Excursions

The excursions ran by the programme were all extremely well organised. I enjoyed going to watch a Peking Opera show and dancing with one of the cast on stage. In each interval the cast let us take photos with them.

There were module-orientated trips as well. The group studying 'Law, Urbanisation and Society' visited an orphanage and community centre. My group, studying 'Tourism Management' visited an engineering factory and a beautiful Eco-hotel which we later had to create a presentation about.

We had 2 free days and a couple of afternoons free throughout the programme and although we were advised to relax and do work because the programme was so intense, many of us wanted to make the most of our time in China so organised trips of our own.

On one day a group of us visited Beijing, we got a 2 and a half hour bullet train to Beijing, then a 2 and a half hour taxi ride to the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China. We then got a taxi back to Beijing to very quickly visit the Olympic Stadium and Forbidden City Palace.
On one afternoon, several of the students, their buddies and myself visited the Thousand Buddha Mountain.
On another free day, me and some students got a bullet train to Qufu to see Confucius Temple, Mansion and Graveyard.

 

Lessons

I was surprised at how friendly and interactive my lecturers were at Shandong University. We were warned that Chinese lecturers can be cold and non interactive. Apparently this can depend on the age of the lecturers.
I had 3 hours of mandarin a day, every weekday. We started mandarin by practicing sounds as we soon learnt how the different tones can change a word's meaning entirely. We then moved onto sentences and conversations such as 'What country are you from?' 'I am from England'. We also learnt some Chinese songs and watched a Chinese film which was good. At the end of the course I had a 5 minute mandarin exam in which I had to read 10 characters, read some sentences then reply to some questions all in mandarin.
In our academic module we had a choice of studying 'Law, Urbanisation and Society' and 'Tourism Management'. I chose to study 'Tourism Management' as it was more applicable to my degree. In our final 2 lessons we had to do an oral presentation then a powerpoint presentation in groups on the eco-hotel we visited and a destination of our choice.
At the end of the programme I gave both lecturers a gift of tea or biscuits which I had brought with me from England.

 

Travel

There were lots of convenient transport links in Jinan where we were studying. I could get a frequent bus from the campus to the city centre for the equivalent of 10p each way. The buses with air-conditioning were double the price. Buses were decent but the Chinese have no issue with squashing lots of people on which can be overwhelming if you're not used to getting busy buses.
Taxis are also readily available, no need to book although you can. Very much the same as England, except the price is a fraction of English prices. The 2 and a half hour journey from Beijing train station to the Great Wall cost us the equivalent of £30 (per taxi).
The taxi drivers in Beijing did try to scam us as they saw we knew little mandarin, but just use your common sense to get out of those situations.
 Illegal 'black taxis' also seem to be everywhere. They're basically a normal person's car (no taxi license or sign). We got one of these once as the security guards called this taxi for us however I wouldn't recommend getting an illegal taxi just because it is quite risky.
I found it interesting that taxi drivers in Jinan had bars around the driver for their protection, I did not see this in Beijing.
Trains are also reasonable, it cost me the equivalent of £14 for a return bullet train to Qufu to see Confucius Temple. It would have been a 2 hour each way car journey but was just 30 minutes on this high speed train that must be booked in advance. You get a specific seat number, the trains were very clean with plenty of space.
Rickshaws are also everywhere and fun to get. They may try to rip you off, they should be cheap than a taxi.

Hospitality

 
One of the first things that I noticed when I arrived in Beijing Airport was how friendly the Chinese are. I was struggling with my suitcases and a couple of Chinese businessmen helped me. However, as we were westerners in a second tier tourist destination, lots of Chinese people stared at us or took photos of us. When we visited the Great Wall in our free time, we must have had hundreds of Chinese tourists ask to take photos with us.
Dining out was always interesting, I would always point to photos on the menu as my mandarin was appalling and most Chinese waiters that I came across didn't speak any English.
Whenever I ate out with Chinese residents, the lack of formalities involved shocked me (particularly so as I am studying hospitality at University). Often, Chinese buddies would click their fingers, raise their hand or shout for the waitress as soon as we were ready to order. Once a waitress didn't come soon enough so a buddy marched up to a waitress to inform her we were ready to order. The staff seemed used to this and acted very hostile to the customers in return.
There always seemed to be at least one dish that no one was sure what was in it.
No tipping occurs in China, one of the other students told me he tried to tip in a restaurant once but the staff refused to accept it.
Often the menus in China seemed more like a large catologue than a menu as they had many pages with large photos.
Occasionally, (apparently in more expensive restaurants), we were required to pay after ordering rather than after eating.
Street food was always around, interesting food such as starfish on a stick or chicken feet. We were recommended against eating street food as it does often cause food poisoning. However, I know many people tried some of the street food with no problems and they said it was delicious.

Food

As I don't eat meat, I did struggle finding food I could eat in China.
There is a translation for vegetarianism but every Chinese person I asked didn't seem to have heard of a vegetarian before. This made it difficult as they would order for example a dish of duck cooked with vegetables and offer me the vegetables that had been cooked in the meat juices. This happened quite often, luckily I like rice and didn't get sick of eating it.
There were some interesting meat dishes in the region I visited. Apparently the dishes vary greatly depending on which part of China you are visiting. In Shandong I never saw dog on menus, but I did see a lot of chicken feet, bullfrogs, intestines, duck blood soup and once a turtle being served.
The nicest dishes I tried were lotus roots, candied potatoes (which were so hot they had to be dipped into water before eating) and honey roasted aubergines.
Meals were always fairly cheap, I never paid more than the equivalent of £8 when eating out. I sometimes ate lunch at the Shandong University canteen. Food there was very good value for money; it was always very filling and most of my meals there came to the equivalent of 35p (meat dishes would've been slightly more).
There was a lot more western food available than I thought. In all the major cities I saw there was a starbucks, several KFCs, many pizza huts (which sold odd pizzas such as octopus on a pizza) and a Mcdonalds. Mcdonald's restaurants seemed to be more of a coffee shop than a fast food chain as it is at home - the one I went in sold a range of patisserie cakes and macaroons as you would see in a French coffee shop. The fast food served seemed fairly similar if not the same as back at home, apparently KFC had a 'sale' range for food that is going out of date.