On being abroad

I was in a car with two of my cousins to a department store in Taichung a couple of hours ago, and one of them asked me if I didn't want to leave. Two years ago, when I went to Japan and Taiwan with family, I remember when we were at Taoyuan Airport (although I think it was still Chiang Kai-shek Airport then) and I really didn't want to leave -- I had had so much fun in Taiwan and I didn't want to go back to the States and face real life.

This year is different, though. Don't get me wrong -- I've had a great week in Taiwan so far (I'm leaving next Tuesday). I've been to Taipei and Tainan in the north and the south, went to Sun Moon Lake 日月潭 today and have eaten and shopped to my heart's content. But having said that, I think I'm ready to go home. I'm pretty excited to have cold, cold milk, to sleep in my own bed, if only for three nights, and be fully understood and be able to fully express myself all the time. :)

At the same time, though, this experience abroad has only cemented my desire to speak Chinese as fluently as possible. Making some tantalizing steps toward fluency this summer have only made me more determined to get to a higher level of proficiency. I want to find some way to get back here, probably after graduation. In the car earlier today I said that I thought studying language abroad had two results: (1) that you learned faster than you could ever learn in the States but that (2) you also realized how much more you have to learn to fully understand a culture and a language.

I think the crux of it is this: I want to come back, probably for a longer period of time, in order to more fully immerse myself in the language and the culture here. But I think for now I've had enough, and I'm ready to get back to the States and all that I love about it -- Western food, diversity, opportunity, English -- and surprisingly, even the things that I don't like about it so much -- the American self-centered mentality, our economy, expensive food, among other things. I'm also really excited about getting back to Yale. May and spring semester seem like ages ago and I'd like to be able to plan and control my own life again.

Studying abroad, and just being abroad in general, are immensely valuable experiences. You don't appreciate what you have at home, and you don't see the shortcomings and pitfalls of your hometown and homeland, until you get out.

All in all, it's been one of the best, if not the best, summers of my life. I can't thank the Light Fellowship enough for this chance to go travel and study abroad. I'm really, really glad that I picked a program in mainland China to study Chinese, because I now have had the chance to go to many more places that I didn't before, I (hope that I) have a more nuanced view on cross-strait issues and hopefully my views on China and Taiwan have matured somewhat. I'm glad I went to Shanghai and started my time there, and I'm particularly glad that I chose to come to Taiwan in order to relax after the program, instead of before. I don't think I could go travel independently now; I wouldn't have the energy.

This is probably it for this summer -- all five of you, thanks for reading, and for most of you, I'll see you at Yale.

Nine weeks later

I am now in Taichung 台中, have slept 10 and a half hours and am taking advantage of the time to finish up writing about my last couple of days in Beijing.

Ending ceremonies

We finished up HBA on Friday with our final exam (I was thrilled to be done with that exam, to be honest), our graduation ceremony immediately after and then our finishing lunch banquet.

Although I know this is cliched, the lunch banquet was extremely bittersweet. Sweet, because the grind of HBA was wearing us down -- this much is obvious. But bitter, mostly because of our teachers. Before coming to HBA, I never thought I could be so attached to any group of teachers. They're funny and people just like you. During the entire meal, a lot of the teachers didn't seem too thrilled to be there, as opposed to the students, who were basically thrilled to be finished with HBA and being able to speak English finally. I didn't get it at first until I asked one of them (the teachers) and they said that they were sad because the program was ending and we would probably not be able to see them again.

I'm really going to miss my teachers. I've never really had this sort of experience, in which the teachers are only a couple of years older than the students, they're willing to go out with them and they're fun people outside of the classroom. I mean, on Thursday, the day before the file, I went to the final office hours 答疑時間 even though I didn't really have anything to ask them just in order to chat. When they were leaving the Conference Center 會議中心, it was really hard to say goodbye as I realized that it was really likely that I would never be able to see them again (as it turns out, I saw some of them the next morning when I was getting on the HBA shuttle to the airport) but it was actually really hard to take. Apart from the students, the teachers were the part of the program that I'm going to miss the most. I don't know the next time that I'm going to be back in China, or if there is even going to be a next time, so it was really hard.

With 古老師 at office hours on the last day.

駱老師!

Um, yeah.

Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm not going to miss my friends at HBA -- but knowing that most of them are going to be in Cambridge in the fall, as opposed to Beijing or Hebei or Sichuan, makes a big difference. I'm going to see everyone in the fall, in November, and I'm really excited. I can't really say the same for Beijing.

HBA/Beijing: a recap

Academics

Intense? Yeah. Of course, it depends on how you're approaching it -- if you're a Yale student and you're only looking at this pass/fail, the intensity is definitely reduced. There's a steady stream of work to do, and no matter how much you love Chinese, at some point you will inevitably wonder why in the world you chose this experience.

But I definitely feel as if I learned so much from this experience, despite how useless I initially thought formal language 書面語 was. My aunt, who lives in Taiwan, toured the States, ironically while I was in Beijing; she gave me their itinerary. Reading one sentence, I was able to find several words and a sentence structure that I learned in 5th year HBA. It was such a gratifying feeling. As for spoken Chinese 口語, this is a little harder to assess, but I'm going to bank on the fact that I was speaking Chinese most of the time (see Language Pledge, below) and hearing Chinese almost all of the time, and hope that I improve. The ultimate test is when I get back home and talk to my parents and see what they think.

So yeah in summary I'd say the academics at HBA, although super-rigorous, are definitely worth it.

Language Pledge

Basically I have two conflicting thoughts about this: (1) the language pledge is definitely an integral part of the experience. Even for 5th years, because even though our spoken Chinese is at a fairly high level, there are still a lot of words (for me, anyway) that I don't know in Chinese, and if we didn't have the language pledge and I spoke in Chinglish all the time then I'd never learn these words. Plus it just makes sense -- you're here to learn Chinese, so speak Chinese. However, (2) it's really hard to get to know your classmates at a deeper level if you're always struggling to express your thoughts in Chinese. Honestly, I didn't get to know a lot of people until I spoke English with them and realized that we both actually had a lot to say. Particularly with such an intense program when you're spending time together with so many people, it's a little strange not to get to know everyone that well. Basically, I'd say it's basically up to you to decide how you want to balance these two important factors in assessing the language pledge.

Weekend excursions/exploring Beijing

I realized I didn't go on a single HBA excursion after coming back from Inner Mongolia. This year, they took us to the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs/798 Art District, Longqing Gorge, Beijing opera, acrobatics and organized Beijing Night and would have helped to organize the speech contest. I went to the Great Wall and Beijing opera. I'd recommend not going to all the weekend excursions, just because you already have limited time to explore Beijing and not being able to fully explore this city would really be a shame. Plus public transportation isn't even that expensive, so it's not even as if that's an excuse.

The real Beijing Night 北京之夜

Enough about HBA. The reason I slept 10 and a half hours last night was because I didn't sleep on my last night in Beijing. Half of the fifth years went out and Shan, Diana and I stayed up the entire night:

Dinner


We had Vietnamese pho (SO good) and watched the American women's volleyball team beat China (and of course, were the only people in the entire restaurant cheering when they won).

Dessert

Hungry much?

After going clubbing, we were exhausted at around 2 and went to a dessert place, where Shan and I ordered an exorbitantly priced red bean shaved ice.

Flag-raising

We cabbed over to Tian'anmen Square around 4 and discovered that there was already a line. We sat in front of the National Congress or whatever it's called until they finally let us into the square. We managed to get "front-row" seats, so to speak, but people were continually pressing us from the back since they were trying to squeeze to the front, and at that point having not slept for 24 hours I was more than a little irritated at that. People have said that watching the flag-raising is kind of anticlimactic, but I don't really think so -- I mean, it's kind of short, but the experience itself was great. Seeing how many people line up to go watch the flag-raising, watching the soldiers march out from under Tian'anmen (the gate) with the flag, listening to the Chinese national anthem blare out from the loudspeakers and the absolutely 人滿為患 crowds was such a great way to spend my last -- night? morning? -- in Beijing.


Yeah. 人滿為患 for sure.

Soldiers marching out from Tian'anmen. This is at about 5:20.

The actual flag-raising.

Shan and I.

All done

So those were my nine weeks in Beijing -- good times, fun people, sleepless nights. I'm glad I did it.

I'm now looking forward to getting some sleep, having great fruits, food and dessert in Taiwan, hanging out with the family and generally getting some rest before heading back to Yale, in less than two weeks. Wow

Hitting the home stretch

There are less than two weeks of HBA left and my summer stay in Asia is also drawing to an end -- in nine days I'll be landing in Taiwan and in 19 I'll be in Los Angeles. Time definitely flies when you don't notice it.

HBA

The program isn't over yet, but I feel like I should write this post now, before I finish the program and the veil of sentimentality gets pulled over my eyes and I start gushing about it.

I'm going to steal this expression from my friend and fellow Yalie Lena's blog because I think it sums up my HBA experience accurately: I have a love-hate relationship with HBA.

The constant workload and never-ending grind gets to you. It all becomes rather monotonous -- memorize characters, sentence structures, write essays, go to class, don't sleep much and just keep chugging along. The texts for the course as a whole were arranged in order of difficulty, so we're getting to some rather difficult and abstract texts, much of which are written entirely in classical Chinese 文言文, which, for those of you who don't speak Chinese, is something analogous to an French or Italian speaker being expected to read classical Latin, i.e. you can get the overall meaning but without specialized training you're not to get very far with it. (Though I am actually rather proud of having read Hu Shi's 胡适 "On Literary Reform" “文学改良刍议” in the original, since it's really cool to read this after having studied the May Fourth Movement 五四运动 in Spence's class.) Aside from that, HBA is just long -- it's eight weeks of nothing but Chinese, and no matter how enthusiastic you are about studying Chinese, after seven weeks of memorizing Chinese, I can say that it'll be nice when I can write in English and fully express my thoughts again.

But at the same time, HBA is an amazing opportunity and clearly (this goes without saying. 不言自明! Ha!) I would do this all again in a heartbeat if given the chance. The ample opportunities provided to practice your spoken Chinese 口语 are great. I've occasionally read copies of the Southern People Weekly 南方人物周刊, which is sort of this Time-like magazine that I've found here, and it's beyond gratifying to recognize sentence structures, four-character phrases 四字词 and chengyu 成语, and vocabulary words that I have learned. But perhaps what I love the most about HBA are the people, both the students and the teachers. The 5th years are great and I couldn't have asked for a better group of classmates -- even if most of them are Harvard students, ha. But what I'm really thankful for is the teachers. All of them are really young, and it's possible to relate to them on a personal basis, rather than simply as teachers, and I'm really going to miss being able to relate to people my age in Chinese.

Beijing

aka...the obligatory tourist portion. But if you scroll past the pictures I actually have some (hopefully) thoughtful reflections on Beijing.

Temple of Heaven 天坛

Last Saturday, after our self-organized trip to Tianjin got cancelled (ask me in person if you want to know the details), a bunch of us went to the Temple of Heaven, which has become one of the symbols of Beijing, particularly in all the Olympics propaganda, err, publicity. The most famous structure, the Altar-of-something-or-other, was built during the Ming Dynasty (but reconstructed in 1889 after being struck by lightning, if I'm correct) and the emperor used to come here to pray for good harvests or something like that.

Everyone exercise! This is in some playground randomly off the side of one of the paths after you get inside the park.

The altar.
Color scheme!

Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park 天安门广场、故宫与景山公园

This was my second trip to the heart of Beijing, albeit this time with people. Although I remain firmly in agreement with Lonely Planet's description of Tian'anmen Square as a concrete desert (compared to Shanghai's People's Square, it is fiendishly unfriendly) I have to admit that it has been considerably spruced up in the month or so since I visited, due to You-Know-What.

New.

New.

...also new.

Let's be Chinese!

Gorgeous russet- (is that the color?) colored roofs in the Forbidden City.

Then after speeding through the palace, we headed to Jingshan Park, which is directly north of the Forbidden City, and is largely known for a hill in the center of the park that affords a great view of the Forbidden City, if pollution cooperates. It also contains the tree where Emperor Chongzhen 崇祯皇帝, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, supposedly hanged himself when the Qing had entered the Forbidden City and Beijing (and hence China) had effectively been conquered.

Inescapable.

The pollution was actually under control for most of the day, so I was actually kind of irritated that it had gotten significantly worse by the time we got to the summit.

The spot!

Rambling through Beijing

This is where my pseudo-thoughtful thoughts come in. After heading to the Forbidden City, my friend Diana headed back to BLCU. I decided to north to Houhai in search of a copy widely-reproduced map of Peking drawn in 1936 (which I ended up finding). I ended up taking a bus from the east part of Tian'anmen Square north to near the Drum Tower 鼓楼, making my way to Qianhai through a little street that I hadn't noticed before, walking around Houhai for a bit and then walking all the way north to the Drum & Bell Tower subway station, heading back to HBA after that.

I'm actually really, really glad that I walked through Beijing and didn't cab any of the distance, because I have to say this walk did more for my understanding of Beijing than pretty much any of other trips have, including all of the touristy expeditions that I have taken myself on. Essentially, that Sunday I walked northward from the Forbidden City all the way to the Second Ring Road 二环, which gave me an understanding of Beijing geography that I had previously lacked. This city, which I had thought to be just one big sprawling mess, actually has some order and some character (with the serious caveat that this is within the Second Ring Road. Out here, past the Fourth Ring Road, Beijing could be any large city.)

What was the most valuable was being able to see things that I wouldn't have been able to if I had just sped through the streets on the cab. Most prominent is just the architecture within the Second Ring Road, which essentially is built where the old city wall once was. Outside, it's just faceless metal concrete blocks. Inside, Beijing actually looks like it has some character 特色. There are little hutongs filled with people, strung up with banners and lanterns, and even the architecture on the big streets is unique (that low-hung, gray stone style). It makes you reflect on what it must have been like to live in this city in imperial times. Two observations:

As I approached the Drum Tower, I overheard the familiar sound of Spanish, which I haven't heard in more than two months. I walked over to discover a couple of TV reporters who were reporting something about the Olympics in front of the Drum Tower. I just found the whole scene really interesting -- these journalists reporting about something very modern in front of an ancient imperial structure that has nothing to do with the Olympics, but is perhaps more "Chinese" than all the Olympic stadiums built together. Also, to hear Spanish so far from home is oddly comforting -- living in California accustoms you to the sound of it and it's nice to hear it.


The other thing that really struck me was when I was walking on another street and almost bumped into a laborer who was carrying a pile of bricks out. I looked to see where he was coming from, and realized that he was coming from a hutong 胡同 or siheyuan 四合院 that must have recently been demolished. It's one thing to read about all of this demolishment but another to see it in person. And despite all the substandard living conditions that I have seen in traditional Chinese housing, in both Shanghai and in Beijing, I can't help thinking that there must a better way to synthesize the urge to modernize and to preserve the traditional than to knock everything down entirely.

Olympics

Thanks to Shan Wang :D, I am going to the Olympics!

I have tickets to men's gymnastics Saturday evening and a field hockey game (USA vs. Argentina!) on Sunday. If I had stayed until the 17th (I'm leaving the 16th) I also would've had the chance to snag tickets to the men's 100 meter final, but as I'm leaving that same day that's sadly not possible. However, those tickets would've been $177, as opposed to the 100 RMB ($14.60) that I paid for those two tickets together.

Having gotten these tickets, I thought about the last post that I made -- specifically the Olympic rant -- and came to the conclusion that I still agree with everything that I said, although I do think that perhaps I shouldn't have phrased everything in such an argumentative manner. I just don't think four or so hours watching the Games justifies a summer of 麻烦 and paranoia. Although I can't deny that I'm really excited for those four hours.

Looking ahead

All that being said, I am still looking forward to leaving, but I think now it's more of a excited-to-get-to-new-places feeling rather than a get-me-out-of-here-now feeling. I remember Adam and Kelly mentioning during the Light Fellowship briefing meeting that we'd experience this dip in our motivation and feelings towards the host country that would coincide with the ending weeks of our programs. I don't feel as if I have experienced this, but perhaps at the same time it's not fair for me to say this since it's not as if Chinese culture is exactly new to me. I think perhaps instead I've grown to understand this country more, and my overriding feeling is that at some point -- post-graduation, perhaps? -- I want to find my way back here somehow.

And to finish off -- I will be departing Beijing at 12:25 pm next Saturday, landing in Taipei in exactly seven hours and am really excited for what is essentially the coda for my summer. :)

New Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九. Yes, I took this picture in Beijing.

The Plan

So I'm pretty excited about this summer. I'll be blogging about my travels through China and Taiwan from June through August, courtesy of the Light Fellowship.

The Plan

Now to May 26: Yale
I'll be chilling at Yale, playing the carillon, eating, spending time outdoors (if the sun decides to cooperate), reading summer novels and seeing a ton of my friends who are going to be here.

May 26 to June 7: California
Back to the best state in the Union. More of the same, i.e. reading, eating, spending time outdoors, chilling. Let me know if you're going to be in Socal.

June 8 to June 13: Shanghai
This'll be my first time in China, so I figured I'd start it off by seeing this crazy city. I know a couple of people who are going to be in Shanghai for internships this summer, so I'll be staying with them, exploring the city and hanging out.

June 13 to August 16: Beijing
(What I'm actually going to China for.) I'll be studying Chinese at Harvard Beijing Academy and staying through the first week of the Olympics. I'm really excited.

August 16 to August 26: Taiwan
I have family in Taiwan (mostly in 台中 Taichung), so I will be relaxing with them after what promises to be an intense nine weeks at HBA. I'm really looking forward to going back to Taiwan, since I was last back two years ago. Definitely let me know if you're going to be in Taiwan -- I'd love to hang out!

Post

My address while I'm in Beijing will be:

(Name)
Harvard Beijing Academy
Convention Center
Beijing Language and Culture University
15 Xueyuan Lu, Haidian Qu
Beijing, 100083, P.R. China

or

(姓名)
北京市海淀区学院路 15 号，100083
北京语言大学会议中心，哈佛北京书院

And that's about it -- 11½ weeks abroad in total. It should be fun. :)