Overseas students look to opportunities for good life and future career path

More and more overseas students who have chosen to study in Guangzhou are coming to realize that working in the vibrant city is one of their best options after they graduate.

Najman Rashad Ismail, 21, arrived in the city two years ago to study international business at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.

Although there are still three more years before he graduates, Najman has realized that the perfect start to his career would be in Guangzhou.

"I prefer Guangzhou to any other city in the world," says Najman. "It would be really great to find a job here." While choosing where he wanted to study, Najman heard great thing's about the Guangdong provincial capital's historic and vibrant culture and its depth of global business.

Upon arriving in the city, he realized that what he had been told was no exaggeration, and so felt vindicated in choosing Guangzhou as a place to study and pursue a career in international business. That is not to say life in the city was plain sailing from the very beginning.

"The systems are so different in China, more than at first I could imagine," the young Yemeni says.

"The bridges, taxis, metro, technology, WeChat - these things are so much more advanced than in my own country." But these things are faced by anyone who moves to a new country and culture, and Najman was quickly hanging out at tourist and local hotspots such as Tianhe district, Tiyuxi Road, Zhujiang New Town as well as Shamian, a sandbank island that used to be a gazetted historical area in the 19th century.

Najman's favorite place for sightseeing in Guangzhou, he says, is Baiyun Mountain, which he visits twice monthly to enjoy looking down at the majestic landscape and take photographs as the sun rises.

The daily life of any expatriate living in China is not complete without spending time with local people, immersing themselves in the culture and top of the list, learning and practicing the language, something that Najman enjoys wholeheartedly. So much has the bright student fallen for the city that he is currently helping his sister apply for study at another university in Guangzhou. "At present, I don't feel homesick that much, and now if I go back home, it would be difficult for me because I am now programmed to China," Najman laughs.

Polina Trofimova, a Russian student who also majors in international business, has also experienced the location advantages of Guangzhou and particularly appreciates its closeness to Hong Kong and Macao.

liyou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 01/23/2018 page18)