Lotus Study Program anyone?

[mscott101]

I'm going to spend two weeks in Beijing or thereabout this November to study Chinese. I've been looking at this program called Lotus Study from the Lotus Educational Foundation (lotusstudy.com) that will provide homestay and tutors. I've only been able to find one or two posts here that talk about this program. Has anyone else out there either been on this program or considered it and decided against it? Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Matt

[imron]

There are several posts here that talk about it. It's one of the few homestay programs that have received positive reviews on the forums.

[sthubbar]

I will add to the positive feedback for lotusstudy.com. I spend two weeks with a Chinese family in October of 2005. I also took private tutoring classes that they setup for me. I had such a great experience that I decided to come back to China for the long haul, though this time I'm more on my own.

I had an excellent experience with the host family and with the Lotus study personnel both in China and in the States.

[NickyR]

Hello

I'm doing a homestay with Lotus at the moment. I think it's great.

I am NOT actually doing their complete porgramme - I booked my tuition through a university separately and then got the homestay only programme through Lotus. I went through Lotus because I really wanted to stay with a family but I didn't think my diabolical Chinese was up to organising something like that by myself, and I also had no idea what to expect (because I'd never been to CHina before), so I wanted an organisation to basically "chaperone" me in case it all went horribly wrong.

I picked Lotus because, as someone mentioned above, it was the only organisation who I could only find positive reviews for and didn't shamelessly self-promote by posing as genuine participants on forums like this. I think it also the website that other companies plaigarise (sp?) their material from.

So far I have found Lotus to be a really solid organisation. They met me as promised at the airport and placed me with a family that matched all my criteria. They did tell me that my family would be "close" to my school, and they actually live about an hour away (door to door) from college. However, to be honest I think and hour away is not a bad commute for Beijing and I actually like using my bus ride to prepare for class. Because I am not on the prgramme itself (just homestay only), they originally told me that I wouldn't be invited to the "events" that they run. However, I have been here for 4 weeks now and they've invited me on 2 trips (probably just to fill up space). I went on one and it was quite good fun - it was mainly Chinese employees of Lotus I think because there weren't that many laowai. I don't know whether there would be more events if you are on the programme... If these are important to you/your worst nightmare, you might want to ask.

Otherwise the only other contact I've had with them was to check I was OK a couple of days after I arrived, and then when they sent me a list of veggie restaurants to cope with my boyfriend's food disability when he visits in October. They seem to call the host family a little more often to check I'm not running amok in Beijing (I'm not!).

To be honest, I think the only real way to test these organisations is to see how they deal with problems, and so far (touch wood) I've not had any. I LOVE my family and am having a much better time here than I thought I would have. I also spend most of my time with Chinese people, something which I don't think I would have done if I hadn't done a homestay because my speaking is dreadful. And I think my CHiense has come on enormously. I actually only booked my homestay for a couple of months but have just extended it to 5 because it is so good.

My advice if you are considering a homestay is to be VERY flexible. Also, it is NOT a budget option. It is an expensive way to stay in Beijing. For me, I have eventually decided that it is a price worth paying (or at least for my employer to pay, perhaps a slightly different thing!) because of my exposure to the language and culture. I think that you would need to judge whether it is worth it depending on what you want to get out of the trip.

Message me if you want to know anything else. I have a tendency to drone on and on and on and I've probably bored everyone else already!

Nicky

PS -You may also get fat. They feed you all the time. I have only been here for 4 weeks and have already put on 7 kilos. Yes, 7! They seem to find this hilarious, and have resolved to feed me even more... I anticipate having to get supersized clothes mailed from the UK very soon....

[roddy]

I have a tendency to drone on and on and on and I've probably bored everyone else already!

Absolutely not - real-life feedback is hugely valuable to anyone trying to choose a provider in what is not the most trust-filled of fields, and it's good to hear you are having such a successful experience. Drone away, preferably with photos and detailed descriptions of everything you are eating.

Message me if you want to know anything else.

Or if at all possible ask on here so that everyone gets the benefit of the answers

[cdn_in_bj]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It is nice to hear that at least one honest homestay business exists.

they sent me a list of veggie restaurants to cope with my boyfriend's food disability when he visits in October

I wouldn't mind hearing about how their recommendations work out for the two of you.

PS -You may also get fat. They feed you all the time. I have only been here for 4 weeks and have already put on 7 kilos. Yes, 7! They seem to find this hilarious, and have resolved to feed me even more... I anticipate having to get supersized clothes mailed from the UK very soon....

Yeah, you gotta watch that here. Northern-style Chinese cooking can be very fattening. After a few months here and the urge to eat everything subsides, your weight should stabilize a bit. I myself have come down from my "peak", but I find my weight still tends to cycle. I personally dislike shopping for pants so that is sort of an added incentive for me to be careful, and if I notice my pants getting tight(er) around the waist then I know it's time to "jian fei". Though my recent discovery of, and affection for, "ma la xiang guo" is not helping matters much.

[adrianlondon]

I lost weight when I spent 6 months in Beijing.

Partly because I cycled a lot, and partly because in London I often go out for 3 course meals with wine. Yes, the food in Beijing wasn't healthy and no doubt all the extra salt didn't do me any good, but when dinner consists of just one course, gobbled down as quickly as possible with tea, it's less calories than I was used to.

Feel free to split this (and the preceeding post or two) into a new thread, dear moderators, if you wish!

[mscott101]

Thank you all for the great responses.

Sthubbar - Can you tell me a little about the tutoring you received? Maybe what the classes were like and what materials you used? I'm looking to focus as much as possible on my speaking and listening for the 2 weeks I'm there. I was also hoping that the tutors might be flexible enough to do things like go to the market with me and other such things where we can use the language naturally. Where did you do the classes? Since I'm not with a Uni there I'm not sure where we'd meet. My understanding is that Lotus does not have their own classrooms....is that right?

Nicky - Lots of good information in your post. I've seen the photos of families and their living arrangements on the website. Did you get to pick a specific family or did you just describe what you wanted and Lotus chose for you? How is the family with helping you with your Chinese? Do they speak some English as well? I think the homestay sounds like such a great option.

Two weeks sounds like it will be just long enough for me to be really disappointed in having to leave. If only I had done this before I started working full time. Now I have to spend my vacations to try to do stuff like this. Great forum here! Thanks again.

[sthubbar]

Mscott, sounds like you are planning the exact thing that I had planned, I spent two weeks with Lotusstudy and a private tutor. If I remember correctly, I met with my tutor for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. As with the homestay family, my tutor was excellent. I was in complete charge of the class and she was there to facilitate me in anyway I wanted.

At first she interviewed me to determine my language level and what I wanted to learn such as speaking or reading. We then went to the bookstore and bought some books that she thought appropriate for my level. I ended up pretty much ditching the books because I wanted a more personalized approach. My classes ended up with me going around Beijing in the afternoon and evenings and then the next day asking the tutor to help me say things like "Can I take your picture?" "Would you please take a picture of me here?" "Can we take a picture together?" I also asked her to teach me the 12 Animal years. That sort of thing. My tutor did go with me on outings so that is completely doable.

Most of the time, when not on an outing, we met at the BLCU library. There are a couple of coffee shops inside where people meet with tutors. The tutor can also come to your home or where ever else you might like. BTW, your tutor is being well paid so don't feel bad if you want to ask her to come to your house or wherever else is convenient for you.

[mscott101]

Sthubbar: Thanks again for your response. Indeed, it sounds like you did the exact same thing that I am planning to do. Two weeks is not much time, but I'll take what I can get. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished...do you mind if I use you as a resource occasionally when I have questions? I can either post here or send you emails - whichever you prefer. I'm sure other could benefit from the discussion, but I don't want to clog up the boards with issues specific to me. It gives me much more comfort to know that someone else has already gone through this. Thanks again!

[NickyR]

Hello again,

I didn't actually pick my family - I just gave them a list of criteria and asked them to pick someone for me. It's kind of difficult to know how significant the criteria I gave were for them. I think I asked for a family with achild (thinking I probably have about the same vocab as a 2 year old), which I didn't get, but it wasn't really that important to me and I didn't make a big thing about it, so it was no problem that that didn;t happen. They eventually put me with a couple who are about the same age as me - which has worked out really well. I have no idea whether they are featured on the website, and I don't remember being specifically asked whether I wanted a family featured there. But I think they say that you can ask for a family on there if they look good to you.

One slightly annoying thing is that they don't tell you who you've been matched with until a week before you arrive (they state this quite clearly on their site, but I still found it a bit annoying). They say it's because things change and they don't want to get people matched up, for it only to fall apart at the last minute. However, my host sister(? Not sure what word to use here?) found out she was pregnant about a week after I arrived - so I guess that's the sort of thing that might make people pull out - so maybe it's all for the best.

As for the language - we muddle through on Chinese and English, mostly CHinese. They do speak a bit of English (I think I asked for this as I was essentially a beginner (2 months worth of lessons in Honkers 2 years ago and absolutely nada since then) when I arrived and thought it would be too difficult without it). They don't really tend to use it - they're much more likely to speak slowly in CHinese to me. She, in particular, will think of different Chinese words to use when I don't understand something, rather than resorting to English. However, if we are having an interesting conversation that goes beyond my level, but I still want to participate in, I will say it in English (sometimes they understand and sometimes they don't), and they'll tell me how to make that point in Chinese (which I invariably forget). They have recently started this thing when they test me on the vocablulary I didn't undertand at dinner the day before. It's horrid for me, as I always forget, and he always remembers the English equivalent I taught him, but it is good for me!

I think it has helped my Chinese a lot when I compare myself to my classmates who live in the dorms/flats. I think I understand a lot more, and I am more comfortable with standard speed of speech (I certainly understand a lot more than I can say). Or perhaps it is just that I am much more comfortable listening to sentences of which I can only grasp about 50% of. For example, when our teacher asks us a question, my classmates (who are basically the same level as me) tend to clarify what was asked in English before answering, whereas I am perfectly happy to just bash out an answer. I think this is a good skill to develop because in real life you can't clarify in English before answering. I am also more willing to speak Chinese I think. I'd love to say that my pronunciation is great, but it's still dreadful. However, it may well have been more dreadful if I'd not been living with a family!

One slightly difficult thing is that they don't correct me. TO them learning a lnaguage is about communication, so if they understand the point I've made, they won't tell me if my word order was wrong. or my tones were muddled etc. I agree that communication is key, but I start to learn my mistakes so that they sound natural - a dangerous path methinhks. So if you want them to correct you, make sure you make that very very clear from the start...

A lot of people worry that they will be English teachers to the family. There is definitely no expectation of that, so I assume Lotus make that clear to the families. However, I suppose I do "teach" them sometimes, in the sense that we often compare the 2 languages. My host brother (??) is actually going to have English lessons next week, and I'm sure I'll help him with homework. I don't begrudge this at all - they are not meant to be my Chinese teachers, but I still ask them to explain things to me.

I think a lot of families do the homestay because CHinese people often don't have very much opportunity to go abroad, so this is a way to find out about different cultures. So, depending on your level of Chinese, I would perhaps go over some vocab which will help you talk about your home culture when you arrive. This will make dinner conversations a lot less tou teng inducing...

The cultural exposure is the best thing about it though really. Eating rice prrodge for breakfast, going for san bu aroud the flat after dinner (sanbu was a word I could remember from Hong Kong, but I had never really appreciated its cultural significance before accompanying my family;s ba ba on a sanbu the other night), and all that kind of thing. My homestay sister's parents have come to live with us for the next few months to help out now that she's pregnant (itself a very Chinese thing to happen), and I'm hoping that, come the winter, mama is going to teach me how to cook Chinese food.

I have lots of hilarious stories regarding cultural and linguistic differences which I can share with you if you wish. They might make you feel more at ease about the potential difficulties attached to the homestay experience. But you'll no doubt get your own soon!

Let me know if there's anything else you want to know.

Nicky

Other things I've remembered:

They give you a sim card and a dictionary when you arrive as well. I didn't get one on homestay only, but you would as part of the programme.

I think I met someone who is doing the tutoring programme and she has lessons at her host family's home.

[NickyR]

Oh dear - look at the size of that post! Droning again. Roddy may regret giving me the green light on that one!

[imron]

Board space is cheap, and this thread is nowhere near as long as some of our longer running ones. Don't worry about clogging up board space so long as it's staying on topic All of this stuff provides useful information for people trying to find out about homestays.

[roddy]

Absolutely. Tthis stuff is golddust - nay, gold nuggets - to anyone considering a homestay, and plenty of people who aren't will still find it interesting to read some thoughts about living with a Chinese family. And if anyone is disinterested, they don't have to read it. Seriously, you could be writing that length of stuff on your daily activities and people would be reading it.

[adrianlondon]

NickyR - great post!

Did you at any time feel uncomfortable eating all the food they cooked, or stuf they bought for you from food stalls etc, without contributing directly financially? Or is the whole set-up with Lotus such that you know they've already been adequately recompensed?

[NickyR]

Ah good question! This is a bit of an issue for me at the moment. I basically don't know how the money side of it works - and I really want to for exactly the reasons you pointed out. So I have no idea how much they are recompensed for my stay - if, indeed, they are recompensed at all.

It's not necessarily something I feel I can criticise Lotus itself for, because I don't really think that they have a particular duty to tell me about the financial arrangements that they have with their host families. However, as I said, I would like to know.

So far, I have dealt with it in the following manner. I have basically treated Lotus as an "agency" going between me and the host family, seeing it as being much like a business arrangement. SO I accept that my side of the deal is that I pay cash to Lotus, and their side of the deal is that they provide me with a room and two meals a day. I therefore don't feel "guilty" (on a day-to-day basis) that my family buys the food on a day-to-day basis. I think this is made a little easier by the fact that:

a) My family is reasonably well-off. They live in a nice apartment and certainly are not poor. I'm not saying that I think that makes it OK if I am sitting here getting fat on their hard earned cash, but I do think I would have felt really uncomfortable if I was so obviously much better off than them (in raw terms, I probably am; but in relative terms, they are definitely more successful than me!). At least I know they can afford to have me..

B) We are all flexible about the food issue. For instance, they are meant to “provide” me with breakfast and dinner. But I get up a lot earlier than them to get to school. So I make my own breakfast every morning (although they provide the food).

c) They don’t do anything else for me. They are really helpful, but what I mean is that they are not my servants! I do my own clothes washing etc. To a very great extent, we are people who live together, but just happen to have a different arrangement when it comes to food.

However, the situation still makes me feel a little awkward. I think the downside of the arrangement is that I still feel like a guest in the house. I have on occasion been allowed to wash up (if he’s out I always do the washing up, but when he’s in he won’t let me and makes me go sit and chat with his wife – obviously more enjoyable than washing up but it does mean I feel much more like a guest than a member of their family!). He told me yesterday, when I hijacked the washing up gloves, that in China guests aren’t allowed to lift a finger, but I replied by saying that I wasn’t really a guest anymore because I’m staying such a long time, so I should act like a family member and doing the washing up.

So basically, I think what I am saying is two things.

1. The arrangement does make me feel a bit uncomfortable, but I am trying to be a grown-up about it and to remember that I am paying money for this service; that they are intelligent people who I am sure will have known exactly what they were letting themselves in for when they signed up for the scheme; and that in every other aspect I think that Lotus’ “expectations management” has been effective, so I see no reason to assume that this is any different here.

2. However, I also think that the arrangement to some extent prohibits my assimilation into the family. I am treated more like a guest than a family member. Perhaps less of an issue if you are doing a two week stay than if you are, as I am, here for 5-6 months.

NB – I should point out that domestic chores are the only real way that I don’t feel like a family member: they take me with them when they go visiting parents and other family members every other weekend etc, and I went out for dinner with them all when a family friend was visiting from South China.

In terms of my opinions about what they should be paid for having me, I don’t really know. I certainly don’t expect that all the money I give to Lotus goes to them – or even that it should go to them. I think that my opinions on this may differ from some people in this area? I accept that Lotus is a business (albeit with some charitable objectives), and that they are providing a service that otherwise would not have been available for me. It is a reasonably sizeable organisation, with offices in China and the US, and staff who, presumably, all want to be paid! I do not expect that all my cash should go to the family I am staying with….

I should point out at this point that while I have never previously done a homestay, my own family hosted homestay international students throughout my childhood. I think this experience has probably coloured/managed my expectations regarding homestays. We had students for as long as a year at a time, from the US and from various countries in Europe (I wrote about it briefly somewhere on this forum). My parents never received any money for the homestay from the agencies who organised it – and I expect the students paid a good deal for it. So I am very familiar with the financial side of similar arrangements, and am less surprised by the commercial baseline of homestay organisations than some people probably are.

However, I think that part of the reason even I see the situation in China as being slightly different is the fact that China is a developing economy. I would feel more comfortable about staying with, say, an American family and them not receiving any of my agency money than I do in China. It almost seems a little grotesque that comparatively rich westerners arrive in China, paying vast amounts of money for the privilege of an “authentic” Chinese experience, for which the locals receive very little - perhaps analogous to the tours of impoverished towns undertaken by rich westerners in air-conditioned 4 x 4s, marvelling at how cute they are because they wash their clothes in a stream. I think this is probably a philosophical point that I completely unequipped to deal with. It is also not really any reflection of my experience. As I said, my family are comparatively well-off, and, like most Westerners, I have definitely “assimilated” into (if I’ve assimilated at all!) middle-class Chinese life.

Nevertheless, I would like to think that the family would get an allowance for the “average” cost of 14 meals a week, plus the extra expense of having an extra person in the house: water, electric, inconvenience etc. This is of course considerably less than I pay – a fact that basic maths allowed me to work out before I arrived in Beijing. (By the way I do pay on a week-by-week basis: I didn’t pay a lump sum for a placement). I knew and accepted all of these things before I arrived – so I do not feel I have any right to feel disgruntled about it now.

I have been developing cunning plans to try to find out about the financial arrangements between Lotus and the family. These have ranged from asking either Lotus or my family directly (sounds like it could potentially go horribly wrong – I’m not well enough versed in Chinese culture to know how to phrase this question without causing offence), to asking them to help me transfer money to Lotus for the next leg of my tour. I once managed to say that more westerners would like to do homestays, but most found them too expensive, which they seemed to agree with, perhaps suggesting they do get some money? Any cultural insights would be gratefully appreciated on this point…

For now, I am content with the fact that we are all (my family and I) enjoying the experience of having me stay. I don’t mean this in an arrogant way at all: my Chinese is simply not good enough to dazzle them with my sparkling personality, even if I had one…. I just meant that they are so interested in basic aspects of life in the UK (like what we eat, what we do after dinner, do we watch TV etc) that I think they enjoy our broken conversations. They know they always have free accommodation if they ever do travel to the UK. They seem to find my inability to use chopsticks, my accidental reference to genitalia at the dinner table, and even the day when I flooded the flat with my ineffective washing machine usage all very funny! I feel very privileged to be living with them and privileged that I am in a position to afford it (thank-you dear company!).

I won’t make any more comments about the horrid length of the post(s!) – I’ll just assume you’ll tell me to stop if it’s dull!

Off to eat me dinner now. Another afternoon of character learning successfully avoided – thanks Chinese forums!

[sthubbar]

FYI, your host family is being paid by Lotus. Furthermore, in China is most usually culturally acceptable to talk about money. It is not uncommon for then to ask what each other makes, how much their house cost, or how much it is costing to send one's friend's kids to school.

PS mscott, sure you can contact me if you have questions about coming to Beijing. Better yet, search here then if you can't find the answers, post your questions here and let everyone benefit.

[gato]

I have been developing cunning plans to try to find out about the financial arrangements between Lotus and the family. These have ranged from asking either Lotus or my family directly (sounds like it could potentially go horribly wrong – I’m not well enough versed in Chinese culture to know how to phrase this question without causing offence), to asking them to help me transfer money to Lotus for the next leg of my tour.

You could ask if they had others doing home stay with them, how did they find out about Lotus, etc. If they are not deliberately trying to be mums about the financial arrangement, it'll come out.

I did a home stay in Mexico one time arranged by the language school I was studying at. The family I stayed with was a regular with the home stay program and was getting a share of the fees I paid the school. And it was a great experience.

[gato]

Off to eat me dinner now. Another afternoon of character learning successfully avoided – thanks Chinese forums!

You should get PlecoDict. Its flashcard program makes learning characters almost fun.

http://pleco.com/

[cdn_in_bj]

Again, thanks for sharing your experiences with us. I have always been interested in knowing how these homestay experiences work as well as work out for the participants.

It seems that there are two things that are bothering you the most:

1) Your guilt that you may be inadvertently taking advantage of them, or at least being a financial burden on them

2) That you are treated as a guest in their home and they don't let you do chores?

To the first point, like you said your agreement with the homestay company was that you would be provided these meals. The family obviously knows and has agreed to this too.

Also, your host family is probably a lot better off than you realize. What kind of jobs do the parents have? I would guess that, based on the fact that they live in a decent apartment here in Beijing, they are wealthier than 99% of the population in China. And I'm not exaggerating here either.

Finally, how they are compensated is really none of your concern (and I think you realize this too). Also, the compensation may be just a very small reason why they decided to join this program, especially if it is not that much at all. It sounds like they are enjoying the arrangement, and like you said they also get to experience a different culture right in their home. What's so bad about this? That said, Chinese do tend to be surprisingly direct and open about monetary issues (ie - salaries, cost of home, etc.) so you probably will find out about this anyways.

It almost seems a little grotesque that comparatively rich westerners arrive in China, paying vast amounts of money for the privilege of an “authentic” Chinese experience, for which the locals receive very little

If you really feel that way, then you should visit one of the poorer provinces where a farming family's annual income might only amount to 2000 RMB. Yes, that's right - annual income. You have no reason to feel like this towards your Beijing apartment-dwelling host family. Also, the homestay company and its staff are benefitting from you business, aren't they?

As to your second part, yes it is true that Chinese tend to be very generous to towards their guests, especially foreigners. It's true that it is considered awkward/embarrassing if a guest is allowed to do chores, but it sounds like you have moved past that stage. However, I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to achieve here. If it's just the chores that are bothering you, perhaps during one of your cultural discussions with the family you can mention the fact that in western culture it is considered polite of the guests to help out with the chores. And also that doing so here will make you feel more at home rather than being away from it?

my accidental reference to genitalia at the dinner table

Let me guess - did it perhaps have something to do with chicken?