Xian province Shaanxi university of science and technology

[Hyunared23]

Hi I recently decided I am gonna move to china to study chinese for 1 year, I have applied through admissions.cn and there was a section where u chose which province/city you wanted to go to ..So I chose Xian for some reason. Maybe cause I didn't want to go to a very crowded city haha .. but honestly I know nothing about the place and I know no chinese . Has someone on here ever studied chinese at shaanxi university before ?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

[anonymoose]

Sorry, no idea about Shaanxi University, but Xi'an is an interesting city in my opinion. It is a melting pot between the cultures of east and west China, with a long history and many interesting places to visit. It has also been modernised over the last decade, and is probably that much more convenient to live in now (for example, having a new metro system). I have been a number of times, though only stayed for a short duration each time, so I'm not very familiar with the place, but it's somewhere I'd definitely like to go back to.

[Dawei3]

I also don't know about the university, but Xian has lots of historic places.  As anonymoose noted, it has a nice mix of cultures.  It has a Muslim street that has its own special foods.     

 

If you go, get a copy of a free English language magazine called Xianease.  My hotel had it.  It was very well written and gave me a good feeling about the city and will let you know many of the things the city has to offer.  

 

I was surprised that Xian was much calmer than other places I've been in China (to me, China is all hustle & bustle).  For example, cars stopped for people crossing the street.  At a zebra crossing with no light, I was shocked to see taxis(!) stop for people (taxis are often crazy drivers in much of China).  I asked about this and a woman explained "About 2 or 3 years ago, the government started a program of fining drivers 200 RMB if they don't stop."  I noted how clean it was and she explained that the government started a program to get people to use trash cans.  Both programs had obviously worked.  

 

Xi'an now also has bullet train service that makes it easy to visit other nearby cities.  

 

 

[VocabSplitter]

If the main purpose of going to China is to learn Mandarin, you may want to know that most people there can speak standard Mandarin, but some people may have a little accent. For example, the standard pronunciation for "爱" is "ài", but they prefer pronouncing it as "ngài" ..... For native Chinese speakers, it's not a problem at all. But it may be a little difficult for Chinese learners in the beginning.....