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.
2 comments:
Are people still getting just 3 hours sleep, or is it getting easier?
man, that sounds so intense. At least you're learning LOTS. I'm brushing up my spoken chinese too since I realized I'm sounding kind of like a scratched record nowadays.
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