An Introduction To Life At The Beijing Language and Culture University

This is a guest post by Ray So, a friend I met at BLCU.

I've been at the Beijing Language and Culture University for two months now. I'm here for a semester (which is four months in total.) I'm a Level D student (students are grouped into level depending on their proficiency in Chinese - "A" being total beginner and "F" being the most advanced.) So you'll find that my thoughts might be slightly different if I were in say, Level A.

Before I try tackling the most difficult question which is whether to go "big" or "small" in terms of cities and schools, I'll just give you a quick overview of a "typical day" for me at BLCU.

A typical day

I live at the Conference Center. It's considered a hotel on campus. A lot of us foreigners use it as long-term housing. It remotely feels more like back home (by the way, I'm from Canada.) But don't expect it to be too glamourous for the price that you pay. It's small and really just a place to sleep and do homework. The upside is that you have your own private western bathroom and there is a free breakfast buffet which pretty much serves the same food each day consisting of buns, congee, cold vegetables and hard boiled eggs. As boring as it sounds, I haven't missed a single breakfast yet. I know a lot of my friends aren't big fans of it. For me, I figured it provides me the necessary fuel to survive 4 hours of classes until lunch time.

Classes for me start at 08:00 and run until 12:00. So, in total, I'm in class for 20 hours per week (there is an option to do 6 hours per day - 30 hours per week, but really 20 hours is quite a bit already.) I've got 5 different classes with five different teachers. This is made up of Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing and Comprehensive. Classes consist of twenty people in total - never more than that. In my class, the youngest is 17 and the oldest is 62. So yes, it just happens that the age-range in my class is quite diverse. I'd say that the majority of foreigners are from Japan, Korea, South East Asia and European countries and many are in their early 20s.

After lunch, I try to put in a few hours of studying - both reviewing what was taught and also previewing the next day's content. To stay on top of classes out here and to get the most out of it, teachers expect us to be on the pro-active side meaning to immediately review what's been taught so that it's most fresh in our minds and to preview next day's lesson so that you'll be seeing it for a second time when it's explained to you by the instructor. It just sticks that much more.

Normally by dinner time, I'm all 'chinesed-out' and I just head out for dinner with a friend or two and catch up. There's a lot of selection to choose from which is possibly an upside of living in a 'big' city and at BLCU. After dinner, I try not to do any more studying as I normally like to relax.

How much Chinese will I be learning?

In the classroom, you'll be learning so much to the point that it's hard to keep up with every single new piece of vocabulary (reading and writing) and grammar point. So rest assured, you'll be thrown a lot of Chinese.

Quality of instructors?

All the teachers are really qualified. They aren't merely 'chinese speakers' that teach. They are trained to teach to foreigners. So how they come across and explain things is catered towards people like you and I! As I am in Level D, they use all Chinese, however my Speaking/Listening/Comprehensive do have English translation for vocab. But at the same time, they do keep the speed of their speaking and the words to a level that is consistent with our class's knowledge. So again, in this respect, I think they do a good job of helping foreigners with the language.

Will I be getting individual attention?

I did mention that class sizes are twenty per class, so the teacher to student ratio isn't the most conducive for learning. As such, very often students will have problems with pronunciation. Given the size of the class, it's hard for the teacher to really tune in on pronunciation without slowing down the pace of the class. I find this to be the biggest downside at BLCU and I imagine at many of the larger institutions in China. To compensate for it and get the individual attention, you almost have to get an individual tutor or a language partner to work on stuff like that.

Will there be a lot of Foreigners?

Definitely! (which can be both good and bad)

A lot of the Universities in Beijing are in the same district so really choosing one school over another won't make much of a difference from a too-many-foreigners perspective. I remember when I first arrived here, the getting setup and registration part was a nightmare. It took a foreign friend who had been through the process to help me out through all the hurdles. When I was up and running and other new students at that point in time started to arrive for the semester, they too were having difficulties with the whole registration process so it was my turn to step up and help them out. So because we are all in a new environment, it's nice to be able to relate to people who are going through that same process. That I find is the most comforting part of having so many foreign people around. You also unknowingly pick up a bit of their culture. I've noticed I'm slowly getting a UK accent!! Jokes aside, we take care of each other.

The obvious down-side is that you naturally end up communicating in less Chinese and talking more in English. I must admit that I've been guilty of that myself. However, having said that, I try to find the right balance. I have a few local friends and language partners who I meet here and there to practice Chinese. I always make my best attempt at using Chinese when I'm out at restaurants, shopping centers, etc. Rather than pointing at a picture to order food, I'll pull out my electronic dictionary necessary to pronounce what's on the menu. So I think it's really just how disciplined your are. It's totally do-able. To get the most out of the experience, I'd highly recommend keeping sort of two groups of friends: one group where you literally communicate in nothing other than Chinese and a few good friends that you wouldn't mind talking in English with.

Why did I ultimately choose Beijing and BLCU?

Knowing that it'd be dry, polluted, expensive and with many foreigners, I still chose BLCU. To be honest, I didn't really do much comparing with other institutions. My college instructor said that it was a good school and it stuck with me. I visited the website, sent an e-mail or two to BLCU with a few questions, visited some Forums on housing and BLCU, double-checked the prices of BLCU's program compared to other institutions to notice that there really wasn't a difference and went for it.

I chose Beijing because it's the capital of China and so full of history. Also, it's considered the place where standard Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) is spoken. I knew that it would still be China but also knew that they would have some western restaurants and facilities in case I really had to fall back on them. At this point in time, I've rarely eaten a Western meal!

So the make or break is really how comfortable you'll be with China and even your level of Chinese. If it's your first time, I'd try to stay in the bigger cities to avoid a total culture shock. It also serves as extra "insurance" in case you really miss the luxuries of home. So even though I've been eating like a local Chinese 95% of the time and spending like a local, I still appreciate that on that odd day I can go to Wang Fu Jin, which is a western-like shopping district, and eat a nice hamburger which I've only done once so far for that past two months!!

I know what I've said is not exhaustive and you'll have some unanswered questions, but hopefully I've given a bit more insight into the whole BLCU experience!

One last thing...

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