Many of my Chinese friends are people I work with at the Chinese Academy of Forestry. We are all conservation scientists working to save threatened species. Dai Yunchuan is a PhD student studying Tibetan brown bears. Tibetan brown bears live in the same habitat as snow leopards, so Dai and I often go to the field together and have gotten to know each other well. He is very excited to answer some questions for you!
My name is Dai Yunchuan (代云川). Dai (代) is my family name, and Yunchuan (云川) is my given name. Yunchuan means cloud, rivers and mountains. My character is just like my name, I really love peace and nature. My American friends usually call me “Dai”, maybe “Dai” is easier to remember and pronounce than “Yunchuan”. Anyway, my mom calls me “Yunchuan”.
I currently live in Beijing, the capital of China. I don’t have an apartment in Beijing, let alone a house, because the houses in Beijing are too expensive. I am a Ph.D student now, and I live in a dorm with my roommates. There are four people in our dorm, three of them come from the north of China, and I come from Chongqing, a city in southwestern China. Our dorm is very small, with four beds, a bathroom and a mini balcony.
