Yanchao Gao is a 20 year old woman, born on the 26th May 2000. Yanchao is from Chinese descent, was born and raised in Shanxi which is in northern part of China quite close to Beijing, around 500km, and is now living in Hong Kong. Although Yanchao is living in China currently, the goal was to move into an accommodation in the UK to study journalism at UAL after taking a gap year. This did not go to plan due to COVID-19 restrictions, instead Yanchao is stuck at home studying online.
Yanchao expressed some challenges she faced living in two different parts of China, the main being she had to be a lot more independent while living in Hong Kong. The reasoning for Yanchao moving away from Shanxi is due to her wanting to study alone. However this wasn’t the only struggle, the hardest was trying to learn Cantonese – “Most of the locals don’t know how to speak mandarin and I can’t understand cantonese. So I got problems with buying food”. Over time this has become easier for her, eventually grabbing a hold of the cantonese way of speech.
When asked about the difference in British culture compared to her own she spoke about the difference in their education system. She explained that she did not know much about british culture, however she knew it was much different to the culture she was raised in, the part that stood out the most was the difference in longevity when it came to school hours. Most British schools function from 8:30am to 3:15pm, Yanchao explained to us that most schools in china start at 6:30am and do not finish until 10:30 pm which I found very interesting as it blows the British education system away.
As previously mentioned Yanchao is studying Journalism at the University Arts of London, when asked why she chose journalism the response was “I like language culture. Journalism is not only about finding news to report but also about good skills that can be put to use, such as proper language. It is a challenge to me and I like adventure.” This answer prompted the follow up question of why was England the right place for you, which Yanchao led on to say how the appeal of England came from the fact she has never stepped foot in the UK before, and she does not want to limit herself. By coming to England her options are much wider. She did also mention her sister is studying law in London also.