Dumpling-making beats pandemic
Print Edition
Spring Festival is the time for family reunions. Essam Ahamed, a Sudanese student in China, also feels at home through participating in a series of activities, though he has not seen his parents for two years.
With a dumpling wrapper in hand, the young man carefully filled it with meat stuffing.
鈥淚t鈥檚 my first time making dumplings. It is quite challenging, but we had a lot of fun chatting and working together,鈥 Ahamed said in fluent Chinese.
Ahamed is a second-year postgraduate in business administration at Ningxia University in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China鈥檚 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. To avoid getting infected by the COVID-19 virus, some 40 international students of the university chose to stay on campus during the holiday.
To enrich their lives, the university has organized activities such as skiing, playing table tennis, making dumplings, writing Chinese characters on Spring Festival couplets with brush pens, and learning traditional paper-cutting for the international teachers and students.
鈥淲e went skiing last week, and also took part in activities like making dumplings and paper-cutting,鈥 Ahamed said. 鈥淲e feel very happy since we can get together through these activities. It is very warm like we are a big family.鈥
Unforgettable memory
Nitesh Singh and his wife Sucharita Kundu from India have been teaching computer programming at the university since 2017. In the university鈥檚 activities, they have learned how to make the perfect dumpling.
Singh has been worrying about his parents in India and keeps in touch with them every day. 鈥淐hina brought the epidemic under control very quickly, and our lives went back to normalcy due to the efficient measures,鈥 Singh said.
There are more than 170 international students at the university, and some of them could not return to campus due to the pandemic. Teachers have rescheduled the classes to make sure each of them can follow classes through an online teaching platform.
鈥淭he pandemic is still serious globally. Ningxia is a low-risk area, and experiencing traditional Chinese culture here will be an unforgettable memory for our international teachers and students,鈥 said Li Xing, Party chief of the university.
Ahamed learned Chinese in Egypt where he earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree. After that, he came to China to work as a Chinese-Arabic translator for two years. He decided translating was not enough and he returned to school.
He used to return home or travel around China with friends during holidays. Due to COVID-19, he is staying in Ningxia. He said his parents worried about him at first and urged him to go back, but soon they felt relieved thanks to China鈥檚 efficient measures.
鈥淣ow Sudan has some cases, and my two brothers are in the United States, so I often share with them some methods to avoid getting infected and persuade them to wear masks,鈥 he said.
鈥淭eachers are on duty 24 hours a day. We can go out whenever we need if we complete an application procedure, so our daily life is very convenient,鈥 Ahamed said.
Li said the university will make every effort to ensure international teachers and students have a happy holiday.
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