Endless Exploration

Two years ago, I left home for university. Goodbye, Shanghai! And hello, Hong Kong!

There is no doubt that Shanghai and Hong Kong are two of the most important cities in China, Asia or even in the world. Being two financial centers, they have similarities as well as differences. I feel proud that I can be part of the two, being both a citizen and an explorer.

To some extent, I may say, for mainland Chinese students, studying in Hong Kong is kind of similar to studying abroad. Although Hong Kong is returned back to China for more than 10 years already, the education system is still following the western style, which can be largely different from that in Mainland China. The biggest difference can be the teaching language, as we have classes in English, we do our assignments in English, and we mostly communicate with each other in English, especially when you talk to international or exchange students studying in the university.

Thanks to the internationalism of Hong Kong, I have made friends with people from all over the world: US, Canada, Australia, France, Sweden, Poland, etc. Not only have we established precious friendship, we also learned a lot about the culture of each other's country. I feel so proud that some of the international exchange students visited Shanghai during last Chinese New Year, and I acted as their guide. I feel great that I can introduce my own culture and at the same time getting to know more about the world.

Apart from the international friends from America or Europe, I met a lot of Mainland Chinese students as well. Students from all parts of China come to Hong Kong with the pursuit of first-class education. It's always a great feeling that I can meet people who have similar goals with me in a far-from-home place. Each year, there are around 200 Mainland China students enrolled in my university. We regard each other as life-long friends or even our own family.

I've always been looking for the similarities and differences between Shanghai and Hong Kong, and I think this should be my long-term work.

When I was with the other international exchange students in Hong Kong, I always told them that choosing Hong Kong for exchange life is the best choice ever. As Hong Kong has the mixture culture of East and West and it is located in the center of Asia, it makes their exploration much easier and more convenient, both culturally and geographically.

I have noticed that there are definitely better hardware facilities in Hong Kong than those in Shanghai. You can't deny that Hong Kong started de develop much earlier than Shanghai. Still, as a Shanghai citizen, I feel so glad for the development of Shanghai in the past 10 years. Oh yeah, don't forget to come and visit Shanghai World Expo 2010!

One week ago, I arrived in Ankara. Goodbye, Hong Kong. And hello, Turkey. Yes, I'm now an explorer of a country which is totally new and different for me.

Once again, here I met so many people who have similar goals. Exchange students from USA and all around Europe come to this magic land for exploration -- to search for the mix of East and West. I talked to an American girl. She said, to the Americans, Turkey is more eastern. For us Asian people, however, Turkey is of course more western. Isn't is interesting that we will share our views of this ancient country in the next four months? I'm pretty sure that we will learn a lot from each other.

New exploration has started. Stay tuned.

Ataturk's Mausoleum in Ankara.Atatürk was originally buried in Istanbul and brought to this megalithafter it was completed in the late 1940s.