10 advices to survive as an X-change student

Hey!

Guess where it is! Exchange student is exchanging!

As a member of student exchange organisations, I've mixed with lots of exchange/Erasmus students. As a personal guide for some of them, here are some advices.

1. Get a mobile phone card as soon as possible. A sim-card will be a good deal, they are cheap now and most of them already have a certain amount of credit in it. Using your usual sim-card would cost you an arm and a leg. Most of the communication services don't accept contracts for one semester, so a top-up card is your last choice... For Japanese students, look for a cellphone with simcard slots!

2. Does the university you're attending have an Exchange Students organisation? Some of them provide you a personal guide for the first days! Try and e-mail a student over there, or if there's nothing of that kind, look for them on couch-surfing website!

3. The priorities when you arrive in a new city are transport card (if needed!), and administrative stuffs. Do that first, and then enjoy  your freedom. Be careful about how INSURANCE COMPANIES work. You might have to subscribe to a student insurance for your semester.

4. Visit the campus/school before the beginning of the semester. It'll prevent you from getting lost (like me).

5. Second hand shop are great! I guess you would not like to bring your pots from home, same thing for forks, knives, plates, kettles... and that's usually not provided in a student home!

6. Meat's expensive. You'd better eat vegetarian for a while and have a good piece of meat when you find a cheap one. Spinach, eggs, cheese, tofu, lentils and some other stuffs will bring you the proteins and trace elements you need. If you don't want to cook, pastas and pots of sauce are a good deal. Choose your supermarket. Don't go to Harrods/Globus/Les Galeries Lafayette to buy your toasts! I don't like Aldi or Lidl's working policies, but well, they're cheap! Some markets that close on Sunday make huge discounts on Saturday evening, keep that in mind!

7. What's the voltage in your new home? It'd be awful to burn all your electronic the first day! Buy converters before you leave!

8. Free leisures! I was in Exchange in London, and my leisures were actually the cheapest thing over there --> museums. In Paris, museums are free on the first Saturday of the month. Not sure about it, but  friend of mine saw all of them. And she's as short of money as I am. Museums are only an idea, I think there are plenty of things to do in a new town!

9. Students home are cool, but what about host families? For the same level of expenses, you'll have food ready when you come back home!

10. Don't take pets. If you find a poor kitty starving in the freezing night, bring it home, and find it a loving family, as soon as you can. A healthy pet might be a cute friend, but an ill one is really problematic. Vets are everywhere as expensive, and finding a family for an ill kitty/doggy is really difficult, trust me! A friend of mine was so afraid her little kitty, who suddenly had a tineae, got "the ax"... She finally managed to find him a home, but it was a stressful week!

And enjoy!

One month about the Amy Chua affair? Reaction of a chinese daughter (well, not exactly)

One month ago, a friend of mine linked an article in the WSJ called "Why Chinese Mothers are superior". To tell the truth, if this was supposed to feed a polemic, it worked for a while and starts to be forgotten. As Betty Ming Liu said in her blog, there are "bigger fishes to stir-fry". But after one month of reflection, I still wanted to react to it. 

I know now that Amy Chua did not write a tutorial but a memoir, making fun of herself. Well, I did not read her book (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother). I read that article to my Vietnamese migrant Tiger Mom. And her reaction to it was: "well, she's crazy". Pardon? My mom, who sometimes openly support physical punishments and thinks it's normal to fear one's parent, was then sincerely shocked. I still read a lot about her.  I hate making wrong statements.

My parents always wanted me to do well at school. I remember some working sessions were hell on Earth. A 7/10 would make them shout, so that I did not dare to go home. I think Mrs Chua would call me a coward. If I had a 9/10, the reaction would be: "Why isn't it a 10". Making me a frustrated perfectionist now, even after long talks with my parents, they stopped being prestige whores (copyright, Betty Ming Liu! Check her blog, it's great! Thank you, Madame Betty!)

Actually, it's not about Chinese Moms, it's about migrant moms (of course, not all of them), as Mrs Chua said. I talked to my aunt in Vietnam, and shared my point of view with other Asian friends (Mainlanders, Hong-Kongese, Japanese, Filipino, Taiwanese and Koreans). Their reaction on migrant Asian education was surprising.

Our parents didn't only leave a place but also an era: they came to a country more liberal than theirs, were shocked with the way children behaved, and educated their kids to be the exact opposite, following the "Asian" model. But their point of view on parenting is linked to an ERA, not on a country. I mean, time went by, the hippie era in Europe's over, as the spanks era in Asia's past. Migrant parents remained the same, stuck in the 60's. My aunt in Vietnam never spanked her kids. She was surprised my Mom did. I can't really be mad at my parent. I know they did not knew any other ways to educate us: most of them only hang out with other fellow-countrymen, for whom that kind of education is absolutely normal. 

Being raised up that way made me a strong-willed young lady with good manners (but still, a horrible eater). I'm at university, doing quite well, a music lover, and I have a great relation with my parents. But thinking about it, I wish I did the same, without spending 8 years in therapy, being socially awkward, including the fact that my parents freak me out, even if I have a good relation with them, even if they are technically harmless. I confessed it to my Dad, and broke his heart. It'd break my heart too, if my own child was that much afraid of me. I guess Asian parents seek respect, and really want their kids to be happy. But happiness is a very personal conception. Not all the children would chose TV or video games if they are asked what they want to do, as Amy Chua said in an interview. Who doesn't want the best for their progeny? but going on that pathway, all they are getting is rebellion (Amy Chua's younger daughter Lulu rebelled, so did my sister), fear, and therapy fees. Including the fact that all the Good Asian Kids I've talked to call me a slacker. Is it that you call respect? I'm a happy slacker.

Finally, if Amy Chua wanted to make fun of herself, I don't know if she succeeded because most of the readers are shocked. I'm sure it helped her, I mean, writing. I don't think that's really funny though: maybe it's fun for the mom. What about the kids? I was the kind of girl who made fun of our education with my some other Vietnamese schoolmates. Until we saw our common friends staying silent and shocked when we were trying to make them burst out laughing.