Rain and Tsinghua Classes

[Note: I wrote this post a couple months ago but never posted it.]

The past two days have been a reminder that weather won’t be nice for much longer. The rain has turned biking, originally a pleasurable activity, into somewhat of a struggle. The seat is now always wet when I start out, my feet often slip off the pedals, and my bicycle’s tolerance of sharp turns has plummeted. Most importantly, my glasses get completely covered in raindrops, and visibility decreases significantly. Think: Harry Potter in a rainy quidditch match. (If only muggles could use the impervius charm…) Actually, the Harry Potter analogy goes one step further. In Beijing, one can, unsurprisingly, buy a poncho designed for bicyclists – shortened on the sides to avoid entanglement with the gears, but elongated in front and back, to cover the handles, basket, and anything else that might be attached. From a distance, the effect is comical – clusters of caped and hooded figures gliding a few feet above ground, cape tails flowing softly in the wind. I cannot help but think of dementors. Only these dementors wear capes of all colors – blue, green, red, purple, pink – and suspiciously have two large bicycle wheels emerging down below. Since this discovery, I have purchased my own bicycle poncho and joined the ranks.

On a separate note, Tsinghua classes started this week, which means I’ve commenced my own sort of shopping period in search of a class or two to audit. There are lots of reasons why auditing Tsinghua classes appeals to me. Attending lectures on special topics will undoubtedly improve my listening abilities over time, and help familiarize me with specialized terminology I might not otherwise have the opportunity to study formally in Chinese class. From a social and cultural perspective, I get to see first-hand the classroom experience of my Chinese counterparts. I also think, based on my limited experience thus far, it will provide a natural way to meet Tsinghua students, a barrier that might otherwise be challenging to break. Finally, if my listening comprehension is good enough, I might even learn something.

Thus far, I’ve sat in on a lecture on abstract algebra, philosophy and logic, and Marxism and the natural sciences (which I actually stumbled upon quite by accident.) The Marxism and logic classes were surprisingly comprehensible. I wouldn’t say my comprehension was good by any stretch – I would certainly not be able to do well if I were taking the courses for credit – but it was good enough to have a general idea of what was going on. I think there’s a good chance I will stick with the logic course. The class is tiny, the professor and general atmosphere quite welcoming, and, best of all, the material seems interesting and (possibly) understandable. What’s great about the language side of this class is that the translation of technical words in logic and philosophy are either direct and intuitive, or phonetically based. Though the lecture/discussion is in Chinese, the texts are in English, which should give me a good basis for following along in class. I don’t even need to purchase the book - the student who I sat next to, named Bank, has offered to photocopy the text for me. It’s probably too soon to say, but I have a good feeling about this class.

Unfortunately, when it comes to math classes, or at least the one abstract algebra class I audited, all bets are off. Where I was following at least 50% of the other classes I audited, I followed about 2% of this math class. I think a lot of factors came into play, not the least of which is math lectures even in English are hard to follow! At the moment, my hopes for being able to follow technical presentations in Chinese are low – it is much more challenging than I had anticipated. I may, if possible, try to use one of the self-designed courses IUP allows us to take to study some specialized vocabulary relating to math or computer science.

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