Over five thousand miles away from his home in Vancouver, Canada, Edmund Wai Man Lai had taken up one year of preparatory Mandarin study in Wuhan university. Now he has begun a new term as a postgraduate, starting a whole different journey which is full of unknown challenges and freshness.
Edmund (in the middle) with his friends in the East lake, after a short work in a Chinese company, he applied to WHU and started his prep course in Chinese.
Back to college after seeing the world
Edmund Wai Man Lai is a Chinese-Canadian. His family went from Guangdong over to Vancouver more than 30 years ago. His parents and neighbors made Edmund a bilingual English-Cantonese speaker. Thanks to his parents' preservation of certain parts of the oriental family lifestyle and his exposure to a wealth of Hong Kong television shows and movies from the 90s growing up, he has cultivated a lively curiosity towards China, the birthplace of his father and grandfathers.
In 2008, he earned a double B.A and B.B.A. degree from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. During his study Edmund also took time to work as an Interactive media designer at IBM, Canada. “Every day I developed and maintained Websites following strict standards.” Then, Edmund joined the famous Canadian company BlackBerry and another media company after his graduation. However, sitting in an office every day failed to bring him satisfaction. “Deep down I have a free spirit, and I love to travel around. Having been to a number of countries, gradually I realized that what I really wanted in my life was to see the world for what it is, and to meet with interesting people from different cultures.” Edmund considers Canada as a “developed western society” where citizens are polite, well-educated, but sometimes lacking vitality when compared to a quickly developing nation such as China.
“That’s why I picked Wuhan as my destination among other cities. China is advancing dramatically, just sitting on the street you can feel the energy of this society and its people, especially in Wuhan, like the exciting slogan says, ‘Wuhan, different every day’, so I just followed my heart and went for it.” While explaining why he came to Wuhan, Edmund made no attempt to conceal his appreciation towards Wuhan’s spirits. Finally, in March 2014, Edmund came to Wuhan and got a temporary job as an animator in an IT company located in Optics Valley.
Colorful campus life in WHU
“I just wanted to improve my Mandarin at the beginning”, Edmund said, “but ever since the first day I stepped onto this resplendent campus, I fell for it.”
Edmund quickly made the decision to major in broadcasting and communication under the School of Journalism and Communication. He explained that this choice stemmed from his personal interest and affection towards Chinese culture. “My hobby is to observe and watch everybody. In WHU, people from different cultures get together, and sometimes we only share one common language, Mandarin.” Edmund admitted that he was nearly “illiterate” when he first came to Wuhan, but this immersive Chinese language environment helped him learn Chinese fast. Now he is verbally fluent in Mandarin. Edmund also mentioned his worry toward the cultural barrier which occasionally appears between local students and foreign students. “They hardly get a chance to intercommunicate with each other during their daily campus lives, perhaps because of their different lifestyles. But I hope for more interaction channels and opportunities in the future.”
Realizing this, Edmund endeavored to bridge the communication gap. Along with his countrymen and some helpful friends, he prepared delicious Canadian snacks such as maple syrup rice krispies, and handed them out to visitors during the Luojia Cultural Festival, one of the most celebrated intercultural events organized by Wuhan University, which attracts foreigners and local visitors from all over Wuhan.
Edmund in the Luojia Cultural Festival, Canadian booth. He and other Canadian students prepared well to present their homeland to visitors.
When it comes to his studies, Edmund said that he appreciated the help from his teachers, both during the prep terms and major study. “Usually people have a set stereotype in mind when it comes to teachers and professors in college, while I found them neither boring nor stern. They told funny stories, played small games with us, and enlightened us by vivid means; that’s why I learned Chinese so fast.”
Mrs. Chen, Edmund’s Chinese teacher during the prep course, clearly remembered Edmund to be an passionate student who is strong in Mandarin speaking but is weak in reading and writing. “Edmund is a respectful student during class and never gives his teachers headache,” Ms. Chen smiled, “Another thing is that Edmund always asks me about learning methods or discussed questions with me on WeChat. At first his Chinese was inexplicably humorous to me, but now I have indeed witnessed his progression.” Not only for his Chinese classes, Edmund is highly praised by professors who guided him during his major courses as well. Edmund’s supervisor, professor Li Ji, commended Edmund as a very keen student with independent thinking, “he is a nice student, both for his personality and his attitude towards study, so he got many friends. All his classmates love him”.
Making interesting friends
As a internationalized comprehensive university, Wuhan University attracts youth from all over the world to work and study here, meanwhile Chinese students are quite open and willing to make friends with these international students. “I met a multitude of interesting folks here in WHU, both Chinese and foreigners. Language is not a problem, because we all share great enthusiasm towards this campus, this city.” According to Edmund, here in WHU, he has met countless interesting people and made dozens of good friends.
Sophie Thomson, a Chinese-British girl from the School of Economics and Management, thought highly of Edmund, “He’s so nice and friendly, we always went to his friend’s restaurant Dax's Kitchen, and I even found that we are both avid cat lovers!” (Note: later during the interview Edmund told me that actually he just liked to take photos of cute things.)
Edmund (left) with his friends after school. Here in WHU, he enjoys making friends from different cultural backgrounds
As a native English speaker, Edmund volunteered to help the WHU student English correspondent edit their articles. A large number of news and reports published on the homepage were carefully reviewed and corrected by this experienced specialist. “I was a new media practitioner for a couple years, and now a student majoring in media communication, so it is a pleasure to help the team. When you see your work is recognized by your colleagues and readers, you feel so great. I think this is sort of self-fulfillment. You can find your value when you are needed.”
“The best is yet to come”
Scanning Edmund’s moments on WeChat, it is easy to see that his interested areas cover a wide range, from globalization trend of thought to intercultural communication. Edmund is trying to understand the world and Chinese society through his perspective, and he has been managing to express his own feelings and commentary via his imperfect yet constantly progressing Chinese. His effort and enthusiasm got him a lot of likes from his friends.
“I clearly remember what Bertrand Russell said in his What Have I Lived For, that ‘three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.’” Edmund seems to highly empathize with the human condition and ponders about solicitudes that go beyond national borders and race. “You know, it always occurs to me that as I am sitting in a bright and spacious classroom enjoying China’s top education, some impoverished young people who, through no fault of their own, can hardly get such an opportunity; while in other corners of the world, people are struggling even for food and shelter. Whenever I think about this state of reality, I want to do something to help them, and not only be concerned with my own job and future. I deem that it’s Wuhan University that helped inspire me to follow this compassionate temperament of mine.” Edmund added.
Edmund in Crescent Moon Spring, Gansu, China. He has travelled to a lot places in China, trying to gather insight into this country
Being a freshman once again is not exactly the same feeling for Edmund. After experiencing the carefree undergraduate life, he is now focused on a plan for his postgraduate years already in progress. “Coming to China provided me with the richest experience among all my life choices,” Edmund rejoiced, “the best is yet to come, both for me and China.”
(Edited by Tang Yedan, Edmund Wai Man Lai , Wusiying & Hu Sijia)
