So, I guess I should start with how classes were going since I last stopped posting. There wasn't any real differences in classes, but as the days passed by, everyone seemed to get more and more tired. I found that I was not able to concentrate on class as well as a could when I first started, and as a result I found it hard to keep on learning Chinese. I wasn't the only one tired, though. I could tell the rest of my classmates, and even our teachers were very, very tired. Maybe due to this, there were more cases of language pledge problems. During the last few days, our teachers informed us that various students received warnings due to violations of the pledge. I could also hear a lot of English spoken in the halls among my classmates. This didn't discourage me, though. There were always a lot of people that were still willing to speak Chinese, and after all, there were only a few days left of HBA so I found no point in starting to break the pledge after keeping up with it for so long.
Well, as classes continued the second round of the most feared and most exhausting exam came one week before the end of HBA: 汉语水平考试, better known as HSK. The timing of the exam was the worst one possible. The HSK was on a Friday, and as everyone knows, on Fridays we also have our weekly exams. You can imagine how tired everyone was. There was only one week left of HBA, and here you have two long exams on the same day. Well, about the test: I found that many of the sections of the test were much easier. This was especially the case for the grammar section (my score went up 32 points on this section!) and the last section (22 points up!). The listening section and the reading were only very slightly easier in which I only went up 5 and 7 points respectively :( . So the final result of test is that I got a nice certificate saying I entered the elementary C level, which is really proof that all of the experience at HBA was really worth it.
After taking the HSK I had to rush back to my dorm and start practising: calligraphy. So, this is basically the story: The next day (Saturday) was the night in which HBA students would perform skits, sing, act etc. I was not planning on doing anything, but my teachers (less than 24 hours before the event) decided I should do some calligraphy with some other classmates, while another student was playing erhu. The idea was great, but I wished they had told me with more time. So I practiced all night, and my teachers even called the calligraphy teacher to help me practice. As much as this situation made me nervous and frustrated (I don't think my calligraphy is at all nice), this is more proof that our teachers are always taking care of us, which is great. So the big night came, and everything turned out alright. My classmates presentations, by the way, were really excellent, and I greatly enjoyed the night.
The following is a picture of what I wrote during the show:
The Sunday after that was a bit sad, since it marked the beginning of the end. That Sunday was the last time I met with my 中国朋友, the BLCU student assigned to me at the beginning of the program. As our last meeting, we decided to walk around Qinghua University. I hadn't realized that this famous university was so close, and yet I had not gone to visit. The campus was really very nice, and it's a pity I did not bring my camera. Well, we walked around for some time and then decided to go to a tea house in which we drank a lot of tea, all of different types. It really is amazing how you can get full by just drinking a lot of tea! I didn't even need to eat dinner after that. Finally, we got back to the campus, and said goodbye.
The last week then finally arrived. It was definitely one of the most stressful and intense weeks in my life. No one basically had energy for anything else. All the vocab and grammar got mixed in with so many other thoughts that I doubt I really learned a lot during that week. For the first time in the program, I was falling asleep during lecture class. This was REALLY weird, since I actually slept earlier than normal the day before. I just guess the pressure and the excitement of the end being so near affected all of us. The other big stressful thing was the final exam. I really don't know why I stressed so much about it, now that I think of it. But, anyway, at the time I felt for some reason that that test was going to be impossible. We were told that 90% of the test would be from the second semester material, and I felt that I was not comfortable with what we had studied as much as I should have. The test came on Friday (the last day of HBA) and it probably was the hardest of all the exams, but was really far from impossible. As I finished writing my last Chinese characters I really started to realize that everything was coming to an end.
After the final exams began the graduation ceremony. The graduation ceremony was really good, especially all of the speeches by the students. The speeches were really funny and interesting. To end the ceremony, Feng laoshi finally said what everyone was waiting to hear: the language pledge was over. I have no idea how to describe how I felt when he said that. I started to hear everyone speak English around me very freely, but I felt that not a single word could come out of my mouth. I wanted to speak English, but it didn't come out. It just didn't. I felt something was impeding me from speaking in English. It might sound that I'm exaggerating, but I swear that was the case. I guess the problem is that I had not spoken any English during the entire program, since I speak Spanish with my parents and had to speak Chinese with my classmates. It was a really weird experience, and only about an hour later (this is real!) was I able to start producing basic sentences in English. There's no doubt that the language pledge really has a great effect on a person.
To end HBA we had a final banquet at the 会议中心 restaurant. There, to my surprise, I finally met my Chinese mother again, after many weeks of not meeting with her. We spent lunch talking about a lot of things and our reflections about HBA. I also spent time talking with other classmates and teachers. After we finished, it was time to say goodbye to my teachers and classmates. Everyone got pretty emotional, and it was evident that the end had come. Everyone took the final pictures, and we had our last conversations. I really felt a bit sad that the whole experience ended so quickly. I hope I have the opportunity to go back to HBA next year and relive the experience all over again.
My Chinese mother, a Harvard student and I:
Second year students and teachers:
To end my last post, and to end my blog, I want to talk about my trip with my mom. Although that Friday was the end of HBA, I still had about ten days before I said goodbye to China. My mother arrived on Saturday. We spent a few days in Beijing in which we went to the most important parts in Beijing, such as the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. After that, we took a plane to Xi'an. I really liked Xi'an a lot. I loved seeing the great historical aspects but also the modern aspects of this small city. I also had the opportunity to see the famous Terracotta Warriors. To end the trip, we went to Shanghai. Shanghai was a different experience. At first, I'll be honest, I felt it really wasn't as great as Beijing and Xi'an. I felt it was just a copy of the West. However as time passed I actually grew to like Shanghai a lot. I discovered that Shanghai still had ancient Chinese aspects, and the modernization is not exactly the same as that of the west. While in Shanghai, we also had the opportunity to go to Suzhou and Zhouzhuang in Jiangsu province.
I end my blog with pictures from my trip (from Xi'an and Shanghai since I've posted many pictures from Beijing already). It was a pleasure writing what I experienced, although I failed to post as much as I would have hoped for. I really loved all the experience in China, and would really like to thank again the Light Fellowship for giving me this great opportunity, all of my teachers at HBA that made the program one of the best experiences I have ever had (while helping improve my Chinese!), and to my parents and friends who supported me throughout my stay in China. As we were told during the pre-departure meeting for the Light Fellowship, a summer is not enough to understand a country such as China, and I hope that in the future I'll be able to write another blog of my second time in that wonderful country!
Pictures from Xi'an:
Pictures from Shanghai:
