Hong Kong International Exchange Student

Hong Kong International Exchange Student

I’m Jin, a junior student majoring in Logistics. I applied for the exchange program to Hong Kong Polytechnic University last semester and am currently enjoying my exchange student life in Hong Kong. About 2 months have passed since I got here and I’m happy to share my experience with readers of the PolyLife.

The main purpose I applied for an exchange program was to face diversity. It was my long long dream since I became a university student. The interest in new cultures and curiosity of what universities like in other countries made me look for opportunities to study abroad. A KAU student exchange program was the best chance for me, so I had no reasons to hesitate applying for this program. Also, in a globalizing world, I believe this experience will be helpful not only for my future career but also throughout my entire life.

After being selected, I enrolled in the Summer Program provided by the International Culture Education Institute before coming to Hong Kong. The lecture was given by an American professor and students from different nations also joined, so it was a good chance to experience exchange student life before actually going to Hong Kong.

The most memorable moment in Hong Kong was when all the Korean exchange students prepared for the culture sharing session “International Gala”. We prepared a small “Samulnori” performance, Korean food, and a booth decorated with pride in our country. With the true-hearted support from all exchange and full time students here, we successfully spread our culture and also won the first prize for the performance.

For the first few weeks, food was the hardest part. The food here is completely different from Koreanfood and was really new to me. But after a few weeks I was able to find the cuisines that fit my taste, and my body got used to the food here as time went by. The only problem I have here now is that I miss my family and friends in Korea a lot.

From 2 months into my new life I was able to make lots of friends with different backgrounds. There are around 400 exchange students in this school who are all open minded, so I was easily able to make new friends here. And by talking to them, I not only learned the basic information about them, but also their culture, how they think, and the ways they act. It is really interesting to find these differences, and these are the biggest gift I have gotten here.

Before I came here I set a few goals. The first goal was to meet many people and learn from them. This goal has been gone well so far. The academic goals were to learn Chinese and English as much as possible. It is part of my managing problem, but one thing I’ve realized here is that Chinese, specifically Mandarin, and English are both second languages to local people. Local people here speak Cantonese so it is different from learning English in America. It’s all foreigners speaking a foreign language. But overall I’m really satisfied with my life here.

Written by: Hyeon Jin Lim