Of all of the hostels in Toronto, we probably get the most students. We get them from all academic levels. From those who are here to study elementary English to Doctoral Candidates here for academic conferences.
It rained yesterday and we had a lady return to the hostel after visiting Niagara Falls on her bicycle. It is a mere 140 kilometers according to a rather damp, Monika – a doctoral candidate in the field of Linguistics. You see, 140 kms is a walk in the park for this lady from near Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.
She is in Toronto to deliver a speech on the ongoing work of her thesis. She has just returned from several months in Chinas remote Xingjiang Province on the border with Outer Mongolia. It is an extremely remote region of China that had been closed to all travelers for almost half a century.
She was in China to study the development and evolution of the language of the Dzungar-Tuvans – a Turkic speaking ethnic minority who have lived within the borders of China since, at least, the third century.
The closest public transport still left her 500 kilometers short of her destination on China’s northwestern frontier. It is here she got on her trusty mountain bike and cycled to the Mongolian border region. It was an uphill grind that took her from about sea level to elevations as much as 3000 meters! It included a grueling climb of more than 100 kilometers uphill.
As a linguist, Monika studied Mandarin Chinese before embarking on her trip. She was entering a region so remote that finding any English speakers was a highly unlikely proposition.
Monika is planning to return to Xingjiang next year to further her studies with he isolated Turkic minorities. Her trip to Niagara in the rain was a mere warmup for the long 500 km. uphill grind ahead of her.
Monika with a fellow guest posing with “Francois” the hostel’s bear.
