Where to study chinese? - somewhere small and the less english-speakers the better!

[westmeadboy]

I know there are a million threads on where to study chinese in China, but I guess my requirements are specific enough that I need to start a new one.

I spent half a year traveling in China a couple of years ago and sort of know that I don't really want to live in a big city to study chinese. Also, I really don't want to be surrounded by too many english speakers as the temptation to speak english in my social life (and, hence, just hang out) would be too great. This rules out Yangshuo!

On the flip side, I don't think it would work to learn chinese in an unstructured (on the street) way. Therefore, I am looking to learn at some organization (uni or private school) with a proven track record in teaching foreigners chinese.

Any recommendations? Definitely somewhere with less than a million people, preferably about 100,000 if that is at all possible!

[muyongshi]

Well I think you should check the thread Remote Places to Study and for the most part those are the places that are known to the people here. You might find one or two more options but honestly if a place only has 100,000 you are probably not going to find any good language learning institutes/places.

[westmeadboy]

Thanks for the reply.

Maybe I should reconsider the thing about having to learn in a university or private school???

Anyone with experience of self-studying in a place with almost no english speakers??? An obvious challenge of self-study is self-motivation. But maybe being totally "immersed" would be motivation enough????

Maybe this deserves a separate (new or existing) thread...

[Mitchell67]

I think that you overlook the problems you will face if you go too rural. The one that comes first to mind is that you will likely be the first nonHan Chinese person whom many rural people will ever have seen. You could speak to them in your crispest putonghua, (hopefully they know it, too) and they will be staring at you as a strange being. This was a problem that I encountered first in South Korea. You will do well to be in an area where the locals are accustomed to foreign looking people who will use putonghua to speak with them. This is a problem that would never occur to an English or the speaker of any internationally used language, but it is worth considering. I teach in a very rural university and this is a problem for me even on campus.

[slcchina]

You may consider Lijiang Yunnan. The city is small but very beautiful and convenient. The weather is perfect, living cost is low and the atmoshere is relaxing and natural. There are not so many people who can speak English but you may get help when it is necessary. As it is an internation tourist city, services are good enough for living there! Attaching a picture of Lijiang for your reference.

[native chinese]

I think your requirement may be a mission impossible. If a city or a town has a population of 100,000, it is very likely to be a rural or even undeveloped area in china. would you like to study chinese in such a small and remote place?

Metropolis is the only ideal place for you to learn chinese, i think, coz there are a lot of famous universities and colleges----providing authentic mandarin, and companies----offering promising vocational opportunities, etc. In my opinion, you don't need to worry about "too many english speakers". Just ignore them. or even pretend to be a non-english speaker. There are so many chinese english learners who want to improve their english by talking with foreigners. so you just try to practice your chinese by talking with them in chinese, not a single english word, otherwise, you'll be certainly surronded by a large group of enthusiastic english learners.

[fireball9261]

I agree with native chinese. If you are in a rural area in China, most people their wouldn't be speaking Mandarin, or they would be speaking Mandarin with an accent. You would end up learning to speak Chinese with an rural accent or a Chinese dialect that is not Mandarin at all. There would be more people in major Chinese cities who are educated and would speak pretty perfect Mandarin. You would also be able to practice your Mandarin with them.

I was visiting my cousins around Hangzhou area. Hangzhou is a major Chinese city and one of the top ones. However, my cousins live in the farming communities around it. I was there for a few days, and none of the older men and most of the women do not know how to speak Mandarin. The ones who could speak Mandarin spoke in very heavy local accent. The only people who could speak perfect Mandarin were the younger generations who are in their 20's or younger. Since Hangzhou is a major city, these young people do not need to leave home to find jobs. Therefore, there are a lot of young people stayed in my cousins' farming village. They would go to work in nearby factories, etc. or in their own family businesses.

If you go to a truly rural area, there would not be too many working age people there at all because they would be going to big cities to find jobs. The people left would be the ones who had no idea of Mandarin or barely speaking it like what I said. Besides, in a smaller town, there wouldn't be schools with good programs for your background. Therefore, you really should give up on that notion about going to a small Chinese town to study. My suggestion is to find a smaller town at the edge of a big city, and you might be able to achieve the balance you want.

[westmeadboy]

Thanks very much for the replies. (I've been travelling, hence the delay in my response).

Point taken. When I think about why I said I was looking for a smaller place to study, what I actually should have said was that I don't want to study in a big chinese city. Therefore, a medium sized would probably be ok.

Its not actually the size that matters (wahey!), I just dont like the places where everything is so damn big! Big roads, big restaurants, big buildings etc. Little noodle places spilling on to the pavement makes is not only more enjoyable (for me, at least) but also its far easier to have small talk with a random stranger or two. Dare I say it, but thats what I liked about Yangshuo (and I dont mean west street!) as opposed to, say, Kunming or even Qingdao.

I'm currently thinking about Dalian because of various comments on this forum...

But, yeah, could it be that living on the edge of pretty much any city, you would find a bit of that character I'm looking for?

[muyongshi]

Quick addition to city of size issue: I have noticed that my city of about 600,000 (inside city limits) is in terms of land area size is about the same size of the city my parents live in in the states which only has 60,000. So if you are talking population they just crowd more into one space but I find my city to be a decent size for my country bumpkin (aka hick) tastes (i was born into a farming family in a small town with a population less than 2000 and it is smaller than that now....)