By Xuefei Chen Axelsson

Stockholm, May.1 (ChinaEuropeDialogue) — Hi my New Zealand teacher Jim Tully and my friend colleague Nellie, how are you? Miss you and miss good old days. I feel sorry I couldn’t pay back for your kindness to me and I now live in Sweden. But I can never forget New Zealand, also the most beautiful country in the world in my eyes.

I fell in love with the campus of University of Canterbury when I just arrived there on March 24, 2003. It was raining when I arrived in the Christchurch airport.

My big suitcase didn’t arrive and I had to go to my hotel without big luggage. But next day it arrived. I lived in a prison-renovated hotel.

Almost all the students there were Chinese students as young as 15 years old and as old as the Korean uncle who is about 50 years old.

I took the bus to the campus and I saw the maple leaves and the green yellow and red mix color was very beautiful. So many trees and grass. How beautiful it was!

I thought I would like to live there forever!

The campus was open and connected with the city. I was impressed the students also demonstrated when the parliament wanted to increase student fees. But they just shouted a few slogans and when they arrived in the city center, people just dispersed and went back to university again.

I was surprised. Think of our students in Beijing when they demonstrate, they did it by weeks and weeks and lived in the Tiananmen Square for many night! What a difference!

People do whatever they like to do and gap between the rich and the poor was not big.

I should write to them and contact them. Why am I so lazy and do nothing about our relations? Sometimes I think I was a small potato and cannot make much differences. But I think I didn’t do enough for China or for New Zealand. I should contact more. I know there are more Chinese there too.