My Funny Experience When I Study in China

Here’s a story from one of our colleagues who studied in China for a year in Beijing, to give you an insight into what his experiences were!

Experiencing true Spring Festivities:

In February when it was absolutely freezing, the world celebrated Spring Festival had come around, and during this time in Beijing around 9 million people had left the city to go back to their hometowns to celebrate the festival with their families. I felt like I was the only person left in Beijing! You can’t imagine the difference in the city, the majority of places were closed, and as it was a kind of winter break, lots of the international students had also gone home, but I decided to stay and see China during this period. Beijing was like a ghost town, most restaurants, shops were kind of half open you could say, they opened for part of the day and also only after the first two days of the festival had passed. Walking the streets in Beijing and being the only person on the whole street was an extremely surreal feeling, there wasn’t even any cars on the road apart from the occasional taxi.

I’d done my research coming up to the Spring Festival, and found that the major parks in Beijing would be open as hosts to Temple Fairs, I wasn’t too sure as to what a Temple Fair was the parks that were considered the best (Like the Lama Temple Park, and Longtan Park) didn’t actually have a temple in them! I’d decided to head to the Lama Temple Park Temple Fair which was considered the biggest and best with one of my African friends who too had never seen or even heard of these festivities before. When we got there we couldn’t believe our eyes, it was like every single person in Beijing had decided to come to this temple fair, and if you’re there yourself you can see why.

It was a completely different feel than anything else I’ve ever experienced in China, everyone was happy, laughing, joking and the smell of cooking BBQ hit you as soon as you got into the park, oh and also the crowds. There were so many people! The festival had a variety of entertainment, like food stalls, arcades, traditional dances, traditional ceremonies (where they carry someone around in a kind of box), music, and they even had a game area which was full to the brim of items that you could win.

We were there for hours, and I’d definitely recommend going yourself, but just prepare some warm clothes and bring enough money for food, as they also have a huge amount of stalls where you can buy gifts that have been brought from around China, and this also includes the food. The food was absolutely amazing! You’ll definitely feel different about China after visiting these fairs and understand how important family and friends time is to the Chinese people. The vibe at the fair is something that I’ll never forget.