When Abozahrah Abdalrhman picked up the phone and said ni hao (hello), no one would have guessed he was a foreigner born and bred in Saudi Arabia.

The 27-year-old speaks fluent Chinese, practically without any accent, and is now studying in a master's program on communication engineering at the University of Science and Technology in Beijing.

He chose China over Japan and South Korea when applying for the overseas study program in 2008, because of the pleasant impression his first trip to the country made on him back in 2004.