As I stand half-naked under the 40 degree heat of the midday sun, drenched1) from head to toe and surrounded by about 50 other Australian university students hurling buckets of water at each other and running through the spray2) spewing3) from dozens of fountains set into the ground, it is hard to believe I’m in China. In fact I’m in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, in southern Guangdong province just over the border from Hong Kong, and these about 50 tertiary4) students and I are celebrating the final day of the week long Australian Youth Delegation to China by taking part in a re-creation of the traditional Chinese water-splashing festival. In between dodging water-pistol beams and having buckets of water flung at high velocity5) into my face for “good luck”, I think back to just a week before when, as a representative of the University of Sydney, I met the other members of the delegation for the first time. Fifty students from more than a dozen universities across the country who had never met each other before, but who all shared a common interest in China and the Chinese language, assembled in a car park in Beijing and were ushered into buses to begin our tour of the country.
The aim of the delegation was to improve the understanding between the youth of China and Australia, in hopes of further improving and strengthening the friendly relationship that has developed in the past few decades between these two countries. To this end we visited several of China’s top universities to meet the students there and share our thoughts and hopes for the future of our two countries. At Peking University we spent several hours with our Chinese counterparts6), discussing and debating issues as varied as the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing and human rights issues in both our countries. At Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, we had another opportunity to not only meet and talk with the students but also visit their lecture halls, their living quarters and eat in their canteen.
Although there are countless differences in the structure and content of the Chinese and Australian educational systems, not to mention the cultural and environmental differences of growing up in two entirely different countries, it was astounding to realize just how much the students of the Australian delegation and the Chinese university students we had the chance to meet had in common. We were all children of the internet, eagerly swapping7) MSN addresses; we were all concerned about issues such as the environment and global free trade; and we all lamented the stress of exams.
After travelling from Beijing to Chengdu to Shenzhen in one week, being introduced to the sights and cuisines8) of each location, and getting to meet and interact with local government leaders and fellow University students, I already felt the Australian Youth Delegation to Visit China had been successful. Through these meetings I know that I personally gained a greater appreciation of university life in China, as well as Chinese university students who will become the leaders of tomorrow’s China.
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大学英语---