Study Tours

China Study Tour - Student Testimonials

2008 - Felicia Wong

Applying to go on the China Study Tour 2008 was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my entire life. The experiences I gained in terms of the people I met, and the knowledge I gained is invaluable. It was fantastic to visit an amazing country like China, and the hospitality of the staff and students at the universities was touching! I learnt so much about Chinese culture and history, as well as visiting amazing landmarks. I even had the chance to learn Chinese calligraphy and climb the Great Wall! One of the best parts of the trip was the amazing people on the tour, who I’ve remained friends with, and the jokes, laughs and moments we shared. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’m glad it was something I got to experience!

2007 - Owen Kruger

Impressions: Though we barely saw each other on route, Anne and I were on the same flight as Dong from Perth to Shanghai. When we arrived in Shanghai, Qu and a driver from SUEP picked us all up from the new Pudong airport, we appreciated this immediate hospitality on the part of our guests and were able to chat with Qu and Dong on the drive back to the hotel. My first impression of China were the winter cold on a gray overcast day, but as our mini-van sped closer to Shanghai proper I began to appreciate the immense size and scale of the city and realized that the overcast was as much from the haze in the air as from the natural clouds. Still, it was an impressive sight to be driven along the elevated highway between never ending banks of massive sky-scrapers, that looked to be residential buildings – ‘there are truly a lot of people here!’ I thought.

I was impressed by the level of development of the city but more so by the peacefulness of the people of Shanghai. We always felt safe, noticed very little graffiti/vandalism in the city and were generally very well received by those people we met. I know that China is undergoing a period of great change but I hope that it doesn’t change too much.

Food: I have missed the delicious Chinese food and tea since returning to Australia. It was a real treat to have such fine food prepared for us for the trip, the food exceeded my expectations and was one of the highlights of the trip. All of the meals we had were very nutritious and so varied with the many vegetables and meats, rice, noodles, soups, sweets, drinks (corn juice!?), hot, cold, sweet, sour, spicy, salty and all with only a minor stomach upset for the entire trip. I had no idea of the sheer variety of food that was available, that even on the last day we were still trying new dishes. I hope that we didn’t cause offense by not choosing to eat at the university and hotel, it was certainly not because the food was sub-standard. With the limited time we wanted to try as many of the fantastic eating establishments around our hotel area, each of which had something new and surprising to offer.

Friends: The other highlight of the trip was the hospitality shown to us by our hosts from SUEP. Faye, Tu and Qu made us feel very welcome and comfortable and really went out of their way to show us many of the places, customs, food and the like that were unique to China and special to them. We are most thankful to them for making our stay so special. The other person to mention is Dong who went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that we were always happy, safe, healthy, keeping out of trouble and seeing the best things that they country had to offer.

Site-seeing: We saw so many wonderful sites in the two weeks it is impossible to recount all of them in detail however some of my favorite highlights were:

Hangzhou (particularly the temple, students and epic karaoke complex).
Shanghai museum.
Day out in the city with Dong – Old town, Dim sum, Pearl tower etc.
Zhujiajiao
Suzhou (garden)
Chinese acrobatics show
The restaurants
Tea city shopping center (including the meal and karaoke after with Dong, April, Dong’s wife and sister in law – who helped us get a very good deal on a tea-pot!)

Some recommendations that I would offer are:

The visit to the high-tech park was, I feel, a little too specific. It seems like we spent a couple of hours going over a range of widgets that the company produced which was perhaps only of significant interest to an automation engineer. It would have been interesting to learn more about the general scale of foreign investment in Shanghai and the kinds of international companies that had set up business in the tech parks. Dong’s commentary in the bus after our visit was very enlightening of this kind of thing. A visit to a particular company may be more interesting if it is one we are more familiar with (I noticed that Panasonic had a building next to Omron’s for example).
The boys particularly enjoyed the opportunity to play basket ball with the students and teacher – it was good to burn up some energy in a high energy game after all of the time spent in the bus, classroom and all of the eating we had been doing!
It was great to have some time free to explore as we enjoyed visiting the French concession, the bird and insect market and a few shops.

Shopping: We found the shopping in Shanghai to be a little more of a challenge than we were expecting. Though we were able to buy a range of interesting/beautiful, cheap souvenirs for our family/friends. We purchased and are still enjoying our Chinese rock tea. Anne and I were able to purchase some very good quality jackets for winter at a bargain price in one of the department stores, also some work clothes which were also at very agreeable prices.

Accommodation: I have no complaints about our hotel, the service and cleanliness were both more than adequate. The location was convenient to the university and there were plenty of food outlets and shops to satisfy our day-to-day needs. While not in the richest part of the city we never felt unsafe at all even when returning to the hotel late at night. It was simple enough and affordable to get one of the ubiquitous taxis if we wanted to go into the city or else ware.

Other: The reflexology massage that was available very near to the hotel was a special luxury for us, being both very professional and very cheap. It was the best thing to do after a long day of walking.
Our visit to a teahouse with Tu and his friends one evening was another special highlight of the trip. We were able to experience a ritual involving China’s great tea tradition in a beautifully outfitted teahouse. Plus it was great to be able to speak with some local people who happened to be around our ages to share with our perspectives and stories.

Summary: Overall we had a fantastic time in China and I highly recommend it to other students. I can’t understand why there were only five of us on the trip – next time you should spend more attention to the advertising of the trip so that you have a much higher number of applicants to choose from. It is a shame that the trip wasn’t able to be experienced by more Aussies.