by Ann Ku
The first three weeks of school have been crazy! All of the societies on campus set up booths in the atrium of the school to get new members into their clubs and it’s nearly impossible to walk through the atrium without grabbing a few flyers.
There are 3 main differences between societies at UST and at NU:
- 1. Most clubs at NU are application-based, whereas most societies here are open to everyone
- 2. Societies here have membership fees for 1, 2, 3, or 4 years
- 3. The society fair here lasts 3 weeks, compared to 1 day at NU
At the end of the three weeks, I had maneuvered through the society fair at least 3 times and finally ended up joining the rock climbing society, board game society, and a Christian fellowship on campus.
Rock Climbing Society
The rock climbing society meets every Thursday night from 19:00 to 22:00. There are two main tracks that you can take, but you can also vary the difficulty depending on how you navigate the track. One of the most interesting things about being in this society has been meeting all the people. Not surprisingly, most of the students are actually either avid climbers, freshmen, or exchange students. It seems that many students at UST are very serious about their academics and aren’t as interested in physical sports.
Board Game Society
Most of the students at UST have Cantonese as their first language and Mandarin/English as second languages. In this society, many of the board games are in Cantonese and many of the society members prefer speaking Cantonese colloquially rather than English. Thus, it was difficult sometimes to first understand the game rules and then communicate with the other students during the game, so I devised a strategy to make friends with the person sitting next to me and ask him/her to translate for me.
Christian Fellowship
Surprisingly, there is actually only one English-speaking Christian Fellowship on campus. The name of the fellowship is Agape, which means God’s love. Joining this fellowship really reminded me of how God’s love and his kingdom transcend culture and physical location in the world. We all worship the same God, and I’m thankful to have found this group and hope to invite more of my exchange friends to join in our fellowships.