I mean for daily life she was there with me we even attend some activities visiting the sea side of Xiamen play in some parks cinemas etc .

After my tutor graduate she went back so I was now on my own with the small Chinese I have learned.

The class was subdivided this way : yi xia for beginners, er xia for those who improved, San xia for those already can speak well and XI xia for advanced.

So when I start I was in yi xia and I come late the lessons was almost at the end so I choose to repeat the class for next September advice of the supervisor.

It was hard in the beginning but finally I made it I pass all the exams and apply for bachelor degree in several university around the country and the chance smile to hangzhou where I got scholarships of 20 k and I just pay the dormitory.

I start my bachelor degree at hangzhou dianzy university after half a year I lost my scholarship and decided to change university so I choose caijing university that newly open for international students and offered full scholarship so I just pay assurance fee and visa fee for one year, My study at caijing last for 6 years

For dormitory story i will say it wasnt easy i had indian roomate while i was studying in xiamen and the atmosphere was good , we were also classmate so we did not have much issue to live together cause my friends was his friends too .

in hangzhoug i had a single room at first then when the school got so many student the administration decided to canceled single rooms to double rooms and i had a roomate from nigeria we were not close but the good things was we respect each other and never disturb with noise or bring friends in the room we had schedule of cleaning so the room was clean and well arranged after awhile i decided to rent a house with my country mate for more privacy and school ask us to back to dorm again , beside the idain and nigerian roomate i aslso had guaneen roomate ethiopian roomate cause i changed university from dianzy to caijing so different year people was changing rooms and roomate .

I restarted the bachelor degree with all the new students it was much fun meeting new people from different countries exchanged languages as French English and Chinese ; we had professional teachers in all domain we were studying, we got lot homework,

I finaly graduate from my bachelor degree on 2021 and get my certificat and diploma it was an achievements of one part in my life , after this chapter was closed i struggle to find job and university cause the time was short and the visa was about to finish but with God grace i finally get stability with a visa and doing business with my familly back home in same time trying to find job for a better life balance so now im in the other chapter of my life that im writing and living day by day .

session 3 problems and solutions encountered in china :

China is an beautiful country rich of culture From north to south and East to west .

As a foreigner i faced good days and also worse days , it was not easy to study far from your parents and relatives  having hard time to adjust with the new food , difficulties of communications while shopping and also to understand the chinese currency tooks me sometimes other things was stressing me sometimes is while we walking outside some locaux ask you for pictures and some took without even asking but that was fine actually to avoid that sometimes i was just running of the scene or cover my face , i also had some chinese friends with them we only speak chinese so its was a really hard time of communication but thank you to them because that push me to study and put more serious to learn chinese . the other struggle was the visa issue while i was studying it comes that the university wont give you the documents to renew your visa becuase needs to complete the full payement tuition fees ,  i remember i had been overstay for five days because the parents was trying to collect the money and send to pay , how did i solve it i went to the police near by and explain my situation they give me a documents that i showed to the immigration while waiting for the money , after receiving the money i run to the bank and collect my papers straight to the immigration the officer give me a paper in where i put my finger print on  it that was an warning paper that i first received since im inchina because of five days overstay good things it was solved on time .  

session 4 Foods

I really enjoyed food in xiamen that I found similar taste to my country food but at first it was hard to adjust with some dishes but then I had no choices to just go with the flow until I found it interesting to discover more dishes like Thailand food Indonesian and philippine food and when I reach hangzhou it was already not hard to adjust with the kind of dishes .  .

Session 5 Hobbies

While studying we had P-E class every week and that’s helps me most of the time learn how to play badminton table tennis kung-fu master taishi , but above all I more enjoyed football we had competition in school and against universities too so made it my principal hobby when I have free time even week days or weekends