So what am I learning?

A WHOLE LOT OF CHARACTERS.

So I wish I could blog a little more often but every second I spend not studying the ~100 new characters a night makes me feel really stressed out. When I'm not in class, sleeping, or eating, I'm memorizing vocabulary or studying grammar. I knew this program would be intense but now I'm starting to doubt that this amount of learning in such a short time period is actually possible. How much of this will I actually remember? And wouldn't I learn more about China by spending less time with my head in my books and more time in a traditional Beijing Hutong? We are going to hit up a lot of really famous must-sees but I feel like I'm losing out on an authentic (eg. less tourist-infested) Chinese experience.

But as Willy Wonka said: "So shines a light in a dark and dreary world." I had a very uplifting dinner today. Dinners are literally my life saver. Meal times are the only time I have to feel sane, interact with other human beings, and push memorizing characters a little further back in my mind. But today's dinner was especially relieving. Misery surely enjoys company. The rest of my classmates are having the same exact issues: suffering under this insane amount of work and worrying about only visiting tourist sites. We spent a good two hours at dinner just venting. But through that venting we were bonding on a whole new level. We decided as a group on a number of non-HBA excursions that we are going to go on, including a few tourist stops like the zoo and the Bird's Nest (but come on we HAVE to), but also including some journeys into the real China, some of which include simply walking until we find streets that aren't featured in our guide book, oh and we're hitting up a hutong. most definitely.

And in terms of the schoolwork, we're thankful that we're all in the same boat and at least this doesn't factor into our GPA. (Sorry Harvard kids). Not that we aren't going to put effort into our schoolwork, but we don't have to be as hard on ourselves for not recognizing 20 of the 500 characters on our tests. Also we realized that learning Chinese isn't only important to us for our various personal reasons, but it's also incredibly important to the teachers. A lot of them are students here at Beiyu (Beijing Language and Culture University) and we noticed that today was graduation. Were our teachers out walking with their class? No. They were teaching us. They missed their graduation (which was an extravagant affair and a huge deal especially considering the one-child policy) AND the last two weeks of class so that they could have an opportunity to teach us. Saying that they taught English to American college students at the Harvard-Beijing Academy is such an incredibly huge deal, and it just hit me today. Not only does this mean a lot to them in terms of their careers, but they are also doing a great service to their country. So many of our daily dialogues mention "economic reform" or "opening up to the world" and China's growing economy and the increase of foreign interest in Chinese culture, language and politics. I just quickly breeze over these terms when I'm struggling to memorize my new vocabulary, without stopping to think about their weight.

This job means soooo much to our teachers. And even before I made that realization I made a different one. We spend so much time with our teachers including our one-on-one class time, I'm already really saddened by idea of leaving them. It's only been two weeks and there are already a handful of teachers that have made this experience so wonderful for me that the thought of leaving them is already scary. My one-on-one teacher today even told me that she thinks it might be possible for me to act in Chinese films! (not sure how true that is considering all the commercials I see for skin-whitening cream, but considering that one of the most important reasons I'm learning Chinese is to understand more about their performing arts culture, it was certainly nice to hear). Oh yeah and today Li Lei, a well-known Peking Opera actor came to speak to us today. He taught us a bit about the form, techniques and finished it all off by demonstrating the art of face-painting. On his own face and a few students!

I'm very up-and-downy, so let's end with some pictures. Last Saturday we went to Forbidden City. It was really hot. All the buildings looked the same. I took some pictures.