Submitted by ciurce on
I am MUGISHA Shallom ( ZHANG Ai) , I study in Confucius Institute at UR Remera campus.
Recently, before I joined CIUR, I wasn’t aware about Confucius Institute because I haven't heard or being informed on how you can study Chinese but one of my friends after high school joined CIUR and told me that he started learning Chinese and that was my first time heard about that. Second time was my brother who told me that there is a school which teaches Chinese and offer scholarship to study in china and therefore you can get many opportunities through learning that language. I was so impressed and I have been starting to prepare myself for going on in registration process.
In fact, I am vividly remembering my first day in CIUR on 24/09/2018 that time was enthusiastic one and I was quite scared if what I was going to do will bear fruits. After having school instructions and weekly class time, I left there with huge curiosity about Chinese. Frankly as anovice one I was waiting to see how to write alphabet from A to Z in Chinese but I was wrong that is not how Chinese works, because in Chinese you learn how to write word by word using Pinyin or Hanzi(Chinese characters) you start with level one up to other levels. To write Hanzi or even read them correctly it's hard in starting even teachers can witness that. But as the time goes on I started to know how to read and write Hanzi. I have started to make simple sentences and sent them to my teacher to verify whether I was right or wrong, she lifted up us by giving us more exercises and home works by that time we made teamwork in class and that helped me to improve my Chinese.
In addition, we had started class with many students but some have started to drop out that was a big challenge and lesson too as well, because those people sometime discourage you by telling you, do you think that you will go to china by CI scholarship ? You are wasting your time for nothing but what I believe if you love Chinese language and knowing what you want in your life those are enough to keep you going forward. And having teamwork with same vision it’s also good advantage because you share many ideas and hold onto them for improvement of each other.
Furthermore, I owe many from my teachers LIU laoshi and LI laoshi they are kind of hardworking teachers, they always encouraging us to work hard and work on time, to be focused on what we are doing just for not wasting time in nonsense dramas. They embody qualities of teachers. I have realized that Chinese teachers like student who is hard working the one who is determined and focused on studies but if you are lazy, quitter or often later you better give up and wait for next time when you are active for fulltime. I can't leave without saying about awalk that I do every day, it takes me one hour from home to school walking by feet on sunny or rainy day and I do that walk two times per day in morning forself-studies and after lunch I have to attend class when I talk that I feel not put pen's down it is so hard. Despite all I mentioned above and this chaoticyear of 2020 I am still studying and I won't fed up my quarantine days must be fruitful.
Nowadays I unveil my eyes and I found that learning Chinese indeed it's essential if you want to cooperate with Chinese people because China holds a big market to supply worldwide. What to say what to left! I learnt precious thing from Chinese people that African youth really need to have and that is patriotism. We need aheart which is willing to serve our nation as Chinese people do.
Also I learnt more about Chinese culture, their native artwork (paintings), songs, dances and their way of living in general. there is tremendous contrast between our cultures for instance the way of clothing is different, China has many kinds of food we don't have and unique martial art KUNGFU we don't have here.
Moreover, my high lighttime was when we were celebrating Chinese New Year at KCC there was many students from different places with different Chinese levels, I was privileged to learn from them and I was inspired by my old schoolmates like Wang Shao Yuan in event of the 10th anniversary of Confucius Institute at University of Rwanda.
Finally, now I can stand and testify that learning Chinese changed my life beyond my expectations now I have level 3 certificate, I can interact with Chinese and I hope to win for scholarship. Regardless our cultures are different but I love the way Chinese people are open to work with anyone who is committed on work without arrogance. I love china and I urge my fellow Rwandans to come and see how Chinese is good.
MUGISHA Shallom 和他的同学参加2020年元宵节活动
作者简介：MUGISHA Shallom（中文姓名：张爱），卢大孔院本部社会班学生。