Note:
For any future Light Fellows reading this final report on IUP, please first read my midterm report found here: http://tothemiddlekingdom.blogspot.com/2010/12/iup-midterm-report.html
The midterm report contains a lot of basic (but important) information about IUP (academic structure, housing, etc) that is not repeated here because my assessment of these particular aspects of the program have not changed much throughout the spring term. This report mostly contains additional thoughts about the program and life in the program not covered in the midterm report.
Electives
For higher level students, IUP offers a number of elective classes. I found that the IUP electives made for a great complement to the core textbook sequences. IUP offers electives in a wide range of areas (business, law, film, conversational/idiomatic Chinese, etc). I took classical Chinese and early 20th century Chinese literature, two gems of the program. Although I had no pragmatic reason for taking these courses, in some ways, they became highlights of my entire Chinese-learning career.
Classical Chinese turned out to be a very valuable and enjoyable class in ways I had not expected. In contrast to the fast-paced, high-volume vocabulary approach of the core Mandarin classes, Classical Chinese was taught through slow detailed analysis of grammar and characters. Every phrase and every sentence was a new puzzle to crack. I immensely enjoyed this careful analytical approach, and soon found myself applying it to modern Chinese, especially when I would encounter phrases in books and newspapers that appeared to have been taken from Classical Chinese. My basic understanding of Classical Chinese has also helped my ability to interpret chengyu, the (usually) four-character idioms taken directly from Classical Chinese stories. Classical Chinese turned out not only to be a language class, but also a culture class. Studying Classical Chinese inevitably entails learning the ancient Chinese states, capitals, sages, weapons, drinking vessels, and other aspects of ancient China’s rich cultural, political, and social fabric. Regardless of the veracity of the stories, it was gratifying to learn the same stories that Chinese students have studied for generations.
The course on early twentieth-century Chinese literature also provided some contrast to the core Chinese classes at IUP. In this class we studied classic short stories by authors like Lu Xun and Ye Shengtao. This literature class, like the Classical Chinese class, was yet further exposure to the materials many Chinese middle and high school students read each year. Although much of the vocabulary used in the stories was antiquated and not especially useful for communicating in modern Chinese, the stories offered priceless glimpses into China’s past. It was the detailed images of a pub in “Old Beijing,” or the shipping docks in an impoverished rural rice-growing village that made the stories, and consequently the class, so memorable for me. For anyone planning to attend IUP and has the chance to take these two classes (most likely anyone attending IUP for a year), I strongly recommend it. These are the classes that make all the huffing and puffing through programs like PiB and HBA worthwhile.
Cailiao
In addition to elective classes, IUP gives advanced students (those who have completed Sixiang yu Shehui) the chance to design their own course (cailiao), using materials of their choice. For one of these classes, I chose to read a Chinese version of Scientific American. There’s a certain amount of overhead (in terms of time and effort) that goes into designing a course – choosing articles, creating vocabulary lists, etc. – so in that sense, self-designed classes may not be as efficient as courses using pre-fab textbooks. However, I discovered that the ability to choose articles and vocabulary specifically tailored to one’s interests and level, respectively, is more than enough to compensate for this inefficiency. It was exciting for me to read science articles in Chinese – an activity truly at the intersection of two of my greatest interests! And other people at IUP designed classes tailored to their interests – economics, law, international relations, etc. There is essentially no limit to the different possibilities to the self-designed classes. The only caveat is that these courses tend only to work well when students are self-motivated and enthusiastic about their topic.
Housing Options
I’m writing about the IUP housing options because unlike most Light-approved programs, IUP does not directly provide housing. There’s a certain amount of thought and effort that most students put in to finding their housing, and where one lives during IUP can largely define one’s IUP experience, so I thought I’d share my own experiences and opinions about this important process. IUP students have three housing options: Tsinghua foreign student dorms, host families, and off-campus apartments.
I didn't live in the foreign student dorms at Tsinghua, but from what I heard they’re quality is mediocre to OK. The biggest problem I think people run into living in the dorms is that they’re inconveniently located for everything apart from IUP classes. Tsinghua has a very large campus, only a small portion through which are cabs allowed to drive, and no portion through which buses may drive. Most social activities (with or without other IUP students) take place outside of the Tsinghua campus, and those are less convenient to attend while living on campus, although the inconvenience did not seem to prevent those people living on campus from attending. On the flip side, there were many extracurricular events at Tsinghua in the evenings that I might have attended if I were living on campus. In short, there are few places where getting to on-campus and off-campus activities are both convenient. If your highest priority is integrating into the Tsinghua campus and student life there, the foreign student dorms are perhaps a better choice. However, to a certain extent, that choice comes at the expense of convenient access to all the social, cultural, and culinary offerings outside Tsinghua’s walls. It is by no means an absolute decision between one or the other. It is just a matter of relative ease of access.
IUP has connections with a certain number of host families in Beijing. Usually emails describing the available host families come out one at a time, and I think students enrolled in IUP can claim them mostly on a first-come first-serve basis. From what I’ve observed, living with an IUP host family can be a high-risk/high-payoff decision. Some host families are inconveniently located. Some people have no privacy from the children in their host family. Some host families cook for you, and some don’t. Some host families expect you to tutor their children. Some host families consist of a single person letting you live in a spare bedroom. I know people who have had bad experiences with their homestay, but I also know people who have had fantastic experiences with their homestay, and their spoken Chinese is all the better for it. Living with a host family may be like taking on an entire commitment – possibly well worthwhile, but also something to think over carefully. I don’t want to sound too negative about the IUP host families here – I think most people had overall good experiences with their host families. It’s important, however, to find out as much as possible about your host family’s situation and expectations (talk to the former IUP student living there!) before signing up.
I chose to live in an apartment off campus, which is usually what most IUP students choose to do. I wanted to have Chinese roommates, though, so I jumped when I saw an email from an IUP teacher looking for a third roommate to join her and her other roommate, a Chinese woman working at Google. The arrangement worked out very well, and was a good compromise for me between the cultural experience of a host family and the convenience of having one’s own apartment. Once the program mailing list is up and running (usually several weeks before the start of the term), there are also opportunities to search for housing with other future IUPers. If you're looking to rent your own apartment, it's best to wait until you arrive in Beijing to look at apartments in person. IUP has a helpful guide booklet about renting apartments in Beijing.
As an IUP student, finding housing can be a bit of a hectic and stressful process, but most people usually wind up in arrangements they are happy with, and most housing decisions can be changed if need be.
Final Result
Spending a year at IUP and in China has helped my Chinese to an unimaginable extent. One of the most gratifying aspects of this improvement was the realization that I could finally read “real Chinese” at a reasonable rate and comprehension level. Newspaper articles, books, short stories, and most other written communication forms are within my grasp. The most direct evidence of this change was a tiny magazine of short stories I bought in the beginning of the year – stories I struggled with for hours in August 2010 I could breeze through by May 2011. This is not to say I now know all of the characters and words I encounter when reading, but that my comprehension of characters and words has reached a threshold that enables reading for pleasure at a good comprehension rate. (It was very exciting to discover I was able to read my way through the first Harry Potter book and 1984 in Chinese! I am now working my way through and The Stories of the Sahara, a collection of short autobiographical stories by the Taiwanese author San Mao.)
In terms of spoken communication, IUP was also tremendously helpful. It was difficult for me to gauge my progress in my own spoken Chinese because it was so incremental. By the end of the year, though, I felt much more confident in conversations than at the beginning of the year. Part of this increased confidence was due to greatly increased listening comprehension. The vocabulary load at IUP is quite high, and even if I wound up incorporating only ten percent of the material into my actively used lexicon, a much higher percent was absorbed into my lexicon of words I understand passively. At the beginning of IUP, I still frequently had difficulty understanding what Chinese people who were not my teachers were saying to me in conversation. My listening comprehension is still very far from perfect, but this problem has greatly diminished.
Overall, I am very pleased with the progress IUP has enabled me to make in Chinese. I now feel that IUP has brought me to a level that will allow me maintain and improve my Chinese on my own, a level where use of the language is more a pleasure than a struggle. I thank the Light Fellowship and IUP for enabling me to pursue Chinese language at this level and for this duration. These experiences have profoundly enriched my interests and expanded my modes of thinking. It is indubitable that these acquired skills and experiences will play a large role in shaping my future.
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