Edoardo, my Italian classmate, has experienced so many culture shocks on campus in the past few weeks that they are well worth sharing with you guys. They will help you take a look back at the ways of doing things we take for granted.

First of all, he finds it odd that diners in the canteen rarely talk with each other while eating. Instead, they choose to be glued onto their phones. In contrast, their counterparts in Italy will strike up a conversation with whoever shares the table at dinner, even though they might be total strangers.

Secondly, the Italians kiss and hug each other on a date before they get into a steady relationship. In China, to his perplexity, a man and a woman can kiss and hug only when the relationship has been confirmed. “If you don’t kiss or hug your date,” asked my classmate, “how will you manage to know whether he or she is the right one? Kissing and hugging is a good way to get to know your prospective partner.”

The last thing that confuses Edoardo is that we Chinese worked on the Saturday after the week-long National Day holiday ended. I tried my best to explain to him tiaoxiu, which literally means “to adjust the calendar for rest”. To have seven consecutive days off for the well-publicised Golden Week holiday, we borrowed a working Wednesday from the workweek and tacked it onto the end of the long break. It follows logically that we had to come to work on the Saturday to pay back the loan. He finally got my point, but it was beyond the Italian why we did it this way, because under similar circumstances, his compatriots back home take a four-day vacation, but they don’t have to make up for the “loaned” workday.