Renat Nazmutdinov, Department of Inorganic Chemistry Professor recently returned from a month-long teaching trip in China.

He taught a course of lectures on general and inorganic chemistry for Chinese studentsAt Liaoning Petrochemical Vocational Technical Institute, and also got acquainted with the organization of the educational process and laboratory facilities. Renat shared his impressions and the experience of lecturing at the Liaoning Institute.

"This is my first trip to China – I have a rare opportunity to look at the country not through the eyes of a tourist, but from the inside, as a professor. The city of Jinzhou is small and provincial by Chinese standards, although the population there is higher than in Kazan. The city is located near the sea. I was struck by the huge number of small cafes, restaurants and grocery stores on the streets. Jinzhou is mainly focused on domestic tourism, so Chinese is exclusively spoken everywhere. For a foreigner, it looks like a complete immersion in a new language environment, traditions and culture, with lots of fun quests. At first glance, the safety rules look too strict, but they make you feel completely safe on campus and on the streets of the city at all times. A large number of electric cars and electric scooters are striking, all buses are also battery–powered - for this reason, the air in the city is clean.

For three weeks in a row, from Monday to Friday, I gave students two lectures a day in English. I had some blanks, but I had to redo everything on the go, adapting the material to the audience. Of course, it was a tough, though very rewarding test. In the early days, the most difficult thing was to find contact with students in conditions when many of them do not speak English, but are guided by simultaneous translation in the mode of a running line on the screen. In such a situation, the worst thing to do is mumbling something "on paper." Therefore, at each lecture, in order to somehow keep the audience interested, it was necessary to arrange a small one-man show, improvise, tell interesting stories, and ask questions. In addition to the presentation, he actively wrote with a felt-tip pen on two blackboards and came up with homework on the spot. Nevertheless, we managed to establish "emotional" contact with most of the students, they listened eagerly, responded to my questions, approached me after the lecture, and wrote in the chat that they really liked. I am especially grateful to those students who took touching care of me, in particular, they brought me a glass of hot coffee after each lecture (by the way, the Chinese themselves do not like coffee and do not drink it), and offered various help. In general, the students here are very disciplined and extremely respectful of the teachers. In the fourth week, I attended laboratory classes, got acquainted with the experiments, and looked at how the students' individual workplaces were equipped. Some of what I saw may be useful here. I met with college teachers at a seminar and told them about my scientific work. I also watched with great interest how the exam was going.

During my stay in Jinzhou, the staff of the international department of the Institute organized two interesting and authentic events. The first was a tea ceremony with tasting of various varieties of tea, the second was an unusual procedure of tying knots "at will" using a red ship rope. I also remember having dinner together in a restaurant, where you could cook the food yourself from various ingredients. I enjoyed walking in the picturesque city parks over the weekend.

From a foreigner's point of view, living and working in China has both obvious advantages and disadvantages. Contrasts are immediately noticeable, but they are what make the country even more interesting. I am pleased to note that the Chinese government spares no expense in attracting foreign specialists: in particular, for almost a month I lived in a beautiful high-tech hotel near the college. From lectures, discussions and conversations, Chinese colleagues and students learned a lot from me, and I, in turn, learned a lot from them. Such an exchange of knowledge, experience and traditions is of great value, and, of course, it should be further developed."