Back to China! Going to Taiwan!

解釋 / 解释 Explanation

2009-03-31T22:23:00.012+02:00

Almost one year has passed since I have actually written in this blog. As you can imagine from the title, if I am writing in this blog again it's because I'm going back to China!!!! I cannot describe the excitement I feel knowing that I will be able to go back to Beijing. However, unlike my previous two summers, things are WAY more complex this time around. I will start first by summarizing what has been happening to me during the last few months.

Saturday, January 17th, 2009:
I go to JFK airport to take my plane to PARIS, FRANCE!!!

Sunday, January 18th, 2009:
I arrive at Paris and am really excited of being in France for a semester in a study abroad program.

Monday, January 19th through Sunday, February 8th:
Orientation period at my study abroad program (CUPA). I get to meet lots of new people from different universities/countries. My first trip outside of Paris to Strasbourg:

Week of February 9th:
Classes start, or were supposed to start, but then we all soon realize that professors are all on STRIKE!!!!

Week of February 23th:
Winter break, even though classes have been chaos due to the continuing strikes in the Parisian university system. HOWEVER, I make my first trip outside of France to Barcelona, Spain to visit the city and some family members:

Week of March 16th:
Classes continue to be chaos because of the strikes (only half of my classes are functioning normally). Our program strives to look for different solutions for which I am extremely grateful. I make my second trip out of France to Amsterdam, the Netherlands:

March 31st (Present):
The strikes seem to intensify, but on the other hand the professors are starting to worry about the situation. After nearly a year of ignoring this blog, I decide to return to it to explain my next adventure in China.

So from the above, excluding the drama with the strikes, you'll realize that this year will be one of the most exciting I will ever have in my entire life. This is all part of a master plan that I designed for myself some time ago for the year 2009 and the first half of 2010. Due in large part to my previous two summers in China (only possible with the extreme generosity of the Light Foundation) I realized that I wanted to have a much longer international experience. Being immersed in different cultures, although difficult at times, is a wonderful learning experience. After only two summers in China, I felt that I did change as a person. I was more perceptive to different ways of viewing our world, which really fascinated me. So in order to have this other long international experience of mine, I first decided to apply to study in Paris for the spring semester of this my Junior year. As you can see, I did get accepted. I will be in Paris until the end of May.

After applying to study in Paris, I applied for my THIRD Light Fellowship. I was a bit worried that I might not get it, since I had previously already won two Light Fellowships for my two summers with HBA(See previous posts). However, this time the plan I presented to the Light Foundation was REALLY different. First of all, no more HBA (I would have broken a record had I gone a third time to the same program, and probably would have been labeled as an HBA freak). This time, I will be going to Beijing for the summer to IUP (a Chinese language program at Tsinghua University). However, the real difference comes after. Not only will I spend a summer in Beijing, but also AN ENTIRE ACADEMIC YEAR IN TAIWAN!!!!!

There are various reasons I chose to go to Taiwan for such a long period. Besides improving my Chinese (the most important one), I wanted to understand Taiwan strait relations better by seeing the Taiwanese point of view of things. I also prefer the Traditional characters used in Taiwan (as you can see in an article I wrote for the YDN during my sophomore year http://yaledailynews.com/articles/view/22700). I am extremely excited for what Taiwan has to offer, and I am sure that I will have a great time there.

In order to make all of this come true, I had to make a pretty important decision: I will be taking a year of from my studies at Yale to go to Taiwan during the 2009-2010 year. This was one of the difficulties I had when thinking about going to China/Taiwan. I was used to the idea of being in the class of 2010 and graduating with my class. Well, this will no longer be as I am now officially part of the class of 2011. Today I saw that the change has already been made officially. Now I appear as Angel Ayala MC '11. It really is such a strange feeling seeing my name written with the '11 instead of the '10. At first I thought, "It's only a year difference", but today after seeing it actually written that way I literally got goosebumps. IT IS AN ENTIRE YEAR DIFFERENCE. That one digit difference is HUGE.

It will definitely be difficult being away for so long from my parents, friends, Yale, etc. I know, though, that it will be a great experience and that I have made a great decision. I decided to write this entry to express all of the excitement inside of me at the present moment and to provide an update into the near future in my life. So in summary, this is the very general plan for the next year and a half:

January 18th - May 31st:
Semester Abroad in Paris

May 31st - June 12th:
Literally only 12 days in the US to visit my family, get visas, see friends, get my life together ...

June 13th - August 14th:
IUP program in Beijing

August 15th - September 15th:
SURPRISE!!!! I have a special plan for this month which (hopefully) I'll be able to do. Watch out for a future post!!!

Mid-September 2009 to June 2010:
ICLP program in Taiwan!!!

Well, that's all the news I have for now (it's a lot if you ask me). This is mainly a blog about China, so I won't be writing a lot about my experience in France. However, there are two major trips coming up soon for which I'll definitely post. First, for my spring break (in two weeks) my mom will come to Paris and we'll also travel to London and Rome, and in May I will be going to Lisbon, Portugal. Watch out for posts with photos of those trips. Then, as the time approaches for me to go to China, I will post with more specific details (including the mystery month between Beijing and Taiwan). Until then!

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

2008-08-22T14:31:00.014+02:00

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

2008-08-14T10:15:00.008+02:00

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

2008-07-27T08:55:00.004+02:00

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

2008-07-26T17:17:00.021+02:00

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!

Third Week (Ming Tombs, Hot Peppers, and Bird's Nest)

2008-07-08T14:46:00.007+02:00

This week not many new things happened, but I got to travel more around Beijing and took lots of pictures! So these are the interesting things that occurred:

Language Tutor Session:
Last Friday I met again with the Chinese tutor HBA provided me. I would say it was a very interesting experience, since what happened was something completely unexpected. (始料未及）So I met my Chinese tutor at the library around 3:00 p.m., and I tried to start a conversation with her. Since one of our assignments for the weekend was to conduct interviews regarding marriage in China, I asked her about her opinion on marriage. She didn't really have much of an opinion, but she did describe Chinese marriage in detail. A few minutes after we finished talking about this topic, a young Chinese man approached us. My tutor then explained: this young man was a friend of hers. He was a High School student, and my tutor had told him I was from Yale, so she asked me if I could talk to him for a while since he liked speaking with foreigners. I said 'of course' and started to have a conversation with the student. About fifteen minutes later I realized my tutor was asleep! And she kept sleeping through the entire two hours she was supposed to tutor me, occasionally waking up and saying 不好意思 (~sorry).
Well, although my tutor was sleeping, I had a great time speaking to this High School student. Since I needed to conduct interviews on Chinese marriage, I started our conversation with that topic. He explained that he was a bit upset that marriage in China is now more westernized. However, he said, it's neither completely traditional nor completely western. Well, after the marriage question we just started to converse about more general topics. He told me that he was from Anhui province, but that his parents worked in Beijing. Since I'm interested in Chinese dialects I asked him about his own native dialect and its relationship with Mandarin. He also explained that he was very interested in economy, and that that's what he wants to study in college. What surprised me most about this High School student was his opinion on the Chinese government. While speaking about various political topics (Tibet, Taiwan, human rights ...) he told me very clearly that in many aspects the Chinese government is extremely bad, and that the Chinese have no way to express their complaints or to make the government listen. This was coming from a High School student, so it really surprised me. I asked him if he usually spoke about these topics in this manner, and he replied that he regularly speaks about these things with his classmates. In general, I found conversing with him very interesting, since he had very mature ideas and helped me understand Chinese people his age.

Spicy food and Karaoke:
After my meeting with the Chinese High School student and my sleepy Chinese tutor, I went with my classmates and teachers to a Sichuan style restaurant. Sichuan food is really spicy, and almost every platter was red (hot peppers). The teachers ordered a great variety of food, some as exotic as spicy frog (!!!). Although I didn't find the food overly spicy, others were not as fortunate. Wang laoshi, for example, apparently felt uncomfortable after eating such spicy food and had to take a short walk to feel better. Another student ate a hot pepper and started to cry, while others were complaining and asking the waiters for water. It was a very fun experience.
After the spicy dinner, we all went together to sing karaoke. I think this time was more fun, since more teachers came along. Some of our teachers get really excited with some songs, so it was fun listening to them sing.

Ming Tombs:
Well, on Saturday HBA took us to the Ming tombs. I had already gone last year (though I failed to take photographs, this year I'm redeeming myself), I decided to go again just in case I don't return to Beijing. In general I found the tombs somewhat interesting, so it was still worth going again. Here are some of the pictures I took:

Chinese Family/Friend:
Finally, on Sunday morning my Chinese friend took me to see his university and the "bird's nest". Apparently the bird's nest will not be open to the public until the Olympics are over, so unless I have tickets for the Olympic activities (which I don't), I'll only be able to see the stadium from outside. Here are some pictures:

(Statue of Mao Zedong in my Chinese friend's university)

(One of the many Olympic stadiums, located in Chinese friend's university)

(Bird's nest)

Next Week:
As I stated in my last post, I am going to Inner Mongolia to do my Social Study project. I will take the train to Inner Mongolia on Friday, and will be back in Beijing a week after. I might not be able to post while I'm away from Beijing. Therefore, I'll probably make two posts (Weeks 4 and 5) when I return. In the meantime, I have to return to memorizing characters and preparing for the exciting experiences I'll have in Inner Mongolia!

Second Week (Social Study, HSK results, Beijing Opera)

2008-06-29T05:33:00.006+02:00

This second week, like the first, has still been a week of transition into the program. Now that I'm about to enter the third week (wow, time does go by fast) I think I'm better prepared and used to the routine. Besides the regular classes and memorizing characters, there were some highlights this week worth writing about:

Social Study Week:

On the fifth week, HBA students have to do a Social Study Project, which means that we get to go to another part of China, or stay in Beijing, and conduct some type of research on a specific subject of Chinese society. This week we signed up for the group we wanted to go to. There were various options. In Beijing there were groups researching about the Olympics, Economy, Art & Arquitecture, education, and the countryside. Then there were the groups for outside of Beijing: Shaolin Temple, Shanxi Province, Shanghai, and Inner Mongolia. Every year, without exception, lots of people want to go to Inner Mongolia, but there are only 20 spots. So, on Monday they told us they would put up a sign up sheet for all the projects Tuesday morning, and that the first to sign up were the ones to go on the groups. Therefore, a lot of my classmates and I got up pretty early on Tuesday to sign up. I think I got to our classroom around 6:45 when classes start at 8:00. Well, we got there and the building was closed, then we had to wait for the teachers to come with the sign up sheet, etc. At the end I got to sign up for : Inner Mongolia! Getting there early was definitely an advantage. At first I wasn't really sure for what group to sign up. I didn't want to stay in Beijing, and last year I went to Shanxi so I wasn't going to go there again(although I really loved Shanxi). I'm already going to Shanghai after the program, and Shaolin Temple involves waking up at 4:00 in the morning every day to start running and practice Gongfu. So by process of elimination, and by getting up early to sign up, I get to go to Inner Mongolia! I'm very excited for the fifth week!

HSK results:

After the process of signing up for the Social Study groups, our teachers gave us our results of the HSK. The HSK we took was the Beginner/Intermediate exam which can place you into 6 levels which start from 3级 (lowest) up to 8级 (highest). I was placed into 6级 which is the lower intermediate level. I think I'm pretty satisfied, since the last time I took the HSK (at the end of HBA last year) I was placed into 3级, the lower-beginner level. Therefore my Chinese has improved a lot over the last year. I did best on the reading comprehension and grammar sections, while my listening and cloze-passage sections need a little more work. I'm always talking Chinese and watching Chinese television, so the next time I take the HSK I should have improved. According to our teachers, by the time we finish HBA we should be able to place into 8级, the higher-intermediate level.

Chinese tutor/friend:

Yesterday (Saturday) I met with my Chinese tutor for our first session. Oficially every student has a 辅导老师 (Chinese tutor), but their function is really more that of a Chinese friend, since they never actually study with us unless we explicitly ask them to. So yesterday I just basically had a two-hour long conversation with my Chinese friend. At first we mostly talked about our interests. I talked about my interests in languages and Chinese dialects, and then she talked about how she is studying Japanese and the similarities/differences between Japanese and Chinese. Then I started to ask about some of the controversial questions (Tibet & Taiwan). I of course asked the questions in a delicate manner, and I was genuinely interested understanding the Chinese point of view on these topics, not arguing from a western point of view. The conversation was pretty rewarding, and I could tell that she was really open to talking about these things. Some people who have never been to China might think that the Chinese are not comfortable talking about these topics, but in reality it's something really common to talk about. We ended our session with a debate on perhaps my favorite topic: Simplified vs. Traditional Characters. I defending Traditional and she obviously defending Simplified. Like the Tibet and Taiwan questions, it was not an argument but rather a discussion, and both of us were really interested in understanding each other's point of view.

Beijing opera:

Finally, last night HBA took us to see Beijing Opera. I think Beijing Opera is one of the most interesting parts of Chinese culture, so I was really excited to see it again. If you've never seen Beijing Opera, here's a short video of one of the best parts:

These are basically the most exciting parts of my second week at HBA. I leave you with more photos from last night's Beijing Opera performance. Until next week, then!

First Week (From Classes to Karaoke)

2008-06-23T10:03:00.012+02:00

My first week at HBA is now over, :(. So the following are the highlights of my first week:

First day of classes:
Fourth year at HBA is pretty difficult, and classes work a bit differently from second year. Basically, fourth year is supposed to teach us how to use very formal language, the type of language you see in newspapers or hear in the news. As Wang laoshi put it, with our third year Chinese we can survive pretty well in China, so the goal of fourth year is to make us use Chinese in a way that makes us sound more educated. To achieve this goal, the teachers have given us a pretty heavy workload. Like last year, we have to read the lessons, study characters, etc. However, as a fourth year student we have many more assignments, such as: DAILY essays, preparing discussions, interviewing people in the city, etc. I'll be honest and say that the first few days I was doubting if I could take it. I felt that the workload would be pretty tough. But as the first few days went by, and with the help of teachers and classmates, I got into the rhythm again. Now I feel very comfortable, even if the workload is still pretty tough.

HSK (yes, it's back):
If you read my blog entries from last year, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't know, HSK stands for Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (汉语水平考试). Its basically the equivalent of TOEFL but for Chinese. It's an SAT-like standarized test that determines your level of Chinese. This time, like last year, HBA students got the opportunity to take the HSK at the beginning of the program. We had the three-hour test on Friday, the same day we had the weekly test for our regular classes, which equals a total of 5 hours of tests on one day. I found the HSK pretty difficult, though not as difficult as last year, which is a good sign. I found that most of the time I understood what was going on, but when it came to answering the questions I wasn't very good at picking the best possible answer. Anyway, I think I definitely did OK on the test, and the results should probably come in a week or two. All HBA students will also have the opportunity to take the test one more time towards the end of the program.

Chinese "family":
Until now I'm not sure exactly what happened the night we were supposed to meet our Chinese family. On Friday night, after HSK, we all met in the auditorium where we held the first orientation activities. Basically there's supposed to be one family for every two/three students. Therefore, they started to call out the name of one family and of two/three students. When they called my name, they also called the name of a woman (which I assumed would be my Chinese mother) and another student. So I greet the woman and she greets me back as we well. However, as we were walking the woman told me to sit down with a Chinese university student and basically left me there, without ever coming back. Then this university student started to talk to me and we exchanged phone numbers, etc. So apparently, instead of having a Chinese family, I got a Chinese friend. I'm totally fine with it, it's just that I was prepared to meet a family, and not a university student. HBA also gave each of us another Chinese friend which is supposed to tutor us every week for two hours, thus now I have two Chinese friends.
Does this mean I'll have no Chinese family? Not to worry! That same night, my Chinese mother from last year (see last year's posts) saw I had returned and greeted me. She said she was very happy to see that I had returned and said we would remain in contact!

Great Wall and Karaoke:
On Saturday, like last year, we went to the Simatai section of the Great Wall. I honestly didn't want to go, since from last year's experience I knew I would be very tired. However, I forced myself to go. I realized that it would be a shame that being in China I would not go to the Great Wall. After all, I don't know if in the future I'll get to go back to the Great Wall, so I might as well take the opportunity. As expected, I was really tired after going up the wall. At first I really thought I would quit, but with the moral support of two teachers I went all the way up. Here are some pictures:

I thought I would just go to sleep after coming back from the Great Wall. However, Wang laoshi invited some fourth year students to Karaoke. We left around 9:00 p.m. and met up with some fifth-year students and teachers at the Karaoke place. We really had a good time singing Chinese songs and listening to classmates and teachers sing. Around midnight we then took a taxi back to our dorms, although some people stayed back and went to go dancing.

Well, this was the first week for me. At first it was a bit difficult, but now I'm very excited to see what happens in the upcoming weeks!

The arrival

2008-06-14T10:29:00.010+02:00

So many things have happened in the past few hours that I don't know where to start from. My flight in general was pretty good, although the plane left JFK about an hour late. Therefore, I got to Beijing around 7:00. The new Beijing airport terminal is really amazing. At first I got a bit lost, since I had to walk a lot more than last year. Then I realized now there's a small train you have to take to get your baggage and get through customs (customs, by the way, is much simpler now, since there are no forms to fill out and nothing else to do if you have nothing to declare). But anyway, I liked the airport, and it really is proof of how Beijing is changing so rapidly.

After getting my stuff, I went through the exit where there already was a group of HBA students and teachers. We waited at the airport for about an hour or two and then together took a bus to our dorms at Beijing Language and Culture University（北京语言大学）. This year, housing apparently has been sort of an issue for HBA. All fourth year students (me included) were put in a separate building from the rest of the HBA students, due to lack of rooms at the Conference Center （会议中心）. I don't know yet how I feel about that. There are a few advantages of living in this new building. Our rooms are much bigger than those at the conference center, and we're closer to the subway. Here are some pictures of my room:

On the other hand, there are a handful of disadvantages, the most important one being that we're isolated from the rest of the HBA students and that we have to take a long walk to get to our classrooms. We're not the only ones having problems, though. Apparently there are some students at the Conference Center who have to share a room with another student for the first few days.

Well, all of that happened last night. Today has been a productive day so far. I met with a two classmates to eat breakfast and go shopping. Among the things I bought was a Chinese cell phone! Buying a cell phone in China was a bit complicated, not only because of language difficulties but also the way phones work in China. For the first hour I bought my phone, it didn't work, so I had to go back to the place I bought it and somehow it got fixed. I was able to get the phone for 400 RMB, which is cheaper than I expected. (And my phone number doesn't have any unlucky 4's!!!)

That's how everything stands so far. I'm really excited to be back in Beijing, and I'll post again when anything new comes up.

Only a few more hours . . .

2008-06-12T00:26:00.004+02:00

Today I had a very good time. I met with my friend Lucky (who's going to PIB this summer) to do our last minute studying for Chinese. We met around 11:00, reviewed for about an hour, and then went to her old High School to have lunch with two teachers. The teachers taught Mandarin, so we were able to converse quite a bit in Chinese with them, too. They are very interesting people, so it was a very fun experience having lunch with them. Well, after lunch Lucky and I went to the Manhattan Chinatown so I could buy a few gifts for people when I get to China. After about an hour or two, we had our last Chinese review session and said goodbye:(, until we meet again in Beijing of course:)!

So, my flight is tomorrow at 4:30 p.m., which is less than 24 hours away!!! I'll take a direct flight from JFK and get to Beijing around 6:00 p.m., which means I'll be stuck in an airplane for 13.5 hours. That's the only part I really don't like about my trip. I know they'll try to entertain us in the plane by feeding us and showing tons of movies, but I'll still end up very bored. Anyway, I just picked a few books to read during the flight, and I'll probably do some last minute reviewing on board.

As usual, every time there are only a few hours before a trip, I get really nervous. It's not that I'm scared of flights or anything, it's just that all of the waiting and anticipation is finally coming to its end and somehow my mind is still in disbelief. For this trip, though, I'm not only talking about this month I've been home since I came back from Yale. I'm taking about months of anticipation, from the first Light Fellowship meetings and the times I worked on applications all the way up to today. The time has finally come!

Although I've been to Beijing, my mind is still wondering how I'm going to adapt again to the Beijing environment, speaking only in Chinese, having tough classes, etc. I know it will all come back to me pretty well, though. I'm really excited to go back, and see how Beijing has changed since I last was there. Beijing is only a few more hours away!!! Next time I post, I will already be at the other side of the world.

Preparing for the Return

2008-06-03T16:52:00.001+02:00

Wow! This is the first blog entry I write in almost a year! The last one being at HBA. So basically, I'm going back this summer to HBA, and I can't describe how excited/nervous/impatient I am about going again to China. I just finished re-reading all of the entries I wrote last year and it was really wonderful reliving all of those past experiences. Kelly is right, blog entries do capture the raw moments, and it was great how those entries transported me back to last summer to all of those days of language pledge, lack of sleep, 空气污染，and wonderful 老师们!

So why am I going back? Basically, I decided that I wanted to return to HBA on the last day banquet we had in Beijing (see previous post). I remember very clearly telling Wang laoshi (王苗苗) that day that I was going to do all I could to go back, and that I would see her again this summer. Thanks to the Light Fellowship, so far it seems that I will be able to keep my promise. I felt, and still do, that there were many things that I could have done differently, and many things that were still left for me to explore. So now I have a second chance to boost my Chinese and learn more about China.

In preparation for my return to HBA, I have been reviewing the lessons from HBA and my third year course at Yale. I'd say that I'm reviewing pretty intensively, but not killing myself either. I spend about 5-6 hours daily reviewing, but I try to review in a relaxed environment and at a slow pace. The worst thing I could do is tire myself out right before HBA, since as you can tell from my previous posts, HBA will definitely tire me out. However, I want to go into HBA with a solid mastery of what I've studied so far, so I can concentrate on new material and not have to do remedial work while I'm there.

I've also been practicing spoken Chinese with my friend Lucky here in New York (see her blog for more details on our adventures). We've met a few times and imposed our own Language pledge, just to feel the experience of speaking only in Chinese. Since we're in NY, we obviously couldn't respect the pledge 100% of the time, but in general, we've had very good practice for what's to come.

Well, I'll end my first post with my schedule for the summer:

June 12
Take plane from JFK to Beijing

June 13
Arrive at Beijing

June 15 - August 15
HBA!!!!

August 16 - August 18
Trip to Shanghai

August 19
Return to NY

As you can see, there are only 9 days left for my trip! I'm so excited!!!!! I'll post one more time before I leave. Until then, I'll just return to my daily reviewing and watch more TV.

Last days at HBA, and beyond

2007-08-31T16:54:00.002+02:00

Ok, so I would like to start with an apology for not posting for these last few weeks. Not many new things occurred during these weeks, with the exception of the last week. As my last post, I will try to summarize my experiences during the last weeks at HBA, which were much more intense at the end of the program, and also the trip I took with my mother around China after the end of HBA.

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:

6th Week at HBA

2007-07-29T07:37:00.000+02:00

The 6th Week! I really cannot believe that time is going so fast, I feel as if I just got here, and now there are only a few weeks left. Anyway, this week is not as interesting as the other weeks, and is mostly full of stress and lack of sleep.

So Monday marked the start of the second semester, and with it came the creation of a new class: 对话课. This new class replaced the second 小班课 we usually had last semester. I will be very honest and say it: I DO NOT LIKE IT. This new class is very fun, really enjoyable. However, by taking away one of our 小班课 we are not getting enough practice with all of the new vocabulary and grammar. Now we only have lecture class and one 小班课 to practice, which amounts to about 2 hours to practice the vocabulary and grammar we would usually learn in a week! In this new class, we basically speak with another student while a teacher listens to us to correct us. This new class is supposed to help us use language in a more realistic manner, which is good, but the practice with the new material is very minimal. We mostly use structures and vocabulary we had previously learned.

Well, besides this new class, the other thing that made this week the hardest so far, according to most of us, was the writing of our Social Study Reports. During Social Study week everything was much more relaxing since we were able to travel and speak with Chinese people. This week the fun ended when we had to sit down and write it all on paper. I actually think that writing the paper was not that bad. The only thing is that it took a really long time to write, taking away any free time we had during the week.

I still managed to go to the Yale Dinner on Wednesday, though, which was a very interesting experience. According to what other Yale classmates told me, our teachers spent around 7000 元 for this restaurant! It was ridiculous expensive by both Chinese and American standards. Thank you! Well, that was not the interesting part. What was interesting is watching how this expensive restaurant's waitresses were always chatting instead of serving us food or drinks, and how they took an eternity to bring the food. Oh, there was also the interesting moment when they brought live lobsters and set them walking around on the floor before they died. Really awkward but fun experience. The food really was only slightly better than the average Chinese restaurant, but it would be great to go back to this one only to live these weird moments again. The gardens in the restaurant, by the way, were spectacularly beautiful.

Finally, I'll end talking about this weekend's HBA trip to Marco Polo Bridge. I found the bridge only a bit interesting, but the museum we went to afterward was very interesting. The Museum was basically all about the war with Japan during WWII, and although I'm not into history, I found it very interesting.

This week I sadly do not have any pictures to post, but I promise I'll take pictures during next week. 再见！

4th and 5th Weeks at HBA

2007-07-29T04:53:00.000+02:00

I want to start by apologizing for not being able to post for the 4th and 5th weeks until today. Below is what I had written for those weeks. I hope you find it interesting.

4th Week at HBA:

This week has been the most difficult week for me so far, but these last two days have also been very enjoyable. On Monday I caught a cold, so all of this week I felt very bad. I couldn't concentrate very much during class, so I feel that this week I really have not learned as much as I could have were I not sick. This makes me upset, since this week was a very important week: on Friday we had our Midterm. I found the Midterm pretty difficult, mainly because most of the material (80%) came from the four lessons we studied this week. I think I will get a good grade on the test, but maybe not as good as the other exams I have had.

This Friday we set off for Shanxi, and thankfully by Friday I didn't have a cold anymore. This by the way is really a miracle, since when I get a cold I usually get it for a week or more. This time only for four days. Anyway, Friday was the first time I actually went on a Chinese train, and it was really an experience. On the train I was able to talk with other Chinese people, who found it very interesting that we were all speaking Chinese. The train was actually very safe, and nothing that I know of was stolen.

Yesterday we arrived at Taiyuan. The most important part of the day was visiting an experimental High School at Taiyuan. When we first got here, all of the High School students were very excited to see us. They gave us a tour of their school and gave us a show in which they danced and sung songs. After that, every HBA student was paired up with a few students from the High School and spent the rest of the day with them.

I spent the day with a 15 year old girl named 孙艺玮 (Sun Yiwei) and two of her friends. Sun Yiwei took me to her house where I met her parents and ate lunch. They were really nice people, and were very interested in knowing about my life, my studies and the West in general. Then they took me to travel around Shanxi to very interesting places. I also ate dinner with them, which is when I was most able to talk with them about China, Shanxi and other interesting aspects. It was really a fun experience. Below are some photos. Today we will be visiting a coal mine, and finally going to 平遥古城 (The old city of Pingyao) where I will be doing my Social Study Project. Until next week, 再见！

5th Week at HBA:

This has really been the best week so far at HBA, but also one of the most difficult. I'm already back at Beijing, but these past few days I had a wonderful experience at Shanxi. The beginning of the week was spent at Pingyao, were I decided to do my Social Study project.

Pingyao is really a beautiful city. It is surrounded by a massive city wall, and all of the construction is in the ancient style. Therefore, when you enter it feels like if you were travelling back in time, until you start to see people with cellphones and computers, of course. My social study topic was “平遥人眼中的家乡”which basically means I interviewed the people at Pingyao to understand their everyday lives, their opinion about Pingyao, and other aspects of their culture. I interviewed several people and the responses I obtained were very interesting. The responses varied a lot with the age of the person（s) I interviewed. I think I should be able to write a very good report.

After Pingyao we headed to 五台山 (Wutai shan), where we were able to explore many temples and interview Buddhist monks. Although my topic had no relation to Buddhism, I still found the experience very rewarding. Also, one night at Wutaishan all of us, students and teachers, had a private party at a hotel where we sang karaoke and danced. I discovered different aspects from my teachers I didn't know about. They all sang very well, and watching Feng laoshi (second year teacher) dance is an interesting experience. This was all a good bonding experience.

We finally returned to Taiyuan, where all of us had the most nervous experience: we were filmed for a TV program that will be aired on Chinese television! The TV program was about Shanxi culture, so they interviewed all of us students asking our impressions about Shanxi and our respective Social Study projects. It was a very intense experience, although it was not live television, so thankfully they can edit all our errors before airing the program. After they edit the program, all of us will receive a copy on a CD so we can watch ourselves!

Going to Shanxi was an excellent decision, since I was able to understand parts of Chinese culture not easy to grasp while in Beijing. I will have to say though, that when it comes to language, I had a frustrating time. I was the only 2nd year student in the group, so I felt that my Chinese was really bad. The phrase most commonly came out of my mouth when speaking with other people was “我听不懂” (I don't understand). At the time I actually felt my Chinese level was declining. Now that I'm back at Beijing, though, I realize I was totally wrong. When I started to speak again to my 2nd year classmates I realized that I had become accustomed to listening to much more complex sentences beyond 2nd year, and that is when I realized my level did improve. At the time, I was not able to realize that was the case.

Well, that was my week. Yesterday we went to see Chinese acrobatics, which was a really great show（Below are some pictures). Until next week.

3rd Week at HBA

2007-07-08T06:43:00.000+02:00

The third week in general has been a very good week. As usual, during the week we had intense language learning, with travel left for the weekend. So here is a summary of the most important aspects of this week:

Last Sunday I went to my Chinese family's home to eat dinner. My Chinese mom cooked a lot of very good dishes amongst which were dumplings, various vegetables, and meats. I spent a very good time with them, since we were able to converse about a lot of topics, such as life at Yale/Harvard, how we're adjusting to China, and even the simplified/traditional Chinese characters topic. My Chinese mother told us that she would be going to Inner Mongolia, so I probably won't meet with my family for two weeks (since next week I'll be going to Shanxi).

Classes are the same: intense, difficult, but extremely helpful. This week, for some reason, I really felt my Chinese level is improving rapidly. I felt that at times I could speak at a pretty fast pace without having to think exactly how to say something in Chinese. Of course, my Chinese is far from perfect, but it is hard to believe how far I have gone in only three weeks. This makes me very excited, and I can't wait to see my Chinese level at the end of the 9 weeks.

On Friday I went with two other HBA students to the Forbidden City, and this time we actually had time to enter and see everything. I really liked the Forbidden City, but as other people have noted, all of the construction makes the experience a little less enjoyable. A lot of the things that seemed interesting were not open to public, and the scenery was not as beautiful with so much construction. None the less, I still enjoyed the Forbidden City a lot and hope to go back to see all of the parts I could not see due to time constraints.

After going to the Forbidden City, we decided to go to Houhai. There, after bargaining for about an hour, we were able to ride two 三轮车 for￥120. We were able to see the 胡同 and buy things on the street. Overall it we had a very good time.

Saturday, we went with our teachers to the Ming Tombs. Overall, I think the tombs were slightly disappointing. There wasn't that many things to see, all of the tombs were very similar, and the structures greatly resembled the Forbidden City. I think the history behind the tombs is very interesting, but visiting the tombs is a bit 马马虎虎. There were many people that liked the tombs, though. This is only my opinion.

Finally, it is worth writing a bit about what is to come next week. So, for my social study week I decided to go to 山西 Shanxi. I chose Shanxi because we will be visiting many interesting sites, such as the old city of Pingyao and Buddhist sites. Very interesting. We will be leaving this Friday on train and arriving Saturday morning. There is a possibility that I won't have internet access readily available in Shanxi, so I might have to post two posts (weeks 4 and 5) at the same time when I return to Beijing.

I leave you with the very few photographs I took at the Forbidden City (my camera ran out of battery power, so I was not able to take many photographs). Hopefully I will be able to post in Shanxi. If not, I'll write down what I want to post and post it when I get back. 再见！

2nd Week at HBA

2007-07-01T04:24:00.000+02:00

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！

1st Week at HBA

2007-06-23T16:35:00.000+02:00

I would first like to start apologizing for not posting in such a long time, but I just recently got internet this Monday (June 18) and work at HBA is intense. But anyway, the following is a summary of what my first 9 days in China have been like so far:

So I arrived at Beijing on June 15. From the day I first arrived I was able to see many interesting aspects of the Chinese people. Everyone here in China seems very friendly, but in a way different from the people in other countries I've visited. For example, yesterday when I rode the bus with my Language partner (a student from BLCU), the person who sold the bus tickets would start laughing (not in a mean way, though) when she heard me speak Chinese. According to my language partner, this is the way she was being friendly, which I find interesting.

Talking about my Language Partner, I think this is a very good aspect of HBA because it lets me know more about how the Chinese my age think. With my language partner I could see that the Chinese are extremely interested in American culture. For example, while eating dinner, my language partner suddenly asked me how one eats in America. Thus we got into a whole discussion of the do's and dont's in America while eating at a table. A lot of the things I told her surprised her, due to the great differences in Chinese and American culture.

Well, my main reason for coming to China was to study Chinese, so I guess I should describe my academic experience at HBA. I guess a lot of people know how the schedule at HBA is, but it doesn't hurt to write it down anyway, so here it is:

8:00 - 9:15 大班课 (Big lecture class)
9:25 - 9:50 朗读课 (This I think is actually new: we basically read texts aloud to improve pronunciation and intonation)
10:10 -11:00
11:10 -12:00 小班课 (INTENSIVE drill class)
1:30 - 2:20 单班课（My favorite part of the day: one on one conversation with a teacher who corrects your errors and helps you improve your spoken chinese)

The first day at HBA was REALLY intensive. The teachers, which are all really nice people by the way, would just keep shooting Chinese at us and ask us to make up sentences at a speed I was not used to at all. Not only was class intense, but the homework that came after that was even worse. Not only do we have to do written homework, but we also have to memorize all of the vocabulary (and how to write these words in Chinese characters, a lot of which are new) which basically takes away any free time we could have.

However, I do feel my Chinese is improving, even though we have been here only for a week. The language pledge has definitely helped a lot, since I think after 1 week I am accustomed to speaking only in Chinese, even though it is not perfect. So far there haven't been any major violations in the pledge at HBA that I know of ( there have been instances when students truly unconciously speak English, but as soon as they realize they're not speaking Chinese, they say sorry and start speaking Chinese again). Thus the atmosphere of speaking only Chinese is really helpful.

I'll finish this week's post talking about today: our trip to the Great Wall at Simatai. The experience was really fun, but extremely tiring. This section of the Great Wall is extemely steep, and there are parts where it is difficult to go up due to the small steps. Overall, however, it was a pretty good experience. Below are a few of the pictures I took. I'll post again next week.

One week left!

2007-06-06T16:30:00.000+02:00

I am extremely nervous right now. Next week I will be arriving at Bejing and I have no idea of what to expect. I am very excited, but at the same time I don't know how the experience of being in China for two months is going to be like. I've travelled to many other places before, but unlike these previous experiences, I am now going to be in another country for two whole months and without being able to speak any English or Spanish. It's going to be so tough!!!
I know it's definitely going to be worth it, though. I've been waiting for this type of opportunity for a very long time. I want to go beyond just being able to be 'knowledgable' in Chinese. I want to be fluent. Staying in China this summer is definitely the best way to improve my Chinese, but I still can't avoid thinking over and over again about how it's all going to be like. How am I going to communicate complety in Chinese after only one year of study? How is it going feel being surrounded by the Chinese people, language and customs?
Every time I'm about to go on a trip I get really impatient. I just want the day to come already and avoid all of this horrible waiting. I still have about a week left, though.
This is my outline for the summer, by the way:

June 14:
Leave for Beijing
June 15- August 17:
HBA
August 18 - August 27
Go around Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai with my mother

Well, this is basically how I am feeling right now. I am really excited about everything and nervous at the same time. If everything turns out alright, the next time I post I will be in 北京!!! See you next week!!!