Eleven students from the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics (CTL) joined an intensive two-week Summer School (or in Australia, Winter School) on Cross-cultural Communication co-ordinated by the Department of Linguistics at University of Sydney (USyd).

After a rigorous interview process involving students majoring in Translation, Linguistics and Chinese, and despite the outbreak of human swine flu, we went on to pursue our studies at the prestigious Australian university.

The course was listed for postgraduates but was open to undergraduates. Together with postgraduates from Australia, Taiwan and mainland China, we took part in discussions in a multicultural class. Under the guidance of two dedicated USyd scholars, we were introduced to speech events, language and social relations in the course of analysing various intercultural and cross-cultural issues.

To many of us, this postgraduate level course was no easy task. It covered a wide array of topics on cross-cultural studies leading to a research project a

nd a number of short essays. Priding ourselves on being CityU students, we all worked much harder than usual and strove to accomplish the tasks satisfactorily. We will not forget the nights working together in the library’s common room until the small hours in order to keep up with the readings and meet the deadlines for essays and presentations. My project examined the advantage of multilingualism over monolingualism in a tourist economy in the context of public transportation in the Sydney city centre. In retrospect, all these demanding exercises were invaluable for sharpening critical thinking and writing skills essential to both our academic studies and personal growth.

In spite of the tight study schedule, we managed to seize every opportunity to explore the city and make new acquaintances. We were grateful to USyd for arranging two half-day tours around the city and to Manly Beach on the northern coast of Sydney, and for letting us enjoy sightseeing and shopping. The tours around this multilingual and multicultural city enabled us to obtain first hand resources to complete our research projects on various topics related to

cross-cultural communications.

We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to both CTL and USyd for enabling us to experience cultural immersion in such a beautiful and friendly city. We hope this project will continue and more students can benefit from it.