HITSZ Summer School Program

       

   The moment I applied for the Netherlands Asia Honours Summer School and saw that one of the four cities was Shenzhen, I immediately knew that I wanted to go there. Shenzhen is such a lively city with a very special business culture. Everything is about innovation, getting things sustainable, and entrepreneurship. Therefore it was such a special and meaningful experience to follow the courses chinese culture and entrepreneurship at the Harbin Institute of Technology in Shenzhen.

       

One of the most special things about the summer school was making friends. I made a lot of new friends from the Netherlands, who were the people with whom I came to China. But I became not only friends with them, I also met awesome people from Hong Kong, Korea and the volunteers from the summer program. I shared the apartment with a Korean girl from the Chinese department and she was so cute! She told me a lot about her culture and I really enjoyed listening to her. Furthermore we played nice Korean games and we taught her some Dutch games.

   The people from Hong Kong took us a few times out for dinner. It is incredibly cool to have dinner with people who exactly know what the most delicious food is. For Dutch people it is hard to choose what you will eat because the options are so varied and we have no idea what everything is. The people from Hong Kong chose the dishes and we enjoyed the food together. We shared personal stories  and got to know each other better.

       

  The volunteers were also very nice. They helped us with everything we could think of. Once I lost my suitcase in the taxi. Together with one of the volunteers I went to the police station at 12.30 am. Sadly enough they could not find it back immediately because it was night. We had to come back the next morning at 08.00.

   The volunteer went with me again and we spend the whole morning at the police station. Because of all the camera's in the city we finally found the taxi we took. We called the taxi driver and we got our suitcase back! In the moment itself it was not a nice experience because of the stress, but when I think back to that day, we really had a good time because of all the laughs at the police station.

   It was a special experience. I am not used of all the camera’s, but it really suprised me what a safe feeling it gave me. I think I would have never gotten my suitcase back if this had happened in another city.

       

       

          Rachel and me at the pol           ice station at night                  

       

       

   During the summer school I really got used to the Chinese culture. It is so different and I think it is an unforgetable experience to get to know China from the inside.

   The professors who gave lectures, were really inspiring people. They were extrenely knowledgable about the course material and asked critical questions which made you think about differences annd similarities of life and culture.  It was particularly special to get the oppurtunity to share our thoughts with so many different people from different cultures.

   This summer school was one of the best things I have ever done in my life! I am so grateful for every experience and the people with who I made the memories with.

   So once again: thank you all!