Chinese International Student Found A Home in Edinburgh, Scotland

Culture shock both positive and negative can feel odd, disorienting. Xing, an international student who studied in Edinburgh, Scotland more than a decade ago, described his experience as a "Game of Edinburgh" with different seasons. Here's a clip from the full conversation I had with Xing in 2018 about that game. 

Full episode: 

https://geopats.buzzsprout.com/2039972/episodes/11201564-what-was-it-like-to-move-from-china-to-scotland-for-this-writer

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Transcript

Xing: 

Friends, family at home to read my Chinese blog to stay connected. So I was, that's why I also wrote the Chinese blog. So, but the, the answer is I, I started both blog at the same time.

Steph: 

Wow. What was the blog name?

Xing: 

They have two different names. The English blog is called, I think I, I remember one of them is called my Scott Scott.

Steph: 

Okay.

Xing: 

Okay. And then the other one is, I had this English name called Kappa. It's K-A-P-A. So I think the English blog was called KappaJiao.com or something.

Steph: 

Ah, okay, okay.

Xing: 

And then the Chinese blog was called My Scott Scott.

Steph: 

You said you didn't write much in English before you moved to Edinburgh. Did you write a lot of anything on or offline in Chinese? while you were in China?

Xing: 

I always wanted to write when I was a kid. I was really great at my Chinese class in high school. So I wrote a lot in Chinese. I read a lot in Chinese back then. But I think after I started my English degree, I didn't write so much in Chinese, but I wrote more English.

Steph: 

Why did you initially start the blog?

Xing: 

To record my daily life and to keep people connected and to keep people at home and read my experiences. And more importantly, I felt very inspired. I felt wanted to write about what I was seeing, experiencing, learning and feeling.

Steph: 

While you were reading the entry I wrote down, City is like a game when you were talking about Edinburgh. because you were reading a lot as you were writing this book. Did that quote come from somewhere or is that something that you created?

Xing: 

It's something I created because I really, I genuinely felt that way. I felt, I think where it was, it's so pretty and then it's so old. It's like nothing I had ever seen before. It's like a medieval town that's built on the hills and the old town has a castle and the new town used to be a lake where they were drowning the witches and then they built the the new town. And then with the bagpipers playing all day and then with the weather so changeable, you see Scottish people wearing t-shirts and just a kid walking down the streets in the winter. We're like, oh, they're not cold, but they're not. And then in the summer, it's still cold. You can still wear a jacket, like a winter jacket. And then one minute it's raining and like a hailing. And next minute the sun comes out, you see the rainbow. and when summer comes, people are like stripped down to the t-shirt or on the street. And then in August, the city becomes the Edinburgh Festival. The whole city becomes the festival. And there is even a movie called the festival about the Edinburgh Festival. And so the whole city becomes like a wonderland, like a fairy tale or like a found fair. It seems really unreal. But like I said, my second year, it was quite different from the first year. It wasn't so much of a Wonderland anymore. It was more of a touch to reality. But somehow I think I remember more of Edinburgh at this wonderful place. And it's just so wonderful. And then You just see, even the rain just, you know, smells nice and looks nice. And then you see rainbows and you see the sunshine.

Steph: 

Did you feel like the game of Edinburgh was an interactive activity or did you feel like you were watching it?

Xing: 

I think it was both. I was watching it like a movie, but I was in that movie. I was in my own movie.

Steph: 

The first year or all of the years?

Xing: 

All of the years.

Steph: 

All of the years you were a lot.

Xing: 

Yeah, but I guess like the first year, second year, it's like a sequel. Every episode is different.

Steph: 

Season one, season two, season three. Now you had the pleasure of going back to Edinburgh recently, correct?

Xing: 

Yes.

Steph: 

What was that like?

Xing: 

I went back to Edinburgh last month after 10 years and I took the train from King's Cross in London up to Waverley Station in Edinburgh. By the time I stepped out of the train, I was at the station and I was like, wow, it's like everything feels so familiar. The train station feels also familiar because my apartment during my first year, it was very close to the train station. It was minutes a walk away. And then I walk out of the train station, I was out on Princess Street. where I could see the Scott's Monument, I saw the streets. It was raining a little bit, but everything just felt so familiar. And then the following days I was there, it was like I never left. Everything was still the same.

Steph: 

Did you feel the same as you did in 2005? No. What was different?

Xing: 

I was different.

Steph: 

Yeah.

Xing: 

I was different. went back to see my professor from the university. And then I actually, I talked to her about if I had gone to Edinburgh to study now, it would be a very different experience because I am different. And I was also telling her a lot of the theories we're studying, a lot of the books we're reading didn't make so much sense to me at the time. But with the knowledge and experience I have now, they would, would made more sense to me and I would have understood better. And then, and she also mentioned that she said, oh, you wrote a, you, the paper, you, you wrote your dissertation on lonely planet, backpacking. I was like, yeah, but if I, now the subject would have been different. I wouldn't have written about lonely planet. Interest will be different.

Steph: 

For international students, What do you think can be done to help with that transition so that they can focus or understand their studies more?

Xing: 

I actually, when I wrote this blog entry, I actually wrote something else. A few tips for international students. A few fun tips. Do not have an incredibly high expectation of improving your English within your one year stay in this country. Number two: Do not waste your energy to bring a rice cooker from China.

Steph: 

Toast your oven from the US to anywhere else. Yeah, go ahead.

Xing: 

Actually, my mom wanted me to take a rice cooker with me. I refused.

Steph: 

Good.

Xing: 

I ended up cooking my rice in a microwave.

Steph: 

Microwave rice or just regular rice in a microwave?

Xing: 

Regular rice in a microwave.

Steph: 

How I didn't know you could do that.

Xing: 

You can do that, yeah. You just put the rice in and, you know, water and put that in the microwave.

Steph: 

Does it taste good?

Xing: 

Not as good as a rice cooker.

Steph: 

Right, of course, yeah.

Xing: 

But I also learned to cook rice in, you know, just in a pot. Just to boil the rice.

Steph: 

Sure, sure, sure. But... Are you telling me they didn't have rice cookers in Edinburgh? No. What?

Xing: 

They didn't sell that.

Steph: 

Savages! Sorry, gottage ropes, but really?

Xing: 

At the time, at least at the time, they didn't sell that. Right, right, right. I also remember when I left at Limber, I left most of my belongings at my friend's house. So everything is packed there. And then, because I hadn't gone back, so my friends actually took out my rice cooker and they used it. They're not Chinese, but they were like, they thought rice cooker was pretty functional for cooking other stuff.

Steph: 

Oh yeah, you can cook a lot in a rice cooker.

Xing: 

Yeah, so they actually use that.

Steph: 

Yeah, we've cooked pancakes, omelets, Soup. I've made all kinds of things in rice cookers.

Xing: 

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that rice cooker actually was brought to Edinburgh by my mom, but she came to visit. She decided she really wants to do that rice cooker.

Steph: 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Xing: 

And MSG actually.

Steph: 

Let's keep going with this.

Xing: 

Okay.

Steph: 

Rest.