First Week

My first week at HBA is over, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

On Saturday, I met up with some Yalies and we went to Houhai, a popular tourist destination with shops and restaurants surrounding a lake. After dinner, we decided to take a six-person paddle boat around to relax and enjoy the lights and sounds from the water. It turned out to be anything but relaxing. Instead, we got a good lesson on Chinese culture, one that does not emphasize being considerate to others. The lake is shaped like a horseshoe, with a bridge at the very top. We wanted to see what was on the other side, so we started veering toward the bridge. It was utter chaos. The space under the bridge was a tiny hole only big enough to let 2 four-person ships through at a time, or in our massive case, just one. However, instead of communicating and taking turns going back and forth through the bridge, there was just boat ramming. It was funny at first, but when we realized our boat was going to get stuck perpendicular to the tunnel because others kept shoving their boats into ours, it became frustrating. There was one employee in a motorized raft trying to direct traffic, but he was just taking up precious tunnel space. When we finally made it through, we expected this other side to connect to our origin, saving us the trouble of a return trip. It didn’t, so we had to repeat the ordeal, this time with more gridlock and more skillful maneuvering by Lulu and Ming-Yee.




On Sunday, we took the placement test. It was impossible. I had originally signed up to be in second year when I first filled out the application, but they decided that I was good enough for third year. I was going to “be in pain and constant struggle” for a week or two, but if I “concentrated hard and worked nonstop” at my studies, I would be able to keep up with the others in my class. Third years are the most numerous, at around 32. The vast majority are Harvard students, which was intimidating at first not necessarily because of their Chinese ability, but rather because they all knew each other. In the afternoon, we attended the “opening ceremonies” where we met both Feng Laoshis, the rest of our teachers, and our BLCU language partners, students at the university who are supposed to talk to us twice a week, now more trouble than it’s worth in my opinion. We were divided up by grade and given the syllabi and course book in order to start memorizing for Monday’s class. I had over 80 phrases to learn that night.

Monday was our first day of class. We have four hours of class every morning, divided up into an hour and a half of lecture class with 10 people (daban ke) and two and a half hours of smaller drill classes with four people (xiaoban ke). Each daban ke for third years opens with dictation using the new vocabulary. After lunch, each person has a 50-minute private session (danban ke) with a teacher to go over the day’s lesson content, to chat about anything else, and to correct pronunciation. Many of the teachers are students themselves at BLCU, majoring in teaching Chinese to foreigners. Since most are only a few years older than we are, class tends to be less nerve-wracking than if they were older. There’s still a lot of pressure though. The afternoons are devoted to optional enrichment classes such as Chinese art, calligraphy, music, cooking, dance, and martial arts. There are cafeterias and other restaurants on campus, and the food is incredibly cheap. You can eat a full meal for 5 or 6 yuan, less than a dollar.

On Thursday, we had to turn in an essay for corrections that was to be turned into a MEMORIZED oral presentation on Friday. It was bad enough that we had to remember 400-500 characters, stand in front of our xiaoban ke and recite it, but we had our first unit test (4 lessons) on Friday as well. After students flooded the tutoring session Thursday night, they went back to their rooms to listen to the CDs of the lessons to further familiarize themselves with the content, vocabulary, and pronunciations of the words, to learn all the new characters they neglected during the week, and prepare for the oral presentation. The test turned out to be not too bad. The head of the third years, Wang Laoshi, didn’t let us turn in our tests before 9:20, unless we were sure we had aced the test. If we did hand it in early and she found a mistake, she would dasi women, or beat us to death. She was mostly kidding.

On Tuesdays and Fridays, our xiaoban ke teachers take us out for Chinese tables, or zhongwen zhuozi, a free lunch and a chance to talk with our fellow students and teachers outside of class over a meal. Friday’s lunch was back at the conference center restaurant, and it was as much a celebration of the week being over as it was a chance to practice our Chinese and eat good food. Since our third lesson had to do with the evolution of Chinese revolutionary songs and popular music, we sang karaoke to the tune of one of the songs mentioned in the lesson. Feng Laoshi even got up and sang Happy Birthday to a few students. In the evening, we met our zhongguo jiating parents, BLCU employees who agreed to adopt a couple HBA students to teach us about the culture and feed us. I’m going to my “mom’s” house tonight for dinner.

Saturday was our first culture excursion to the Simatai Great Wall. This section is less touristy than the other one(s?), and in my opinion the surrounding view is better. The area was very green and very very steep. We climbed through 8 watchtowers to get to the top, a very tiring and drenching experience. On the way back when we reached the last watchtower, we came across 2 cables running over the river below. It was a zipline to a boat that would take us back to the base. Of course we couldn’t pass this opportunity, so we got strapped in, attached to the hook, and rode over the murky water down to the shore. I’m scared of heights but it was fun anyway. The equipment (especially the pulley machine) looked really old, but they told us not to worry since we’d be landing in water, not ground, if the cable snapped. Bad news for people who can’t swim…






After getting back to BLCU, showering, and taking a brief nap, 11 of us decided to go eat Beijing kaoya, or roast duck. We took the subway to Wangfujing near Tiananmen Square, a huge pedestrian street full of tourist shops and restaurants. We put our names down at Jinjude and went across the street to Goubuli for baozi, dumplings, while they prepared our table so we wouldn’t have to spend so much money on duck. The “grand” duck was excellent, but the other dishes we got were terrible. Since they ran out of broccoli, we ordered the second cheapest vegetables on the menu, mushrooms, which turned out to be really gloopey and weird looking. The fried duck we ordered was merely breaded duck fat wrapped around scallions, green onions, and tiny duck flecks. It tasted awful: it was bland and had a chewy texture. We walked on the street after duck, passing dozens of stands selling souvenirs and other Chinese knick-knack knock-offs; there was even a food stand selling scorpions, sea horses, and sea stars on sticks. After a quick dessert run at McDonalds, we headed over to Tiananmen Square, discovered that there wasn’t anything worth seeing, and came home. And now I have to prepare for lesson 5…

I have to say, though, that the workload is extremely tough: some people study until 3:00 am and then wake up at 6:00 to review the new characters so they’re fresh. There was one point on Thursday when I considered running away from the program, but that only lasted about 15 seconds. There’s a lot of pressure, but it’s definitely worth it (so far) and the teachers are all willing to help. It’s just that some are better than others.

Bye Reno, Hello Beijing

I’m finally in China. I left Reno on June 14 at 9:40 am and arrived in Beijing on June 15 at 8:30 pm. With the 16-hour time difference factored in, it was about 19 hours of travel from Reno to San Francisco to Tokyo-Narita and finally to Beijing. The 11-hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo went by really quickly. I had a book and magazines to read, and those actually lasted a good 4-5 hours. Then I listened to music, slept, and watched the movie “Zodiac,” and by the time the movie was over, there was only an hour until we landed.

I flew Japan Airlines. The seats weren’t too cramped (although I was stuck in 53K, a middle seat), the food was decent, and the English was fairly understandable. However, the flight attendants were amazing. They were all friendly, professional, and good looking, even the older ones. Lunch was the first meal they served; it was chicken teriyaki with salad, cold noodles, and almond jelly. Dinner featured pasta with salmon, a roll, salad, yogurt, fruit, and an ice cream bar.


When I got to Tokyo, I had to wait for 2 hours for my next flight. So I studied my Chinese characters and dialogues. This flight wasn’t so much fun. As soon as I got on the plane, I developed the worst headache I’d ever had. I put my sweater on and tried to sleep the pain away. It was really scary when the flight attendant asked me what I wanted to drink. First of all, I was exhausted so I was groggy and confused when she woke me up. Second, I thought the headache had somehow caused me irreversible brain damage. I tried to answer “orange juice” to her question, but for some reason I couldn’t remember how to say it in either English or Chinese. The gestures I made with my hands didn’t help at all, and she gave me a weird look when I tried speaking and unintelligible sounds came out. I think she saw me struggling and suggested “Coke” and I grunted or something. I was worried by that point, but I was too tired and dumb to think about it. 15 minutes before the plane landed I filled out my entry forms and then closed my eyes since my head still hurt.

The first thing I noticed at the Beijing airport was the awful air. There was no clear sky as far as I could tell, just a layer of smog. Once I got past customs, there was a mob of people waving signs, each trying to get into a position of better visibility than the person next to him. I finally saw the red HBA flag, and with Dani, Jordan, Spenta, Nick, and Eddie, I boarded the bus to the Beijing Language and Culture University. We’re staying at the BLCU conference center, a nice hotel-like building with single rooms and private bathrooms, perfect for language studiers who need privacy for practicing pronunciation and who may stay up until 2:00 trying to memorize the next day’s lesson.

Visa

A few days ago my dad and I drove to San Francisco to obtain my visa. In early May, BLCU mailed an invitation to travel, which I needed to show the Chinese consulate in order to obtain an "F" study visa. From Reno, the drive was about 3 and a half hours, not bad for the extra security of physically going to the visa office and making sure they processed my passport and application. We left at 6:00. I planned on studying characters and practicing dialogue with my dad, but I ended up falling asleep for pretty much the entire trip.

For some reason the Chinese consulate is next to Japantown. When we got to the building, it was about 10:10. Even though the visa office opened at 9:00, there was already a line outside extending a quarter of the block. When I looked at the plaque next to the door, I knew why: the office is extremely inconvenient in that it's open from 9:00 to 12:00 and 1:00 to 3:00. Everything shuts down for lunch from 12 to 1, and if you get there too late, you have to wait an extra hour while the employees eat. As we inched slowly toward the front door, I asked my dad if we were going to be able to make it in. He looked inside and watched the line of people snake slowly through the roped path. He felt pretty comfortable that we were, but I wasn't sure.

As it got to be closer to 11:00, we finally made it to the door. The line outside had grown to encompass half a block, and more people were showing up every minute. Outside the consulate was a display about the Falun Gong, a spiritual group whose practitioners have been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by the Chinese government. It was interesting to see the graphic pictures, read the disturbing text, and observe the reactions of passersby. Which is to say that there was no reaction at all. The elderly caucasian women manning the display were attempting to hand out pamphlets to whoever would listen. The only one who even looked at the display, not to mention the only one who took a flyer, was a middle-aged caucasian man. I told myself I would take a pamphlet on my way out.

When my dad and I finally physically reached the inside of the building, the chaos was amazing. There were people everywhere, shoving to get into line, yelling their questions to the timid-looking information desk attendant, scrambling to fill out last minute additions to the application, photocopy necessary information, or purchase an envelope for the passport to be mailed home. There were all kinds of people waiting for a visa; students like me, older people wanting to visit family, and businessmen. In Reno, where there is a very small Asian population, I didn't encounter many situations like this. However, in San Francisco and a few blocks away from Chinatown, I realized how different cultural manners were between the US and China. In the US, lines are very orderly and people patiently and quietly wait their turn to be served, at least in my experience. In China, there is no way to be heard or seen in a massive throng of people unless you raise your voice or get physical with the people around you. While the older Chinese people tended to be "rude" according to American conventions, the businessmen, the Americans and the younger Chinese Americans calmly waited in line, getting frustrated (but not really doing anything besides chastising) when someone else cut.

It was 11:30 and we were painfully close to the 8 visa application windows, where only 5 or 6 people were working at a time. I looked back, saw that the line was even longer than before, and wondered how many people knew that the entire place would shut down at exactly 12:00. No announcement was made to those standing outside about the lunchtime closure. The lines weren't clearly marked either causing some people who merely wanted to pick up their processed passports to wait in the 5-times-longer visa application line. We made it to a window at about 11:55, but had neglected to make copies of the travel invitation (we thought they only needed to see it to verify) and an envelope for home delivery. It didn't make much sense to have envelopes and copy machines at the information desk for convenience reasons, but it probably contributed to efficiency. Instead of holding up the line while copies were made, other people could be served. Most people were understanding and let us in front when we were done.

When the ordeal was finally over, we decided to get lunch in Chinatown. I looked for the woman handing out the fliers, but she wasn't there. We drove to Kearny Street, where we discovered that our favorite place to stay, the Holiday Inn right across from Chinatown, had been bought by Hilton. Which meant it would be too expensive. We parked under the plaza and walked up to see dozens of elders doing taichi, playing cards and mah jongg, and socializing. We walked a block to the R & G Lounge (631 Kearny), our favorite restaurant in Chinatown. After lunch, we walked around the little shops, buying some produce and other Chinese foods that are unavailable in Reno. The day wasn't over yet, as we made our ritual trip to the Ranch 99 Market in Berkeley. Once in a while my family will drive to Sacramento to buy groceries, and since we were in San Francisco anyway, it was the perfect time to stop and buy some fresh food. My only purchase was a water boiler (thanks Lea), which I'm hoping will beat trying to microwave water. With the groceries packed in a cooler in the trunk, a peanut milk tea in my hand and a coffee in my dad's we made the drive home. Home to the desert, the mountains, the dryness. All things I will miss when I leave for China in 3 days.