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!