The language barrier in particular initially caused him a lot of trouble. Then there was the question of how to finance his studies. While he was able to solve the financial question with the help of part-time jobs as a gardener, dishwasher help or through assembly line work, the language remained a major hurdle. Especially in the beginning, his strong accent and the lack of expression was a reason for Haozhong Chen to close himself off and withdraw, and the environment remained rather foreign to him. But an internship semester at Continental in Hanover became the turning point. The demand to be able to communicate openly and efficiently with German and foreign colleagues made him change his life.
He bought a Duden and watched many programs on Deutsche Welle, ARD and ZDF and waited every day for Ulrich Wickert and Harald Schmidt. He listened carefully, imitated and corrected his voice and tones, rhythm and breath, read expressions, texts and sentences to himself in the morning and in the evening and thus trained the German language very intensively. Language became the key to integration for him and after a few months he had not only improved his German greatly, but had found back to his old, true self. The studies and life in Germany now really took off and a very nice phase of life began.
"The willpower not to give up in difficult times and to consistently overcome difficulties, the passion to go through the world with open eyes and the heart to actively reach out to others and stand up for others will shape me forever" he describes the insights from this time.
It was not easy to pick out the most important memories from the many happy memories of The Hochschule Niederrhein. But it is important to mention that, as a representative of the international students, he gave a speech to guests on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Degree programme in Industrial Engineering. The fact that he was awarded the "DAAD Prize" was partly due to Mrs. Timmer from the HSNR, who encouraged him to submit his documents for the prize shortly before the application deadline, despite the strenuous work on the thesis. Successfully, as we know today. In addition, he received good support from professors who helped him find job opportunities and thus built up a professional network. But even very trivial everyday things are associated with memories of The Hochschule Niederrhein: The student dormitory on Vennfelderstraße, the streetcar lines 41, 42, and 43; bus line 54 in Krefeld and 1 in Mönchengladbach, and the shopping opportunities nearby. And of course all the professors, staff, the supervisor during the internship and the student assignment, fellow students. Haozhong Chen, who is now the managing director of the subsidiary of a German mechanical engineering company in China, remembers these "young years" with pleasure and will never forget this time: "I am forever grateful to the Hochschule Niederrhein and wish the university on the occasion of its 50th anniversary from the bottom of my heart: Happy Birthday!"
