9th Week: 结局 (The End) + Shanghai Trip

It’s over :(. HBA officially ended one week ago, and now I am back in the US trying to get over my jetlag and getting ready to go back to Yale. As expected, my last week at HBA was very difficult, not only because of the academics, but also because it really marked the end. Here are the important parts of the end of my journey in China:

HSK Results:

Monday of the last week we all got back our HSK results. This was very surprising to me, since they basically graded these exams over the weekend, even though our tests had oral and essay portions. Anyway, as I expected, I didn’t get the 9级. However, I did much much better than I had expected. According to my score sheet, in three of the five sections of the test I had achieved a 10级 score! Among these three sections were my speaking and writing. This is proof that this summer at HBA really did boost my Chinese skills. The sections that prevented me from obtaining a 9级 were the listening and reading sections. I did very poorly on those two sections, so I have to start to train my listening and reading skills more.
In our fourth-year class, a total of 5 students obtained the 9级 diploma. This really broke a record, since it’s the first time at HBA that so many fourth-year students obtain the advanced diploma. Hardly anyone thought obtaining the diploma was possible, and yet five students got it!

The Last Day:

Final Exam-
The final exam was the worst way to end HBA, but fortunately it wasn’t the last activity we had that Friday. The exam was slightly longer than our usual tests, but the difficulty level highly surpassed the previous tests. There’s no doubt that the final exam was the toughest exam we had at HBA. The exams were graded on the same day, and the teachers explained that they knew about the difficulty level of the test and asked us not to worry. Although I knew the test was important, when I finished writing my last characters, a great sense of freedom fell upon me. I realized that was really the end.

Graduation “ceremony” and the end of … the language pledge-
After the final exam, we all went to our graduation ceremony. The ceremony isn’t formal at all, but it is one of the most important parts of the day. Every class year had a representative who gave a final speech in Chinese about the experiences at HBA. What I liked about the speeches is that they always incorporated the grammar and vocabulary from that class in a very comic way. Although our fourth-year speech was very good, I think everyone agrees that the second-year speech was the best.
After speeches and listening to Feng laoshi, the moment everyone had been waiting for finally arrived: the end of the language pledge. I have to say that although this was a very dramatic moment for me last year at HBA when I was a second-year student, this year Feng laoshi saying that the pledge was over didn’t really have any effect on me. From my experience last year, I knew that once the pledge was over it would still feel awkward speaking in English with other students when almost all communication with them during two months was in Chinese. Thus, I took the end of the language pledge more calmly this year. For me it basically meant that IF I wanted I could speak English, but I wasn’t obligated to do so. Therefore, for most of the first hours I still continued speaking in Chinese, and then slowly I started to include some broken English phrases into my speech. Even now, I feel that if I exclusively use English with my HBA classmates I feel too awkward, thus now I speak a sort of Chinglish with them.

Final Banquet and Reflections on HBA-
With the graduation ceremony over, we all went to the 会议中心 to have our last meal together. We all took pictures together and started to say our first goodbyes. Here are some pictures from the banquet:

(Me with Wang Laoshi, both my second-year and fourth-year HBA teacher)

(Fourth-year students and teachers)

In general, I feel that this year at HBA compared to last year was much better. I loved last year's experience, but I feel that this year I really bonded much more with my classmates and teachers. For example, having Wang Laoshi as a teacher again made me much closer to her and saying goodbye was very difficult. My feelings this year at the end of HBA are very different from the beginning of the program. When I first got here on June, I felt it was a bit difficult to get accustomed to Beijing again. The very tough workload was also very hard to deal with. For the first time in my life I even doubted why I would put myself in that type of situation in which all I did was study characters and write essays. As time went on, however, everything changed. I really grew close to everyone at HBA and grew even closer to China. Now that I'm back at the US, I'm experiencing a mild case of reverse culture shock. This is the first time I actually experience this, but since I've heard about it before (Light Fellowship meetings, for example) I'm not freaking out or anything. Basically, I feel I really miss being in China, and suddenly coming back to the US is a bit difficult. I have to change all of my routine, from the language I speak, to the food I eat, etc. I'm happy I'm back, but at the same time I do wish I was still in China. Now I do really understand the importance of actually staying longer in China, and hopefully I'll be able to go back and spend a much longer time in China.

Shanghai Trip:

Since this year's Chinese adventure has already come to an end, this is probably the last post I will write on this blog, unless I go back to China in the future. I'll end this year's blog entries talking a bit about my trip to Shanghai and leaving you with some of the pictures I took. So as I've said on previous posts, I think, originally I was not going to go anywhere after the program ended. However, when I bought my airplane ticket to Beijing, I was told that Air China was giving a free ticket to Shanghai, so I obviously accepted it. Thus, the Saturday after HBA ended I took a flight to Shanghai. Last year when my mother went to China, we also visited Shanghai, but I felt I didn't really use the time as best as I could to explore the city. Therefore, this year I used every second possible to see the city. My friend Lucky also went to Shanghai, so we traveled together. We went to the most famous parts of the city, such as the Bund, Shanghai Museum, Yu gardens in old town, etc. On my last day at Shanghai I also met with another HBA fourth-year student named Jinjin, and we went to the Shanghai art museum, Jade Buddha temple, and other places. Although I was only there for three days, I really did enjoy my time at Shanghai. It really is an amazing city, completely different from any other place I've been before. Well, here are the photographs. I really loved spending my time in China this summer, and I would definitely love to go back. I guess all I can say now is 再见 zài jiàn, at least for now.

(The bund)

(Shanghai Museum)


(Old Town & Yu garden)

(Jade Buddha Temple)

Seventh and Eighth Weeks: HSK, Beijing Night, Science and Technology Museum

Nothing really special occurred on my seventh week at HBA, so I decided to combine my experiences these two weeks into one entry. So these are the important parts:

大家都生病了(Everyone got sick):
So the beginning of the eighth week marked an epidemic of illnesses at HBA. Everyone got sick, including me. So basically the first few days of the eighth week, our main fourth-year teacher Wang Miao Miao fell ill and was not able to teach during the entire week. Other students had all sorts of problems such as stomach illness or a cold. As for myself, I caught a cold that still hasn't completely gone away. It was a bit strange how I got sick, since it all happened pretty fast. On Tuesday morning of the eighth week I felt I was completely fine. However, about two hours before lunch I got a very strong headache and my throat began to hurt a lot. Later that afternoon I got a fever so I couldn't study very well. That was the only really bad day. After that I've still been coughing a lot and my throat still hurts, but it's nothing to really worry about. Many other students are also sick, but since HBA is about to end we're all resisting.

HSK:
AHH! The Advanced HSK exam was held last Friday and it was REALLY difficult! Since the exam was on a Friday, that same morning we also had to take our weekly HBA exam, which meant that day we had a total of seven hours of exam time. The advanced HSK is pretty different from the Beginning-Intermediate that I took at the beginning of HBA. Perhaps the most difficult section was the reading section. In the first part of the reading section we are given four articles to read and then some questions to answer out by hand (not multiple choice). The problem is that you're only given 15 minutes! It's literally impossible to complete unless you've trained yourself beforehand. The other sections in the exam weren't that bad, though. For example, I felt that the essay and speaking sections were relatively easy and fun. I really doubt that I'll be able to get a good enough score to reach the 9级 level, but I'm still glad I had the opportunity to take this test, and for free! It's really a good experience, since your Chinese level is really challenged and you're forced to use all your knowledge of Chinese to pass the exam. Hopefully I'll be able to retake the exam sometime in the future after I've learned more Chinese.

北京之夜(Beijing Night)
This past Saturday night was HBA's annual Beijing Night, in which all of the HBA students participate in skits, songs, presentations, etc. This year the students' shows were all pretty interesting and entertaining. Fourth year students participated in two skits, one in which I was a co-narrator. Other students had different presentations, such as playing instruments, performing gongfu, singing etc. Here are some photographs of the most interesting ones:




Science and Technology Museum:
The day after Beijing Night I hadn't planned on going out anywhere else. However, my friend Lucky gave me a call and we went together to Beijing's Science and Technology Museum. This museum is specifically designed for children, so it was really interesting to see how Chinese children act in their natural environment. Although the museum was for children, I still found it pretty entertaining. We had planned to go to the China National Museum afterwards, but apparently it was temporarily closed do to some other activities. Therefore we only spent some time at this museum. Here are some pictures:







The clock is now ticking. HBA is almost over!!! I really do not know how to express how I feel about ending my experience at HBA. I'll leave that for next week's entry, which is probably the last entry I'll write about HBA! I'll give a preview, however! Next week after HBA ends I will be traveling to Shanghai for a few days, as I had written in my first entry before coming to Beijing. I've heard many HBA students are going to Shanghai too, so we might meet up. After Shanghai, then it's really over. On the 19th I take my plane back to NY :(. Well, there's still some time to enjoy Beijing. Until next week, then!

Sixth Week: New Semester, Social Study Report, Long Qing Xia

This week has been by far the most difficult week at HBA. Not only did we have to get back into the rhythm of memorizing characters, daily quizzes, daily essays, etc. We also had to write our social study reports, which for fourth year students had to be at least 2,000 Chinese characters (about 4 pages double-spaced). Well, these are the highlights of the week:

Second Semester changes:
This week marked the beginning of the second semester, the final stage of HBA. For some reason, HBA likes to start the new semester introducing some changes into the class structure which aren’t necessarily helpful. So for fourth year, our teachers introduced a new 对话课 (Dialogue class) in which two students debate certain topics with the aid of a teacher. In general I think introducing the class isn’t bad, but it doesn’t add anything new. In addition, the introduction of this new class messed up a bit our previous schedule, so for the first few days even our teachers were a bit confused. Everything is fine now, though.
The other major change that was introduced into the curriculum was a new oral test section. The oral test consists of a group of ten students holding a formal debate on a certain topic, and we’re graded on our performance. I’ll be honest and say that I’m not excited about this whole debate thing, but I see that it really has a big potential of helping us improve our formal spoken Chinese. Therefore, although it adds much more stress than I need, I support the teachers’ decision to introduce this type of oral test. This past Friday our debate was on euthanasia, which was pretty interesting topic. The only complaint I have about our first debate is that we didn’t have much time to speak. Our teachers are already thinking about how to solve the time issue for next week.

Quick HSK update:
As I’ve written in my previous posts, we will have the chance to take the HSK one more time before we leave in order to see how our Chinese level has improved. This week, our teachers informed us that fourth year students have the opportunity to take the more advanced HSK test. At the start of HBA we all took the Beginning-Intermediate test, which is slightly easier, but now we’ll take the most challenging one. I’m a bit afraid of the advanced level test, since I found the Beginning-Intermediate somewhat difficult, but it’s still a great opportunity that HBA is providing us with.

Social Study Report:
The Social Study Report is responsible for making this week the most miserable weeks of our lives. As I said in the beginning of this post, we had to write a 2,000 character paper on the research we did during our social study week. However, besides writing the report, we also had to do our daily assignments, which also included short essays. Therefore, for the first few days I hardly had time to breathe. On Wednesday night I finally finished the paper, and felt a great sense of relief and freedom.
My paper topic was 《蒙语在内蒙古的现在与未来》(“The present and future of the Mongolian Language in Inner Mongolia”). The paper is divided into three sections: the status of Mongolian as an official language, how Mongolian and Chinese co-exist in Inner Mongolia, and the influence of Mongolia (the country) on the language of Inner Mongolia. Using the information I gathered from the interviews I did during our trip, I described the current use of Mongolian in the region, how Chinese and “Outer” Mongolia has influenced their language, and that the future of Mongolian in Inner Mongolia seems promising. I think the topic is very interesting, but had I had more time to write the paper I would have tried to go much more in depth. But overall, I’m satisfied with the final version of the paper.

Trip to Long Qing Xia（龙庆峡）:
Well, the last highlight of this week is our trip to Long Qing Xia, a famous tourist spot in outer Beijing. My camera was running out of battery power, so I was only able to take a few pictures. Well, I leave you with the few pictures I took, and I’ll post again next week.

Fourth and Fifth weeks: End of first semester & Social Study Week

I would like to start by apologizing for taking so long to post, but this week has been pretty difficult (as I'll explain on my next post). Well, these were my fourth and fifth weeks (July 7 - July 20) :

End of the first Semester:
On Friday, July 12 we had our midterm exam, which marked the end of our first four weeks at HBA. In general, I feel very satisfied with the quality of the program. I remember that when I was in HBA last year, a lot of fourth year students would complain that the fourth year program was disorganized and that they were a bit frustrated. However, I feel that up to now, the fourth year curriculum is very good, and our teachers are very hard working. I have no major complaints about the way they teach or organize the course.
Although I think the program is very well organized, most of us students are already pretty tired of all the work we've had to do so far. All we want to do is rest and recover from these past four weeks. The fourth year workload is perhaps the most intense at HBA, at times more intense than fifth year. Everyday we have lots of assignments which take up all of our time. We hardly have time to rest, except on weekends when we go out to see other places. However, I'm still enjoying the experience and I'm glad I came back.

Social Study Week:

(McDonald's in Huhhot with Mongolian and Chinese Script)

As I wrote on my previous posts, my Social Study project was in Inner Mongolia. Inner Mongolia is really a fascinating place unlike anything I had seen in China before. The blend of Mongolian culture with Han Chinese culture was very interesting. I'll try to summarize my experiences in chronological order.

The Grasslands-

We spent the first few days travelling through the Mongolian grasslands. Life for us in the grasslands was a bit difficult, since we had nowhere to take a shower, and the bathrooms were not in very good condition. However, it was still a very fun experience. We slept in traditional Mongolian tents, like the one below:

In the grasslands we had a chance to interview some herdsmen of both Mongolian and Han Chinese origin. What I found interesting about conversing with them is that the preferred their lifestyle to moving to the big cities like Huhhot (the capital of Inner Mongolia). Although their life is pretty difficult (they have to wake up around 5 am to start working on the fields), their environment is much more relaxed without the pressures of city life.

(Us interviewing the herdsman)

In another part of the grasslands, we also had a chance to ride horses. This was the first real time that I rode a horse. It looks like riding horses is not that difficult, but after that day I think I won't ride a horse ever again. Riding a horse, especially when the horses like to run a lot like the ones we rode, makes you very tired. It's like a workout. When we got of the horses every part of our bodies were in pain. But it was still a very good experience.

Erdos (鄂尔多斯）:

After the grasslands, we went to a city called Erdos. Everyone was excited of finally getting to this city, since after three days in the grasslands we finally were able to take a shower! We had various different activities in this city. For example, we visited a cashmere factory in which they explained the whole process of making clothes and how their factory worked.

At the factory we were able to interview various workers and ask them about their daily lives in the city. With only a few exceptions, most of the workers seemed to be Han Chinese.

Also in Erdos we were able to see the Tomb of Genghis Khan. The tomb is really very beautiful, but they did not permit any photography inside the tomb, so I can only provide photos from the outside. The most interesting part of the Tomb of Genghis Khan is that his body is actually not there! Apparently no one knows where his body is. It might not even be in Inner Mongolia. However, there are still guards watching over the tomb, and it has become a very famous tourist spot.

Perhaps the best activity we had while our time at Erdos was going to the desert. The desert we went to is also a big tourist spot, called Xiangshawan Desert. There you can ride camels, to sand slide, parachute, etc. It was very fun, although it was really hot! Here are some pictures:

Huhhot （呼和浩特）-
I think Huhhot is probably my favorite part of the whole trip. Huhhot is really a beautiful city, especially at night. In Huhhot we were able to visit various places. We first went to a milk factory called Mengniu, where they showed us all of the facilities and how the produced their dairy products. A lot of our teachers said that the cows at Mengniu have a better life than us, since they're constantly being taken care of and have nothing to worry about, unlike us HBA students.

We also had a chance to visit a Tibetan style temple in the center of Huhhot. Although similar to other temples, I found this temple to be very beautiful. I don't really have a good knowledge of Buddhism, so visiting this temple was very interesting and rewarding.

Well, I leave you with more pictures of Huhhot, which was the last destination of our trip. I really enjoyed going to Inner Mongolia. It was something different than what I was accustomed to in Beijing, which made every part of the trip exciting. I really recommend anyone to go and visit!