Yesterday I met with a couple of friends form the Chinese Department and I come to think that students of foreign cultures and languages all have a similar past.
We are being thrown into a completely different culture without any warning. The day you arrive there is when you realize, that neither Lu Xun, nor Empress Dowager Cixi will get you a mobile phone or help you with your groceries at the nearby market. If you are lucky you will stumble upon a few other exchange students; if not, you will be on your own - good luck then.
You have to learn a language, but not just learn how to look up words in the dictionary. Speaking a language means speaking culture, speaking gestures, speaking the unsaid.
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