Main highlight of the day starts at 1pm when we board the bus to the new WUST campus at 黄家湖.
The 'WOW' factor was present upon reaching the new campus. It is evident that the campus much larger, magnificent and cleaner, as compared to the campus we are staying.
After alighting from the bus, we moved on to the School of Foreign Languages. Let me tell you, the host really took our visit/exchange very seriously. The school presented flower bouquets to the lecturers while we had a photo taking session in front of the entrance. After that, we went to a classroom at level 3 where the Student Union President gave us a speech about WUST.
WUST Student Union President giving a speech
Samantha and Nicholas, representing Ngee Ann Poly, MDE and ECEAfter all the welcoming formalities, we were paired up with a local student. My partner of the day is called 王琦. (I hope I never type her name wrongly). We went for a campus tour where we visited the self study areas, sports courts, hostel exterior, 7-storey library (reputed the biggest in Hubei province) and the canteen. In the process, we played a telematch organised by the Student Union (supposedly. =P )
My Chinese Counterpart, 王琦and I
The day ended with dinner at the 3 level canteen before we went back to our 老校区.
P.S. Rather an interesting experience to interact with the students. In the process, I realised several 'learning points' or interesting stuffs.
1) Somehow, they do not know that Singapore is made up of 3 main races, Chinese, Malay and Indians. This is evident when my partner asked me how come there are some Singaporeans looking like Africans etc etc. In addition, my partner was quite surprised that we have 4 official language, that is Malay, Mandarin, Indian and English. The locals here somehow thought English is the National Language of Singapore. That's why they are always surprised when we speak Standard Mandarin.
2) For every Year 1 University students, regardless of age and sex, all have to attend military training for 2 weeks. However, that does not equate to joining the People Liberation Army (Armed Forces la). For joining the army, they have to attend military schools instead. Anyway, Li Xuan was there when we saw the military training under going in process! haha.
3) Know what? WUST has a history dating as far back to late Qing Dynasty. Approx. 100 odd years? The founder is one of the more prominent late Qing Dynasty officials, 张之洞. FYI, WUST did not exist as a single entity under very recent years (approx. 10 years ago?) The current WUST is made up by several smaller institutes. Cool right?
