Adventures in Guangzhou!

I had signed up for a dorm room single but as it was, they were overbooked so they had to put about 50 of us into a hotel for the first week. Though some may have had illusions of grandeur, I knew better. We walked into a predictably dingy hotel and I made my way up as quickly as possible in order to get to bed. I dozed off by midnight but managed to wake up of my own accord at 3:30am--the first of about six mornings in which I woke up at an ungodly hour.

A bunch of us made our way over to the academy early on Monday morning in order to go through orientation, take a placement test, and start right in on classes. Now I knew before I got there that this program was hardly well reknowned. I knew it was more or less a business rather than an educational institution, but it happened to be the only game out there at a decent price and with flexible start/end dates. So there you have it. I expected some sort of campus or affiliation with a university but I was wrong on that one--it turns out the classrooms are on the fifth floor of a huge high rise building inside a ritzy business complex not-so-aptly named SOHO. It is located in the Central Business District of Beijing which means it's a pretty nice area, though super expensive and super new--not really my cup of tea.

The orientation was a standard sort of introduction lecture, though I thought it was telling that the director of the program opted not to read any of the rules from the handbook (e.g. don't bring alcohol into the lounge, no outsiders, etc.). He literally said that they weren't that important. Interesting. Anyhow, afterwards we took the placement test which really was one of those nightmares you have when you're a kid, one of those ones where you show up to take the test and can't even read the exam. In this case, I struggled to recognize every 5th character which meant I didn't understand a single sentence on it--not even where to write my name.

This was the first indication that I was going to have an extremely frustrating first week. It turns out I inadvertantly screwed myself but not having formally studied beginner's Chinese. After a year in Guangzhou and one semester of oral Chinese, I can get around decently well--I can bargain in stores, order some food, use transportation, etc. However, since I never studied characters, my readiing is waaaay behind my speaking, which is even miles ahead of my almost non-existent writing. This is a problem. I was not entirely alone in this situation and after doing much better on the speaking portion of the test, I got placed into an intermediate level class of interesting distinction.

When we all got settled and organized, it turns out I was in a class with five other kids, all Chinese-American. They also lacked anything in the way of reading or writing, however they had all had twenty some-odd years of speaking with their parents. Guess who was not quite at their level of speaking? That's right--the caucasian!

We have 6-7 hours of class everyday split into four different catgeories: reading (in reality, more like writing), speaking (more like reading), comprehension (more like speaking), and listening (more like comprehension). At the end of each session I felt like half of it had passed me by. There's no doubt I was learning quite a bit, however, I couldn't help thinking there was a better way to be going about this whole thing. I went to talk to the head teacher and he was immediately willing to switch me down to a lower level reading class. I hated feeling like I had given up, but that's the way it goes. Naturally I walked into the new class and was immediately bored. They were doing absolute beginner's stuff, going around pronouncing basic words like "ni hao." Umm, yeah, I think I know that one. So it was back to the drawing board.

I went back once again and chatted with the head teacher. He moved 3/4 of my classes starting this past Monday to a class of advanced beginners, a group that had started about 6 weeks ago, and it was great. Of course the 4th class turned out to be a bit of a disaster again (it's clear to me that the woman has never been at the front of a classroom before) but I successfully lobbied today for her to be replaced. I'm hoping for an improvement tomorrow.

And to top it all off, due to overbooking, we had to have our first week of classes about 15 minutes away at a satellite campus of Qinghua University, which was conveniently under construction during class time (can you hear the jackhammers out there in the states? I wouldn't be surprised). Starting Monday we were back in the academy classrooms (a HUGE improvement) and also moved out of the dingy hotel into the apartments. I was "upgraded," most likely in attempt to silence any complaints, and it worked. I have a swank new apartment to myself and it's pretty cushy.

Despite the 6 hours of classtime, 2 hours of language exchange with our Chinese partners, and 15 minute walk to and from my apartment, things are going well. I'm definitely learning at least something (hopefully more than I realize). I'm enjoying my classmates (a smattering of folks from around the world). I hiked a huge section of the Great Wall (just as breathtaking as you'd think). I had some high-class Beijing Duck (yum). I found my way onto a football team (now if only I were in shape). And for the first time, I'm beginning to be able to read a restaurant menu without any assistance. That's a huge score.