2nd Week at HBA

This second week overall has been a very good experience, since classes have been better, and I got to travel more around Beijing.

Last Sunday I spent some time playing Badminton, a sport which the Chinese seem to love, with my host family and another Harvard student which was also assigned to the same family with me. My Chinese family consists of my mother, 江新 Jiang xin, who is a psychology professor at Beiyu, her husband, and their nine year old daughter (who loves to speak a lot at a pace which renders a lot of what she says incomprehensible to a second year Chinese student like me). I like my Chinese family a lot, because they are always welcoming, and unlike other students' host families, they don't constantly call to set up meetings. They completely understand our workload is huge, and the time I spend with them is very good.

Well, from the good experience with my host family I move to the bad experience with the 汉语水平考试 better known as the HSK. So our teachers told us that we should take the HSK, which is the equivalent of the TOEFL for Chinese, in order to see our level. I definitely saw what level I was at from the beginning of the test! I couldn't understand absolutely anything! It was all in a Chinese way beyond the second year level, and I doubt that when I take the test again in August will it be any better.
I stayed through the end of the test, however. I thought to myself that if I was going to take the test again in August, I should have an idea of how all the sections worked. At the same time, I was laughing at myself since I knew there was absolutely no way I could pass the test.

Regarding HBA classes, I think I am now used to the rhythm of class and studying. The teachers are still as supportive as last week, and overall I am enjoying the academic aspect of my stay in China. I also feel that everyday I am getting more and more used to speaking in Chinese, and I actually feel that what I know already I can use it very efficiently. Unfortunately, towards the end of this week something I didn't expect this early to happen occurred: people started to break the language pledge. I want to be specific that the people I heard breaking the pledge were Harvard students, not Yale students. Overall it seems that a lot of the Harvard students don't care much about the program (It should also be stated, though, that there are also some Harvard students that are very dedicated, and these are the Harvard students that actually like to interact with the Yale students.). The first time I heard these students speaking English was in the restaurant in our dorm, when no teachers were around. However, that same night I also heard the same people speaking English in the hall where all of the second-year students' rooms are. Breaking the pledge in the halls I really cannot tolerate.

Well, I'll end talking about much better experiences: travelling a bit around Beijing and watching Beijing Opera. Friday afternoon I went with some other Yale students to the Tian'anmen/Forbidden City area to travel. We wanted to go into the Forbidden City, but we arrived a bit late, so we decided to postpone the Forbidden city until next week. However, we got to walk around Tian'anmen square and bargain with the vendors. After that we decided to go to 景山公园 (Jingshan park) where we got to see a great view of the Forbidden City. There we found an older Chinese woman who gave us a (long!!!) tour of Jingshan and Beihai parks, although it was late, so a lot of things were closed. Below are some pictures:

All of us HBA students also went to see a Beijing Opera performance. I think the performance was great, but I would have wished it lasted a bit longer. Below are some pictures:

Well, that is all I can say about my second week. I'll post again next weekend and write about what happens during the week. 再见！