Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication

At 12pm on December 25, 2019, University of Stirling held a Christmas lunch at Stirling hotel. This event was aimed at students staying on campus and giving them a meaningful and unforgettable Christmas. Most of us went to the event, which included a photo session with Santa Claus, a lunch buffet, and a meeting with students staying at the school.

Christmas in Stirling

By Xiancen Luo

At 12pm on December 25, 2019, University of Stirling held a Christmas lunch at Stirling hotel. This event was aimed at students staying on campus and giving them a meaningful and unforgettable Christmas. Most of us went to the event, which included a photo session with Santa Claus, a lunch buffet, and a meeting with students staying at the school.

The campus was also very special. The fog hung over the whole campus, surrounding the beauty in mist, making one feel walking in a fairyland. As a result of the large attendance notice, we arrived at the Stirling university hotel before noon, the rest of the students also arrived at the hotel one after another. At 12 o ‘clock, we were served drinks (sparkling wine or soft drinks), followed by a photo session with Santa Claus, followed by a lunch buffet and a chat with students who were still at school. 

On the menu were: the Scottish red lentil soup with hard leather lapped, traditional roast Turkey, pork, with intense aromas of Madeira sauce beef, honey roasted vegetables in Scotland, crispy roast potatoes, Morocco, cauliflower, chickpeas volume, mango couscous, lime chili sauce, noodles, rice, chocolate and mint truffle cake, mint chocolate chip, ice cream, chocolate, cheese cake, tea, coffee, bottled water, a variety of soft drinks.

This was our first Christmas abroad and we were all happy and excited. This activity made us not only experience the festive atmosphere of Christmas in Scotland, but also feel the university’s care for the students staying on campus. We will all remember this special Christmas at University of Stirling forever.

By Han Jin

On the evening of Friday, March 6, 2020, the University of Stirling organized the students from the Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication to visit the BBC Scotland building in Glasgow. The tour was guided by Sara, a Stirling alumna working as an administrator in BBC. Sara introduced the exquisite design of the working building to the students, and took us to visit the live TV, studio, console, and radio studio.

The award-winning design of this building is especially due to its extremely efficient use of space. For example, it uses lights to transform the space inside the building,  and make it as a live TV background. In addition, there are many humanized designs. Outside the restaurant on the roof, there is an open-air balcony where you can not only view the whole of Glasgow, but also relax and dance Kelly.

During the visit, the Nine news was under trial recording. The students were fortunate to be able to watch the recording site closely, and walk on the stage during the recording break to experience the analog recording.

Later, Sara guided us to visit the second largest studio in the UK. This studio would record children’s programs in a few days. The stage designers were working late.

In the end, the students were attracted by the design of various sound effect systems. The stairs with three different sounds, the pebbles hidden in the ground for sound effects all revealed “wonders everywhere” in the recording studio.

This visit led the students to the back of the screen to have a better understanding of the media industry and broadened their horizons.

学习参观苏格兰英国广播电视（BBC）—-“处处有玄机”

 文：金涵

2020年3月6日星期五晚，斯特灵大学组织北京印刷学院的学生参观了位于格拉斯哥的BBC苏格兰地区的工作大楼。参观全程由斯特灵校友，现BBC工作人员萨拉带领和介绍。本次参观，萨拉向同学们介绍了工作大楼的精妙设计，带大家体验了电视直播的台前幕后，并参观了摄影棚，控制台，和录音间等工作室。

这座大楼的设计屡获殊荣，特别在于它极有效的利用了空间。例如利用灯光转化整个大楼内部的空间，使其成为电视直播的背景。除此之外，还有很多人性化设计。在顶层的餐厅外，有一个露天的阳台，不仅可以纵览整个格拉斯哥，也可以在上面放松的跳凯利舞。

参观时，正逢The Nine 节目的试录制，同学们有幸能近距离的观看录制现场，以及在录制休息时，走上演播台，体验模拟录影。

随后，萨拉带领同学们参观了英国第二大的摄影棚，这个摄影棚将在几天后录制儿童节目，舞台设计正在熬夜赶工中。

最后，同学们被各种制音的设计吸引，走上拥有三段不同声音的楼梯，打开地上为了制作采访杂音隐藏着的石子地，惊叹于“处处玄机”的录音棚。

这次参观学习，让同学们从荧幕前走向荧幕后，让这群新闻出版的孩子们沸腾起热血，开阔了眼界。

By Yirugui

On February 28, 2020, led by Ms. Wang and Mr. Sun, we went to Dundee, Scotland’s fourth largest city. It is also known as the “city of discovery” because of its important inventions, such as stamps, wireless telegraph, aspirin and X-ray.

First, we arrived at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). Opened in 2018, it is the first design museum in Scotland, with a mission to enrich lives through design, provides a place to discover and be inspired by design creativity from Scotland and around the world.

The museum exhibits a rich collection of Scottish design and private collections from both Scotland and around the world. The Oak House designed by Charles Rennie mackintosh shows his respect for nature. In addition to galleries and exhibition areas, there are several areas in the hall where tourists can participate in art design. After the busy study, we found a place to inspire our childlike innocence and made everyone happy in the process of creating “works”.

Walking out of the museum, we saw a large ship,which was the Royal research ship (RRS)–Discovery. It was launched in 1901, built by the most famous British polar explorer, Robert Scott, with a length of 52 meters, a displacement of 1570 and a maximum speed of 8 knots (15 kilometers). Now, the ship has become the landmark and symbol of Dundee.

Every time we visit a new city, we are making a trip of “discovery”. In the exploration of each city, we can always harvest interesting discoveries and unexpected surprises from the trip. These will be an asset for us that we have gained from our visit to the UK.

Our students presented their final projects to the Head of the Division of Communications, Media and Culture and their teachers today. See their photos here:

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By Yirugui

On November 5, 2019, students from the 2019-2020 short term programme of BIGC arrived at an event to commemorate Guy Fawkes Night in Stirling after class. 

Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night, is an important festival for Britain and is observed on November 5 every year. The observations started because a religious persecution scheme in 1605 against King James I. A man named Guy Fawkes, with a group of extreme Catholics, came up with a “gunpowder plan” and smuggled 36 barrels of black gunpowder into the basement adjacent to the House of Parliament in secret. Their intention was to detonate the gunpowder when the King held a meeting on November 5, therefore blowing up the Houses of Parliament, killing the King and his deputies. But the information became known to the King, on the early morning of November 5. The King’s guards raided the basement and found a large amount of gunpowder stored, after which Guy Fawkes was captured, and the plot failed. This shocked the entire nation. Since then, the UK has celebrated the shattering of the terror plot by burning portraits of Guy Fawkes and lighting fireworks on November 5th every year. 

Nowadays Guy Fawkes Night has become a great opportunity for those around Britain to enjoy bonfires and watch fireworks. On this day, people use old clothes to fill up a dummy, Guy, then burn it on a bonfire and at the end they set off beautiful fireworks. On the night of this year’s Guy Fawkes in Stirling, the Cabeytu Brothers played a variety of instruments, pop music and also traditional Scottish music. The Scots around us were dancing the Ceilidh dance. In the other direction was the bonfire burning the dummy Guy and people trying to form a large circle to admire the bonfire. 

When the beautiful fireworks shining in the sky of Stirling accompanied the background music, friends hugged each other, and the event came to its climax. This was an unforgettable night which still commemorated the triumph of life over destruction even 414 years after November 5, 1605.

By Fangning Lou

On 4th Dec 2019, the students from the 2019-2020 short term programme of BIGC went on a field trip. They were accompanied by Grace Wang, Frances Sessford and Elaine Watson from the University of Stirling. They all went to the largest city in Scotland, Glasgow, and visited the local book distributor BookSource and one of the oldest established printing companies Bell & Bain to experience the British publishing industry and learn about the distribution and printing process.

The visit to Glasgow started with book distributor BookSource. BookSource was founded in 1995 by Publishing Scotland (later renamed the Scottish Publishers Association). It is a book distributor serving 92 publishers. The warehouse has no more than 13 employees on duty, although there are 13,178 book catalogues and 3.44 million books in the company. The transportation and sales information of these books can be tracked through the information system of its official website.

For small and medium-sized publishers in the UK, book distributors are indispensable institutions. Distributors, institutions and personnel who specialise in the activities of transferring goods from producers to consumers, are completely independent merchants, between agents and retailers. Book distributors are the bridge that connects publishers with retailers and consumers, improving the efficiency of book distribution and reducing the labour and material cost of small and medium-sized publishers.

Founded in 1831, Bell & Bain is the oldest existing printing company in the UK. In this era of electronic reading Bell & Bain is also seeking innovations and changes, hoping to take a place in publishing industry with physical publications.

Specialising in printing and binding of academic journals in the field of business, education, finance, medicine, and science, Bell & Bain serves their customers including Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, etc. High-quality and low-volume printed matter is its key selling point. We visited its traditional printing and electronic printing factories successively, and observed the whole process from plate making, printing to binding.

By Yixuan Chen

On October 1, 2019, in order to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the University of Stirling held a series of events. Stirling Chinese Students & Scholars Association, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication (BIGC), Nanjing University and Hebei Normal University helped in the organisation of the celebration. The participants included Professor Malcolm MacLeod, Senior Deputy Principal of the University of Stirling, Professor Chen Fenglan of the BIGC, Grace Wang, International Partnership Officer of the University of Stirling, and Damyan Kachulski, Program Director of the 2019-2020 short term programme of BIGC.

Although the overseas students were far away from home, they could not help expressing their joy and excitement. The students were enthusiastic in celebrating this significant festival with the people in their motherland, especially because this was the very first ever celebration of the Chinese culture on the Stirling campus. 

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, 

the students from the 2019-2020 cohort of the short term programme of BIGC and the Stirling Chinese Students & Scholars Association participated in the shooting of “Nation”, a music video which was launched on the school’s official platform and roll-playing on the scene of the 70th anniversary of the National Day of China held by the University of Stirling. To help with the shooting of the video, on September 25, 2019, the exchange students from BIGC went to the Wallace Monument. The cold wind could not cool down their enthusiasm. They showed their confidence and excitement and managed to portray this in the video shot in front of the Wallace Monument and various locations around campus.

In order to celebrate the Chinese National Day, the University of Stirling set up the Chinese Week – a week of events to celebrate and promote the Chinese culture including Chinese calligraphy, Chinese painting, Chinese tea making, Chinese cuisine and Chinese musical instruments. The Chinese students on stage at the opening ceremony managed to present the rich and vibrant 5,000-year history of China to their British classmates and lecturers.

At the opening ceremony of the Chinese Week, members of the short term programme of BIGC performed “Nation” and were greeted with loud applause.

We all sang: “I love my country and I love my home.” Our motherland has thrived over 70 years of glory. As the future successors of the People’s Republic of China, the students of the 2019-2020 short term exchange programme of BIGC would like to wish the motherland prosperous and long future!