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6 October 2004 Chinese university students studying at Longwood as part of new exchange program
The students, all female business majors who are taking four courses, are the first group from Anhui University of Technology in Ma'anshan. They are living together in a residence hall and eating in the dining hall. Three of them - Huili Li, Yanyan Sheng and Jiali Liu - will be at Longwood for one year, and the others - Yanbin Ge, Feng Xu, Yuan Xue and Wen Zhuang - for two years. Feng and Wen are majoring in international trade, the others in economics. All are considered sophomores since last year was their first year at Anhui (pronounced Ahn-way). They will return to their home university, from which they will receive their degrees. All plan to attend graduate school. The program, which is expected to grow every year until Longwood annually has 30 students from Anhui, is a result of Longwood's participation in the Sino-American Leadership Training Initiative (SALT), co-sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and the Chinese Education Association for International Exchange. Last year, the second year of the program, Longwood was one of 12 U.S. colleges and universities paired with an institution in China. The students, who grew up studying English, took a one-month English as a Second Language (ESL) course at their university in July, and they are taking an ESL course at Longwood three days a week. They arrived at Longwood on Aug. 28, two days before the fall semester began, just hours after landing at Dulles Airport. Several Longwood faculty and staff members, among them Lonnie Calhoun, director of multicultural affairs and international student services, have been helping acclimate them to American college life. Why no males among the group? "I think they cannot speak English very well," Huili said with a laugh during a recent interview by the Grainger fountain. Following a custom for Chinese students, each has an American name. Huili is Lee, Yanyan is Apple, Jiali is Jolie, Yanbin is Persephone, Feng is Iris, Yuan is Vivian, and Wen is Tracy. They were asked about differences between the two countries. "The biggest difference is the food; it's more fattening here," said Jiali. "Also, the vegetables here are eaten raw, but in China they're cooked. And the shape of the noodles is different. I like American food, though." Her favorite American food? "Hot dogs!" she quickly said. Yanyan said "ice cream," and Jiali said "cheesecake." Another difference involves the use of computers in college. "Computers are used in daily life in China, but not for homework," said Huili. Just like here, she added, computers are common in homes. "In China you spend more time in class, but there's less homework," said Yuan. Many classes at Anhui, especially in popular fields such as English and economics, have as many as 200 students, said Huili. At their home university, they live on campus in a residence hall and eat in one of six cafeterias. Very few college students in China have a car; most families have only one car, and it's a sign of wealth for a college student to own a car, they said. "Lots of students have bicycles. We have bicycles just like the students here have cars," said Huili. College tuition and fees are much less expensive in China than here, they said. Yanbin is from Ma'anshan; Jiali is from Anhui province, where the university is located; Yuan, Feng and Wen are from Shanghai, four hours away (Feng grew up in Anhui province); Huili is from Yuhuan island near Taiwan; and Yanyan is from Zhoushan island near Shanghai. It takes Huili some 17 hours to get home, and she has to travel by "train, bus and ship." Yanyan's trip home is 10 hours; a bridge now connects her island to the mainland. Chinese college students typically have a longer trip home than American students, they said. Anhui University of Technology has about 12,000 undergraduates and a total enrollment of about 20,000. Its most popular majors include accounting, English, math, computer science and engineering, said Wen. The university, founded as a joint venture between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Metallurgy, is known in China for its "applied, practical research in engineering and science, particularly related to steel," said Dr. William Dorrill, a former Longwood president who helped launch the exchange program. Ma'anshan, which has a population of 1.4 million (not a big city by Chinese standards), is on the Yangtze River in east-central China near Nanjing, formerly Nanking, China's ancient capital. Ma'anshan is known for its heavy industry but is a clean city, said Dr. Dorrill, a China expert. Anhui province, which is home to at least half of the university's students, is slightly larger than Virginia. In October 2003 Dr. Dorrill and Dr. John Reynolds, Longwood's director of international affairs, went to Anhui, where they met with the university's president, Dr. Dong Yuanchi. Anhui's vice president for teaching and research, Dr. Chen Dahong, visited Longwood this March to complete the paperwork for the agreement. Dr. Dorrill and Dr. Lily Goetz, Longwood's acting director of international affairs (while Dr. Reynolds is in Austria on a sabbatical), will be in China from Oct. 20-28, during which they'll visit Anhui and attend a conference in Beijing, which includes a fair for Chinese college students who want to study in the United States. Lonnie Calhoun has taken the students to a Baltimore Orioles game and will take them to Washington over fall break, and he plans to take them to New York City. Besides Calhoun and Dr. Goetz, others at Longwood who are working with the Chinese students are Don Butler of the English faculty, who is teaching the ESL class; student Jennifer Higgins, who lives in their residence hall and is a program assistant; and Dr. Linda Lau, a Chinese-born faculty member in the College of Business & Economics, who is helping with their academic preparation and as a contact for the students' other faculty members. |
