Experience Diversity by Having a Culture Tour

"What can you buy with 50 Ghanaian Cedi?”
"Actually, we can buy a T-shirt."

"What is that in the left-hand picture? Is that typical food from Ghana?”
"Yes, we eat it usually for lunch and it is really spicy.”
"Well, that would be great. I like spicy food. I come from Sichuan.”

"I have a Chinese friend in our lab. I often invite him to my dorm and I cook Ghanaian food for him. He likes Ghanaian food very much.”
"So, when you cook for your friend, where do you buy the ingredients? Can you buy them all at our local markets?”
"Yes, most of them I can buy at the markets in Hefei. But, for this one, I bought the stuff from Taobao.”

"I have a question. Who will pay for a wedding according to the Sudan tradition?”
"It’s the man's side.”

"What does the Sudanese Henna art represent?”
"If someone has Henna it means that she or he is married.”

"Ok, let’s move to our next session, have a tour of Chinese culture, particularly Chinese tea culture.”
"Wow, we are looking forward to it.”

"One, two, three, cheese!”
"Yeah, WE ARE ONE!”

Here's the highlights from HFIPS’s second international event: “Once an HFIPSer, always an HFIPSer”.

The Hefei Institutes of Physical Science held its second international event, “Once an HFIPSer, always an HFIPSer”, by preparing an “hors d'oeuvre” of Ghanaian, Sudanese and Chinese cultures for the international students and postdoctoral researchers.

The activity, named Culture Tour, was held on June 24 at Anhui Museum, and was joined by 15 international HFIPSers and their families. It consisted of two sessions: diverse cultural sharing and an on-site cultural tour.

During the diverse cultural sharing, two international students, Michael Osei Appiah (Ghana) and Rayyan Mohammed Abdelrazig Saidahmed (Sudan), presented the culture and traditions of their home countries with slideshows covering almost every aspect of history, geography, society, economy and so on.

Then, the Chinese tea show came up to the stage. Prof. Jiang Wenqian and her tea science team from Anhui Agriculture University showed how the ways that people drink tea have changed throughout history, and the perspectives that ancient Chinese people held on tea culture. A special Tea Art Show was put on to display visually how Chinese people drink tea in a combined traditional and modern way.

After the diverse cultural sharing, the attendees had an on-site tour of Anhui Museum to look closely at Anhui history and culture, as well as Hui architecture.

"Once an HFIPSer, always an HFIPSer" is a regular event initiated and organized by the International Collaboration Division of HFIPS for international HFIPSers, in the hopes of enriching their experience in China as well as building and maintaining close links with them when they live and work on Science Island, and after they leave.