“The son is on fire”: Russian schoolchildren began to rush to China

So far, negotiations are underway at the state level on multifaceted cooperation between the Russian Federation and China, including the full launch of an agreement on visa-free travel (today bilateral “visa-free” between our countries is only for tour groups arriving for up to 15 days), from Russians to China the first to gather were not vacationers or shuttles, but students. What attracts domestic schoolchildren and students to China, they told us themselves.

While the tourism industries of both countries are arranging the formalities with the lists of tour operators accredited in the Sino-Russian direction, some Russian and Chinese educational institutions have already agreed directly without unnecessary red tape. True, until the trip takes place, no one wants to fail “passwords with appearances”, but the trend is quite in the spirit of the “importance of the Russian Federation and China for each other” declared today at the official level.

“My daughter is studying Chinese at school,” says the mother of an eighth-grader from New Moscow. – We were offered it as an elective a few years ago, we were promised teachers from China and regular trips there for language practice. Many became interested, and on the basis of the school we formed a consolidated “Chinese class” of students of different ages.

Then the pandemic hit, so we haven’t had any native speakers or trips since we started learning Chinese. But the guys did not give up classes with the Russian sinologist, during this time she told them so much about the history of China that getting into the country of the language they are learning is now their cherished dream.

According to the parents of this “combined Chinese class”, air tickets to Beijing are expensive for many, but they want to support the enthusiasm of children. Moreover, it promises to be promising.

– Now cooperation with China is expanding so much that with knowledge of Chinese you will definitely not be left without work, – the mother of a 14-year-old student of the Chinese class gives her reasons. – We don’t have extra money at all now, the youngest son was just born, but we borrowed money to send Artyom to Beijing with everyone else. This is not just a class trip, but an incentive for further study. The language is very difficult, I have no idea how Temka remembers anything. But he’s on fire!

Of course, young Sinologists will go to discover the Celestial Empire not alone, but with accompanying persons. And not “to nowhere”, but they will be met by a Chinese school where they study Russian. The Chinese educational institution is also planning a return visit to Russia at the level of their “Russian class”, but, unlike our parents, they do not go into debt, but openly declare that they are waiting for price cuts and more affordable logistics.

Rejoices, although afraid to jinx what they have planned, and a combined group of students from the biological departments of Russian medical and other universities, as well as with veterinary and pharmacological specializations. They received an invitation from their Chinese colleagues, so far a general one, but with an eye to future mutual internships and exchange of experience.

“Before the pandemic, one of our groups worked in China for a year at the invitation of their laboratory,” says a student of the capital’s medical school, a future pharmacist. “They got a grant for research on their topic with their equipment and with their capabilities. They returned shocked, they say that China is the future. In biology and pharmacology, for sure. And with my specialty, they don’t sit in a pharmacy there, like we do, but become rich people. Unless, of course, they are interested in promising developments. In China, any disease will soon be cured.

Well, in light of the fact that, following the results of Russian-Chinese negotiations in the Celestial Empire, Moscow and Beijing literally the day before signed an agreement on the supply of Russian herbal raw materials for Chinese medicine, for students of this direction, the Chinese direction is really the most promising.

– First, a study trip, then an internship, and then a career, and for the benefit of both our countries, – this is how a novice veterinarian sees his future. As part of a group, he plans to go to Chinese cities famous for their laboratories.

Russian linguists, and not only “Sinologists,” are not going to put off the trip on the back burner either.

“I am a philologist with a specialization in Russian as a foreign language,” says the 22-year-old Muscovite. – I can teach foreigners Russian from scratch without knowing their language. I always dreamed of working in China, like my mother did in the old days. I have a thesis defense soon, I hope it goes well. And my parents are simply sure of this, since they have already given me a trip to China for the end of the university.

Our Department of Oriental Languages ​​has thrown a “Chinese call” – it is recruiting a group of people who want to travel in June. And people are recruiting so quickly that the Iranians said: they will also recruit for a trip to Iran. It is even easier and cheaper for them, because our usual vacationers are afraid of Iran. But those who came there, they say, are almost carried on their hands.

Similar trends, judging by the survey, are found in almost all Russian “oriental faculties” where they study Chinese. Soon, apparently, the “Chinese cry” is to be expected from sports departments, schools and numerous Russian sections. After all, we love wushu, qigong, kung fu and Chinese boxing no less, if not more, than in China itself.