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My first experience in China

My first experience in China

MUGWIZA Nicolas

 I  am  a  23  years  old  boy  who  learn  Chinese  at  Confucius institute      University  of  Rwanda-college  of  education.  I started  learning  Chinese  back  in  July  2014,  I  enjoy  a  lot learning Chinese and what motivates me most is that I want to communicate with so many people in the world, and the population  of  china  makes  the  majority  of  the  world population. When you communicate with so many people, it gives you so many opportunities for you to be wealthy and no one hates that.

From learning Chinese then I got an opportunity to go to China to attend 2014 joint international camp for Africa and Asia. Going to china was a huge step in my life, and I thought it would help me learn a lot from China and Chinese people and also strengthen my Chinese language proficiency. We had a group of twenty (20) people, we left Kigali international airport on 26 October 2014 and arrived at Chongqing Jiangbei international airport in China on 27 October 2014. From 27 October 2014 2:30 PM (GMT+8), my adventure in china had just started. After arriving at the Chongqing Jiangbei international airport, a bus was just waiting for us and we went straight at  Chongqing normal  university  new  campus where volunteers gave us rooms in the hotel inside the campus,  and  everyone was given his or her room card. We then put our luggage in our rooms and  then  went  straight to the restaurant where were given restaurant card that would help us get the food.

The main objective of the 2014  joint international camp for Africa and Asia was to teach people from Africa and Asia Chinese language and culture. We learnt Chinese language as well  as visiting  china's cultural tourist places. We first visited Chongqing zoo, where we enjoyed watching animals. The animal that had the most attention from everyone in the camp was the “Panda” but we also saw tigers, snakes, 
different types of lizards and different types of birds. After visiting the zoo we also went to visit the mountain Nan, the Mountain “NAN” has  a  building on top of it with a tremendous architecture with beautiful landscape and water falls in it, I am telling you it was a joy to be there.  From the mountain “NAN”  it was quiet in the  evening, we  then went to see the night view of  Chongqing,  as someone who did electrical engineering  what I saw what I can call it “an unbelievable lighting system” .

What we saw in previous visits where just an introduction, we just still had plenty to see and to enjoy. At every place we got at, everyone was very busy taking pictures. The next day we visited “Bishan Wetland 
Park”.  With  Chinese  the  classes  we  had,  there  were  two  which  were  different  from  others,  in  those different classes we  learnt Chinese  paper cutting which is  an amazing art  that  everyone can  enjoy, and Chinese tea ceremony.    We  also visited the ancient town  “CIQIKOU”, when we got to CIQIKOU the volunteers told us that when we pose for pictures with the people there, they could charge us ¥5, but the opposite happened and we got some money there, the experience from CIQIKOU was just amazing. 
We  also  visited  “DAZU  GROTTOES”  which  was  officially  made  the  world  culture  heritage  by  the UNESCO, at DAZU GROTTOES we learnt the history of Chinese  Buddhism  which  dates for 5000 years, 
it  is  showed  in  form  of  very  big  statues.  The  next  visit  was  then  “HONGYADONG”.  After HONGYADONG  the  next  place  we visited I  call  it the most beautiful place we ever been at in China, 
that place was “CHONGQING GARDEN EXPO”, What happened to me when  I  reached there is that  I never got an English word to describe what I was seeing, I could think in one minute that I am probably in heaven or just acting in  a  Hollywood  movie  but it wasn’t true  I  was  at  CHONGQING GARDEN EXPO.  At CHONGQING GARDEN EXPO  you could see an  amazing landscape, beautiful water falls, nice artificial beaches, statues of animals and people, that was the moment in my life I will never forget, in fact  I  decided to pass my honey moon there in the future.  The  last  places we visited  were  “Three Gorges museum” and “the people’s Auditorium”.
My spell in china taught me how to value my culture, I learnt in china that we Africans have much work and much to learn from china, and we can always ask ourselves  this  “how can we learn from china’s 
experience?” I  am finally thankful to  Confucius  institute  to have given us  such  an  opportunity to learn Chinese  culture and language at Chongqing normal university, but on top of that  am thankful for the good cooperation between the people’s republic of china and the republic of Rwana.