Category Archives: In English

Spring festival – the most important festival in China

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Spring festival, known as Chunjie in Chinese, is the first day of the year in lunar calendar. This year it was January 28. It is celebrated also in some other Asian countries such as Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

As the most important festival in China, the holidays have started actually a week before the spring festival day, lasting two weeks after it, being altogether three weeks. The government shorten it nowadays to one week so that the length of holidays would be balanced among the year.

If you have business with Chinese people, you will feel that they are quite enthusiastic of the preparation of the holiday instead of opening up a new case in work. In a small private company, the financial report and commitment debt must be done before the new year. A week or couple of days before the festival, workers are ready to go back to their hometowns for reunion with their families. It will normally last two weeks after the Spring festival day. Ordinary life will be influenced to some extent because of the absence of these diligent couriers, caregivers, babysitters and factory workers.

When spring festival is approaching, Chinese people are busy purchasing goods, cleaning house and cooking traditional food. The most important thing is to have a family dinner on Spring festival eve. For many families, this may the only chance for family members to reunion and enjoy quality of life.

Some traditional things must be done during spring festival. For example, you need to remove previous spring poems and paste pairs. On Spring festival, people dressed in their new clothes visit each other and give money (known as Red envelope) to kids to send good wishes. Red is the elemental color for Spring festival. It represents happiness, joy and prosperity.

Visiting Qian Huang International College

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你好 Ni hao from Changzhou. We are doing an admission promotion tour in the Changzhou area. The promotion tour is done in order to better understand the Chinese market. We need these experiences to be able to plan our next marketing actions better. One of the high schools we visited was Qian Huang International College. Here’s the Principal of the International Programs, Zhang Wen Lei.

Before meeting the students we had a short 20-min-meeting with the principal about Finnish education and he gave basic information about his high school.

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Harri gave the presentation to promote us. His promotion started with Finland and a nice video from Visitfinland.

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After that Harri illustrated our English programs one by one.

High school students were really interested in our presentation and they asked good questions. Here are some of the things they wanted to know:

  • Can they use their SAP score for application?
  • What are the entrance exams like, how should they prepare for the entrance exam?
  • How much Finnish should they learn before they start their studies?
  • How do they get a visa and citizenship after graduation? Who will help with visa application?
  • What is the basic requirement for English, any criteria?

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At the end of the program introduction, Eva summarized the selling points for each program in Chinese so students undestand Harri’s presentation better.

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After the presentation we had a little chat with the principal and other teachers about studying in Finland. They were really happy to have us and welcomed us to visit their college also the next time.

Written by: Elina Valkama (SAMK Communications)

Business and pleasure in Changzhou and Nanjing, as a family

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A great opportunity opened to our family. My husband and I are working in projects in which China collaboration is included. It is challenging for a mom to leave her family for two weeks so we came into conclusion of taking the kids with us. Our decision became even easier since my colleague in Tampere University of Technology also has collaboration plans in Nanjing. Inspired by our joint plans, also she decided to take her family and travel to China with us. We took a babysitter with us, and we would have 3 kids who can entertain each other.

Many colleagues were a bit surprised about our decision to take the kids for a long travel since they are 2 and 4 years old, and my colleague’s son is 3. I was most afraid of the flight and time difference. They were a challenge, especially the time difference which made the first days full of angry wining kids… and parents. However, we made it. A lesson learned: Do not leave any work for the flight if you have kids with you. Luckily I am a person who prepares everything in advance.

Kirjoittaja Kiinassa The Author in China

It has been relatively easy to combine business and pleasure. The Chinese working days are so long that there’s a possibility to make flexible days, like go to lunch with family in the middle of the day and then continue in meetings at the evening. We were also asked to take the kids in some places, like in a high school for people heading abroad for studies. We were having a presentation about Finnish education and research. However, they wanted to have the kids at the end of the lecture, as examples of Finnish people, and the kids stole the show! In general, I felt that bringing the kids after meetings or lectures made us more human.

“I felt that bringing the kids after meetings or lectures made us more human.

It is nice that Chinese people are punctual what comes to time. All the meetings have started on time as planned. However, the schedule may change one day before meeting which makes it difficult to plan the days in advance. You also have to take some extra time for travelling and unexpected “Chinese fuzz”. It is not rare the taxi driver is taking you to a wrong campus or train station. Long car travels allow plenty of time for frustrating hyper energetic children for fighting and crying, and standing on the car seats, since not all cars have safety belts. The traffic, really, is scary here.

Accessibility issues are from our point of you the biggest challenge. We have two baby carriages + the luggage. We have been in Shanghai, Changzhou and now on Nanjing. In the train station there’s no elevator (or there’s one but not in all the places where we needed to go). Also most of the signs are in Chinese. Now I really get to experience how it feels to be disabled, unable to read and stuck with the kids and luggage in the train station with only a couple of minutes before the train comes. Luckily we ran into a western lady living in China. She helped us, as she had been in the same situation.

“In general there is huge benefit of travelling in China with the kids

In general there is huge benefit of travelling in China with the kids: the Chinese do like children, and they adore small children with blond hair. We have been like celebrities. People are following us and taking pictures, especially in Changzhou where there are less tourists. It is also quite secure to travel by foot, since in case of a crime there is always this fun club to witness it. Also the subway stations are relatively clean and safe due to constant supervision.

Lapsia Kiinassa Children in China

My kids have been given small gifts and a lot of loving smiles and touches. However, this is not so nice when the children are acting bad. The fun club probably does not want to see angry mom screaming at these “lovely western almost god-like babies”.  Once a lady gave my younger daughter a Barbie to calm her down? Well, you don’t give gifts for bad behavior.

The infrastructure is not ideal for walking with baby carriages, and there are no playgrounds like in Finland. Some good restaurants though have very nice child parks with a babysitter and also video. The parents can eat and have lunch meetings and at the same time watch their kids from a tablet. This we must bring to Finland!

In general, this trip has been worth it. My children have been enjoying the attention, gifts and pretty desserts, and we have managed to make a lot of progress from the research collaboration point of view. We are now much richer in mind. This country is mystic. You never know what happens in China!

Text: Sari Merilampi
Photos: Sari Merilampi & Antti Koivisto

First admission promotion in China

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SAMK China office organized a two-day admission promotion activity two weeks ago, just after the national university entrance results came out. Normally, once students got their scores and provincial ranking result, their high school will hold a parent meeting immediately to offer advice for university application. University will also take this meeting as a good opportunity to promote themselves. They will send 2 to 4 of the university staff to travel to different high schools around the country. This year SAMK China office contacted four high schools in advance and promoted our 2017 bachelor programs to Chinese students and their parents during the meeting.

In China, tertiary education resource is limited and discrepant that requires students to struggle for. Higher education at the undergraduate level includes two and three-year associate programmes, and four-year bachelor’s degree programmes (Y. Cai, 2011, P7). The best university group we named “985 project university” and second level “211 project university” offer only 20% positions for all high school students totally. Thereby, I can say this may be the most important exam in the students’ lives. The exam is usually held in the beginning of June, and it takes two-weeks to get the results.

The score-check app looks like this. Take this student as an example, she is a science student. It says her Chinese score is 113 out of 160, Math is 128 plus 32 out of 160 plus 40, English is 98 out of 120. Her physics is B level, biology is A level. She has a 5 point bonus concerning she got 4 As in her history, chemistry, geography and politics tests. Her provincial ranking is 10,418 out of 360,400 students in Jiangsu Province.

The score-check app looks like this. Take this student as an example, she is a science student. It says her Chinese score is 113 out of 160, Math is 128 plus 32 out of 160 plus 40, English is 98 out of 120. Her physics is B level, biology is A level. She has a 5 point bonus concerning she got 4 As in her history, chemistry, geography and politics tests. Her provincial ranking is 10,418 out of 360,400 students in Jiangsu Province.

When students checked their scores online while the university enrollment baseline has yet released, their high schools held parent meeting immediately offering suggestions to parents and students. Universities were ready for promotion and pre-admission in each high school. Parents are nervous to find the best university to match the students’ score. It can neither be too good for their child nor far from their score. It is like a gambling or a blind date. Each side wants to get more information. Universities try to get the best students’ information and promote their own universities to them. Parents hope to get a promise, or at least hint that their child is safe if they apply this university.

Parents hope to get a promise, or at least hint that their child is safe if they apply this university.

We, as the only overseas university, then look quite calm (very Finnish). Firstly, our programme is 2017 programme which is not so urgent. Secondly, our application does not need a university entrance score. Many parents and students are confused. We cannot blame them. We are the special one in this place. We don’t judge their child by this test, but we have our own test. Parents show great interest in our program. Especially we offer a back-up plan for their children — you can anyway choose to apply next spring if you made a huge mistake for your application this time. We also prepared books, brochures and flyers and roll-ups to introduce Finnish education and our university.

These are some of the universities. A little bit more information for the left university. The left one is Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. A legal entity is like a joint venture but one that has a legal status. It is an independent Chinese-foreign cooperatively run school which under the operation of Xi’an Jiaotong University and Liverpool University from the UK. It may be an effective approach if Finnish higher education can develop cross-border education in China.

These are some of the universities. On the left Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. It is an independent Chinese-foreign cooperatively run school under the operation of Xi’an Jiaotong University and Liverpool University from the UK. It may be an effective approach if Finnish higher education can develop cross-border education in China.

SAMK China office, I took my two interns with me. In front of the desk are our 2017 bachelor programme flyer, SAMK Chinese version brochure, Satakunta region scenery book etc.

SAMK China office, I took my two interns with me. In front of the desk are our 2017 bachelor programme flyer, SAMK Chinese version brochure, Satakunta region scenery book etc.

Till now, there may have risen a question in your mind, why parents involved in this case so deeply that Eva’s article put them even before students. You are right. I’ve read a comment which mentions that Chinese students are forced into competition at the age when they should cultivate their own dignity, independence and self-esteem. Thus, they are still “baby” even when they graduate from high school. Most of them have no clear picture in their mind what they want to study in the future. That’s why their parents use their experience to help their children to make the decision.

 Reference:

Cai, Y., (2011). Chinese higher education reforms and tendencies, Implications for Norwegian higher education in cooperating with China. Norwegian Center for International Cooperation in Education (SIU).

Make an appointment

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Hi everyone! It is my great honor to start my blog journey in SAMK. I’ve mentioned in SAMK’s Agora magazine interview, that I work as a bridge between two countries.  I think it is also the ultimate purpose of my blog. Markku is coming with Satakunta mayor and high school principles to Changzhou this week. So let’s start by making an appointment with the Chinese.

If you want to make an appointment today with the Chinese government or school or other that kind of agency for your August trip, you may be disappointed because of the dubious response by the Chinese. I know most Finns are early-bird and your calendar can be fully occupied for the coming six months. However, Chinese are more flexible with appointments. It is appropriate to make a phone or sms request for an appointment one week in advance. It is fine if you inform a Chinese two weeks before your appointment, but you will hardly get confirmation. A good time to make an appointment is Monday. Normally the Chinese will bring out their weekly plan and you will be informed of the time when they are available.

If you have no idea about this in advance, you may spend much time in useless networking. A small tip for a successful appointment arrangement is to send someone an sms first, and after a day make a call and clarify the purpose of your appointment and the person you want to meet (if you don’t know the person, you can describe what kind of person in general fits your purpose). Just clarify as detailed as possible your requirements and you will have a great chance to make an appointment with the Chinese person you want to meet!

Last but not least, e-mail is not a Chinese thing. Don’t rely too much on it.