A day in the life of a highschool student in BeiJing

A bit of backstory

I'm a German student. In 2012/13 I spent a year in China with the exchange organisation Youth for Understanding. I lived in a (totally amazing) host family and went to highschool in BeiJing.
This is what a typical day looked like for me.
#Maketheworldyourhome

Waking up

I usually wake up around 6 am to go to school. I share a small room with my host-sister, but I didn't bring a lot of stuff from Germany, so I don't mind. My host-sister is also super nice and I really like spending time with her.
Lying on the bed are some of my most important items: my unbreakable Nokia and my German-Chinese dictionary. Honestly, without the last one I wouldn't have survived a week.

Breakfast

Breakfast isn't a very important meal in China. I often eat rice porridge or left overs. That day I had a sandwich with bacon and lettuce. Pretty tasty and quick. Most people get their breakfast from street vendors. They sell YouTiao (fried doughsticks) and JianBing (egg pancakes) for about 50ct a piece.

My lil' guy

He's cute, right?

My apartment complex

There are 10 buildings in my apartment complex. The buildings have 24 stories with 12 apartments each. That's about 900 people per building!

Bus ride

I take the bus to school. Traffic in BeiJing is really bad, so it usually takes me 40 minutes to get to school, which starts at 7.30 am. Smog is a big problem and seeing a blue sky has become pretty rare.

It's bigger on the inside, but not really

The bus is always full. Sometimes it gets so crowded that the bus driver will just drive past bus stops because there is no more room for new passengers.

School assembly

So this is very weird thing for me as a German.
The students all assemble on the sports ground, sing the Chinese anthem and march around. This kind of thing would never ever happen in German schools (anymore).
Our school's uniforms are super comfy by the way. It's basically sweatpants with a sweater.

My school

My school is one of the biggest in BeiJing, which means that they have an "International Department" where foreign students like myself get Chinese lessons before they attend the regular classes. In the background you can see the school gates.

My class room

I'm in the beginners' class. We're only three students, a Korean, my best friend (a Briton) and me.
Fortunately our teachers are patient... Learning Chinese seems impossible at first, because you learn the vocabulary and at the same time also the corresponding characters.

The view from our class room window

Yeah, so smog is kind of depressing. But after some time you get used to the "dystopian future/life is about to end at any second"-look.
The building with the red letters on it is a Korean restaurant that used to serve dog soup.

Our class schedule

One reason why I like going to school so much is because we have a lot of different subjects each day. There's Chinese grammar, Chinese writing, Chinese reading, Chinese maths, I.T. lessons, cultural history and English.

Lessons

Today we learned the vocabulary to describe a family tree and relations. Interesting stuff but really hard to memorize.
Our teacher is awesome, she's tiny and laughs all the time.

Lunch

The Chinese students get their lunch delivered to their class rooms to save time, so us International students are always eating by ourselves in the cafeteria.
Lunch is good sometimes, sometimes not. But at least it's always a surprise what you're getting.

Sports

After lunch the International students (mainly Koreans and Japanese) had a football match. The favorite sport of the Chinese students is basketball though.

School garden

While I am a big fan of watching football, I don't really like playing it. I went for a walk in the school garden instead. I think it's amazingly beautiful. It's the only quiet place in the school and in the spring the cherry trees are breathtaking (not talking about pollen allergy)

Fruit

Look at this artsy photo! The school has a lot of "Diospyros kaki"-trees and now the fruit are so ripe that they just plunge into their juicy deaths.

Snack time

Wedomé (watch out for that fancy acute!) is a Chinese bakery chain that tries to recreate French pastries. It succeed a little bit, I guess. But their muffins are good, so I don't care whether it's authentic.

Supermarket

After school finished at 4 pm I did a little grocery shopping. The supermarket called "Carrefour" is huuuuuge! You can find just about anything there. And also get lost.

Yummy

Interesting choice of flavor for chips. Not my thing.

Fruit

One of the best things about living in China might just be the super fresh and cheap fruit.

Thanks Obama

This is what I meant when I said that you can find just about anything here.

Bus ride, going home

I like riding the bus, especially in the evening. BeiJing doesn't really get quiet ever, but when it's getting dark it at least seems more peaceful.

I got a care package!

My amazing family sent me a care package from Germany! It has my favorite German candy like Lindt and Haribo gummy bears. Awesome <3

The end of the day, 10 pm

I finished my home work around 9 pm, imgured for a while and texted with some of the other exchange students.
So that's what a typical day in my life as a German exchange student in BeiJing looks like.