Mr. Zhou was being interviewed. (Photographed by Reporter Fu Beibie)
On a weekend in October, Zhou Chenxu and his friends of a bicycle club who loved to ride, took a round trip from Yichang City to the Three Gorges Tribe Scennic Spot. The distance of 63 kilometers took 3 hours, 41 minutes and 45 seconds. Zhou Chenxu was very satisfied with this new record. He displayed this record to the circle of his Wechat friends ---an application on the mobile phone, and proudly said that he has completed the challenge.
Like all foreigners coming to China to study, Ayman Cherifi from Morocco, who is currently studying at the School of Civil and Engineering at the Three Gorges University, gave himself a poetic Chinese name with the help of her friends: Zhou Chenxu. “Chen Xu in Chinese means the early-rising sun.”With a love for Chinese names and Chinese culture, he has been well integrated into the current circle and life in Yichang for four years.
As a stranger to the city, Zhou felt lonely at first when he arrived in Yichang. But now, he is free from the loneliness of being anywhere alone because he could always find his friends around him.
Zhou Chenxu bluntly said that the kindness and enthusiasm of Yichang people made him feel at home. He enjoys it and cherishes the good times he has at present.
The Chinese sentence “宜昌太‘好骑’了！” means Yichang is a good city for riding. Although the Chinese expression is not very accurate, it does not hinder his love for riding in Yichang. Almost every once in a while, he would go on a short-distance ride with friends from the school or club. His footsteps have been printed in The Three Gorges Dam, the Three Gorges Gorges Tribe, the Moji Mountain, the Wenfo Mountain, the Yuquan Temple... the famous scenic spots and also some unknown scenic spots. The longest trip he has taken is cycling from the urban area along the national road all the way to Changyang, through Yidu, over Yiling, it took nearly six hours to return to the city.
“Yichang is a great place, and you can find many surprises here.” Zhou Chenxu described the scenery he encountered during cycling: “Sometimes there is a large pond with grass, in which you can see wild ducks and some unknown birds. Sometimes it is a large section of winding road . We screamed sliding down the long slope, and it was wonderful to see the colorful leaves in the forest changing constantly."
In the course of cycling along the road, he made friends, gained happiness and increased love for Yichang. “Yichang is as beautiful as my hometown Casablanca.” He said: “But this beauty differs in that Casablanca is like an oil painting with bright colors as Yichang is like an artistic Chinese painting.”
His favorite place in Yichang was not only the natural beauty and friendly people, but also the attitude of people dealing with things. “They respect other people's feelings and make efforts to spend time in changing the bad things.” When I first came to Yichang, there were some smoggy days from time to time. “People in Yichang are determined to change, and now the sky is much bluer than before! ”
Zhou Chenxu could perform a stunt: B-box (Beatbox). Holding the circle around the lips with both hands, the sound of various beats and orchestral instruments burst out at the same time with the changes of tongue muscle and breath, which is very vivid and quite popular with the audience. Because of this, Zhou Chenxu became a regular guest on the stage of Three Gorges University. Just before the theatrical performance party “Recalling Wang Zhaojun in Mid-Autumn Festival” held in Yichang, Zhou Chenxu and a dozen other foreign friends performed a song calledfriends, and he interspersed with the B-box performance, which became the biggest hit of the whole show.
“I love Yichang, everything here is wonderful.” Zhou Chenxu said that if one day he had to leave, he must be very unwilling to. “Before that moment comes, I will ride around every corner and all mountains and rivers in Yichang.” His eyes sparkled, he said: “I will leave my footprints here forever.” (Reporter: Wang Ying)