"Chinese Language Camp" - emotional slices

First night in Nanning seen from Zhuang Yuan Po Hotel

Actually, this is not the first time I have come to Guangxi, but coming here as an official member of the student delegation representing the University of Social Sciences and Humanities to participate in the “Chinese Language Camp” is the first time I have experienced it. Perhaps that is why, after looking back at the whole journey, instead of rigidly following the bullet points, I decided to sit down and write down the small stories along the timeline of the journey.

Day 1, November 18, 2018

4:45 AM

It was still dark and drizzling. I quickly carried my luggage to the school yard. Thinking it was still early, I decided to quietly find a place to stand in the yard. Little did I know, everyone had arrived at school quite early, chatting excitedly with each other, making the school yard noisy.

To briefly talk about the reason for this trip, perhaps because I am a student of Anthropology, when I learned that the "Chinese Language Camp" was a great opportunity to experience, to have a clearer, even just a glimpse, view of Chinese culture in general and the Zhuang ethnic culture in particular, I felt interested and immediately wanted to participate.

Students of the Faculty of Anthropology - University of Social Sciences and Humanities on the 2018 Chinese Language Camp trip

“Chinese Language Camp” is a program organized by Guangxi University, China, to promote cultural exchange between students of the two countries. This is not the first time the program has been organized, it has been going on for many years and will probably be organized again in the future.

7:30 PM

After a long day of traveling, we arrived at Zhuang Yuan Po Hotel. Although we were quite tired, but to satisfy our curiosity, regardless of the cold and dark weather outside, the surrounding area was damp with rain, right after checking in and temporarily storing our luggage, I and Ms. Le - my roommate and also one of the two students I knew before starting the trip - went to explore the surroundings together.

A corner of the courtyard of Guangxi University, Nanning, China

Monday, November 19, 2018

As scheduled, we went to visit the campus of Guangxi University, China. It was a cold morning but everyone was excited to capture beautiful angles in the school to take photos and check-in. Having a whole morning to breathe the fresh air and walk and chat with friends made me feel comfortable and pleasant. There could not be a better start to a new day, perhaps.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Early in the morning, it was drizzling, that’s why I didn’t bring my camera for the trip to Yi Ling Cave. It was a wrong decision because I didn’t do any research beforehand because when coming here, visitors not only get to visit the cave but also get to learn about the culture of the Zhuang people.

Visiting Yi Ling, I had the opportunity to witness how the Zhuang people promote their culture at tourist attractions. According to the tour guide's introduction, in fact, there are no traces of Zhuang people living in the cave. However, when coming here, tourists will still be taken to visit the Zhuang Village.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

For an Anthropology student like me, visiting the Museum of Ethnology is a great excitement. Although I was very excited about today's trip, the weather was not in my favor, it was still cold and the rain was drizzling non-stop.

Visit the Temple of Confucius

First we visited the Temple of Confucius. Then we moved to the Museum of Ethnology. This time I was lucky to be one of the few people who were allowed to go inside the museum. Due to some objective reasons, the time to visit the museum was quite short, so I tried to visit many places to preserve as many documents as possible. When I arrived at the exhibition room, because there were some things I did not understand, I got acquainted and asked a group of local visitors who were also visiting. They were very friendly and enthusiastically explained to me the annotations written in Chinese that I did not understand. It was really great to receive their help. They explained to me that the model was a re-enactment of a Zhuang family making their traditional Zongzi cake. I took a chance to speak Chinese with them and we had a short but pleasant conversation. In particular, I remember a man asking me a question: are the Zhuang people and the Vietnamese people similar, are they the same? This is an interesting question and somewhat related to our Anthropology department. The question is really interesting and surprising. Indeed, I and perhaps many other students have never even thought about this, even in passing. With my limited knowledge, not knowing whether I was "beating the drum in front of a thundering house" or not, I explained to them, in my rather poor Chinese, that the Zhuang people in Guangxi and the Tay and Nung people in Vietnam are quite similar.

Replica of a Zhuang ethnic family making Zongzi at the Museum of Ethnology

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Today, we visited the dormitory for international students of Guangxi University, followed by the closing ceremony of this year's "Chinese Language Camp". After the closing ceremony, I was lucky to meet a Chinese friend. Her name is Vuong Liping, a student of the Vietnamese Language Department of Guangxi University. We had a day of traveling to many places in Guangxi, sharing stories in both Vietnamese and Chinese, it was a "bilingual encounter" but the consolation was that it was still better than talking with hands. After that, we kept in touch and made an appointment for her to come to Vietnam one day and we would practice speaking together again.

A day out with Wang Li Ping (far right)

Friday, November 23, 2018

One day I went to the shopping mall combined with the game area. Actually, I am not a person who likes to play games so I brought my camera to take pictures of the interesting things around. Mainly I took pictures of the cute children that I saw. Behind each picture of the children is a story and I can say that those children gave me a Friday with wonderful memories. Perhaps, playing with children is always more fun.

Perhaps the girl who left the deepest impression on me was this girl. She was very lovely and comfortable talking to me. But more importantly, after I showed her a photo of herself, she was very happy and did not forget to say thank you.

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Time flies, it's time to end the journey. 7 days in Nanning, in Guangxi University, the time is not short nor long but has given me many memorable memories. A journey with seemingly endless car trips, spontaneous conversations with strangers and small but surprising joys. This is truly a precious experience that I will never forget from the "Chinese Language Camp" trip in 2018.

The group's last day in Nanning with the familiar car