In late March, we welcomed our longtime friends from Wah Yan College Hong Kong through TBC’s ChinaContact program. Their first visit was to their sister school, Beijing No. 11 School, where they engaged in vibrant exchanges, sharing educational insights and cultural experiences with each other.
Following this, they explored the TBC library, which boasts an extensive collection of over 27,000 volumes of English-language sinological books. These books span diverse fields such as art, biography, ethnology, history, and language, sparking interest among the students.
In addition to academic exchanges on campus, they also toured several historical landmarks in Beijing, including the Forbidden City, the Ancient Observatory, and the Mutianyu Great Wall.
This cultural journey not only allowed them to experience the unique charm of Beijing’s regional culture but also enriched their academic and humanistic outlooks, enhancing their appreciation of traditional Chinese culture and history.
Over this past weekend, some of our students enrolled at Minzu University of China took their annual Spring Outing – this year, to Gubei Water Town. Situated about a 2-hour drive northeast of Beijing, the April weather made it absolutely perfect to explore for a spring outing. It surrounds various canals and offshoots of Yuanyang lake.
If you ever want to get a taste of Old Beijing, by far one of the best ways is to visit the hutongs. They’ve conceptually been around all the way since the 1200s, and in their most modern forms exist as protected alleyways and streets surrounded by old traditional houses and neighborhoods in the heart of Beijing and are recognized in China to be an important part of cultural heritage in the city.