Why HBA is Awesome...

Even though the studies were fun (um...), the adventures were awesome (yea!), and the experiences were unforgettable (woo-hoo!), I think the true heroes these past nine weeks are our wonderful teachers.  Although we may think that we've got it hard, doing our homework and memorizing our characters, our teachers have got just as much on their hands as we do, if not more.  Every day and every week, they grade all of our stuff, correct our essays, and prepare for class.

The heroes of HBA!

So here we go, going from top to bottom, left to right... all of our extraordinary teachers!

刘伟 -- She is our first Large Class teacher, and it's probably a good thing that she headed L3.  She made sure that the classes in L3 ran smoothly, and was very serious about our studies.  This could be seen in the Speech Contest preparation.  I think that L3 prepared the most of everyone in HBA, and the results were visible during the awards ceremony.  L3 students got 2 first places, 3 second places, and an honorable mention.  I think that's as good or better than all of the other levels at HBA combined.

Probably not my best conversation with 刘老师, if you know what I mean... =P

胡海波 -- He is another Large Class teacher, and it's also a good thing that he was one of the heads of L3.  His personality stands in contrast to 大刘老师.  He is a lot less serious and tends to be more "playful" and "silly," but he still makes sure that we are keeping up with our studies.  He loves to tap students (and sometimes teachers!) on the head with a stick.  He sort of seems like a little kid in a grown-up body.  It's really funny!

I'm really a little kid on the inside, too!

高倩 -- First of all, her 特色 (distinguishing characteristic) is her smile.  She has the best smile.  Ever.  And she never frowns.  Ever.  That itself is a huge morale booster, as we're all incredibly tired each and every morning.  She is a really good teachers, especially to Americans, because I think she understands a lot more American slang than I thought our teachers would.  I think she's the first one I talked to about slang, and probably contributed to the development of the HBA dialect of Chinese.  It was really impressive.  She's also quite a quick thinker -- she also enjoys logic and thinking puzzles!

Can you beat this smile?  No, you can't.

闫欣 -- She is one of the more serious （闫肃 or 严肃） teachers  during class time, but I think what sets her apart from the other teachers is her willingness to help the students.  The first instance that I saw of this was her sacrificing her lunch to help a student finish his Social Study report, which was due in less than an hour.  Later, she stayed long after office hours to help a student prepare for her Speech Contest.  Finally, she spent an Friday morning and most of the afternoon to help me prepare for my Speech Contest, also sacrificing her lunch again.  Without her help, I don't believe that I could have gotten a 2nd place at the contest.  More importantly, they way she says "对" really has 特色.  Most importantly, however, is that she was my first friend on 人人网 (Chinese Facebook).

严肃 (serious)?  Only in class!  对!!!

张琳 -- She is always super-cheerful, all the time.  She also likes to wear shirts with anime-like pictures on them.  Also, when taking pictures, she loves to do the peace sign, even more so than the average Chinese person!  This, along with her personality, leads me to think that she is kind of a little kid on the side as well.  I think she was really able to interact with the students because of this.  After HBA, she made a Facebook!  Of course I friended her =)  Who wouldn't want to be friends with 张老师?

Hey, I can do the peace sign, too!

魏巧华 -- One of the more unfortunate things at HBA was the fact that I didn't really get to know all the teachers, due to scheduling or just mere chance.  Although I didn't have many opportunities to interact with her, I do know that she's very responsible, and also very nice.  However, she definitely had the most awesome glasses in L3!

My glasses are super-jealous...

周芸 -- When I first looked at the pictures on the board, her picture seemed the most serious, so I was a little afraid of her at first... but... not only was she my favorite teacher at HBA, but she is probably my favorite teacher of all time.  First of all, I think she's a great teacher.  She is normally a Drill Section teacher, and her class is always really fun and engaging.  When she taught Large Class for the first time, I wasn't in her section, but I switched with another student so I could hear her teach!  And it was definitely worth it!  Since I think she has a pretty strong sense of humor, it makes the things I learn in her class much easier to remember.  She's also really picky when it comes to grammar, which is a good thing when she's helping us fix up our essays.  There was one time where she helped me fix part of my essay, and when I got it back, the first half had only one red marking, while the rest of the essay was covered in red.  I think we all know which half she helped me with.  The one downside of her attention to grammar is when she actually grades our essays!  But that's not necessarily a bad thing, either.  Secondly, I think that she's a good friend.  She played ping-pong with a few of us students.  Also, when a few of us organized a prank that involved taking another student to class in a piece of luggage, she helped us out by filming it (which is unfortunately too large to upload to this blog... perhaps it'll eventually make it online).  And the fact that she tolerated all my weirdness (sometimes) and shenanigans (sometimes) is quite impressive.  When I challenged her to solve some number sequences and logic puzzles, she figured them out surprisingly quickly!  I was honestly quite impressed.  She definitely helped to make HBA the wonderful, unforgettable, awesome experience that I found it to be.  Not sure if this counts as trolling, but on the teacher evaluation, on a scale from 1 to 5, I gave her a 6!

周老师's awesomeness level... IT'S OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!  (Those are actually factorials)

杨盼 -- She is very calm and collected, and I know that she always puts in a lot of effort.  Oftentimes before 单班课 (one-on-one class), she takes a nap in the classroom, but when class actually starts, she still makes sure that the students are able to get the most out of this 50-minute class, despite how tired she may actually be.  She's really 温柔 (English translation not that great -- an example of where Chinese can better express an idea, I think), just really nice to the students.  Whenever I have to do an oral presentation, I always hope that she's one of the teachers grading me!

From just looking her picture, you can almost feel how nice she is...

梁清沁 -- Due to unfortunate scheduling, I didn't see her much in class.  But I won't forget the one time that she volunteered to take us to Peking University.  In pouring rain.  The thing is, it's kind of hard to get into Peking University without a student at that university, since there are way too many tourists who want to visit the campus.  The fact that she took an entire afternoon to show some students around in less-than-ideal weather really means something to me.  And then she took another group of students to visit the next day.  Wow.

She took these two, me, and 2 other students... and she treated us to dinner, too!

廖思涵 -- She was my first 单班课 teacher, and also my last 单班课 teacher.  She is also very 温柔, and she went to Inner Mongolia for the Social Study project, which means that she's probably braver than me!  She helped organize the L3 performance, which ended up being quite a show!  She also posts about her take on HBA or memorable events on Facebook, which are always interesting to read... now if only my Chinese skills were high enough so I don't have to click "Translate Now!" every time... but my excuse is that she uses 繁体字 (traditional characters)!

Inner Mongolia!  (I didn't go, but thanks to Facebook...)

刘丹 -- I didn't get to know her for a long time, but she was the first teacher to invite me to play ping-pong, which was really fun.  I thought that while I'm in China, I should play some ping-pong, right?  But I never really found many people to play with or many opportunities to play.  It's really too bad that I only got to know her towards the end of the program, especially because my friend told me that she's really cool -- and I'd have to agree with him on that!

I am put to shame because she is way cooler than me...

李雅萍 -- In my opinion, what distinguishes her is that she's so 热情 (warm/enthusiastic, but I think that English again lacks a good translation).  She's the first teacher that HBA that really made me feel welcome!  I think she's the one teacher who most actively seeks out interactions with the students, and many students really like her, too!  She's also the one who showed me around the university campus, and suggested a few restaurants and other places to me and my friends!

Midnight snack!

胡静 -- So, I'm kind of shy, she's kind of shy, and I didn't have class with her due to scheduling, so I unfortunately didn't really get to know her until later, when I finally had a chance to have lunch with her.  I'm basically the slowest eater ever, so everyone left when they were done.  Nobody waited for me, except her!  Thanks so much for not making me the awkward kid eating alone!  I found out that she's one of the friendliest people I have ever met.

Remember when I said she's friendly?  Well... I take that back!

孙琳芳 -- When one of our teachers left because he was too busy, she came heroically to save L3 from being short one teacher.  Her appearance may at first fool you into thinking she's only a kid, but her attitude proves that she really knows what she's doing.  At first, she was understandably shy, coming into Week 2 not knowing any of the students and probably only a few teachers, but she soon became like she was here all along, making a bunch of friends and enjoying the HBA experience.  In her case, fortunately due to scheduling and pure chance, I saw her all the time, in class, at lunch, and during office hours!

A final joyful lunch with 孙老师 =)  Hope you enjoyed HBA as much as I did!

So these are our L3 teachers!  [cue for applause now]  I don't really how else to express my gratitude to you all!  Each and every one are really awesome, I think that English, Chinese, and Chinglish are all insufficient describe this!

I wasn't at the last teacher's meeting, obviously, but thanks to Facebook...

But wait... there are two more teachers that deserve a special mention!

张佳妮 -- She is one of the teachers who took us to Xi'an on our Social Study trip.  She was like an older sister （姐姐） to us on the trip, leading us on our fabulous adventures, exploring China's history (but we all know, more importantly, having a blast!).  I think she's working at Harvard next year, so perhaps we'll meet again... in America!

Me, 张老师, and Matt -- all part of our Xi'an family!

郝荣荣 -- She is the other teacher who took us to Xi'an.  I feel like she was our mother （妈妈） on the trip, because of her incredible 责任感 (sense of responsibility).  When one of our comrades got sick on the trip, she was the one to take care of her, taking the sick student to find medicine and staying with her an afternoon while the rest of us went out to tour Xi'an.  She also coordinated visiting a high-school in 延安 (Yan'an), which was one of the most memorable parts of our trip.  Also, after the Xi'an trip, I saw her a lot more at HBA.  The paper-cutting class that she taught was really fun -- it was the one craft skill that I used again after the class (see picture way below).  As we all like to say, 郝老师是好老师!  She'll be teaching at Brown University next year, so perhaps we'll meet again... in America!

Making Xi'an the most legit Social Study trip ever -- all part of our Xi'an family!

Oh wait, but there's one last one!

贾茗越 -- So one day, I was at Xi'an, I go on Facebook, and I see I have a friend request.  It's the first time I've gotten a friend request from someone with a Chinese name (so I quickly use Google Translate so I can read the name).  I see that our mutual friends are people at HBA, so for the first time, I accept a friend request from someone I did not know, and also for the first time, I friended a teacher at HBA on Facebook.  That's so many "firsts."  Fast forward a week, back at HBA, I finally got to meet and get to know her.  I never got to have class with her class since she's a L2 teacher, but I found out that she's friends with 周老师 and some of the L3 teachers.  I'm really glad that she somehow found me on Facebook and for some reason sent me a friend request -- otherwise I'd most likely have not met this awesome person!

Who says you can't make friends through Facebook?!

OK, now I'm really done!  Many thanks go out to the other teachers at HBA, who undoubtedly made differences in the lives of the other students!

周老师, 孙老师, good memories!  The results from paper-cutting class!  Thanks 郝老师!

One final thanks goes out to all of the 很特别非常 awesome teachers.  I wish you all the best!  Hey, and one more thing, if you have a 人人网, please add me -- I need more friends!  And if you have or just made a Facebook account, I'd love to friend you, too!  Looking forward to the day we'll all meet again!!!

O(∩_∩)O

~~~ Until we meet again ~~~

Concluding Remarks

HBA was definitely a wonderful experience, as you can see from basically everything I've said or posted about this program.  In two short months, the amount of Chinese I learned is incredible, and the friendships formed are beautiful, and the experience obtained are unforgettable.

Believe it or not, I got so used to speaking Chinese, that even after I got back to United States, I'd have to think about speaking English before opening my mouth, otherwise I'd start inserting Chinese words into my sentences.  After studying Chinese, I realized that these two languages each have better ways of representing different thoughts and ideas, so I like to take the best of both worlds and speak a superior language: Chinglish.  However, this may or may not be my own fault, but most of my own thoughts are still in English, so most of my information processing is still done in English, which means that I didn't really have a single dream in Chinese.  I really wanted to be able to start thinking in Chinese, but the problem was, I could do some simple thinking in Chinese, but anything advanced, and I'd have to revert to English, otherwise I couldn't finish my thoughts or it would just be way too slow, and I'd run out of patience waiting for my Chinese skills to catch up to my thoughts.

高老师 thinking, probably in Chinese... I wish I could do that

Probably the most well-known rule of HBA is the Language Pledge, where we are not allowed to speak any languages other than Chinese for the entire duration of the program.  It is fantastic for allowing us to make friends through a common challenge, as well as getting us accustomed to speaking Chinese.  Although this is a wonderful idea in theory, I think that there are certain problems with it.  Sometimes it's really hard to express certain ideas, and circumlocution isn't really going to work, so just a quick word or two of English isn't going to hurt anyone.  If anything, I'd think it'd make learning Chinese more efficient, especially slang or informal spoken Chinese.  This is especially important, since most of the stuff we learn in class isn't really used in everyday life.  Like the teachers told me, nobody in China goes around trying to use 语法 (grammar patterns) or 生词 (new characters).

 杨老师 pondering this issue (but probably not really, though)

Another related issue is who we're speaking Chinese with.  Again, perhaps this is our own fault for not seeking out more native Chinese people, but the conversational exchanges we have with most people are great for getting used to speaking Chinese, but not exceptionally great for learning more Chinese.  The two main groups of people that we communicate with on a daily basis.  The first is our peers.  Since we're all students (most of my friends are also L3 with me), our Chinese has problems, so talking with our friends can reinforce the mistakes we make, teach our friends wrong ways to say stuff, learn from our friends wrong ways to say stuff, and such things.  Even though this view is extremely pessimistic, I found that speaking with my Chinese relatives for a few days caused me to be a lot more conversational in Chinese than a few weeks speaking with my friends.  However, the best thing that came out of this is the development of the HBA dialect of Chinese!

The second group are our teachers.  Even though they are probably some of the greatest people I've ever met in my life and their Chinese is probably the most accurate Chinese I've ever heard in my life, they took the huge effort to downgrade their Chinese to L3 levels, which means that they are not really speaking real Chinese to us.  Of course, this is entirely for our benefit, since it'll help reinforce the grammar patterns and new characters that we're supposed to be learning, but the side effect is that it not only a "fake" Chinese experience, but it also gets us used to speaking "weird" Chinese.  Some of my teachers have also told me that speaking at L3 levels is kind of strange for them -- when they speak to their Chinese friends, their friends say that the way that our teachers speak is really funny.  Another teacher told me that the reason it's impossible to get a 100 on an essay is that you have to use certain grammar patterns, which makes the essay sound awkward and thus undeserving of a 100.  Kind of paradoxical, but I guess that's just the way it is.

The only time 高老师 has ever frowned.  Ever.

A final thing is that we lived at a university.  As a Yale student, I know for a fact that living at Yale is not the same as living in the real world.  We call it the "Yale bubble," and in China I feel that there is a similar phenomenon.  Especially because 北京语言大学 (Beijing Language and Culture University) has a ton of foreign students that bring with them their own culture, the environment here had a kind of an international feel rather than a more Chinese feel.  In my opinion, staying with my relatives felt like a more legit China experience, but I'm not really sure how to describe that in words, or whether or not my feelings are right.

Nevertheless, HBA was a wonderful experience, and probably the best summer I've had in my life.  If the objectives of HBA were learning Chinese and having a fantastic time, then both ends were achieved to the fullest.

周老师 thought HBA was awesome

So does Jackie...

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Harvard for having this program.  I'd also like to thank Beijing Language and Culture University for letting us use their campus, and being wonderful hosts.  I also could not have done it without Yale's generous Light Fellowship, so many many many thanks to them.  Finally, I'd like to thank our fantastic teachers, who made the HBA experience the unforgettable one it was!

Houhai Water Gun War

This is probably singly the most memorable experience in Beijing.  So as the last few days were nearing, a few of my friends and I decided that it would be really awesome to have a huge final water gun fight.  We've had a couple before, once in front of our Conference Center where we were staying, and another at the Forbidden City (don't worry, we've got serious video coverage of this, and I think a lot of other tourists that day have coverage as well!).

However, this water gun fight was going to be the biggest, the baddest, the awesomest one we've had yet!  We were going to have it at Houhai in the paddle-boats on the lake, like pirates!  And then we had an even better idea: let's invite the teachers to participate in the water gun fight as well!  I was surprised as to how many teachers actually came to our crazy event, 8 out of the 12 teachers decided to participate, and needless to say, I was really happy!

The only thing was, there were way more people than I originally planned, so we ran to the supermarket to buy more weapons, but their supply was too low, so two of my friends bravely volunteered to run to the Silk Street to purchase more water guns.  It took a little longer than expected, but never fear, we had a "hacky sack" that looked sort of like a badminton birdie.

It's kind of small, but see if you can spot the hacky-sack birdie thing

Once the arms shipment came in, we were all ready to go, except once everyone got their weapons loaded, everyone started opening fire (or water)!  I was the one loading the guns since I brought the ammunition, but even so, I took a lot of fire even before the war officially began.

Looks like Linh took a few hits before the war began...

Fortunately, we were able to hold a ceasefire long enough to take a picture commemorating the most commemorable experience in China.


Pictured below, from left to right:
胡老师, 刘老师, Matthew Johnson, Jon Gonzalez, 周老师, 闫老师, Linh Nguyen, 杨老师, Jessica Yap, 高老师, 李老师, Eric Pan (me), Noon Euchukanonchai, Jackie Lee, 张老师, Andy Liu

Words cannot describe the level of awesome we achieved that day =)

And then we boarded our sea vessels (a.k.a. paddle-boats), and the war officially began.  It was WAY more intense than I had originally imagined.  To the best of my knowledge, everyone was super-into the battle.  Everyone formed alliances, broke treaties, unloaded many rounds of ammo on the enemy ("spraying" the enemy), tossed countless grenades (large volumes of water from bottles).  It wasn't long before everyone was thoroughly and completely soaked, especially once an engagement occurred, there was no way to escape without emptying all of your ammo and eating all off the enemy's attacks, thanks to the low mobility of our ships.

Fortunately, there were free reloads from the lake.  Unfortunately, that meant that the amount of water that was exchanged that day prevented me from taking any pictures at all.  Any electronics on board were at serious risk of never functioning again.

Once we disembarked, we could see the vast amounts of damage that everyone sustained.  Not a single spot on a single person was dry.  In hindsight, this would have been a good time to grab a few photos, but alas, I was a young foolish boy back then (a week ago) and forgot...

If anybody has any pictures or videos of our grand finale, please send them to me -- I'd love to see them and/or upload them to this blog!

Thanks to Jessica Yap, we have a few photos!!!

Linh during wartime!

My archnemesis, Noon, looks harmless enough...

... but she knows Muay Thai!!!

Our sniper team, consisting of 张老师 as the spotter and Andy as the sniper!

Thoroughly soaked, but still thoroughly smiling!

Adventures, Adventures, and more Adventures

So, in the last two weeks, it was super busy due to a few reasons:

1. HBA was coming to an end soon, so we wanted to make the most of the remaining time in China, a.k.a. visit as many places as we could in the remaining time.
2. A bunch of tests, including final exam, HSK （汉语水平考试）, and OPIc (some speaking test).
3. The Olympics were on TV...

The side effects of this extreme busyness are as follows:

1. Slightly (only slightly) less time to study.  Really, only slightly.
2. Slightly (only slightly) less time to sleep.  Really, only slightly.
3. Slightly (only slightly) less time to write the blog.  Really, only slightly.
4. A heck of a lot more fun!!!  Really, a heck of a lot more!

I think that the above list would be slightly (only slightly) more truthful if you replaced all the instances of "slightly" with another word of slightly higher degree.  Really.


Since I visited too many places, I decided that I would combine all of them into one blog post, so get ready... believe me, it was really hard to find only two representative photos from each awesome place we visited.  If you want to know more about any of this stuff, feel free to contact me!

*** Acrobatics ***

Acrobatics are hard to show with pictures, but this...

All the performers, it's really not the same if you didn't see the show =(

*** 龙庆峡 (Long Qing Xia) Great Dragon Gorge ***

Bungee jumping, but too bad I didn't do it...

Awesome 高老师 in foreground + awesome background = Awesome picture!

** Lama Temple ***

A courtyard, you can kneel at the incense burner if you want

Taking pictures with foreigners!  Oh wait, they're also HBA students... =P

*** Temple of Heaven ***

Hopefully a representative picture...

Taking pictures with 外国人, for real this time!

*** Laoshe Teahouse ***

Huge teacup outside that says 大碗茶 (huge bowl of tea)

Lots of performances, including some awesome shadow puppets

*** 北京大学 (Peking University) ***

Looks like a beautiful park, this green-ness is not often seen in Beijing!

I have an umbrella because it rained, OK?

*** Xidan ***

"Shopping Center" pretty much describes what we did here

In retrospect, I should have bought more stuff in China =(

*** Tiananmen Square ***

The Tiananmen flagpole, complete with the two guards

Tiananmen Square, not sure what else to say...

*** Forbidden City ***

At the entrance, as you can see, there are many tourists

If only we were allowed to try sitting on that throne!

*** Spinning Cafe (?) -- not sure exactly what it's called ***

It's that round thing at the top of the hotel, pretty high-class (and expensive)

But the view is probably worth it, and the cafe spins, too!

*** Graduation ***

Director Liu: "You can speak English now!" --- WOO-HOO!  YAY!!!

Final lunch with teachers... got pictures with all the teachers, except 周老师 =(

I hope that this post was not incredibly boring and long since it covered so much stuff.  But I think it's OK because most of it is pictures, and everyone likes pictures more than walls of text.  My only problem with this is that I don't think a measly two pictures can fully detail the true awesomeness of each of these experiences, so again, if you want to know more or get more pictures, feel free to ask me, and I'd be happy to share with you!

And thus my adventures in China came to a close.  But wait, they did not, because one last awesome event happened, before I headed off to Tianjin to see my relatives one more time before I headed home to America.