Final Week

The last week of HBA was just as hectic as usual. We managed to get through three lessons, and the last one was definitely the hardest of the program. We read another one of Lu Xun’s esoteric essay/story, which many of our teachers had a hard time interpreting on their own as well.

On Thursday, we had our final oral test, which consisted of reading one of 5 pre-selected textbook passages and then answering questions about the content and our own opinions. It sounds like more than it really was. Each student was allotted only 10 minutes and there were only 2 teachers in the room to make us nervous. Friday’s final exam was the same length as our usual weekly exams, and it was about the same difficulty as the midterm. Honestly, by that point I had lost most of my motivation, so it wasn’t hard for me to neglect studying for more than an hour. I did, however, go to office hours, where we were treated to arm wrestling between teachers and students. Even Feng Laoshi participated. It was a great time to just chat with teachers in a more relaxed atmosphere, joke with them, and reminisce about the past few weeks.

After everyone finished the final, we attended our “graduation” and final ceremonies. We heard from representatives from BLCU, HBA, and a student speaker from each grade. I enjoyed this more than the opening ceremonies because this time I could understand most of what they said. We all received diplomas, a group picture, and a contact book to keep in touch with classmates. Then we were treated to an elaborate banquet held at the elegant and high-class….BLCU conference center. I guess they wanted to save money? Or trouble. It was fine because they invited all of the host families so we got to see them one last time before we left. Feng Laoshi even let us order 2 bottles of beer per table, so needless to say some of the teachers became quite rowdy. The mood was very relaxed and jovial as HBA had finally come to an end.




All in all, I’d say that the experience was worth it. Of course I’ve already developed selective memory, which in my opinion anyone who has done something like this acquires (especially if tuition is involved) just to make the experience not seem like a waste of time. That’s probably too harsh. HBA really did have a remarkable effect on my Chinese skills, but there were times where I was sick of studying, sick of the pollution, sick of Beijing. 9 weeks was definitely long enough for me, and that was even with the 5th week of social study. I have nearly no complaints about the teachers, except that the majority of them were so good that when I had one that wasn’t as good, it made the drill or tutorial excruciatingly painful. They are all professional and well-prepared, but they also have great senses of humor (at least in the Chinese sense of the word).

Would I do the program knowing what I know now? That would actually be a hard decision for me to make. This was my first academic summer, my previous ones being spent at music camp. I know what it’s like to work hard during the summer through practicing music, but to me playing the violin is something fun. Studying grammar, characters, and sentence structures was more a chore. The students there are a lot of fun, and I should have utilized my free time more efficiently by going out an exploring Beijing instead of sleeping the afternoon away. I always felt tired and out of time, when in reality afternoons were a great time to go see something new and innovative (which in Beijing is kind of difficult…Shanghai is better). I will always remember HBA as a program that had more good attributes than bad ones.