On Friday night headed to Pudong to wander around Century Avenue. Here are some pictures of the Financial Tower (the worlds fourth tallest building!) by evening and by night (with extreme Instagram effects).
Shanghai World Financial Tower from near Century Avenue | 上海环球金融中心从世纪大道附近
18th May 2012 | 2012年5月18日
Slightly bored of learning characters today, I took a two-hour cycle to get to the banks of the Yangtze, on Shanghai’s northern periphery. Passing through the shipping ghetto, Fudan University’s puzzlingly empty-but-beautiful new campus and many scary highway junctions, I made it to a nature reserve on the banks of Asia’s longest river. This is the mouth of the river: from what I can glean from Baidu Maps, it’s about 15 km to the opposite bank.
Yangtze River, Baoshan District | 宝山区长江岸边
15th May 2012 | 2012年5月15日
We did go to Thames Town while we were there, and I was pretty impressed overall.
Thames Town | 泰晤士小镇
12th May 2012 | 2012年5月12日
On the weekend RA and I took a trip to Songjiang, in the far south of Shanghai, to see what is sometimes described as the original settlement of the city. Highlights include a 15th-century pagoda and Buddhist temple, the oldest mosque in Shanghai (14th century) and the Zuibaichi, or Drunk White Pool. I’m not sure where the latter got its name. Beyond the historic sights, Songjiang District is also home to the famous Thames Town. RA took this photo at the Buddhist temple.
Near the Xilin Pagoda | 近西林塔
12th May 2012 | 2012年5月12日
Xi’an City Wall | 西安城墙
2nd April 2012 | 2012年4月2日
View from Xi’an City Wall | 从西安城墙
2nd April 2012 | 2012年4月2日
View from Xi’an City Wall | 从西安城墙
2nd April 2012 | 2012年4月2日
Great Mosque of Xi’an | 西安大清真寺
2nd April 2012 | 2012年4月2日
About a month ago, Verity came on a bit of a visit and we took a trip to Xi’an and Beijing. Aside from the inevitable accidental 20-hour sitting train-ride, where I quizzed a Salar couple about their lives and faith in Qinghai, we had quite an excellent time seeing the Terracotta Warriors and other sights. This was taken at the Great Mosque of Xi’an, the oldest mosque in China, founded 742 (although the existing buildings are from the turn of the 15th century).
Great Mosque of Xi’an | 西安大清真寺
2nd April 2012 | 2012年4月2日
I’ve been asked a couple of questions about applying for the Chinese Government Scholarship, and as I began writing a private message back I thought it might be useful to post the response publicly for anyone who happens (i) to have similar questions on one of the more confusing applications I’ve ever dealt with and (ii) to stumble upon this blog by freak coincidence.
Basically, anyone who’s applied for this scholarship will know that the whole system feels like a big black box with no clear idea of how places are allocated (that includes the people we spoke to at the Education Department of the Chinese Embassy in London), so hopefully these answers will be of some use. Two questions for now.
1. Can I put multiple subjects in the “majors” box?
When I was applying, my sponsor and I decided to act on the assumption that, in the first stage of the scholarship allocation process, no one is reading my Study Plan. More than likely, we thought, an administrator in Beijing is allocating forms to many different in-trays, and no one has time for the subtleties of applicant choices.
On that basis, I’d say one thing. There’s no way in the form to make sure the administrators understand which universities should correspond to which preferred majors. So if my major box said “International Relations or Art History” and my universities were PKU and Fudan, it’s not clear that I actually want to study IR at PKU or Art History at Fudan, but not Art History at PKU. It might be risky to put such different majors down in the box.
Having said that, if your preferred majors are “International Relations or Chinese Politics”, our (again unfounded) assumption was that these are more likely to go into some Political Science in-tray anyway, so it’s less likely that your form will end up at the wrong department at your chosen university.
2. Do you think the universities that are difficult to get into for Chinese students (PKU, Tsinghua etc.) are just as difficult for international students?
I can reply to this a little from my experience with English-language programs at Fudan, which usually ranks just behind PKU and Tsinghua on the league tables. This isn’t for Chinese-taught programs which I know nothing about applying for. But of the students who are on English-language programs in Fudan, some went to the top universities in their home countries; others didn’t. On that basis, I reckon it’s definitely worth giving it a go. The worst that could happen is that you end up at your second- or third-choice university; the best is that you end up being taught by some of the best researchers and educators in China.
Good luck!
P.S. Thanks to jostack for the questions, and for an excellent blog of her goings-on in another country a little closer to my heart!
