Metro> Expats
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Metro> Expats
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Living the language
By Wang Linyan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-21 07:59
Ammar Albadany decided that he wanted to study medicine in China at age 13, when he saw a Chinese medical team treat his father in Yemen. Now aged 31, Albadany is a PhD medical student in Hangzhou and has just been crowned champion of the 2nd Chinese Bridge - the Chinese proficiency competition for foreign students. More than 700 foreign students from 75 universities across the country took part in the contest, which was co-organized by CCTV and the Office of Chinese Language Council International. "It's so competitive that I didn't expect to win the competition," said Albadany, a neurosurgery student at Zhejiang University. Albadany won the award because of his skill in speaking Chinese and his understanding of culture and humor. Albadany, from Ibb, 200 km away from Yemen's capital Sana'a, first arrived in China in 1997 on a scholarship from the Chinese government. He spent one year studying Chinese language at Shandong University before completing his undergraduate and masters degrees at Tianjin Medical University. He then went back to Yemen and returned to China pursue a PhD degree in 2008. Albadany is now an intern in a Hangzhou hospital, where patients regard him as a "Chinese doctor with a foreigner's face". "It's great to see that patients don't feel you are a foreigner at all," he said. Albadany said living and working in China have been crucial to his language skills. "I can learn systematically from classes but I think friends are better than personal tutors."
"With friends, I can live the language. I can quickly pick up everyday Chinese and Chinese culture in a relaxing way," he said. He also likes to watch historical TV series like Emperor Wudi the Great of Han Dynasty and program Lecture Room, which invites scholars to speak on various disciplines including history and literature. "Confucius says: 'Curiosity is more important than knowledge itself, and interest is even more important than pure curiosity'," Albadany said. "Interest is the key. It gives me the willpower to learn Chinese well. " In order to correctly pronounce the four pinyin tones, Albadany reads books loudly in his dorm and repeats whatever he hears, even on the streets. "People walking on the streets are all my Chinese teachers. I have the habit of repeating new words which I hear from others wherever I go," he said. He said the results are fruitful but also sometimes embarrassing. "Once in Tianjin, I saw some people bickering on the sidewalk and overheard one person saying 'what's it' in Tianjin dialect." My loud repetition invited angry stares and I immediately apologized for being impolite," he said.
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