Deep inland, Braga is surprisingly an international city. Many local mentioned they were surprised to see a huge influx of Brazilian population in the past few years. A Brazilian boy proudly told me they had a nick name for Braga: Bragasil.

There are also a good number of Chinese in Braga. Most Chinese here are associated with either the University of Minho, the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL), or Chinese stores or Chinese restaurants. The INL is a European research hub, where junior researchers constantly move around. I haven’t met any Chinese faculty or staff at the Unviersity.

About a couple of hundred Chinese students study Portuguese at the University of Minho. A small number are high school students enrolled in the language program offered by the University.

A Confucius Institute is operating from a prominent location on campus between Building 04 and Building 05. The institute is managed by Nankai University, a member of the greater Nankai School family that is my alma mater. The Confucius Institute offers Chinese classes to students and runs outreaching programs at regional schools. In addition, they also run Chinese classes for kids and provide community serving activities such as safety information session for local Chinese community.

The CLIB where William goes for school is the intersection of all Chinese because it is considered one of the best schools in Braga. There is another private school that is considered slightly better but they lecture in Portuguese.

At lunch, I ran into a Chinese scholar who recently came back to defend her doctoral dissertation in December. She already obtained a doctoral degree from China and held a teaching position at a Chinese university back home. She is one of few Chinese students at the University who study in a field other than Portuguese language. I also met another Chinese student who was a Ph.D. student in the Departamento do Informatica.

While William and I were waiting for our bus, we caught up with a student from Congo who was studying economics at the University. We met originally at a language exchange event hosted by SPEAK.