I never thought a single email could change the direction of my life. But when I received my admission to Yanshan University in China, everything suddenly felt real. What was once just a dream of studying abroad turned into a journey that would challenge, surprise, and shape me in ways I never expected ? It is an encounter with new cultures, histories, landscapes, ideas, and ways of life. For a Bangladeshi student, travelling from Dhaka to China represents not merely a geographical transition but also a journey of intellectual and personal transformation. On 31 August 2025, I began this journey from Dhaka, Bangladesh, travelling first to Beijing and then onward by train to Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, where I began my life as a graduate student at Yanshan University.
This article reflects on my journey from Dhaka to Qinhuangdao and explores the historical and cultural significance of Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Shanhaiguan, and the Bohai Sea. It also considers how living and studying in Qinhuangdao has expanded my understanding of China. As a civil engineering student, I have come to see the city not only as a place of historical importance and natural beauty, but also as a living example of the relationship between infrastructure, coastal development, urban planning, heritage conservation, and the natural environment.
A Journey Begins: Every important journey begins with a moment when the familiar world is left behind and an unknown world opens before us. For me, that moment came on 31 August 2025.
My name is Ahamed Shakil, and I am a student in the Department of Civil Engineering at Yanshan University, Hebei, China. Coming from Bangladesh, a country shaped by rivers, monsoon rains, deltaic landscapes, and a deep connection with the sea, my decision to pursue higher education in China was both an academic opportunity and a personal adventure. On that August morning, I left Dhaka with a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, and hope. Dhaka was familiar: its busy streets, crowded neighborhoods, Bengali language, familiar food, family, friends, and the rhythm of everyday life. China, by contrast, was an entirely new chapter.
My first destination was Beijing International Airport. From Beijing, I continued my journey by train toward Qinhuangdao. As the train moved through the Chinese landscape, I gradually realized that this was more than a journey from one city to another. It was a transition from one cultural and educational environment into another. Eventually, I arrived in Qinhuangdao the city that would become my home during my studies. I had travelled thousands of kilometres from Dhaka, but I felt that I had arrived somewhere connected to my own background in an unexpected way. Bangladesh is inseparable from water, rivers, and the sea. Qinhuangdao is also a city whose identity is strongly connected with the coast. Here, however, the water before me was not the Bay of Bengal but the Bohai Sea.
That first encounter began a new chapter of my life: from Dhaka to the Bohai Sea.
Yanshan University; A University with a Century of History : My destination was Yanshan University (YSU), an institution with a history considerably older than my own journey to China.
The history of Yanshan University is closely connected with the development of China's engineering and heavy machinery education. According to the university's official history, its institutional roots can be traced back to Harbin Institute of Technology in 1920. In 1958, the School of Heavy Machinery of Harbin Institute of Technology was established in Fularji, and in 1960 it became an independent institution known as the Northeast Heavy Machinery Institute. In 1978, it was designated as a national key institution of higher education. Between 1985 and 1997, the university gradually moved south to Qinhuangdao, and in 1997 it was officially renamed Yanshan University.
This history is important because Yanshan University is not simply a university that happens to be located in Qinhuangdao. Its institutional identity is deeply connected with China's industrial and engineering development. The university today is jointly supported by the People's Government of Hebei Province and several central government bodies and is recognized as a national key university. As a graduate student in civil engineering, I find this engineering heritage particularly meaningful. University education is often described through classrooms, laboratories, examinations, and research papers. However, institutions such as Yanshan University demonstrate that engineering education is also connected to the history of national industrial development. Walking through the campus as a new international student, therefore, gave me a sense of becoming part of a much longer academic tradition.
Qinhuangdao; A City Between Mountains and Sea: Qinhuangdao occupies a remarkable geographical position in northern China. The city lies at the foot of the Yanshan Mountains and along the coast of the Bohai Sea. According to the Qinhuangdao Tourism Development Committee, the city is adjacent to Beijing and Tianjin to the west and Liaoning Province to the east. This geographical setting gives Qinhuangdao a distinctive character. In one direction are mountains. In another is the sea. Between them lies a modern urban environment containing residential areas, universities, roads, ports, parks, historical sites, and tourist destinations. For me, one of the most beautiful aspects of Qinhuangdao is this combination of natural and built environments. The city does not feel like a place defined by only one landscape. It is simultaneously a mountain city, a coastal city, a historical city, a university city, and a modern urban center. This combination creates a special atmosphere for an international student. During my time in Qinhuangdao, I began to appreciate how strongly the city's identity is connected to its natural environment. The sea provides openness and tranquility, while the mountains provide a contrasting sense of permanence. For someone coming from Bangladesh a country famous for its rivers and coastal landscape the relationship between Qinhuangdao and water felt particularly familiar.
But the experience was also different. The water here was the Bohai Sea, and its surrounding landscape introduced me to a new geographical and cultural world.
Qinhuangdao and the Story of Shanhaiguan: The name Shanhaiguan can be understood as the “Pass of the Mountains and the Sea.” Its location between the Yanshan Mountains and the Bohai coast made it historically important as a strategic gateway. Shanhaiguan is particularly famous for its association with the Great Wall. The area contains the celebrated “First Pass Under Heaven” and the coastal section of the Great Wall known as Laolongtou, or Old Dragon's Head, where the wall reaches the Bohai Sea.
For a student of civil engineering, standing before such structures creates a special kind of reflection. The Great Wall is not only a historical monument. It represents the engineering knowledge, construction techniques, logistical organization, material use, strategic planning, and geographical understanding of earlier generations. The builders had to work with mountains, slopes, valleys, and coastlines. They constructed defensive infrastructure in difficult terrain long before the technologies available to modern engineers. The Great Wall therefore provides an opportunity to think about engineering from a historical perspective. This realization made my visits around Qinhuangdao more than sightseeing experiences. They became opportunities to observe the relationship between engineering and history.
The Beauty of the Bohai Sea: And then there is the Bohai Sea. For me, the Bohai Sea represents one of the most memorable parts of my experience in Qinhuangdao. Coming from Bangladesh, I was already familiar with the emotional power of water. Bangladesh is a riverine country, and the Bay of Bengal has played an enormous role in its geography, economy, culture, and history.
Yet the Bohai Sea offered me a different experience of the sea. The coastline of Qinhuangdao provides moments of calmness and reflection. The horizon seems to create an open boundary between the present and the unknown. Standing near the water, I often found myself thinking about how far I had travelled. Only a short time earlier, I had been in Dhaka. Now I was standing beside a sea on the northern coast of China. The Bohai Sea became more than a geographical feature for me. It became a symbol of distance, discovery, independence, and growth.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable experiences in Qinhuangdao is the realization that history and nature meet at the same place. At Laolongtou, the Great Wall reaches toward the Bohai Sea. This creates a powerful visual relationship between human construction and the natural environment.
Looking back, my journey from Bangladesh to Yanshan University was not just about education. It was about learning how to adjust, how to connect, and how to grow in unfamiliar places. It taught me that comfort zones feel safe, but growth happens outside them. And even thought the journey continues, one thing is clear to me now china did not just give me an education. It gave me a new way of seeing the world.
Author Ahamed Shakil is a Master’s Student, at the Department of Civil Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, China
