Last week we were witnesses of a phenomenon which took over our normal university life for more than a week: graduation. It started with some students who wore the graduation gowns and who took photos at the campus. I liked to watch them, how they were so happy to finally finished their studies and tried to preserve some nice memories from one of the most important stages of their life. But then their number started to grow rapidly, with them also their relatives and friends appeared. They were everywhere, carrying flowers and stuffed toys (even the boys), grinning and taking pictures — alone or with family and friends in nearly every possible permutations. It started around noon and continued until late in the night, even after the graduation ceremony (which lasted for three days and because of which the whole atrium was blocked for the other students) finished. I really admire them for their endurance.
Then, on Sunday, I was hiking on Lamma Island with Moritz and Lorraine. It was our second hiking trip since the beginning of the semester (the first one was in Sai Kung). Lamma Island is one of the big islands of Hong Kong, it’s very quite there — not like the noisy Hong Kong Island — and there’re many seafood restaurants. We started our tour with a breakfast in the congee restaurant where Moritz and I often went to when we were in Hong Kong last time. Then we took the tram from North Point to Central — the tram is still my favourite public transportation. With the ferry we got to Lamma Island and started our walk in Yung Shue Wan. Within one and a half hour you could come to Sok Kwu Wan. There were so many people on the “Family Trail”: families with their children, old people and even biker. I think it was really hard for the bikers to get over the steep passages. At the end of our hiking trip we went to the “Rainbow Restaurant” and had extreme good seafood — it was a little expensive though, but we could use the free shipping back to Central. And that was worth it.
My and Moritz’s Shenzhen trip had to be postponed to the coming Sunday. Hopefully Lyn will have time for us then. I’m looking forward to it. See you guys next time.
Anh Thu
Now I’ve been in Hong Kong for about a month and I’ve settled down so far. It’s October, which means that mid-terms are going to control everybody’s life. Students are running around with loads of books, drinking litres of coffee to stay awake or just camping in the library — too bad that the library closes at 11 pm. However, a UST alumni told me that the library is open 24h at the end of the semester. But I’ve to admit that the library here is really amazing. It’s so huge, with many desks and “cubicles” and you’ve got a magnificent sea view from the window seats…it’s like: “Wow, so beautiful ~sigh~…. I want to go to the beach….d’oh back to work!”
Well, although everybody is complaining about studying for exams and working on projects and all these at the same time, they still have some time left to engage for the students societies’ activities. There is every day some event, like a singing contest, magic show or this week it’s the “Glaciers week” (Glaciers is the name of the Undergraduate Hall 3 — a dormitory). They taped the whole university with their banners, but there are still some exchange students who claim they didn’t see anything when they went to classes…..maybe you need some glasses Wouter ><. How can’t someone notice THAT?
It seems that at UST they want you to develop not only your knowledge but also your social involvement. There is a huge number of students societies like sport societies or business societies where you can get in contact with companies. They organize events like BBQs for members only or big festivals everyone can enjoy.
Even the university administration is trying to get the students to participate in workshops by bombing them with spammails (at least 7 per day — I get 5 per year at TUM if I’m lucky). But the university concerns about ther students like in the case of one PG student who died recently: The university is trying to collect donations for the parents of the student as they lost their only child and at the same time their financial backup… Here you can see the memorial wall.
Can you imagine to die after only six days from the day you’ve been told that you have a really serious disease? So try to live your life without any regrets.
The most funny course is definitely my language course: “Mandarin Chinese for Non-Chinese Language Background Students”. I’m lucky to have Ms. Han Xuan as teacher. She’s so funny, always trying to make fun of our pronounciation, so that everybody can laugh at everybody and no one has to be scared or be ashamed to speak “Chinese”. Our class has around 20 students — depends on wether they’re in Hong Kong or travelling around Asia — out of these 20 students there are six Germans (excluding me). And the couple Ben & Bastian are the causes of most of the laughs. Not only is their pronounciation horrible, but they always have no idea what the teacher is talking about, furthermore they always ask weird questions like: “Can I also say that in this or that way?”…I wish they could do so in the normal way, but they don’t…
A couple of weeks ago I discovered a very curious thing concerning homework assignments at UST. I have two courses where I’ve to hand in homework assignments. The amount is compared to the amount of homework I got at TUM very small, but that’s not the point. Usually, we have to drop them into boxes standing in the Department of Mathematics — very similar to TUM — but then I got an email telling me to pick up my homework at a specific room. It took me two days to find the room, although I used the roomlocator. The room wasn’t a room but only a corridor with a shelf full of paper (very colourful as everyone here uses society paper sheets), not really divided in different courses. So the result was that I found one of two assingments. I’ll keep looking for my second assignment though. If anyone can figure it out from this picture, please don’t hesitate to contact me =) It’s a single sheet of paper, non-coloured and chequered.
Anh Thu
This time I want to write about the REAL important things: the studies….although there are some students who were claiming that the exchange semester is mainly half a year vacation ;)
University life at UST differs very much from that at TUM. Here are the things I like most:
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the amazing campus with its huge number of recreation activity offers
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the outdoor swimming pool: big, at the sea, warm water, in the morning mostly not crowded
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lecture halls with cushioned seats, which give you a feeling as if you were in the cinema
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the variety of restaurants which very tasty food at a reasonable price — however I was told that the UST has the highest prices among the universities in Hong Kong
Things I don’t like are:
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the online registration system of the school of science: there is a limited number of places for every course, so if you’re not lucky (and fast) you can’t get all the courses you want to take
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the big queues in front of the elevators
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math classes held with beamer
Things which are similar to TUM:
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leaking glass roofs
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if the air-condition is switched on in summer, then it’s usually too cold
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promotion offers at the beginning of the semester — however the so called “MEGA-sell” here is much bigger and it offers besides offers from banks also other products like clothed, acessoires, pens, food …. at a reduced price
Things which are different:
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the earliest lessons begin at 9 am, timeslots are fixed so that there’re always at least 10 minutes between two lectures
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one lecture takes usually 80 minutes (double) or 50 minutes (single)
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in math-courses there are not only math-students, so that the number of proofs differs against zero not to mention the notation errors
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you have to be prepared to write quizzies, like in school, midterm-exams and endterm-exams
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marks are given not only on basis of your final exam, but also with regard to homework point, other examinations and the performance of your fellow student — so that if they all screw up, you will get better grades
