A day in the life

A day in the life

I got my first impressions of what it’s like to attend a study abroad program when I was a senior in high school. As I was touring various universities, sometimes my college student friend or tour guide would heap praise on his or her university’s study abroad program. Later, I’d ask for more details- they all confided in me that study abroad was like a vacation: less class, optional class, less stringent grading, and lots of fun foreign cultural activities.

Although there are lots of fun foreign cultural activities on the weekends, from Monday to Friday my program does not feel like a vacation. The program is rigorous like the Chinese university experience, where students attend 7 hours of class daily and spend most of the rest of their time studying. So here’s a basic description of my schedule from Monday to Friday.

7:30AM – Class starts at 8AM every morning and lasts until 12PM, so there’s no time to sleep in. Even if I decide to sleep in, my teacher will come to my room and wake me up. That’s right, because the classes here are so small and the classrooms are in the same building, the teachers will gladly come to students’ rooms if it's 8:05AM and they aren't in class.

8:00AM – Dabanke (“big class”, 6 students). Every morning class starts with a dictation that randomly tests about 40 of the previous night’s 80 new vocabulary words. After that, the teacher drills us on grammar for the rest of the hour.

9:00AM – Xiaobanke (“small class”, 3 students). This is the hardest class for me- you have to know the previous night’s 12-13 new grammar patterns pretty well. If you don’t, there’s only two other students, and you have nowhere to hide. Luckily, on the occasion that a grammar pattern is too complicated for me, most of the teachers are understanding and helpful. The workload might be intimidating but at least the teachers aren’t.

9:50AM – Usually after two hours of grammar drills, my head is pounding. I usually take a 15 minute powernap here to regain some energy.

10:10AM – Duihuake (“conversation class”, 2 students). This is my favorite class of the day- it’s me, one other student, and the teacher. The goal of the class is for the students to converse naturally while the teacher corrects their speech. I like this class because every day we discuss a different topic, whether it’s Starbucks in the Forbidden City, what Beijing should do about traffic problems during the Olympics, or problems faced by China’s single child generation. Some of my classmates find some of these topics to be quite boring, but I find that it’s easier to get excited about these issues than it is to get excited about parroting some grammar patterns back to the teacher in Dabanke or Xiaobanke.

11:10AM – I usually have lunch break around this time. Sometimes I grab a quick bite with my roommate and some friends at a nearby restaurant. Other times I speedwalk to the nearest McDonald’s, grab some American food while watching the West coast NBA games.

12:10PM – Danbanke (“one-on-one class”). This class is pretty straightforward. It’s me and the teacher and we work on grammar for an hour.

1:10PM – If I’m feeling energetic after 4 hours of class, it’s usually because I’ve gotten more than 5 hours of sleep the night before. If that’s the case, I’ll probably study for a while and then have a short nap. If that’s not the case, I’ll probably nap for about 90 minutes.

4:00PM – Extracurriculars. My program arranges various extracurricular activities, including Taichi, Calligraphy, Chinese Folk Songs, and Ping Pong. I originally planned to attend Taichi, cooking, Chinese slang, and Ping Pong classes, although now I only have time for cooking and Chinese slang. I’m also on the student council. If I don’t have extracurriculars that day, I’ll go to the gym, lift weights and stretch for a couple of hours.

6:00PM – After meeting up with some classmates at the gym, we grab a quick family-style dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

7:00PM – The fun begins. Every night, I get about 80 new two-character compound vocabulary words to memorize, and I’ll have between 60-120 never-before seen characters to memorize. On top of that, there’s reading and understanding that day’s lesson material. Also, every night there is preparation for conversation class, which usually involves interviewing a Chinese person. Every night we also have written homework, which is translating sentences and reading comprehension. On top of that, once a week, there’s a hand-written three page essay. Two days after I submit the essay, I have to memorize it and present it to the class orally. And on top of all this work, there's various deadlines for a semester-long project that culminates in a 3000 character essay and an oral presentation.

Needless, to say, from 7:00PM until about 2:00AM, I’m doing homework. And I have yet to successfully 100% complete a night of homework so far.

2:00AM – I call it a night. I could keep working and finish my homework, but I think that sleep is more important, because I’ll need the energy for the next day’s class.

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After re-reading all this, I ask myself: why am I doing all this? At this point, I’m not really sure: I don’t have a big goal on my mind like “become CEO of a Chinese company.” Even “becoming fluent” is such a long way off that I don’t want to think about it. But in some weird way, I enjoy the process of studying Chinese. Every day, it’s mentally challenging to memorize characters and understand the grammar, and it’s psychologically challenging to stay motivated.

But I think it’s more than just the challenge… I also like studying Chinese because it’s very transparent. For example you can’t B.S. knowing how to write a Chinese character- you either know how to write it, or you don’t. Over my previous high school and university experience, I’d get frustrated because the subjectivity of the grading made it impossible to tell if I was actually making positive progress. For example, I’d write an essay that I thought was really good and get a bad grade, or I’d write a bad essay and get a good grade. With this system, it’s hard to know if you’re going in the right direction. It's even harder to know whether you’re getting a good education or whether you’re wasting your time. With studying Chinese, you either understand it or you keep trying- there’s no uncertainty.

And aside from all of that philosophical stuff about why I like to study Chinese, it’s awesome being in Beijing on the weekends. During the days, there are so many touristy/cultural things to do, (much of which I still have to write about and post pictures of) and at night, the bars and clubs are fantastic.

It’s also awesome just being in Asia- today I just (partly) finished planning a backpacking trip that will take me and a couple friends from Beijing to Shanghai to Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong. I can’t wait to explore all the cities, to trek through the jungles of Southeast Asia, and to find hidden beaches in Thailand.

In other news, I won a Light Fellowship for the summer semester, so I’ll definitely be studying here all the way until the Olympics. Thank you again to the Light Fellowship committee for giving me with this opportunity.