This course aims at assisting international students to have a better understanding of both Chinese ancient and modern culture. Besides, the course equips students with the cross-cultural awareness to better conduct cross-cultural communication activities.

This course consists of 2 sections. One section is theoretical teaching, and the other is Chinese culture practice and practicum. The ratio of theoretical and practice is 3:1, which means within a semester of Chinese Culture and Area Studies course (twice/4 teaching hours a week), the theoretical part occupies 54 teaching hours, and the practice part takes 18 teaching hours.

In the theoretical part, there are three main contents, namely Chinese traditional cultural knowledge, area studies in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, cross-cultural communication and cultural comparison. In practical part, the course helps students to transfer their theoretical knowledge to actual cultural experience by organizing Chinese cultural activities, going on excursions in Tianjin, and exploring typical Chinese environment etc.

The assessment of this course is a combination of formative evaluation and summative evaluation with a ratio of 5:5. The formative evaluation is conducted on a daily base including assignments, group work, class discussion etc. The summative evaluation includes personal presentation and reports.