| abstract
| - I just wanted to let you know that I've already sent a fair amount of information on the program, and that you can ask him to forward the emails to you. If you're interested, you can see pictures from my year in China at picasaweb.google.com/jbychang and I believe that links to pictures from other Yenching fellows (and maybe others in China) are on the site too. In regards to your specific questions, Fang, I've only lived on campus but I've loved it despite the overall poor quality of facilities (at least relative to US standards). Things are dirty in general, if not just aesthetically unpleasant... but you get used to it, and I've come to love it here. Benefits include convenience and possibly price (off-campus can get expensive but I'm sure you can find really cheap if you want too...). Classes are about a 5 minute walk from the dorm. I think the best thing, though, is that it's easy to meet people, both international and Chinese, since you can (I feel) more easily take part in school activities, join clubs, etc., which is the main way to meet Chinese students. Otherwise, like you say, most students in the dorm are internationals, although many speak very good Chinese (e.g. those from Singapore). I should point out that Shaoyuan (the name of the dorms) does have higher quality housing available, but you have to pay more and demand is high for them, which means that you have a slim chance of getting a spot. In terms of where to travel, that's really a personal choice. I think that as you get used to live here, you'll find it really easy to go nearly anywhere in China, so it's up to you. Sometimes/frequently it feels ad hoc and/or sketchy, but I think you get used to that as well, and it gets easier to stomach as your Chinese gets better (assuming it's not excellent already). Just get a good travel guide (most people use Lonely Planet). If you want more detailed information... frankly it takes a lot of time to type, I suppose we could Skype if you want but I don't think planning travel should be a big concern at this point. I think the most important thing to improving Chinese is just that you stay focused on your goal; where you live is important but secondary to that. I can say that I've noticed one of my Japanese friend's Chinese level (mostly in terms of daily conversational use; I can't vouch for reading/writing or more "shumianyu" type of Chinese... I doubt homestay would influence that) improve quite a bit after his homestay. But housing in general I think is a mixed bag. If you're on campus, there are no guarantees on your roommate's Chinese level (could range from amazing to crappy); if you're off-campus I suppose it depends on what kind of roommate you find if you want a roommate, but I think in general off-campus is more isolating. In general, though, you're almost never in a situation where you're forced to speak Chinese at Beida (except I guess the relatively brief period you're in class... but if you think about it, if you're in class for 1 hr, and there are, say, 10 students, if you divide the time evenly you get 6 minutes of talk time, but of course probably much more than 1/2 of that is spoken by your teacher, so I'd be surprised if you were able to actually speak for more than 3 minutes per hour of class). That's where the individual motivation comes in... you really have to be vigilant about it if you want to improve a lot, I think. I think that's about all I have to say now. I should say that learning Chinese is something that I'm quite passionate about, even though I rarely go to class, heh (unless the program's changed in the past year, your grades don't matter, and it's always an opportunity cost calculation right?). If you have questions, I'll try my best to answer them. There are a couple of tools that I've found *extremely* useful, and you could just google them, they're called PlecoDict and Wenlin. I'm actually considering putting together a little guide for this program, since as far as I know you guys probably have as little information as we did (basically none) before coming here. A Wiki would be nice, I think... and actually, if you guys know someone with HCS or whoever manages wikis now, you could ask them to set up a wiki so that we Yenchingers here can write something up. I think their wikis can only be accessed from inside the Harvard network, though, so I don't know if they could do it. That's about all I have to say. It's an awesome program and probably one of the best years of my life, but be prepared to have very little support while you're here.
- Hi Nick and Fang, I just wanted to let you know that I've already sent Norman Ho (npho@fas.harvard.edu, CCed) a fair amount of information on the program, and that you can ask him to forward the emails to you. If you're interested, you can see pictures from my year in China at picasaweb.google.com/jbychang and I believe that links to pictures from other Yenching fellows (and maybe others in China) are on the site too. In regards to your specific questions, Fang, I've only lived on campus but I've loved it despite the overall poor quality of facilities (at least relative to US standards). Things are dirty in general, if not just aesthetically unpleasant... but you get used to it, and I've come to love it here. Benefits include convenience and possibly price (off-campus can get expensive but I'm sure you can find really cheap if you want too...). Classes are about a 5 minute walk from the dorm. I think the best thing, though, is that it's easy to meet people, both international and Chinese, since you can (I feel) more easily take part in school activities, join clubs, etc., which is the main way to meet Chinese students. Otherwise, like you say, most students in the dorm are internationals, although many speak very good Chinese (e.g. those from Singapore). I should point out that Shaoyuan (the name of the dorms) does have higher quality housing available, but you have to pay more and demand is high for them, which means that you have a slim chance of getting a spot. In terms of where to travel, that's really a personal choice. I think that as you get used to live here, you'll find it really easy to go nearly anywhere in China, so it's up to you. Sometimes/frequently it feels ad hoc and/or sketchy, but I think you get used to that as well, and it gets easier to stomach as your Chinese gets better (assuming it's not excellent already). Just get a good travel guide (most people use Lonely Planet). If you want more detailed information... frankly it takes a lot of time to type, I suppose we could Skype if you want but I don't think planning travel should be a big concern at this point. Nick, I just read through your email again, and I think the most important thing to improving Chinese is just that you stay focused on your goal; where you live is important but secondary to that. I can say that I've noticed one of my Japanese friend's Chinese level (mostly in terms of daily conversational use; I can't vouch for reading/writing or more "shumianyu" type of Chinese... I doubt homestay would influence that) improve quite a bit after his homestay. But housing in general I think is a mixed bag. If you're on campus, there are no guarantees on your roommate's Chinese level (could range from amazing to crappy); if you're off-campus I suppose it depends on what kind of roommate you find if you want a roommate, but I think in general off-campus is more isolating. In general, though, you're almost never in a situation where you're forced to speak Chinese at Beida (except I guess the relatively brief period you're in class... but if you think about it, if you're in class for 1 hr, and there are, say, 10 students, if you divide the time evenly you get 6 minutes of talk time, but of course probably much more than 1/2 of that is spoken by your teacher, so I'd be surprised if you were able to actually speak for more than 3 minutes per hour of class). That's where the individual motivation comes in... you really have to be vigilant about it if you want to improve a lot, I think. I think that's about all I have to say now. I should say that learning Chinese is something that I'm quite passionate about, even though I rarely go to class, heh (unless the program's changed in the past year, your grades don't matter, and it's always an opportunity cost calculation right?). If you have questions, I'll try my best to answer them. There are a couple of tools that I've found *extremely* useful, and you could just google them, they're called PlecoDict and Wenlin. I'm actually considering putting together a little guide for this program, since as far as I know you guys probably have as little information as we did (basically none) before coming here. A Wiki would be nice, I think... and actually, if you guys know someone with HCS or whoever manages wikis now, you could ask them to set up a wiki so that we Yenchingers here can write something up. I think their wikis can only be accessed from inside the Harvard network, though, so I don't know if they could do it. That's about all I have to say. It's an awesome program and probably one of the best years of my life, but be prepared to have very little support while you're here. -Jeremy
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)