What inspired you to work for your organization?
Honestly, when I left my last job and joined Omeida, I was just hoping to improve my spoken English. I majored in English and worked for about three years in a company using English every day (most of the time translating documents), but still could not understand or speak out when meeting the auditors from foreign organizations.
However, I fell in love with the job quickly as I could meet people from all over the world and exchange ideas with them. I started as a course consultant, and now managing the whole department including sales, marketing, teaching, and student services.
Now I understand that to really master a language you need to use it, you need the environment, and you need to communicate with people. I feel so happy to see our students, especially total beginners speak and live the language.
It's happy and also sad to see students graduate.
Describe a typical day at work.
My working hours are 9am to 12 noon and 2pm to 6pm. I work closely with the course consultant, give suggestions to her on how to answer inquiries from potential students, making arrangements for arriving students, and work with the student services manager to make sure the routine service for current students are all good, and make arrangements for leaving students.
Why do you do what you do?
By doing what I'm doing, I could help students who love the Chinese language and culture to know my own language and culture deeper and better. I feel proud of doing so.
What is your favorite part of your job?
Help people learn what they are interested in. Having the chance to meet people from all over the world and learn about their cultures. Omeida started as an English college in 2001 and our Chinese Academy started in 2008. At the moment the two schools are running independently, but working closely with each other. It's just a two-minute walk from each other. We connect international students with native Chinese students, so they could learn with each other, help each other, and join various activities together no matter if it's organized by school or by themselves.
What are some current projects you are working on?
As Mandarin Chinese is studied by more and more people all around the world, especially young people, we have a summer camp program for kids and teens to help them learn the language in the mornings and experience the Chinese culture and local Yangshuo outdoor activities in the afternoons and weekends. We are trying to work with as many as schools or partners to promote this program so more students could have the chance to come to Yangshuo for study.
Celebrate Christmas in China with native Chinese students
What makes your organization special?
From many feedback we collected from our past students, the quality of teaching and service, and our location make us special and unique from our competitors.
Why should someone choose your organization over competitors?
All our Chinese teachers are professional and passionate to teach, the teachers and staff are also friends with students, everyone is helping create a family-like environment. Yangshuo is paradise for outdoor activities, it's also a famous tourist destination, so it ideally combines the comfortable modern lifestyle and beautiful nature and countryside lifestyle. International students and native Chinese students have many opportunities to interact with each other, eg. join the Chinese culture lessons, social night activities, and Saturday excursions.
What hopes do you have for the future for your organization?
So many students enjoy studying and living in Yangshuo at Omeida. Learning Chinese could also be a happy and unforgettable experience, and many of them make lots of lifelong friends. Many students also come back time and time again. My work is meaningful and our school is helping people. We have great courses and programs, we should let more people be aware of us, so we could help more people.
What is your organization's mission and how do you continue to work toward it?
Help others, help oneself. To help more students learn Chinese and English, to better understand different cultures. China is developing and growing, but there are still many misunderstandings towards our culture and people. Our mission is to remove the barrier between us.
Happy to receive flowers from past student.
What do you hope participants take away from your programs?
When students leave Omeida, I hope they make progress in learning Chinese, gaining confidence to speak out, to use it, to talk to people. Secondly, they know better what China is, know more about the rich culture, and get along well with Chinese people. Thirdly, what they learned or the resources they get from Omeida, will become a useful basis for their future study or even business.
Why is it important for people to travel abroad and experience new cultures?
In the old Chinese saying, traveling for millions of miles equals reading millions of books. Traveling makes people's mind more open. The people you meet on the way make the journey special. From the people we meet in the journey we know there are lifestyle and cultures so different from ourselves, we learn to understand and respect each other.
Why do you think learning a new language is important?
Learning a new language is like opening a new door or window to a world outside. You might also learn different ways of thinking. To learn a broadly used language you will have more opportunities.
Good to meet old friends and make new friends in the Omeida yearly alumni reunion.
What advice do you have for individuals thinking about going abroad?
To meet local people, talk with them, make friends with them. In this way you will see the real city or country. If you are just traveling and taking photos, you will just see the surface of a place.
What does meaningful travel mean to you?
Meaningful travel is to go deeper into the culture and community, to support and learn, to immerse oneself, to experience the program or activities which could help make oneself or the locals become better.
What hopes do you have for the future of international education?
I hope all students joining any international education programs could open their eyes and minds to learn. And I hope all countries will provide people, especially young people, as many opportunities to go abroad, make all programs more affordable for not only rich families but normal people.
