Is it absolutely necessary to know Chinese when living in China?
Exchange students from Finland, Japan and Indonesia with a Chinese writer – common language Mandarin Chinese There are many kinds of foreigners coming to China: students, English teachers, travelers, business men, expats of international companies and their families. I’m sure everyone agrees that it is beneficial to know Mandarin Chinese when you live in China, but is it absolutely necessary? Thank you Jennie for the blog post idea! It’s possible to live in China without knowing Chinese Lots of expats live here without knowing the language, it’s absolutely doable but it has a big effect on your life. You will most likely eat in Western restaurants where the staff speaks…
Reader’s Question: Hong Kong Travel Tips
Today it’s time to answer some Hong Kong related questions from my reader Alysa. If you have questions about living in Guangzhou/China, feel free to send me an email: sara(a)sarajaaksola.com. Hi Sara! Its me, Alysa, I’ve been following your blog for a while, commented on some articles, and asked you all the questions about your school and the student visas :) Well, I have to go to HK to try to renew my visa, but I had such a great visa before I didn’t have to go back for…I don’t know, 5 years? Anyways, I was wondering if you knew any good budget places to stay there, and are there…
Summer is coming to an end
Summer is slowly coming to its end here in Guangzhou, even though the temperatures outside doesn’t really confirm that. One day it’s raining cats and dogs, the next day I’m melting under the harsh sun light. In this post I want to share what I’ve been doing this Summer and my plans for the rest of 2013. Work I finished my last semester in June and started working from home. I spent my working time in front of my computer just to spend my free time at the same spot too! I didn’t really write my thesis that much, but I visited Hong Kong, watched TV series, helped a few…
Studying at Sun Yat-Sen University: Spring semester’s grades
I’ve been studying at Sun Yat-Sen University for four semesters now. As many of you know, my major is Chinese language and I’m specializing in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL). On Spring 2013 I had my last compulsory courses and in this post I want to share my grades and final feelings of those courses. You can also read about my other previous semesters here: Autumn 2012 Spring 2012 Other posts about studying at Sun Yat-Sen University I hope these posts are helpful to anyone who plans to study their bachelor’s degree at SYSU. But lets take a look how I did last semester: 综合 Comprehensive Chinese Last…