IUP classes, and a bit of "胡同话"

The first week of class is already over! I am hesitant to draw any firm conclusions about the general workload and difficulty of IUP classes yet, since the first week may not be fully representative. But with that caveat aside, here are my general impressions.

The IUP workload and learning pace is very reasonable. On top of four hours of class per day, I have about four hours of homework per night. This means that, not only do I have a fair amount of free time every day, but I’m also able (so far) to prepare thoroughly for class, and retain a good proportion of the assigned material. I suppose what’s so surprising about this is the marked contrast with PiB, where the strategy seemed to be “let’s cram as much into your brains in eight weeks as humanly possibly.” I think both approaches are valid, but the latter is more appropriate for a year long program.

I also very much like the structure of IUP classes – three of my classes have just three students, and the other class is one-on-one. The 单班课 (individual class) is easily my favorite. The class never moves on until I fully understand everything, and I can ask as many questions as necessary to get to that point. At the same time, the fact that it’s a one-on-one class does not mean it is any less structured or formal than the larger classes. Most importantly, it is easy for me to pay full attention in this class, as there is no temptation to zone out while the teacher is talking to other students – probably my weakest point in larger classes. But even the larger classes, 合班课 (three-on-one classes), are great, too, as three students is still much smaller than the size of Chinese classes I’ve had in the past. I can still ask my own questions in these “larger” classes, but I’m also learning from my classmates’ questions – things I might not have thought to ask on my own. I distinctly prefer all of these classes to PiB’s 大班课 (8 student classes), because it is far less embarrassing to make mistakes in them. The small class sizes also afford finer-grained placement, so I feel more or less on par with my classmates.

Classes aside, I did some exploring yesterday. I took the subway for the first time on this trip, and got off at 鼓楼大街 (Gulou Dajie) to go see the bell and drum towers. I didn’t know for sure that the subway station would be in walking distance of the towers, but I thought it was a good guess, as it shares the name. Once out of the station, I caught sight of some old-looking structures and started walking towards them. Sure enough, I arrived at the Drum and Bell Towers about fifteen minutes later. I was a little annoyed with myself that there was only about 40 minutes left before both closed, but simultaneously pleased to have found them before closing at all. I first ascended the bell tower, which, according to a sign at its base, houses “the most heaviest and biggest ancient bell in China.” More specifically, it was cast under the reign of Emperor Yongle, to announce the time throughout the day. Upon my arrival at the top of the drum tower, I discovered I was just in time for the final drum performance of the day. Given that I had only arrived at a subway station that I was guessing would be in the vicinity of these towers less than an hour prior to their closing, I think I lucked out.

It happens that these towers are in the center of a very old neighborhood in Beijing, consisting of hutongs (胡同), long alleys of courtyard houses dating as far back as the Ming Dynasty. Hutongs and life in hutongs have fascinated me since I first learned about them in my high school Chinese class, since they stand in such stark contrast to the rest of the rapidly developing city of Beijing. There is tremendous economic pressure to destroy these old neighborhoods in favor of shopping malls, business centers, tourist attractions, and other money-making ventures. Accordingly, their presence is in rapid decline. In fact, the problem of their destruction was the topic of one of our lessons at PiB last summer, and was the setting for a great Chinese movie we watched in parallel. (The movie is called Shower – I highly recommend it!) While I have grappled with this problem, and can certainly understand the economic incentives behind their destruction, I think I ultimately come down on the side of sentiment. Culture has an intangible value to society, and the hutongs, once destroyed, can never be replaced. The one criticism of the hutongs that I still have difficulty countering is that the quality of life in them is substandard. Their narrow alleys and walkways are a fire hazard, and modern conveniences, like plumbing and flush toilets, are lacking. Is it hypocritical of me to hope these historic neighborhoods are not destroyed, when I, myself, would be unwilling to be a resident? I’ve read interviews with hutong residents who say living in them is unclean and unpleasant. Then again, a small shopkeeper I talked to yesterday said he liked growing up in the hutongs. (On a completely unrelated note, this shopkeeper also gave me a free booklet with some of Confucius’s teachings. Who knew one of my newly-learned vocabulary words, 孝道 (filial piety), would come in handy so soon!) I am, nonetheless, pleased to see that some effort is being taken to preserve the hutongs (at least the more visible ones). The hutongs I visited yesterday have just recently avoided destruction, at least for the time being, according to this New York Times article (courtesy my friend, Elizabeth): http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/world/asia/08briefs-REDEVELOP.html?ref=china

Here are some pictures from my adventure.

A hutong neighborhood, as seen from the top of the Drum Tower.

Propaganda banner over a sanlunche ("three-wheeled vehicle") in a hutong.

View of a hutong.

The drum performance.

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Potpourri

Yesterday IUP emailed us the results of our placement exams. The textbook for my reading/writing class is called “思想与社会” (“Thought and Society”) and the text for my listening/speaking class is called “实话实说” (“Frankly Speaking”). Though I can’t really tell what, if any, year or level of Chinese these books are intended for, my impression is that they’re the highest of IUP’s intermediate level texts. I asked Song Fang, the IUP teacher I am living with, about the texts, and she said they are IUP’s main textbooks (a plurality of students are assigned to these books), and that they’ll give me a good solid foundation from which I can later branch out in any direction. I haven’t seen the books yet, but this sounds like a good place to start, especially for a year-long program.

I am also pleased about the timing of my classes. My first class isn’t until 9, which, although ungodly early in Yalespeak, is considerably better than starting at 8 am, the earliest classes IUP offers. I have three 50 minute classes with 10 minute breaks in between, an 80 minute lunch break, and one fifty minute class after lunch. This means I have class every day from 9-2. Of course, the schedule will change after the first eight weeks, and I may not be so lucky in later modules.

On a different note, I bought a little Chinese magazine today full of short stories. It’s called “百花故事” (literally, “Hundred Flowers Stories,” although I think the gist of the translation is something like “Potpourri Stories”). It’s more or less like a Chinese version of Reader’s Digest. I read the first couple stories today, and, without a dictionary, I had a decent (but definitely hazy) idea of what was going on. My reading skills could definitely use a lot of improvement, so I’m hoping to use this magazine, and perhaps other Chinese publications, as a measuring stick of my progress this year, external to IUP. Of course, the actual process of reading the publications ought to be beneficial in its own right. I hope I can have the discipline to stick with it.
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Big City, Small World

Again, much has happened in the time since I wrote my last post. I’ll use the same structure for recapping the last few days as my previous post, for lack of a better method.

Sunday:

I met up with my PiB friend, Kevin, and one of his friends currently working in Beijing. We walked around Wudaokou for a bit, and then wandered over to PKU, which was nice because I had never seen the campus before. Since both Kevin and his friend are Stanford graduates, we snuck into the Stanford center’s lounge in one of the buildings. I would have perhaps been tempted to pay a visit to the Yale-PKU center, except I had no idea where it was located. Overall, it was a refreshing way to spend my last day of absolute freedom before the start of IUP.

Monday:

The first day of IUP! I was a little nervous about finding everything, meeting people, and generally not having any disasters. Fortunately everything went smoothly. In the morning we had a welcome speech and ceremony, where we signed our language pledge. Unlike PiB, this pledge applies only to IUP-related activities. I’m quite relieved about this because all-out language pledges can be quite socially frustrating. For a year-long program, I think being able to speak some English outside of class won’t be as detrimental to my Chinese as it would have been at a summer program, especially because my two flatmates are native Chinese speakers, anyway. After we signed the pledge, we split up into little groups to tour the important (or most relevant) places on campus. My group’s tour leader was Liao Laoshi, who I had met previously at Yale. (She conducted my IUP interview and met with me once to talk about IUP when I was choosing programs.) It was nice to see someone familiar among all the new faces.

I spent the rest of the day meeting other new IUP students and, when inside the IUP building, sharing awkward (and somewhat trite) introductory conversations in our rusty Chinese. In spite of our disparate interests and backgrounds, I like all of the people I’ve met so far, and am looking forward to getting to know them all much better.

Even having completed fourth year Chinese at Yale, I still feel like quite a novice here. The majority of people at IUP have spent at least a semester studying Chinese in China, or lived for many years in China. I feel like my two months pale in comparison. Generally speaking, though, I’d much rather be at a program that challenges me, than one that is too easy. I have no fears about IUP in this regard.

Tuesday:

Placement exams were held on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was lucky, and got mine over with on Tuesday. Placement exams shouldn’t be stressful. After all, their purpose is only to gauge your level, not grade you on any specific course work. Yet I still found myself stressing over this test. Seeing all that vocabulary I still don’t know, listening to all those recordings I still don’t understand, all the chengyu, and all the classical Chinese I hadn’t a prayer of understanding just made me feel 很失望 (hopeless). I’ve heard IUP likes to place people conservatively, so if I get placed into fourth year again, I guess I’m OK with that. On the bright side, seeing all that remains to be learned is providing excellent motivation for this year. I’m genuinely looking forward to the start of classes next week.

After the placement test, I went with Karen (a fellow Davenporter in IUP) and her two apartment-mates to the IKEA in Beijing. (Who knew, right?) After working our way through the entire store (which, apart from the Chinese signs and product labels, is identical to any other IKEA in the world), we hopped in a cab and headed back to Wudaokou. A several hour adventure ensued, including dragging tons of IKEA furniture across four lane highway (occupied by typical Beijing traffic), getting locked out of an apartment, and, finally, eating baozi and jianbing in the hallway outside the apartment sitting on newly purchased IKEA chairs, while waiting for the key to arrive. Next time, we’ll know to use the home delivery service.

Wednesday:

Wednesday was completely free of IUP obligations for me, since I had completed my placement exam on Tuesday. I decided it was a good time to buy a bicycle, so I wandered over to the bicycle stand at the south gate of Tsinghua. After testing out a few different bikes, I settled on an old and plain black bicycle for 220 RMB. I didn’t even try to haggle because the man who I was buying from had been especially helpful. I know I could have gotten a shiny new bicycle probably of similar quality for the same price, but I’m happier knowing my bike is less likely to get stolen. In the words of the shopkeeper, this bike “丢不了.” ("Cannot be lost.")

After purchasing the bike, I rode around Tsinghua for a bit. For the first time, I had a visceral understanding of why the bicycle is a symbol of freedom in China. (Now if only I had a working wristwatch and sewing machine, I’d be in business.) The Tsinghua campus is huge, and having a bicycle allowed me to explore places on campus that, given the current weather, are just a tad too far out to be worth walking to.

When considering the different ways I could get to IUP everyday, the thought of taking a cab never crossed my mind. A few days ago, I realized that, in a logical sense, it wasn’t the cost that made the idea anathema to me. After all, the cost would be no more than the public bus in most US cities. What made the idea so distasteful? Maybe the immediate thing stopping me from commuting by cab is the potential embarrassment of appearing lazy. But I’m not embarrassed to drive or take cabs in the US. Why should it be any different here? I think, on a deeper level, what would bother me about this method of transportation is that it is so antithetical to the idea of adapting to a Chinese lifestyle. If millions of Beijingers commute by bicycle every day – distances much further than my three kilometers – I should be able to do so, too. Perhaps part of what excites me about having a bicycle here is that it is part of my adaptation to an urban Chinese lifestyle.

Later Wednesday evening, I met up with Marta, a PiB friend currently doing an internship in Beijing, and her cousin to get dinner. (We went to a Korean barbecue place near the Wudaokou station that had delicious food, but terrible service.) In an incredible coincidence, I had run into Marta on the street at Tsinghua on Monday – neither of us knew the other was in China – and we decided to meet up later on in the week. It’s hard to gauge how much of a coincidence our run-in was. We both know each other in a Beijing context, so it’s not terribly surprising we’d both be back in Beijing at the same time a year later. And Tsinghua is a university with many foreigners. But given the size (both area- and popoluation-wise) of Tsinghua, and Beijing in general, the odds still seem fairly low.

Which brings me to a final observation. IUP is not a large program at all. The number of current students is well under 100. Most of us live in apartments or homestays spread out over the Tsinghua/Wudaokou area. And yet I am constantly running into IUPers on the street. There are hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people living in the few kilometer radius that IUP students occupy, but it still feels like we somehow have a presence (at least to ourselves). It’s a nice feeling.

P.S. Picture post to come soon, hopefully.
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