Dobai Tibor founding member of the Kultúrkör Egyesület (Culture Circle Association) shared his own experiences and gave a lecture about his life in a Chinese town which was as big as Hungary. Mohr Richárd director of SZTE Confucius Institute served as a teaser before the lecture.
Mohr Richárd said that nowadays China’s great power role in the world is unquestionable. That is why he advises to everyone to learn more about this great country. Even if he spent a lot of time in China he is still unable to understand the whole China. The director started his Chinese studies in Budapest in 1989. At that time this was the only possible place where the students could learn the language, and nowhere else in the country. Nowadays, the possibilities are much better since from autumn the Institute will launch Chinese language classes in Makó.
Nowadays, all the information we have about China is still obsolete in Hungary and that is one of the reasons why Confucius Institutes were founded, first in Budapest in 2006 and after that in Szeged in 2012. The main aim of founding such institutes was to provide authentic knowledge and language classes about China in order to get acquainted with China. Of course, there is no doubt the fact that if we want to know and learn more about China, it is necessary to stay there for a long while. That is why it was very interesting to listen to the stories of Dobai Tibor from Szeged who had the opportunity to spend half a year in Nanking as a trainee in a Chinese company.
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In his presentation, illustrated with bountiful photos, he said that in this city with a population of more than 10 million people, the citizens of different kind of residential communities are very converging. For instance, they dance together in a park, do physical exercises and they are very friendly with foreigners, and even when they see a European face they are eager to take a photo. Although the size of Nanking is very compelling, after each three months a new metro line is given over which makes the city more living since it became possible to get from the suburbs to the city centre within 30 minutes. The city is divided into two by the Jangce River above which there is a 5 km long bridge with multi-lane streets. No matter how incredible it is but Nanking is a green place worth living even if there are a lot of huge skyscrapers. The city is very proud of its present and future as well since once it used to be the capital city of China.
A few words were also mentioned about Chinese food, especially the ones bought on the street even at night. The foods are very simple, but very delicious such as steamed dumpling or Chinese hamburger. Tóth Alexandra colleague of the Institute gave a lecture about Chinese scholarships. She highlighted that the Chinese Government provides a substantial financial support for those who win the scholarship. Now at the moment there are three students from Szeged in China.
Last but not least, Dobai Tibor show such photos (for example purple, sweet bread) to the audience what he could not understand even now. All the lecturers highlighted the fact that China is a quite safe country, Chinese people are very pious, so what should be left behind is only the far distance, the opportunity is open for everyone to learn about China and its culture.