My Experience in Coming to China

My Experience in Coming to China

This article has been published by Micro China Blog

Hi, I want to share how was my first experience in China was. I wrote this article in October 2017 when I arrived in Nanjing. 

It has been three weeks since I left my home for China, to pursue my Ph.D. studies. It has been ups and downs in the first few days as I was never away from my home for such a long in my whole life. I was missing my dearest family and friends and yeah obviously the food too. Arriving in China gives you a sudden change in your lifestyle in all aspects like climate, food, language, culture, and many more things tend to change entirely.

Food habits are entirely different here, I was amazed to know about the eating routine here, as lunchtime starts at 1100 here, however, in Pakistan, I used to do my breakfast at 0700 in working days and lunch break from 1300 to 1400. The situation is entirely different here, most surprisingly, the dinner starts at 1700, which is quite astonishing for me, I was like what? anyone who use to do his dinner at 2100 HRS cannot adjust his dining routine in such a short period of time. Nevertheless, the good thing about Chinese food is that it is very simple, boiled rice is a compulsory item when ordering the meal with soup. You can add fried chicken, vegetables, fish eggs and whatever available with your meal. Besides all that, this is actually a very good eating habit, to eat simple food and dine well in time especially the dinner, so that your body digest the food before sleeping.

It’s hard to find spicy food, one of the spicy foods served with coke and sprite (Jiru mifain in Chinese).

A statue of physics scientist Wu Youxun, an alumnus of Nanjing University.

A mosque in Nanjing, city.

I am in Nanjing University, in the Jiangsu Province of China. Nanjing city is a very beautiful place, this city has won the award of the Green City of China (heard from someone). There are parks, lakes, picnic places, clean roads, and mountains all around. There are many hiking tracks here, where people enjoy their tracking at weekends. It is also the 10th biggest city of China with a population of about 7 million. There are many world-class universities in Nanjing, some are mentioned below:

.    Nanjing University China,

2.    Nanjing University of Science and Technology

3.    China Pharmaceutical University

4.    Nanjing Agriculture University

5.    Southeast University

6.    Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine

7. Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Avionics

So, I am passing through this changing phase of my life. From October first to seven there are Independence Day celebrations in China so, almost all the offices are closed and everyone enjoys their vacations, you can find people enjoying around with their family and friends. It seems Chinese people have left working on these days. But you can find all the government machinery active even in these days because the necessary staff is present on duty.

Chinese people are hard working they do their work honestly in the office timing and when it is break time they leave all the work and take rest. I have even seen that people sleep in the rest timing, which is a good routine in my opinion.

The traditional building in Nanjing University which is one of the top rank universities of China

Another important thing is the bicycle, there is a rush of bicycles all around near university dorms, outside departments, playgrounds, and markets. This is a very healthy activity, a cheap way of traveling and also keeps you fit. I found Ofo-bikes and Mo-bikes at every market, university and park, these are the bikes which are available as a pay-per-use model. They are connected with mobile application and using GPS of the bike the location and distance traveled is calculated and it is deducted from your online account and you can park it wherever you want.

Nanjing Eye as seen from the far side of the bridge.

Nanjing City hosted the 2014 youth Olympics, this board is standing right in the middle of the Nanjing Eye Bridge.

Chinese are working to minimize pollution, and you can observe that most of the motorbikes running on the road are electric, as I am in Nanjing, I hardly found any motorbike running on fuel. I don't know the conditions of the other parts of China. A friend also told me that there is very less tax on the electric vehicles, so if you buy an electric vehicle you can enjoy benefits of lesser taxes in registration and other processes.

This is the library of Nanjing University, Xianlin Campus, a newly built campus, most of the departments are shifted here from the city campus.

So, I am here in China for a while and I am trying to adjust to this new environment. I will be sharing my experience with you. I hope everything goes well in China, all the best and stay blessed.