… One year ago, I chose Chinese as an additional language. Since then, I have come to love this language and I have begun to study about China even more. Chinese might seem a very difficult language from the outside, but as you learn it, you understand how interesting it is.
Soon enough, I gained the aspiration to travel there, and our teacher, Jiang Wenru, announced about the Summer School in China. Of course, I was very happy to know about this and immediately began to prepare. Two more 3rd-year students from the Faculty of Economics and Management at Khazar University - Selima Musayeva and Shalala Ibrahimova also expressed their desire to attend the summer school.
There were 13 students from the well-known universities in Azerbaijan. The day has come on the 30th of June and we were ready to go to China and we were all excited. After a 19-hour flight, we arrived at Anhui University in Hefei city. The road was tiresome, so in order to make our trip interesting and to introduce our country to Chinese, we sang our folk songs.
The next day was an introduction meeting arranged for us, and we were given university uniforms. The Rector of Anhui University presented me with the Summer School’s flag and our classes began. The lessons provided valuable information on China. Most certainly, as we learned more, we get even more connected to China. Furthermore, we had to represent our country Azerbaijan very well there, so we carried Flag, Tar, and Gifts with us. We also had students from Japan, Ukraine, Chile, France, Germany, America, and Italy.
During the event held at the University, we organized a presentation session about Azerbaijan. Ilyas Balakishiyev delivered performance with Tar, Salima Musayeva performed our national dance, Dilbar Huseynli, Tamilla Samedova, Ismail Ismailzade, and Aziza Nazarova sang Azerbaijani folk song “Sari Gelin”.
During the summer school, we met Iman Guluzadeh, who studies in China. He has been studying there for over a year. The fact that he was fluent in Chinese, made us enthusiastic about learning the Chinese language and history.
We went to a mountain area called the Yellow Mount in Huangshan, which was beautiful.
We had a bit of difficulty with meals, Chinese cuisine was very different from our traditional food, however the most striking thing that we learned to eat food with chopsticks.
On the 12th of July, we left for Shanghai and after staying there for 2 days, we returned to Azerbaijan. The most interesting fortnight in my life completed. Getting back was not easy for us, because we felt we would miss it, only Iman Guluzade stayed there as he needs to continue his studies.
We plan to visit China again in the future, our love for China emerged one year ago and got even stronger during our trip. We are grateful to Khazar University for creating such opportunities for us.
Tagi Mammadov,
3rd-year student of the Faculty of Economics and Management