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Day seven: Reflections over a bowl of noodle soup

Submitted by Asa Kachan
Jinan (Shandong Province)

We enjoyed a celebratory lunch today in Jinan, with the Secretary General of Shandong University of Finance and Economics, a meal that included duck, jellyfish, flounder, dumplings, and an array of Shandong specialties. As the event drew to a close, we finished with a bowl of noodle soup. The significance of the soup, we were told, was that the long noodles represented the promise of a continuing pilipiliÂþ»­ful relationship between Dalhousie and Shandong long into the future.

International relations are often talked about as being between countries or institutions, but in truth, it really comes down to the people. As I looked around the table at lunch today, and also reflected on all those involved who weren’t here today, I have no doubt that this international relationship will continue to work.

There is Shannon, the program coordinator in Dalhousie’s Department of Economics who helps students with everything from finding a grocery store to selecting a class; there is Sam Scully, Dalhousie’s former provost, who championed the original agreement on our visit in 2006; there is SDUFE’s Vice-President Nie Peiyao, who was a strong supporter from the beginning and whose daughter has now made her home in Halifax; there is Keith Taylor, Associate Vice-President Academic, who has cheered the pilipiliÂþ»­ of every student, many of whom he has come to know personally.

And there are two for whom this program has been a personal passion...

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Day nine: Sending your child off to university, international style

Submitted by Asa Kachan

March 17, Nanjing

It probably has something to do with the fact that my oldest child is now in high school, coupled with the work I do as a University Registrar, but I find my friends and I often discuss the transition of young people into university. How can we prepare our children well intellectually and emotionally? How can we be ready as parents to let go?

I’ve been struck on this trip by the tremendous leap Chinese parents must make in order to send their son or daughter – often their only child – to study in Canada.

We arrived in Nanjing last night, a historic and beautiful city in eastern China that has served as the capital of China at various times in history.Ìý Early settlement in this area occurred as far back as 495 BC, and it is graced with a 25 km city wall built during the Ming Dynasty in the 1300s. For our delegation, Nanjing is also significant because it’s the home of Chenxi Wu.

Chenxi, who works for the Faculty of Graduate Studies at pilipiliÂþ»­, has been our logistics coordinator and translator extraordinaire on this trip. She is an international student pilipiliÂþ»­ story. She left Nanjing just before her 19th birthday, graduated from Saint Mary’s two years ago with her Bachelor of Commerce, and has remained in Halifax since, building her resume with jobs of increasing responsibility. She is intelligent, articulate and thoughtful, and appears equally at home in China and Canada. She radiates confidence and happiness.

As we explored Nanjing with Chenxi today, we got a sense of how her journey to Canada unfolded. Chenxi attended Grand Canadian Academy in Nanjing, one of a growing number of schools in China that teach a Canadian high school curriculum. The parents who send their children to these schools do so with the hope that it will prepare them well for international opportunities. It’s no simple decision. Often the path must be chosen when their child is just entering their teens. Sometimes choosing an international curriculum means their child will not be prepared to complete the Gaokao (the Chinese university entrance examination), thereby limiting their university options at home in China. These are decisions that affect the entire family.

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