My stint in Beijing

Photo here copyright of Tom.com

After I graduated from Oxford and taking a couple of months off I flew on to Beijing and spent 5 months at Tsinghua University to practise my Mandarin and to learn more about the capital city of my country.

The important thing is, a met a bunch of good friends there, from Beijing, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and all over the world.  I would like to mention specially Michael from the States; Saito, Yumiko, Chonan and Ueno from Japan; my many friends from Korea; and of course, Fred, GTAT, Maud, Nicole, Erica, May, Simon, Julia and Tim from Hong Kong with whom I am still in contact with.  I shall be putting their pictures here later on.  Come back in a couple of weeks and they should be here.

Tsinghua is absolutely beautiful.  Until the last century Tsinghua was one of the sites of the great imperial gardens.  Part of it still maintains the architectural style of the Qing dynasty.  I have put a few pictures of the great university here.

               Gongzi Hall                                           Jinchun Garden in the snow                                   Lecture Hall                

                   Auditorium                                                Jinchun Garden                            The Old Second Gateway

Well I would like to think now my Mandarin is manageable.  My colleagues at HSBC now certainly think so anyway!  I seem to have become the Mandarin operator for the department.