Before I tell you about my life in Shenzhen, let me tell you the reason why I decided to come to China. So before I came to China, I really didn’t understand what living in China was like. I actually didn’t know too much about China. All the things that I knew, I learned them from the media, and what the media let us know in our countries, which most of the time is not very positive. When I came to China, actually it was a friend who brought me here, and we went first to Beijing, then we went to another cities like Xi’an, Chengdu. In all those places, I came in close contact with Beijing traditional culture, and then I can say that I fell in love with that. About the language, I was interested, but the thing that really attracted me was the use of characters. Because it’s so different from our language and also knowing that each character has a history behind, it has a lot of culture in it. It was something that really attracted me. So I decided to move to China.
在开始介绍我在深圳的生活之前，我先讲讲我来中国的原因。在我来中国之前，我真的不了解中国是什么样的。事实上，我对中国知道得很少。我知道的所有事情都来自媒体，但是大部分媒体报道得都比较负面。我第一次到中国是跟着一位朋友来的。我们首先去了北京，后来还去了一些别的城市，比如西安，成都。在这些地方，我开始真正接触到了中国的传统文化，顿时我就爱上了中国文化。汉语非常优美，我很喜欢，但真正吸引我的是汉字。因为它和我们的语言有很大的差异。当我知道每个汉字背后都蕴含着丰富的历史和文化时，这深深地吸引了我。于是我就决定到中国来求学。
When I decided to move to China, I came to Beijing, because I thought well Beijing is the capital city, also a very old city, ancient city full with culture. So I’m gonna be able to accomplish what brought me here, right? Learning about Chinese culture, traditional culture. But later, because of some reasons, I had to move to Shenzhen. Knowing that Shenzhen is a new city, a modern city, I was not very happy because I thought, it was a misunderstanding, I thought that I was not going to be able to learn about Chinese traditional culture.
我决定到中国来留学的时候，最先去了北京。因为我觉得，北京既是首都，也是一个历史悠久，文化丰富的古城。在这我能够实现我的初心——学习中国文化，传统文化。但是后来，机缘巧合，我来到了深圳。因为我知道深圳是一个年轻的、现代化的城市，所以一开始我不是很情愿，担心自己在这里无法学习到中国的传统文化，但事实并非如此。
When I came to Shenzhen, I enrolled in Shenzhen University first to study Chinese as a language student, and then I came in close contact with Chinese traditional culture, so it was a misunderstanding. Shenzhen University provides a lot of cultural courses that have to do with Chinese traditional culture like calligraphy, traditional Chinese ceremony, Chinese tea ceremony, and also traditional ancient instruments and I took full advantage of all of those courses. I enrolled in them, and I was very happy I can say that they enriched my life. I also had the opportunity to join a lot of competitions and activities, the ones that had to do with the traditional culture such as reciting ancient poetry in Chinese. Also I had the chance to join twice, actually the competition organized by “ The Initiative One Road One Belt”. This initiative is very interesting because it brings all the foreign community together in a competition with the goal of creating something meaningful, something helpful that represents the unity that must be among countries, the international unity that we encourage to develop. Also this year, I had a very very enriching experience. I was able to join the English speech competition. This experience for me it was a very enriching, life-changing actually, because I came in close contact with a lot of professional speakers. I had a very very nice experience also communicating with a lot of Chinese contestants learning from their cultures.
来到深圳后，我先报读了深圳大学的语言生，开始系统地学习中国传统文化，这才意识到之前的想法是误解。深圳大学提供了很多与中国传统文化相关的课程，如书法、中国传统礼仪、中国茶道，还有传统古乐器。我充分利用这个机会，报名参加了几乎所有这些课程。我很开心，它们丰富了我的生活。我也有机会参加了许多与传统文化有关的比赛和活动，例如用中文朗诵古诗。此外，我还参加了两次与“一带一路”倡议有关的比赛。这个倡议非常有意义，因为它将所有留学生聚集在一起进行比赛。通过这些有意义的活动，推进各国人民的团结，而这也正是我们所希望的。对于我而言，今年过得特别忙碌而充实。我有幸参加了全国英语演讲比赛。这次比赛丰富了我的人生阅历，也改变了我的生活。通过比赛，我近距离接触到很多非常专业的演讲者。我还与许多中国选手进行了交流，了解他们的文化，这些都是非常美好的经历。
So I can say that being here in Shenzhen, studying at Shenzhen University has really enriched my life a lot. So I hope that my experience can help you to make your decision.
总而言之，我来到深圳，选择在深圳大学学习，让我的生活更加充实了。我希望我的经历可以帮助你做出决定。
