Before Travelling To England Last year, with the help of my family and a professional agent, I received an offer for a postgraduate program, from The University of Manchester. I was really excited because Manchester is a great city with thriving music, and of course, Manchester University is pretty famous and has a good reputation with high-quality education. Although my language level has already met the requirements of the course, I still applied for a pre-sessional English course since I've been always wanted to get used to everything in a foreign country earlier, so that I will be able to make more friends, travel to more places, and behave better in class. But in the meantime, it means that I'll be in the UK earlier, on August 4. People always feel sad when it's time for leaving. Today I met my best friend from high school, when I hugged her and said "see you next year", my eyes were so teary that I couldn't look her in the eyes, then I left without looking back. I can't picture the scene when I say goodbye to my parents. However, I need to grow up and fight for myself, I'm sure I can handle everything well when I'm in the UK. I can Skype my parents when feeling homesick, I can go shopping in a Chinese supermarket or just have dinner at a Chinese restaurant when missing Chinese food, I can go travelling in Europe or even talk about Game of Thrones with British people when I feel bored :p I'm flying to England in 11 days, which makes me nervous but excited. Wish me luck.

Working As A Journalist For The First Time Last week, my friend and I interviewed several random foreigners on the street, for the purpose of making an video about a number of topics that Chinese people care about. Our first destination was Xiushui Street (秀水街) where you can buy fake things, there were lots of foreign travelers although I didn't really understand why they would go to this place...maybe it's fun to bargain with Chinese people, especially middle-aged women haha. However, our interviews were successful involving many countries, including England, India, New Zealand, Mexico, Australia, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, etc. The boys from New Zealand were so funny, they said they were too young when it comes to dating questions. The American girl was amazing, she answered all of the questions with a big smile on her face, looking pretty energetic, and she complimented Chinese guys a lot because they came to help her carry her luggage immediately behaving like gentlemen. We went to Beijing Language and Culture University after we interviewed 15 people at Xiushui, as most of the international students can speak Chinese fluently, but their Chinese wasn't as good as we thought, so we cut a lot when we did video editing today. In general, It was really fun to interview random people, and it to some extent made me realize that it wasn't that difficult to make foreign friends if you are willing to talk to them.

Interviewing Random People In Beijing. SUGGESTIONS NEEDED 2

My friend from high school wants to start her own business, she now has the interviewing thing (especially  foreigners) on her mind, she then asked me help her chat up with people and ask questions, so we need your suggestions.

1. What do you think of Alipay 支付宝and Wechat pay 微信支付?Sometimes you don’t need cash, all you need to do is take your phone and show your QR code to pay.

2. Did you have any stereotypes about China and Chinese people before you moved to China? Do you think they are still true?

3. Do you think Chinese people look younger?

4.What’s the biggest change of you after you moved to China?

5.What’s your favorite food here?

6. What’s the biggest cultural difference that you haven’t understood yet?

You can find some other questions on the other discussion page of mine.

We are going to interview some foreigners as an experiment (I’m pretty excited about the whole thing), are you interested in all the questions listed above? Or what do you want to know about China and Chinese people. WE NEED YOUR OPINIONS. Thanks. 

Interviewing Random People In Beijing. SUGGESTIONS NEEDED 1

My friend from high school wants to start her own business after graduating, she has this interviewing thing on her mind (foreigners and local people are both included), and she then asked me to help her chat up with people and ask several questions, but we need more suggestions.

1.  What do you think of bicycle-sharing business (such as Mobike and OFO) in China? 

2.  What do you think of Chinese people drinking hot water?

3.  Have you ever got in any troubles caused by cultural difference?

4. Do you have a type for boys or girls? 

5. Where do you like to go in Beijing?

6.  Have you dated a Chinese boy or girl? What do you think is the biggest difference between he/she and people from your country when it comes to dating and relationships?

7.  Do you think it’s really difficult to learn Chinese? Which part?

8.  What do you think is the weirdest habit of Chinese people?

9. What do you think of square dancing 广场舞? 

We are going to interview some people as an experiment (I’m pretty excited about the whole thing), are you interested in all the questions listed above? Or what do you want to know about China and Chinese people. WE NEED YOUR OPINIONS. Thanks.

This Lonely Journey Is Called Life It’s 2 am in Beijing, but I have troubles in sleeping. That’s why I decided to write something. I can’t say I’m a girl who can handle with everything by myself because I’m not a superwoman, I can’t run marathons, I can’t memorize each word from every book I read, I can’t fly to the moon…However, I can say that I’m getting stronger and stronger. Today was kind of remarkable, I went for a movie alone for the first time, what a great experience! The main character in this movie is a huge ape called Kong, a powerful guardian of a secret island known as Skull Island. He killed thousands of monsters that tried to destroy this place or threat local people, but the leader of the military group seemed intent on getting him killed, which leads to more deaths. Kong is the king of this island, trying to keep the ecological balance of this island. He is so strong that nothing can be compared to him. But at the meantime, I believe he’s pretty lonely, but who isn’t? Everybody is a lonely king in their lives. As I get older, I get to do more and more things alone without relying on others, which is a good sign to indicate that I’m becoming a very independent person. Today I went to the movies alone, and maybe someday I’ll have the guts to go travelling alone, or maybe… Somebody said that I have troubles in making decisions on my own without being forced, but I don’t think it’s true, nobody forced me to make decisions unless I don’t think it’s worth doing or I care about how others feel, and I actually don’t like it when people say something like “my mom or dad told me to do so”. When most of my classmates waste time in their rooms, I decided to take part in several internships although the last one didn’t go well, I learned something and grew up a little, I learned how to behave confidently in an interview, how to build a proper relationship with colleagues, and what to concern at work, etc. Life is a lonely journey, and it’s getting more lonely as you grow older, but there’s nothing to be afraid of. (It's hard to organize what I want to express in English, especially at midnight haha)

Working at The Bird's Nest I currently work as a part-time tour guide at the Bird's Nest (Beijing National Stadium) I'd like to talk about this place and my experience of working here. The National Stadium was designed for 2008 Summer Olympics and will be used as the site of opening ceremony in 2022 Winter Olympics. The construction of this stadium started in 2003 and completed in 2008, costing $428 million and using 11.8 tons of steel in total (but I actually think it’s a waste of materials because tons of steel is used just for its appearance). As a modern landmark of Beijing located on Beijing Central Axis, the stadium is becoming one of the most popular scenic spots in Beijing, there are lots of tourists worldwide every day. As a person who was born and raised in Beijing, I didn’t really understand why tourists would visit this place before I started a part-time job here, I mean it’s just a stadium and people come here for games and concerts. However, having been working here for a couple of weeks, I came to understand that the Bird’s Nest is a pride of our country because many people looked amazed when they saw the inside of it (the capacity is like 80,000), and I hope to leave them a fantastic impression of this stadium and this city, through my interpretation. However, some tourists came here only to take photos and post something on social networking websites, to show people that they’ve been to this place. I understand it happens to every scenic spot around the world, the thing is our interpretation service is free and many people asked for it, but when you actually explain something to them, they don’t really listen to you. On my first day of work, I walked 26,000 steps, but those people took our hard work for granted,. I’m not saying what they did is completely wrong, I just wish they could respect me and my job. In general, I like this job mainly because I’ve got lots of opportunities to communicate with foreigners, which will make it easier for me to make friends when I study in the UK this year. Every time I saw foreigners coming here with troubles, I try to help them as much as I can and grasp every chance to speak English, and I intend to show that Beijingers are warmhearted and welcome people from other countries. One day I came across a Swiss tourist who had trouble with the ticket, we talked a lot (including travelling, photography and languages) and I helped him out afterwards. In the end, I hope you like the Birds’ Nest when you come to Beijing.

IELTS Practice Here is the topic: Governments should spend money on railways rather than roads. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement? Nowadays, with the development of technology, people tend to travel throughout the country instead of staying at one place all the time. Governments thus invest in the construction of railways so as to provide a more convenient and effective way for people to travel around. However, is it wise to spend no money on roads? From my point of view, a larger proportion of expenditure should be invested into railways, but it does not mean that building roads should be overlooked. The building of railways, in fact, is a complicated task compared to road construction. Not only will the optimal location and method of building the railways take a long time, but the delivery of goods and materials and the actual construction is very likely to cost a lot of money. Because of these challenges, railways should be paid enough attention. People are now getting richer and richer, many can afford and travel by car. The condition of roads, however, is becoming worse and worse, resulting from the frequent use of vehicles. I personally have struggled with a terrible traffic jam, it took us more than 5 hours to drive from Beijing to Tianjin, which was definitely one of the most horrible experiences of my life. The use of high-speed trains, however, facilitates our travels to a large extent, which means people from Beijing can easily reach Tianjin in 40 minutes. Therefore, railways are worth building and should be highly valued by governments. Roads, still, directly take people to where they intend to go although they might take a longer time. We can not go on a business trip only by train or plane. We sometimes need to walk or take a taxi so that we can access certain buildings like hotels. Governments should not neglect the convenience that roads have brought because they still play a necessary and important role in everyone’s life. As far as I am concerned, governments should spend money on railways and roads, since they are both considerably relative to us all. (I wrote it yesterday, I have actually edited once with the help of my teacher from the US, but I hope that you guys can take a look at it although it's pretty boring. Thank you.)

The Result of My First IELTS Test Came Out Having waited for two weeks, the result of my first test came out eventually. However, unfortunately, it turned out to be only 6.5, not meeting my expectation. So I'm really sad about the result to be honest, especially the writing section, how could it be only 5.5 whilst others were not that bad? I thought I did a good job but I didn't. Maybe I'll take another test next year, and the good thing is that I still have plenty of time to try it time and time again...Now, I need to get some rest and focus more on my study since there is nothing I can do to change the result now (I don't want to apply for a reconsideration, it costs much money, and I'm afraid of failure, which means losing that reconsideration fee) I BELIEVE that I'll feel better because the weekend is coming!

Oral Lesson I had an oral English lesson on Skype just now!I thought the teacher named Nessy probably came from North America.We talked about some IELTS topics,such as giving gifts,a street that you enjoyed visiting,etc.We had a pretty happy discussion,and you know what,she said my oral English was actually good,I still can't believe it now!!There is nothing more exciting than realising that my oral English got much better.So,I guess it is you,my friend on italki,who gave me inspirations,and I am really really glad to have all of you here.Let's learn languages together! By the way,I really need to be more confident when speaking just like what my teacher said,it's another important thing.