I did not know how challenging, but at the same time rewarding, the experience of living
abroad in China was going to be when I decided to take this path last year. I had lived outside
my country before during this same master, but as I am Spanish and I went to Italy, I experience
almost no cultural shock during that previous experience.

The first weeks in Beijing were absolute madness, each night we would end in bed
completely shattered. We were not doing that many things, but little activity during the day,
inside and outside the university, would be a challenge. From doing the registration to buying
food or understanding that what that person was asking for a picture with me (be ready, it would
happen), every task would take so much energy than in my previous destinations. I am
completely sure that I would have not survived if it wasn’t for Mengqiao Zhang, whose English
name is Claire. She is one of the volunteer study buddies that would go to pick you to the airport,
help you settle at the university and in her case, help me with every task she could. Claire has
been one of the most helpful people I have found, she helped me open a Bank account (Western
credits cards are usually not accepted in China), get a Chinese telephone number and even how
Taobao works (the far cheaper equivalent of Amazon).

Once the classes started and we could adapt ourselves to the routine, everything started
to get easier. Although I had the luck to go with five friends, we started to meet people all around
the world, from Lebanon to Venezuela, Sweden or Korea, and of course, China. We would do
plans together, visit all the corners of the city and meet after class to have some drinks. Chinese
classes also helped us with the adaptation. We took “only” eight hours a week, which for a
language as difficult as Chinese is very little, but enough to learn how to tell the taxi driver where
to go, how to order food in a restaurant or asking someone where our hotel was when we travel
around China. This last part is, in my opinion, one of the principal benefits of studying in China.

China is huge, and we all wanted to see as much as possible. It is difficult to combine
both travelling and the classes schedules that could be a little be crazy for people who studied
in Europe. Nevertheless, with the help of some teachers and, of course, Anya Gu, the
international student's coordinator, we were able to do some of the best trips in our lives. There
are so many different experiences in such a huge country that, even though we some trips, from
Mongolia in the Northwest to Guilin and Zhangjiajie (also known as Avatar Mountains) in the
South, we still feel that there is so much more to visit there, like Sichuan Province or the ancient
Silk Road.

For most of it, China has been an incredible experience, totally recommended, and some
of the things that most surprise you at the start are the things that I am going to miss the most,
like eating with chopsticks or paying with Alipay. On the other hand, some things you do not get
used to like that there is no common area at the dorm where you can be with you colleagues or
that they close it from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. Apart from that, the staff of hour dorm was one of those
things we are going to miss, especially the chief that you could tell that was really looking
forward to making better our experience, and with who we have spent hours speaking even
though she does not speak any English and our Chinese was almost the same.