“我只说中文: I Speak Only Chinese” (Language Pledge, Start!)

Hey guys! 大家好！

From the rare postings (I think there are like two, tops) on Facebook and other social media sites that I’ve been able to get access to, the majority of you guys know that I’ve already made it safely to Beijing :) To the others following me only via this blog, HI GUYS I MADE IT TO BEIJING! I arrived Friday morning at 3 am (overnight flights are great, guys) and had the weekend to check in, set up my room, and hang out with friends/classmates before classes started. 

This is the building where our dorms are at. It's actually a conference center, so it serves as a pseudo-hotel for visitors to the university.

My room! It's pretty cozy. There's also a TV, fridge, a private bathroom, and A/C. 

Friday and Saturday (surprisingly I didn’t suffer from the effects of jet lag these two days, but I caught a little cold on Monday…) were spent exploring the campus (IT’S BEAUTIFUL — such a rad vibe) and surrounding area. 北京语言大学 (Beijing Language and Culture University) is situated in 海淀 Haidian, Beijing and is surrounded by a ton of other universities. When I went explorin’, I found schools dedicated to “Mining and Technology”, “Petroleum Processing”, and “Computer System Engineering” all within a one mile radius. Conclusion? I’m definitely in a college town. But a Chinese college town. 

That's a lot of universities nearby! The road is aptly named, as "xueyuan" means college. 

This is the main road that runs through the center of campus. 

Building where classes are held.  

This is one of the 3 big gates that surround campus. There are gates on the west, east, and south face of campus. 

The struggle when your arms are too short to take a picture... (That's the school emblem). 

This is a library. 

Can you believe that this is a gym? Because it is. There are also basketball and tennis courts, a track, and a soccer field. 

My favourite part about campus is how green it is: there are tons of "green spaces" like this throughout campus. As you've already noticed, there are lots of tall trees that frame the school too.  

This the building where we have our Chinese classes. 

The school name etched on a stone! (I recently bought a selfie stick so this short arm problem will be no more!)

A 10 minute walk from campus is a huge shopping area called 五道口 (Wudaokou). It’s basically the shopping hub for everyone in the area, but especially for college students. There’s a mall inside that’s pretty similar to what malls look like back in the States, except it’s filled with Asian brand names with the upper two floors a conglomeration of different restaurants to try. Price wise, clothing is pretty similar to what clothes are priced back at home, if a bit cheaper (the styles are super cute too!), but the food is very cheap (by American standards anyway). My first meal at one of the many very nice restaurants only cost me 30 元 ($5) — the exchange rate is $1 = 6 元, so you learn to divide by 6 pretty well — and that first meal was quite the adventure. We went in with the (stupid) pretense that there would be an English menu and low and behold: the menu wasn’t in English. Imagine this: 11 Chinese-heritage kids and 1 American (read: white) kid all walk into a restaurant and out of all the 11 Chinese people there, it was the one white person that could 

1.) read the menu 

2.) talk to the waiter

and

3.) actually order food off the menu

That definitely foreshadowed the language barrier struggles to come. 

Dinner was delicious though — it was probably the best fish I’ve ever had, but if I were to go back I probably would have no idea how to order that same dish (but hopefully I’ll reach that point someday!).

Our fish dinner! 

The view of Wudaokou from inside the U-Center (the shopping plaza).

On Sunday, I took a placement test to dictate what year I’d be (they put me in fourth, which I have no idea why; a classmate who took the same Chinese class with me back at Yale was placed in third), attended the official Harvard-Beijing Academy opening ceremony, met my new Chinese teachers (I have about 10 of them) as well as received my textbooks, and most importantly, I took a language pledge that only allows me to speak Chinese for the entire duration of my time here (read: 2 months). You better believe that I savored the last few moments speaking English. From here on out, it’s “我只说中文：I speak only Chinese” (The program coordinator even gave us these buttons that have this saying on them, which I find adorable but also slightly sadistic at the same time).

Classes then started Monday and oh my gosh I don’t think I’ve ever been challenged linguistically so much in my entire life. What I learned in a week at Yale, I learn in a day here. Not even that, but the texts that we’re reading aren’t simple and filled with basic conversation-type dialogue. They’re topics like “How does mass media affect the jurisdiction of law” and “Is it possible for the cultures of the past and present to coexist?” aka they’re extremely scholarly and the amount of new vocabulary I have to learn per day is definitely 100+, maybe even 200. A DAY. As in, I have to have their meaning, pin yin, and character memorized and ready to discuss the text the next day at 8 am. The texts are also pretty long, with some maybe spanning 2 or 3 pages. I think it’s pretty easy to see why I’m already so tired and I’ve only been in class for 3 days. I knew that this program would be intense (hence the name “Intense Language Immersion Program”), but I had no idea it would be this difficult. Of course I’ll get used to the rigor here like I did my first year at Yale, but it doesn’t make the present any easier. I’m complaining now I know, but I definitely know that my Chinese will improve drastically, so I don’t mind suffering through 5 hours of class a day + 4 hours of homework. I turn on the TV sometimes to a drama and am surprised by how many words I recognize only from the 3 days of classes I’ve attended. Though sometimes I get too invested in the dramas and forget to do my homework…oops…

Aside from my studies, I also attended a calligraphy writing class, and if you count sampling the various cuisines from the cafeteria as an extracurricular activity, then I’ve done plenty of that too (a tour of that will come in a later blog post). 

Calligraphy class. I may be smiling on the outside, but inside I was definitely struggling. 

You see all that crumpled yellow paper in the left corner? I used all that to practice writing on the white rice paper...only to run out of time and could only write one character. Sigh. (I was aiming for my name, but oh well...)

As you can see, I….tried. Calligraphy is way harder than it sounds, but it’s a beautiful art form, and I hope I can get more chances to practice it in the future. I also can’t wait to see what other extracurriculars lie in store.

Sightseeing wise, this Friday I’ll be going to the famous Drum and Bell Towers as well as Beijing’s 胡同 hutongs (aka ancient Beijing). Saturday I’ll be visiting the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. PRETTY LEGIT STUFF. I’m super excited to finally see such historic places and get a glimpse of Beijing outside of the campus and its immediate vicinity. 

As for some not-as-exciting stuff, internet here in China is probably the worst thing I’ve ever encountered. It’s spotty, unreliable, and sometimes I can’t even get internet on my computer and have to work through my phone. The pollution is….definitely a thing. The first few days I was here I was met with blue skies and it was beautiful, but the past 2 days have been pretty bad. You can’t even see the sky — it’s just a white haze, and what looks like fog surrounding the campus is probably definitely smog. Crossing the road is terrifying as all traffic laws cease to exist (did they even exist before?) with people, cars, bikes, scooters, skateboards, and buses tangled up with each other on the intersection. 

An example of why I fear for my life every time I cross the street here. WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE ABIDE BY TRAFFIC LAWS? THEY'RE THERE FOR A REASON, DANGIT. On another note, the building in the back is the U-Center (shopping plaza) in Wudaokou.

Therefore, China has its ups and downs, but I definitely love it here in Beijing. There’s just something about the feel of the city that just fills you with energy and a thirst for adventure. 

Today is the one day where I don’t have to study for anything, a rare sight indeed — tomorrow we’re just reviewing for the test on Friday (insert me crying here) — so I thought I’d use this chance to update you guys. I’ll end up posting blog posts regularly every week on either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, so look out for my next one! Until then, guys! 再见！

(Note: as I was writing this in English, my mind was already automatically translating it into Chinese! Progress! :D)