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Expanding Your Vocabulary Our Ex
Our Exchange Student change Student

through Word Formation from ITALY!!!!

Ciao! I'm Veronica and I'm from Italy. As you may know,
I spent 5 months of my exchange year at Pooi To. I came to Hong
Kong thanks to a scholarship offered by the AFS. This organization
promotes intercultural exchanges all over the world for students aged
between 15-18 years old. I decided to choose the AFS because it's a
non-profit organization and any student can get a scholarship.
Anyway, everyone asks me why I chose Hong Kong. There are actually
many reasons, but one of them is that Hong Kong is a big city. In Italy I live
in a small town with a population of only 30,000 people, and for me to see
all of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers, shops and its MTR was amazing.
One of the best things for me was meeting my host family and friends. I had a
fantastic experience with my host family, and with them I discovered the real
Hong Kong and its culture. They taught me some Cantonese words, and we
often compared Italian culture with Hong Kong’s. I built an incredible friendship
with my host sister as we regularly talked about our life journeys and daily life.
Also, I have to mention my classmates. When I was sad they always tried to
make me happy and allow me to talk more. I loved that they were so kind. After
five months, my Cantonese is not perfect, but I learnt a lot from my classmates
and my host sister, and have improved a lot since arriving at Pooi To.
From living in Hong Kong, I discovered that it has a lot of differences with Italy.
The first one I noticed is the food culture. For me it was so strange to eat rice
every day, and to eat it in a bowl with chopsticks was also new to me. Another
difference is the schooling. In Italy I only have school from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.,
and we run away from school when the bell rings at 1 o'clock. I really enjoyed
myself over the five months that I spent in Hong Kong and I'm honored to have
spent them at Pooi To. Living here helped me to talk more and become an
open-minded person. My ups and downs made me stronger and able to enjoy
every moment. I'm really proud of this experience and I hope I'll be back in
Hong Kong soon.

Veronica

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