Liuzhou – a „small“ city in China

When we first arrived in Liuzhou, we all were very impressed by the big city with a lot of traffic. Liuzhou, that’s a city with a population of more than 3.5 million people. We all had to laugh when the natives of Liuzhou talked about a “small city”. Well, in China 3.5 million residents are considered to be a small city – although Liuzhou is bigger than Germany’s biggest city Berlin with its 3.4 million townsfolk. Liuzhou, in the north-central Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China, is an industrial centre. It’s famous for engineering, vehicle construction and iron. 

So far the facts about the city. But what I found very impressive is that the street is alive. When you just walk around a bit, you can see many real people selling real goods, such as self-made food, handiwork and services like polishing shoes, giving massages or even cutting the hair right there on the sidewalk.  

It is fun to bargain for the best price – anyhow you can never ever be sure if it is really a bargain. The people are always very accommodating and are always happy to talk to western foreigners. For me, it seemed that there had never been western tourists before. When our whole group went through the city, it was a feeling of being watched by a thousand eyes - thousands of admiring eyes. No one had ever said a bad word to us, and no one had ever been mistrusting us. That was a very nice thing. That’s why we found Chinese friends very quickly at the first evening. Although they didn’t understand a word we said and the other way round, it was great communicating with those very friendly and cheerful people. Soon we all had the feeling of a familiar environment. It was fun to have arm-wrestling matches against them or trying to teach them some German. We got to know them in the street in a kind of very simple bar. There were very low tables, which only reached up to our knees, and we sat on old plastic-stools. Right in the street without any roof over us. A man standing on a kind of grill gave us something to eat. It was a kind of grass, very spicy and very hot. And I’m glad it was grass, because next to it there were fledglings pierced on wooden sticks. It was a great feeling living this original Chinese culture and even being part of it. However, our new friends taught us some Chinese words and we quickly understood their meanings. For the natives, we had been an attraction. One day, a Chinese guy drove past us with his “e-bike”. He looked at us while driving, he was looking and looking, and suddenly he ran over a woman. That’s no joke. You see, western tourists are very unusual in Liuzhou. Maybe another anecdote about this “open-air bar”: When we came there on the first evening, the man serving us wore an old shirt, the chairs were a bit muddy and the “bar” was in general a bit broken. We liked it anyway and came day by day with about 10-15 people. So it came that on the second day, we sat on clean chairs that even had arm rests. On the third day, there were brand new tables, already set up knowing we would soon arrive. So the “bar” and its staffs improved day by day. On the last day, each of the staff was well-dressed, they installed a light-bulb on a high, wooden stick to make it brighter and they even had one servant more. We got food and cigarettes as a present that last day. I’m sure, if we would have stayed a bit longer there, the little bar would have been completely renovated.

Of course Liuzhou has many more attractions. One of them is the boat trip on the Li River at night. There you have a great sight of the city, with all its illuminated buildings. We drove past the biggest artificial waterfall in China. There we took some beautiful portraits of us standing in front of the gorgeously lit up waterfall. Another thing worth seeing is the gigantic mall, where you can buy almost everything. And Liuzhou even has a “McDonalds”, where the hamburgers taste totally different than here. That’s why we sometimes drove to “McDonalds” by taxi in the evening. It was far away from our hotel and one could think that a taxi ride is expensive. But in fact, we paid only about 0.60 € per way.

PS: If you try to say “Liuzhou” and don’t know how to pronounce it correctly - we don’t know either, although we were in Liuzhou for a week and asked several natives.

Travelogue by Mirko Diedrich

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Our Chinese Partner School

Liuzhou No1 Vocational & Technical School

The week in Liuzhou No1 Vocational & Technical School begins on Monday morning with a flag raising ceremony. During this ceremony the Chinese flag is hoisted to the top of the pole and all students have to be on their campuses and have to stand straight. In Chinese schools they emphasize a lot on discipline. At the beginning of a new month the best students get honoured for their good results during that last month. Also the best class gets honoured and they have to talk about their next month’s resolution.

On our first morning in the Chinese school it was a Saturday after a week off school due to China’s 60^th anniversary celebrations. So they had this flag raising ceremony on this morning, too. After we were greeted, some of us had to make a little speech. Then we were divided into five groups (Computer, E-Commerce, Cookery, Gardening, and Chinese Language) and were assigned to Chinese partner students. (I belonged to the computer group.) Then we all together were shown the three campuses of the school.

After that we went back to the campus near our hotel and they showed us works of art like dragons, swans, and peacocks made by the student from fruits such as Chinese pumpkins, dragon fruit, pineapples, melons, lychees, kakis and kiwis. Then we were presented two typical Chinese tea ceremonies by gracile young Chinese ladies.

After those two interesting presentations we got our first own opportunity to do some Chinese cooking by ourselves. We went into one of the cooking rooms together with our Chinese partners and began to listen to the teacher’s explanation how to prepare the Jiaozi. (They are Chinese dumplings.) After some time of practice we were pretty good in preparing them and so we cooked our own meal for that day.

Our Jiaozi Recipe

(Try it out yourselves!)

500g flour

250g water

250 g butter

1000g pork meat

5 g salt

Firstly: You should put the flour on the table; then make a hole in the middle of a board. Secondly: Put some water (250g) and 5d salt into the hole and mix them together. Thirdly: Knead the flour with strength into a soft and elastic dough. Fourthly: Form the dough into a long sausage shape and cut into small balls. Next: Press each ball flat and put the filling in the middle of the flat dough fold the layers and press them tightly.

How to make the filling:

Pork meat, green onion, mushroom, ginger, a little salt and sugar. The most delicious sauce for jiaozi made with garlic, sugar, black Chinese vinegar, lots of chilli oil, and soy sauce.
Take 1 clove of garlic, mash. Add 3 tablespoons of white sugar. Then add as much vinegar as the sugar absorbs. Then add about 8 tablespoons of soy sauce, and chilli oil to your liking, probably as hot as you can handle. 

Our next day in school was Monday; my group was on the main campus and so we had seen the flag raising ceremony once more, but that time together with the honouring of the best students and best class.

After that we went to our first lesson within our computer group, the windows lesson. In that lesson the Chinese students learnt how to work with the operating system windows; we got invited to work with them on the computers; we willingly accepted the challenge caused by the language barrier and did a really good job working together with the Chinese students.

Then we went to our second lesson, photo shop. During that lesson the Chinese students learnt how to work with Photoshop; there we got also invited to help the Chinese and gave ourselves a try doing the same task they were doing.

The third and last lesson of that morning was Office. During that lesson the Chinese students learnt how to work with Microsoft Office. On that day they worked with Microsoft Word and learned some basic skills like underlining words or bold typing them.

After that we had a break and returned to the campus in the afternoon to do some work on the homepage. When we entered the room they gave us a little surprise - it was one of our students’ birthday (Mirko) – somehow they had found it out, so they organized a birthday cake with an individual decoration. After we ate the cake, we began to work on the homepage – we rose to the challenge to work with the Chinese programs and could show the Chinese students tricks of how to make computer work easier; we gave them a few pictures of our school which they added to the homepage.

I would also like to give a short account on the other groups’ experiences.

Let’s begin with the Cookery group:

They got an impression of the hotel manageress business when they were taught how to show the guest the way or how to sit down properly.

After that they went to a cooking lesson were they learned how to cook traditional Chinese food. In another cooking lesson they saw a presentation and learnt traditional dances.

The next group I am going to describe is the math group.

Their morning began also with the flag raising ceremony.

After that they attended their first class, a math lesson, where they studied the cosine law (c² = a² + b² - 2ab cosγ – Are you familiar with it?); at the end of the lesson they discussed the results. Then they took lots of pictures (1.3 ∙10²³).

The next lesson was a geography lesson. After that lesson everyone was asked to massage his eyes for about 5 minutes.

A sports lesson was next on their timetable on that morning. They began with some gymnastics for warming-up and then played volleyball.

Now it was time for the break and everybody returned to the campus.

After the afternoon lesson we went outside to the campus; a basketball match was organized and we played against a Chinese team. (They all must have been pros!) It was a hard match but the Chinese team tied with us. (This seemed to have been an integral part of their great hospitality.)

On our last day we went a last time to the school where we had a final meeting. During this farewell meeting our Chinese friends wanted to get to know what impressions and memories we would take back to Trier. We unanimously underlined what wonderful time we had spent with our Chinese partners during the last week. Then both Mrs. Lechtenfeld and Principle Mr. Wang delivered a farewell speech; after that we all were given a parting gift, a DVD on our visit to Liuzhou No1 Vocational & Technical School in China.

Travelogue by Robin Schiffels 

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Cooperation in China

On Friday evening, we arrived at Liuzhou. On the next morning - Saturday morning - we received a warm welcome at school from 3000 students including our exchange students. After that, we and our exchange students split into different groups. For example, some Balthasar-Neumann-Technikum students were assigned to the computer or mechanics group.

We were cordially received by our partner students right from the beginning. Together, we visited their big school, which is attended by about 9000 students. The students showed us the different school departments like a workshop where the students can do practical work. This interesting first impression made us very curious about the coming week and we were looking forward to our first real day at school.

At last Monday came, and we had our first proper day at a Chinese school, of course together with our exchange students. This was the start of a very interesting time with a variety of activities.

First, they showed us the different classes like the cooking class. We got to cook together with our Chinese friends, which was a lot of fun. A teacher stood in front of the class and explained to us how to prepare the fish. All students learned how to prepare a delicious fish dish directly in a practical exercise. 

Then we took part in a robot competition. Each German student had to solve different competition exercises together with a Chinese student. As a result, each group had built a robot with an engine from LEGO bricks. Finally, all students presented their own robots and demonstrated in a fight robot vs. robot which the strongest was.

Then the next small competition followed. We had to enter an English text on a PC via keyboard. The fastest was the winner.J

We particularly needed the help of the exchange students with the next activity. We had to shape pelicans from wood by hand. Fortunately, we were actively supported by the Chinese students, because this was a little difficult.

Furthermore, we visited a class which was attended by 16 – 18-year-old girls. In this class, the students were trained as hotel managers. We learned the following behaviour patterns: how to correctly welcome someone in this business, how to sit down properly and many other ways of how to be polite to people. The class repeated each exercise several times.

A group of German and Chinese students also created a web page. Both schools are introduced on that page.

Each BNT student spent one day together with the exchange family.  My brother and I were cordially received by the parents of our exchange student. The family lived on the 7th floor in a multi-storey building. There was a big market in the yard. They all were amazingly hospitable and we had a great day together.

First, we played a Chinese card game and after a short time we even understood the rules of the game, even though we could not speak with them in English (and neither in ChineseJ). The host parents prepared a big meal for us with all the goodies we could fancy. They spared neither cost nor effort to offer us only the best. They also asked what we would like to eat and considered our wishes when preparing the meal. The meal was very delicious. Despite the language problems, we spent a wonderful day together with our exchange family.

Later when we exchanged our experiences with our fellow students, we discovered that despite different financial backgrounds of the host families all German students were incredibly heartily attended to their needs. Not one of us but we all were even made many presents to take back home to Trier.

We thought it was funny that the Chinese were taking pictures of us all the time (either alone or together with the Chinese). Everyone wanted to get a picture and we felt like important celebrities. Sometimes it took almost an hour to have all the pictures taken but we always liked and enjoyed posing with the Chinese students.

The student exchange was a real success and we enjoyed it very much. As we were with the Chinese students during the days, we gathered many impressions from school life in China. We also learned much about the Chinese way of living and of course their recreational activities. (e.g. When we went shopping together or went to a gambling hall. J)

We are already looking forward to the day when the Chinese exchange students will come to visit us in Germany and get to know our school and our families. Then we can return the great hospitality we all received when we were in Liuzhou.

Travelogue by Sebastian Geßner

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