There are things that you won’t know until you really live somewhere, and that’s the beauty of studying abroad. Here are a few things I encountered that surprised me as a Chinese international student at the University of Leeds.
Mental Health Care
The common awareness around mental illness here is rather high. You can get support from the Student Wellbeing Centre, access apps like Shout with sincere volunteers to listen to you, or even go to your academic tutor if you feel stressed about your essays. There are also activities such as Mental Health Awareness Week, where many societies post relevant information to publicise knowledge. I think this action can be of great help to remove stigmas around people suffering mental issues. Before, I was influenced by my Asian parents and thought being a student is like living in an ivory tower, with students not having as much stress as those working, who have to pay bills and handle more responsibility. I am by no means claiming students can’t have negative thoughts: I just thought the situation of the latter would be more challenging. But now my mind has totally changed. I realise as university students, it’s definitely reasonable to be in a slump, since we have to juggle challenging academic work, extracurricular activities, internships or jobs, all while having a life. I now feel I should place my mental health in a more vital position and treat myself as well as I treat my best friend.
The awareness of mental health care is also demonstrated in the opening of small talk. I have been living in the UK for two months and I’m still not used to answering the question: ‘How are you doing?’, such as from my tutor and support staff. I often freeze for half a second, and answer: ‘I am doing good’, without firm conviction and as a result being asked: ‘Are you really OK?’. The reason for my hesitation is that I don’t expect people I meet for the first time to care about my feelings.
Despite knowing it’s polite to only give a positive response, I still really appreciate anyone who asks me. In China, people greet each other by asking: ‘Have you already had your meal?’. Of course, not eating your meal on time can cause serious outcomes: your stomach suffers, and your brain cells lack fuel to support you. This kind of greeting also shows concern, but it sounds more physical.
Widespread Support
In China, we just take lessons and professors will probably send PowerPoints and files to the class group chat. That is all. In Leeds, every student has a student account and can get access to an overview, mini lecture, and documents that need to be previewed. There are emails informing us about different ongoing events. The language zone organises a series of language-learning activities, and I can take academic writing lessons provided by the library.
Bus
In China, most bus companies are state-owned, and it only costs 1 yuan (£0.12) in my city to buy a single-trip ticket. In Leeds, I need to buy different bus tickets according to the bus company, and the bus has no broadcast to inform customers which stop they’ve arrived at. I often miss the stop because my Google Maps doesn’t load in time to help, but I also appreciate the silence from a lack of announcements.
Cafeterias and Food
Most Chinese international students cook meals every day by themselves. Some Chinese students have never gone to the cafeteria. They’re not particularly curious about it. Before studying abroad, I made the psychological preparation that my Chinese stomach may not be satisfied with foreign meals, and I should be open and adjust to the new environment, making study my priority. But when I first went to the cafeteria in the LUU, things were beyond my imagination, and I came to understand why some people have to take supplements. There was fried chicken with chips, an enormous roasted chicken with beans of a strange colour, fried minced meatballs, salad, sandwiches, and curry with rice and flatbread. Out of all of them, I could only accept curry as a proper meal. The rest of them were afternoon tea snacks. I went to the cafeteria several times in the expectation that the menu may change, only to find the food there is almost the same every day.
By comparison, the cafeterias in Chinese schools work like this: firstly, you decide what staple you would like to eat. If you don’t want rice, you can have noodles, rice noodles, bean noodles or egg noodles and choose from different toppings. If you want to have rice, you have a meal deal and can order four dishes out of about ten dishes which change daily. The cafeteria plate has four blocks to let different dishes stay where they are, avoiding mixing together and ruining the flavour. Accompanied with the meal is not a soft beverage or water, but soup. I feel the variety of food I consumed greatly helped me feel healthy.
I expected the desserts in the UK to taste nice. They do but are deadly sweet to me. It is said that the highest praise offered by British people is: ‘not bad’. Likewise, the highest praise offered by Chinese people for a dessert is: ‘not too sweet’. The connotation is that a less sweet dessert is healthier, with enough other delicate flavours to stimulate the appetite rather than just relying on sensational sweetness, and you can finish eating the whole dessert without feeling burdened. While eating a very sweet dessert, Chinese people often say: ‘the sweetness makes me faint’. My flatmates are also Chinese, and they used the cake received from orientation as a penalty to punish the loser of a poker game, for none of them could bear the sweetness!
Written by: Yilan Wu
Edited by: Joanne Spence-Thomas