Xia Mingqian

This is Xia Mingqian, a second-year doctoral course student in graduate school of engineering, Osaka University. This is my experience in Beijing from September 17th ? September 22nd , 2023.
On September 17th, our group, including my professor Hayashi sensei and an M1 student, Mr. Yamasaki, gathered in Kansai international airport and took the flight of CA928 of Air China from Osaka to Beijing capital international airport. Before we took the flight, we needed to rent the Global wi-fi devices to use LINE, Instagram, Facebook, and other application which can’t be used in China. After we landed in the airport in Beijing at about 2 pm, as a Chinese citizen, I passed the custom via Chinese citizen path very quick while my professor and my M1 classmate needed more time to wait in line to pass the foreigner entry. At this time, I found that the checking of foreigners from workers of the custom was stricter than before. After we arrived at the luggage area, it was about 5 pm and we still spent some time to find the poster we lost in the airport, which we found it with the help of staff in airport.
At around 6pm, we bought the Beijing Transportation card and take the subway to Beijing Friendship Hotel, where the conference was held, and we lived in these 4 days. I haven’t been in Beijing for around 4 years because of the Covid-19 pandemic even though I stayed in China from 2020-2022. Some new subway lines were built in these years, including the subway line from Beijing International Airport to the urban area. The subway system in Beijing is very complex, we needed transfer for 3 different subway lines to arrive the destination.
In the evening, we arrived in Beijing Friendship Hotel and Dr. Li Yang from Zhengzhou University greeted us and helped us to carry our luggage. Then come to the main hall of the hotel to do the registration. All the volunteers in this conference are students from The Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and we finished the registration very quickly with the help of them.
During the time of this conference, the cost of breakfasts and lunches in these days were covered by the sponsor but we needed to pay the fee for living in hotel. After the registration Prof. Hayashi went to his room and sleep, Dr. Li, Mr. Yamasaki and I went to a hotpot restaurant to eat our first meal in China. Long time no eating the Chinese hotpot, I was not used to the spicy meals in China especially the food from Sichuan and Hunan province which were on our table.

On the second day, Sep. 18th, the first day of the conference, we started to communicate with other people. In the hall of breakfast, we could see that the people joined in this conference are from many different countries, but mainly Chinese. I could hear many dialects of Chinese which proved that they are from all around China not just in or near Beijing. The first activity after the breakfast in the morning was the opening ceremony. Two shows were performed on the opening ceremony, one was the Chinese traditional music “high mountain flowing the water” played by Guqin, a Chinese traditional instrument, another one is the Chinese traditional song “Bamboo in the moonlight” played by “Hulusi”, which is a Chinese traditional instrument from the nationality “Daizu”. The presentation of organizer of this conference was followed the performances, in which he introduced the information of this conference, and stated the appreciation to all the attenders.

After the opening ceremony, a series of presentations are held. The presentations were consisted of 3 parts, first one is the keynote presentations, which were given by some famous researchers in the field of ultrasonics. The keynote presentations were often held in the main hall in the morning before other parts. After the keynote presentation the other oral presentations were held in 12 meeting rooms. Each room had its own field so we can choose the presentations we are interested in to listen. Third part was the poster presentation, in which Mr. Yamasaki and I had presentations. These poster presentations were held at one meeting room on the last 2 days of the conference. In the morning at around 10:30 and in the afternoon around 16:00 coffee breaks were held in a hall near the meeting rooms and these times were for communicating with other researchers.

Much information of research progress in the field of ultrasonics are presented in the conference. I recorded some of the information which are relating to my research and talked with the researchers working on this research. For further communication, I added them as the WeChat friends to keep in touch. Because the most people are Chinese in this conference, I seldom used my business card to exchange with other people because nearly all the Chinese people using WeChat and adding the WeChat friends is more convenient that collect lots of business card. I am very happy to know the research information in China and other countries to update my cognition of the research in China.
In the evening on first day, after finishing all the meetings at that day, the welcome banquet was held in the main hall of the hotel. All the people can choose the seat randomly. Several students from different Chinese Universities sat with us. At first, the main organizer of this conference had a small presentation in Chinese about showing the welcome and appreciation to all the attenders. Then everyone in the hall held the cup of wine and said “cheers” together. Secondly, all the people sat down and start to have the dinner. In the meantime, the organizers started to hold a cup of wine and visit each table to visit and talk with guests near each table. This behavior is very important in Chinese banquet named, “敬酒”. In this way, the organizers can show the respect to the attenders.

On Sep. 20th, Mr. Yamasaki and I had the poster presentations at the same meeting room. We came to the presentation room very early to attach our posters in advance. In this process, several students from The Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences helped me to attach the poster and provided me some bottles of water. At the coffee break, some people came to the poster presentation room to ask us questions. They gave me many very useful suggestions and some new ideas for proceeding my research. It was been very long time that I didn’t have presentations in Chinese so I prepared 2 versions of this presentation, one in English and another in Chinese to give a clear explanation of my research to many Chinese audiences.
Besides the activities relating to academy, we also experienced other activities in Beijing, which were including trip, having meals. At the second day of the conference, Dr. Li and us went to a traditional restaurant in Beijing named “四世同堂”. We eat a lot of Chinese traditional food such as “??肉”,”排骨”,“京?肉?”. These dishes are very famous local Chinese cuisine in Beijing.


For trip, We also went to the main sight of Beijing, “天安?”, which was in our plan before came to China. However, an appointment is needed for each tourist to be accessible to the Tiananmen square, which was not required in the past. Same thing happened when we wanted to visit Tsinghua and Peking University, the top 2 universities in China, and they both need an appointment to enter the gate, so we only took a picture before the gate. The place we can enter in is “香山公?”, it is a mountain part with a not so high altitude. And from the peak we can see part of the Tiananmen square.


This conference provided us a very good chance to know the recent research progress from many researchers all over the world in this field. Meanwhile, we can know more researchers and keep in touch in the future to discuss about more ideas about the research we are conducting. Also, in the conference, many companies took part in and we may have some chances to find jobs relating to our field.