Editor's note: "Studying in Guangxi" is the golden signboard of Guangxi's foreign exchanges, which not only attracts many Southeast Asian students to study in Guangxi, but also gradually covers South Asia and Central Asia. At present, Guangxi has vigorously promoted the opening up of education to the outside world, and in 2016, the number of students studying abroad exceeded 10,000 for the first time in ASEAN countries, and more than 10 institutions in Guangxi have gone out to cooperate in running schools abroad. Which universities and majors in Guangxi are the most popular with international students? What is it like to study abroad in Guangxi? What role has foreign cooperation in running schools played in serving the development of local industries? This website will successively launch a series of reports on "Studying in Guangxi Observation" to show the panoramic picture of "Studying in Guangxi".
Guangxi News Network reporter Xie Linlin
In November 2017, when President Xi Jinping visited Vietnam, singer Du Thi Thanh Hwa sang "On the Field of Hope" and "The Sound of Bamboo Flutes" for the leaders of the two countries. At that time, Du Shi qinghua had another identity - a student of the Guangxi Academy of Arts. In 2013, she was awarded the "Guangxi Government Scholarship for International Students from ASEAN Countries" and began a five-year study career, forming an indissoluble relationship with China. International students like Du's Qinghua who come to Guangxi to study have exceeded 10,000 a year in the past three years, and this number peaked at 16,000 in 2019. In the 2018 statistics on the number of international students in various provinces and regions across the country, Guangxi ranked eleventh.
Luo Yaoguang, director of the Department of Foreign Cooperation and Exchange of the Autonomous Region Department of Education, told reporters that Asia is the main source of students in Guangxi, of which ASEAN countries have the largest source of students, and in 2016, the number of students from ASEAN countries exceeded 10,000 for the first time. Taking 2019 as an example, the top ten countries in Guangxi in terms of the number of international students are Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Kazakhstan, of which the number of students from Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, And Pakistan is more than 1,000. At present, the source countries of students in Guangxi universities have expanded to 122 countries, but the number of students from ASEAN countries in Guangxi is still the largest, accounting for 64% in 2019.
Since organizing the first "Study in Guangxi" international education exhibition in Vietnam in 2004, the Department of Education of the Autonomous Region has successively organized exhibitions in 7 Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines, to publicize the development achievements of higher education in Guangxi and the advantages of education and scientific research.
The influence of the "Study in Guangxi" brand in ASEAN countries is increasing, which has directly led to a sharp increase in the number of ASEAN students. In 2018, the "Study in Guangxi" International Education Exhibition set foot in Sri Lanka for the first time, and in 2019, it expanded to the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan, and more and more Asian students are focusing on Guangxi. In the past 16 years, Guangxi has held 25 "Study in Guangxi" education exhibitions abroad, signed more than 200 cooperation agreements, and has become closer and closer to education cooperation with ASEAN countries.
Before Du's Qinghua was paid attention to by the media, another international student at the Guangxi Academy of Arts, Chen Yongxin from Malaysia, bravely broke into the "Voice of China" competition and made a small fire in China. Two girls from ASEAN countries are not only alumni, but also study under the same famous teacher. International students who are active in the literary and art circles have absorbed a lot of traffic for the Guangxi Academy of Arts.
In addition to art colleges, what are the more popular study abroad universities in Guangxi? According to the statistics of the Department of Education of the Autonomous Region, the top five universities with the largest number of international students are Guangxi University, Guangxi Normal University, Guangxi University for Nationalities, Guilin University of Technology, and Guangxi Medical University, all of which enrolled more than 1,000 international students in 2019.
Which majors are more popular with international students? The degree students who come to Guizhou to study are mainly concentrated in liberal arts, economic management, medicine, engineering and other disciplines, and Chinese language and literature are the most popular majors. In 2019, for example, nearly 26% of international students chose this major. In addition, international finance and computer science are also preferred majors for international students from ASEAN countries.
These majors favored by international students generally reflect the superior resources of higher education in Guangxi. Guangxi University is a world-class discipline construction university, Guangxi Normal University has a national key liberal arts base, Guangxi University for Nationalities is a "key school for Chinese language teaching in China to support neighboring countries", Guangxi Medical University is one of the first institutions in China to recruit undergraduate clinical medicine majors (taught in English), and Guilin University of Technology is a "outstanding engineer education and training program" university.
The influence of the "Study in Guangxi" education exhibition has increased year by year. Photo courtesy of the Autonomous Region Department of Education
"We go abroad to hold education exhibitions, and every year a lot of locals come to help and publicize, and they are also international students." Luo Yaoguang told reporters that after the publicity of overseas cooperative educational institutions and the word of mouth of successive sessions of international students, the influence of the "Study in Guangxi" education exhibition has been greatly enhanced. In addition to the excellent quality of higher education, the incentive policies provided by the Guangxi government to study abroad and the similar customs and customs of Guangxi and ASEAN countries are all additive factors.
After studying at Guilin University of Technology, Cambodian student Yang Deyu felt that the school was very good, and under his influence, 11 relatives in the family came to Guangxi to study. For most international students, Guangxi is geographically close to their home country, has natural proximity in climate and eating habits, convenient transportation and relatively low living consumption level, and has great appeal to them.
Most international students in Guangxi choose to return to China to develop after completing their studies. There are also some international students who choose to continue their studies after completing their undergraduate studies and go to a higher level in their studies and careers. For example, after completing his undergraduate studies, Du Shi Qinghua was admitted to the Guangxi Academy of Arts as a graduate student and is now staying on to teach at the school. Tang Jie, an international student at Guilin University of Electronic Technology, obtained a master's degree in science and engineering from his alma mater in December 2012, and obtained a doctorate degree in physical chemistry from Sun Yat-sen University in 2016, and is now a professor and doctoral supervisor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Hunan University, and has also been hired as a Yuelu scholar.
Nguyen Thi Ho Wai, a post-90s generation from Bac Ninh, Vietnam, is a master's degree in Chinese from the School of Communication of Guangxi University for Nationalities, and after completing her undergraduate studies at Hanoi University, she was awarded the Chinese Government Scholarship to study in Guizhou in 2018. "My hometown of Bac Ninh has left a lot of historical and cultural heritage and is the cradle of Vietnamese Confucian culture." In Hewei's eyes, these treasures left by the ancestors were vaguely regretted that they could not read Chinese characters when they were young. With the advancement of Sino-Vietnamese cultural exchanges, some well-known film and television works in China have been broadcast in Vietnam, and Hewei especially likes the old version of "Journey to the West", and has become more and more interested in Chinese culture. She studied Chinese, not only to understand the history of Vietnam, but also to understand Chinese culture. In 2017 and 2018, she was invited to Guangxi for further study twice: the first time was in July 2017 with the "First Overseas Chinese Teachers and Backbone Chinese Talents Training Class" to Nanning to study. Although she had learned a lot about China from movies, TV series and news in the past, when she stepped on the land of Guangxi, she still had irrepressible excitement and surprise. The spacious highway, the city full of high-rise buildings, the bustling crowds in the subway, and the convenience and speed of scanning code payments all make her truly feel the prosperity of Chinese urban life. Since then, she has made up her mind to study in China.
Ha Wei participated in the Air Volleyball Competition for International Students in Vietnam. Images courtesy of interviewees
In June 2018, when she went to Guilin to study at the Confucius Institute at Hanoi University, she was already applying for a Chinese government scholarship. Soon after, she was awarded the Chinese Government Scholarship and became a master's student at Guangxi University for Nationalities. In the three years in Guangxi, she not only became more and more advanced in her studies, but also gained sweet love. Her husband is a Thai overseas Chinese, and the two met in China and married Qin jin. She gradually integrated into Chinese life, and liked the developed online shopping, convenient transportation, and prosperous business culture. She has become accustomed to the popular scan code payment in China, and every time she returns to Vietnam, she will always forget to take cash out of the house, and when she encounters a queue with a purse, she will feel slightly unaccustomed.
In Hewei's family, many cousins have chosen to study in China, and her sister has followed in her sister's footsteps and became an international student at Guangxi University for Nationalities in 2020, also choosing Chinese major. "Chinese is broad and profound, and the more I learn, the more I feel that the mountains are up." After graduating with her master's degree, Hewei plans to stay in China for further studies, and her exams are aimed at several well-known universities in Beijing.
Studying in China is a ladder for many ASEAN students to achieve life progression. In recent years, the influence of Guangxi universities at home and abroad has gradually increased, and there are 6 universities in Guangxi that are eligible to recruit Chinese government scholarship students, and every year they recruit Chinese government scholarship students to China, Confucius Institute scholarships to study in China, etc., to provide a platform for overseas students to study in Guangxi.