Tianjin 天津

I'm going to Tianjin! 我要去天津！

Following my recent announcement that I will be coming to China to further my studies in Chinese, I can now confirm that I have been admitted to Tianjin University (天津大学).

Tianjin is located in North East China, just a half hour express train from Beijing and is the sixth largest city in the Republic of China. It is also situated next to the coast and so seafood tends to dominate the menu. Tianjin is also famous for Eight Great Bowls (八大碗), which is a mixture of eight dishes, mainly meat and the Four Great Stews (四大扒) which is actually a very large number of stews, including seafood, mutton, beef, chicken and duck… mmmm! I will have to sample these and tell you more another time.

As for Tianjin University, it was formally known as Peiyang University which was founded in 1895 and was later renamed to Tianjin University in 1951. It was my second choice on my scholarship. My first choice was Peking University (北京大学), the top university in China which is of course very difficult to get into, but I tried. My third choice was Beijing Jiaotong University (北京交通大学), a middle rank university. As I am quite familiar with Beijing, Beijing was a city which I had hoped to study in. I also have friends in Tianjin and it’s not too far from Beijing which is why I included Tianjin in my application. I’m very excited about what awaits me in Tianjin and my adventure China.