The best winter vacation choice (最好的寒假选择)

A report from my AIESEC internship in China

I am a 22 years old student who decided to go to China after studying 1 year of Chinese and Applied Economics at Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. It is already second and also my last semester of intensive Chinese language course in here, Guizhou University, Guiyang. There is quite a long winter vacation between semesters in China and once, when it was about time to make my plan for the upcoming vacation, I noticed an advertisement for AIESEC internship in China. It was about teaching English in high school in Chengdu and it immediately caught my attention, because I always wanted to try teaching, especially in a foreign environment. I also wanted to travel and this internship combined both travelling and teaching at once, I didn’t hesitate for a long time. I also had an advantage of already being in China so I didn’t have to bother with visas or spending enormous sums for travelling. I cannot even describe how glad I am I was part of this so called Winter Camp. It simply surpassed all my expectations and changed my life.

大家好，我是裴智，今年22岁，在捷克，奥洛穆茨，帕拉茨基大学学习中国文字学和经济学。读书一年以后，我有机会去中国学习，我没犹豫，所以我现在在贵阳，贵州大学读书第二学期的中文。中国的寒假比捷克的长，直到第一学期末我还没有安排寒假的时间。我忽然发现了一个在中国的AIESEC实习的广告。这是在成都的中学教英语的实习，我一直想试一试教点什么，尤其在国外的环境，所以我立刻关注了这个机会。我原来想去旅游，但这个实习中我们会一边教英语一边旅行，所以我很容易地决定了。我也不用花很多钱买机票，或者办签证的手续，因为我已经在中国了。我根本不能描述参加这个“冬令营”的喜悦。这个经验出人意料，改变了我的生活。

I arrived to Beijing after a 3 hours flight from Guiyang and there were already 2 girls waiting for me. My plan to speak Chinese with them failed, it’s hard to force myself to speak Chinese with someone who speaks English well. It took us 2 hours to get to our EP (exchange participant) house, because Beijing is really huge, Guiyang with a little less than 5 million people seems as a village now. EPs lived together in a big flat and I arrived as 4^th out of 10. We represented 9 countries together (Czech Republic, Russia, Turkey, Peru, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan) and each of us had his own Chinese buddy accompanying us and especially helping us with the upcoming course preparation. Then there was OC team (organization committee) and team leader, it made up about 25 people altogether so we were quite a big group. Funny fact is that we were only 4 boys (2 EPs, buddy and team leader). So I definitely recommend this to all guys, our demand in AIESEC BFSU (Beijing Foreign Studies University) is far from being met.  We were staying in Beijing for 2 weeks, travelling, preparing courses and having fun, then, by the end of January, we moved to Chengdu for another 3 weeks to finally prove ourselves to be great teachers and have fun for the rest of the time.

在贵阳坐飞机3个小时以后到了北京，俩美女在机场已经等着我。我原来打算跟所有中国人用汉语聊天，但是我的计划当下就脱空。如果有人说英语得好，我就不能勉强自己说汉语。2个小时以后我们才来到 EP 家，我现在觉得贵阳好像是农村似的，北京非常大。EPs 在宽敞的房子住在一起，我在10个EP中是第四来到的。我们来自9国家，分别是捷克、俄罗斯、土耳其、秘鲁、吉尔吉斯斯坦、蒙古、马来西亚、印度尼西亚和台湾。每个EP有自己的中国buddy，他们陪我们，特别是帮助我们准备课程的内容。还有OCs和TL，我们的团体大概有25人，人真不少。我肯定推荐所有男人参加这种实习，因为我们的团体只有4男人（2EPs、TL和buddy），在BFSU男人兼职供不应求！我们在北京待了两个星期，旅游，备课和玩，到了一月底，我们终于去成都证明了自己是很好的老师，然后余下的时间用来游玩。

EPs and OC Daisy in the EP house, EP Jenny from Mongolia behind the camera

Traditional tea ceremony, all the EPs and few buddies/OCs in the photo

I had a great time in Beijing, we visited all worthwhile places nearby, experienced some Chinese cultural activities such as brush writing and traditional tea ceremony and had a lot of course preparations together. I celebrated my 22^nd birthday there and was surprised and moved that people who knew me barely for a week threw a party for me including birthday cake and gifts. I also had a chance to meet my classmates from the Czech Republic, who are studying in Tianjin, another major city just 30 minutes away from Beijing by high-speed train, and it was the only time I spoke Czech for those 6 weeks, it felt good to communicate only in English, Chinese and a few attempts in Spanish, which I completely forgot even though I used to be fluent 2 years ago. Don’t let your language skills atrophy!

北京是很好玩的地方，我们参观了所有有意思的地方，体验了一些中国文化的活动，包括字画和传统茶艺。我在北京过了我的第22个生日，刚认识了的人竟然给我过生日，送给我生日蛋糕和礼物，让我惊喜又感动。我也有机会跟在天津学习的捷克同学们见面，除了这个晚上，我6个星期没有用捷克语聊天，这种感觉很奇怪，但是只用英语和汉语说话让我很满意。我也学习过西班牙语，虽然以前能说一口流利的西班牙语，但是现在说得不好。如果不经常地练习语言，就会忘记。不要丢掉你的语言能力啊！

One of the first days on the Great Wall.

Time to mention Chinese food, everyone loves eating and it deserves a whole paragraph! Although I had already lived in China for almost half a year before, I didn’t dare to eat a lot of dishes which either sound or look unappealing to me. What a mistake! Presence of many Chinese friends around led to tasting almost everything possible. I ended up tasting pig intestines, skin, stomach, lungs and all kinds of organs but when I mentioned I tried dog meat back in Guiyang, I was met with disbelief and offended stares from everyone. Meat is meat, isn’t it? It may sound surprising, but to be honest, all those things listed above, except the dog meat, tasted quite well. And I’m sure even the dog meat could have tasted much better if it was prepared in a different way. We of course tried traditional local dishes such as Beijing duck, genuine Sichuan hotpot (which was so much better than those in Guizhou) or its version with skewers (串串香), Mapo Tofu，spring rolls, things as weird as fried ice cream with chilies and many others. I especially miss Sichuan food, such a great cuisine!   

我怎么还没提起中餐呢，大家热爱食物，尤其是中国人。尽管我已经在中国待了差不多半年，我遇到名字不好听或者样子不好看的菜的时候，都不敢去点一点。真可惜！周围有很多中国朋友的时候，我们就可能尝一尝所有的食物。我终于品尝过肥肠、猪皮、胃、肺脏等，但是我提起我在贵阳品尝狗肉的时候，他们都撇了撇嘴。肉就是肉，对不对？可能这很奇怪，但是老实说，除了狗肉，上述的东西都比较好吃。如果用其它的做法，我肯定狗肉也可以很好吃。我们当然吃了传统地方菜例如北京烤鸭、四川火锅（比贵阳的很好吃）、串串香、麻婆豆腐，还有什么奇怪的东西比如油炸冰淇淋等。我特别想念川菜，好一个好吃的菜系！

Sichuan hot pot, I tend to close eyes in pictures :-D

串串香

After 30 hours in train, we arrived to Chengdu to use everything we had been diligently preparing.  The train ride could be a chapter on its own. I was the unlucky one to pick the upper bed (there are another 2 beds under it) and even though I’m a small guy, I felt very uncomfortable there, constantly banging my head against the ceiling. Our Chinese fellow passengers were happy to see a white guy speaking Chinese so I made some new friends there too.  We got picked up by a school bus near the train station and headed straight to the school. They prepared a welcoming reception, accommodated us and we started preparing ourselves for the arrival of approximately 200 12-14 years old kids the following day.

在坐了30个小时的火车以后，我们到了成都，终于用到我们用心准备的材料。关于乘火车，我会另起一段。我在上铺睡觉，真倒霉！虽然我不是个高个子，但是我在上铺真的不舒服，我的头经常碰在天花板上。中国乘客知道了我会说汉语的时候，都很高兴，开始跟我聊天。火车站附近有校车，直接接我们往学校去。他们还准备了欢迎会，隔天大概200个12到14岁的学生就要来到那里，所以我们应该自己开始准备。

The Winter Camp lasted for a week, each day’s schedule started at 8am and ended at 8:30pm with 2 hours lunch break and 1 hour dinner break so we were really busy. Who expects us to be teaching according to some books, is completely wrong. We had a schedule for the whole week with various courses and lessons and we had to prepare the content on our own. Each EP had his own class according to students’ choices after our own presentations, but not every student of course got his desired teacher, because the number of students in each class would be imbalanced, therefore each one of us got 18-20 students. Chinese people generally go crazy when they see a foreigner so I definitely had a lot of attention being the only one white guy in the whole campus. I soon discovered that some students came up with a nickname for me, and I really hope that it was some of those graduating ones’ idea, because it made me a bit uncomfortable. I was called 性感大胡子, which means big sexy beard, haha. Too bad I experienced some health problems early in the week and I had a rash all over my forehead and my left eye was soaked in blood, which made me go to a Chinese hospital for the first time in my life. It was also quite an experience, nothing serious happened, but it influenced my performance a bit and I looked much worse than ever, not the right time for having such a nickname.

冬令营历时一个星期，我们都很忙碌，因为每天早上8点上课，晚上8：30点结束，只有2个小时午休和1个小时晚休。如果有人料想我们按照什么本书教，那就错了。我们都根据一张课表备各种课。每EP介绍自己，然后孩子们可以选择他们最喜欢的老师。当然不能满足所有人的愿望，因为不可以每个班有不一样数量的学生，因而每间教室里都有18-20学生。一般说，中国人看见老外的时候，常常会发狂。在整个校园我是唯一一个不来自亚洲的男人，所以很多眼睛都注意着我。我很快发现有人称呼我“性感大胡子”，哈哈，我真希望这是毕业班想出来的雅号，这让我有点别扭。那星期一开始我的身体略感不适，于是我第一次去了中国医院，因为我的额头有皮疹而且左面的眼睛流血了。好在不是很严重的，但是它影响了我的表现，而且当时我肯定不很好看，这种雅号出现的时间真是不恰当。

Falling asleep while waiting for some activity to begin

I would roughly say that 1/3 of classes were cultural and about various topics according to every EP, another third was supposed to improve their English language skills, creativity and teamwork and these were prepared by EPs and buddies. The last part was prepared by the OC team and it was for everyone at once, playing games, doing drama performances, singing, dancing, etc. It really took a lot of time and effort to create and think about all those activities and presentations, but it was worth it. As I say, we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give, and it felt so good to see all those happy faces because of mine and others’ contribution. We of course had some icebreaking, we talked about our dreams, I talked a lot about Europe and especially my country, taught them some Czech words and even one Czech Christmas carol (Pásli ovce Valaši), because I was supposed to have a performance in front of everyone, I’m bad at singing, dancing or just almost anything on stage so me and my classroom sang this, it was really funny, I never imagined singing in front of more than 200 people. We prepared a drama show, I held a course about cooking and cuisines throughout the world, which ended up by forcing a lot of students to leave my class because there were simply too many of them. Probably the only downside was the imbalance of their English levels. Some of the students were a lot better than I expected them to be, but on the other hand, some weren’t almost able to say a whole sentence in English. If we didn’t have buddies who were constantly interpreting into Chinese, it would have no sense for some of them. I tried to show them that they won’t get better if they don’t practice by participating in some of the games, so I tried to speak Chinese, for example explaining different animals on cards and let them guess what I was talking about. If I can do it in Chinese, they can do it in English too! It was really busy and exhausting week, saying goodbye was really emotional, I almost shed some tears too when my favorite student started to cry. And we won a certificate for being the cutest class! 

差不多1/3的课是关于文化和EPs的题目，其他1/3说是提高孩子们的英文水平、创造性和合作，这都是EPs和buddies准备的课。最后的部分是OCs准备的，不是在教室里的活动，是面向所有的人，我们游戏、唱歌、跳舞、演出等。准备这些活动既费时又费力，但是我们觉得划得来。我喜欢说：“我们靠得到的东西生存，但是靠给予的东西生活”。因为我们的贡献看到了那么多快乐的微笑，我感觉得非常好。首先我们也有自我介绍的游戏，关于梦想和理想的话题，我介绍欧洲，尤其是我的国家，教他们一点捷语和传统的圣诞颂歌，因为我需要有个表演。我根本不会唱歌或者跳舞，所以我从来没想像我在台上演出。我的班帮助我唱歌，我虽然觉得还是糟糕，但是至少很好玩。我教授了一节烹饪和世界美食的课，我们不得不勉强很多孩子去别的课堂，因为座位不够。学生的英语水平不一致是一个问题。有人说得很好，但是也有根本一个句子也说不出来的人。如果我们没有做汉语翻译的buddies，我的课有多半人都听不懂。我对他们表示如果他们不练习，不参加一些游戏，他们就不能进步。我会说一些汉语，比如说明卡片上的各种动物，让他们来猜。如果我能够用汉语游戏，他们也能够说英语。我们都这个星期真够辛苦的。离开的时候，他们都感动得流下眼泪，我也几乎哭因为我的最喜欢的学生真哭了起来。我们的班还获得最萌萌哒奖！

Last day with my class

Just everyone

AIESEC group and school staff

The school treated us, among the other things, by taking us to Dujiangyan the last day, one of the biggest and oldest irrigation systems in the world and then to a very good hotpot restaurant. This started off our last 2 weeks in Chengdu, which was the best part. We’ve seen pandas in the biggest panda reservation in the world, tried a lot of delicious dishes in the best food street I’ve been to so far (Jinli) and even decided to take a trip to 10 hours distant Jiuzhaigou, one of the most beautiful national parks in the world. It was really breathtaking, visiting Tibetan villages and seeing all the natural beauty around. Then we celebrated Chinese New Year together, the biggest Chinese festival, prepared a lot of dishes and had a proper party, mostly because of me, the alcohol degenerated Czech guy, haha. And then, it was almost the end of our internship, our great journey.

学校的人员很好客，除了给我们很多物资帮助以外，最后一天还安排我们到都江堰的旅游，接着带我们去不错的饭馆吃火锅，都是他们请客。然后我们最后的两个星期开始了，这是最好的时间。我们看了熊猫，在成都最著名的街道，锦里，尝过很多好吃的食物，也决定去九寨沟，一个令人惊艳的地方。九寨沟是我至今最喜欢的地方，我们看过美丽的天然景色，参观一些藏族农村。回来的时候，我们一起过春节，我对多半BFSU AIESECer来说该是“捷克酒鬼”，因为一直给大家劝酒，哈哈。其后，我们的实习，我们的旅程，就几乎结束了。

Dujiangyan

Jiuzhaigou

Dinner in a Chinese family, thanks for the invitation Mark!

I didn’t mention a lot of things which are worth to write about, but I already have written much more than I expected and I’m also writing this in Chinese, which will take me incomparably more time than this. I at least want to show you a few photos in here. I’m planning to do a presentation about China, all the places I’ve been to, so some of you more interested about life, studying, travelling and culture in here will have much better chance when I’ll be back in the Czech Republic.

我没提起很多值得写的东西，但是我已经写过得多了，这也是我至今最长的中文文章，我以前只写过700字的作文。我在这里至少想展示一些照片。我回去捷克的时候，就打算介绍我在中国的体验。

To be honest, I was surrounded by foreigners most of the time before this internship so I didn’t make many Chinese friends here in Guiyang. And this opportunity changed it all. I got to know Chinese culture and lifestyle so much better and it made me like China more. I met a lot of people from different parts of the world, I’m pretty sure I will see some of them again, I made a lot of Chinese friends, and now most importantly for me, I met a person by whom I was totally enthralled and even though I wasn’t exactly looking for this in China, I have the most beautiful Chinese girlfriend now and I can’t be more happy. So there it is, AIESEC romance, which just doesn’t end there! I can only recommend BFSU Local Committee, they took a great care of us so if any one of you would like to experience something like this in China too, go for it! If anywhere else, the answer is the same, it is an unforgettable experience which will influence your life and make you a better person.

老实说，这个实习以前我周围只有老外，在贵阳也没有很多的中国朋友。这个机会让这些都改变了。我更好地了解中国文化和生活方式，也更喜欢中国。我认识了来自世界上不一样国家的人，有些人我要一会再见面，我广交中国朋友，并且对我重要的事，我认识一个让我简直着迷了的人。虽然我本来没打算中国找这个，但是我现在有最美丽的中国女朋友，不可能感觉更快乐。这就是不结束的AIESEC爱情！我真诚地推荐BFSU LC，他们把我们照顾得很好。我也推荐参加其他的外国实习项目，这将是一个改变你们的生活的难忘经验。

 

A recent photo from Zhangjiajie in Hunan province with my amazing girlfriend Gigi, OC during the internship