Amazing experiences on the journey to China

After graduating with a bachelor's degree, my ambitions kept pushing me to aim higher. I applied for a Chinese Scholarship Council scholarship and was admitted by China Agricultural University. No one will ever understand the joy that I felt when I got the email from the international office informing me that I had been accepted for the program. From that very point, everything in my life changed. I had spent several sleepless nights, trying to find a way to upgrade and further my education but to no avail. This was the opportunity I had been praying for, and nothing or no one was going to stop me from grabbing it. I started my preparations to travel to China as soon as possible. In my mind, a lot of things were running through my head. I asked myself several questions because I could not believe this was happening. Was I leaving my country, my family, and everyone I knew to go to a place where, among over a billion people, nobody had any idea of who I was?

One thing was certain that I was ready to study and my mind had already been made up. I wanted this so much that even work or leisure was not making sense to me anymore. The thought of flying, airports, everything I had watched on documentaries gave me a thrill that I will never forget. While I was preparing, I started focusing my research more on China:how they live, what they eat, how they relate with foreigners... I found many people giving high rankings to life in China and that made me even hungrier to come. My experience with traveling, let alone by air, was minimal. I had associated with airports only at work, without any intention to travel somewhere. Deep down I would always tell myself that someday I will be the one grabbing my passport, passing through customs, and go. Where would I go? I did not think about it. All I knew was that in the future I was going to fly away. My time to prepare and travel was not that long. I had to deal with a lot of things before I left as I knew my program was going to take more than a year. This meant that I was going to spend a significant part of my life in China.

I paid for my plane ticket in time, as I was advised by the international office. The next step was to visit the Chinese embassy in Harare. There I applied for a student visa, the X1 type. The process was very efficient and I was so grateful when I went to collect my visa. The price, according to me, was also reasonably affordable as compared to other visas. When the day came, I took a bus to OR Tambo international airport from Harare. I then boarded Egypt Air to Cairo. After that, I then took another plane to Beijing. There are times in life you wish you could share your experiences physically with everyone special in your life. Right at that moment when we left Egypt, I wished I could have been with some people to enjoy this experience together.

I arrived in Beijing around 3:00 pm. This was where my unforgettable experience with China began. To begin with, it was the new airport itself, a magnificent piece of world-class engineering. Everything I saw was so amazing:people, the security personnel, the glasswork, floors... I can not mention them all. How the Chinese thought of using self-service machines for checking in is beyond me. With the number of people that I saw flocking into the airport that moment, considering that it was rush hour, I can understand. It was my first time using such a machine that scanned my passport and gave me a receipt. I proceeded to the workers to fill in some details and then went to collect my bag in the baggage area. Beijing international airport is so big!

At this moment, let me mention that some things became so real to me this time. Firstly, the workers spoke their language which is Chinese, which I could not understand. Secondly, I assumed they would understand English. In Zimbabwe our official language is English, therefore I assumed that almost everyone speaks that language. I did not know how misguided I was. Luckily, the international office had provided me with some printed materials so that I would know how I was going to travel when I arrive in Beijing to China Agricultural University, west campus. I was happy at that moment to notice that the Chinese were so loving and happy to see me. Yes, we could not understand each other language-wise, but as humans we did. Some of them took some photos with me. Honestly, I never felt offended, rather I felt so welcome. That was the moment of truth for me, and to some extent, it gave me the confidence that I had lost due to language barriers. One official guided me to a taxi. At the airport there are always taxis ready to transport people to their respective destinations. One can either use a taxi, a subway, or the expressway. People also use buses, but for the fact that I was still new in China, this was not the time to be overconfident.