One year Mandarin course - Nanjing vs Hangzhou vs Qingdao or...

[xh207hi]

Hi there,

I'm looking for some info about places and language courses for one-year stay. It must be university.

First, I checked up the cities below for overal description:

Hangzhou

Suzhou

Nanjing

Shanghai

Beijing

Dalian

Qingdao

then I narrowed it down to those:

Hangzhou

Nanjing

Qingdao

Suzhou

I considered mostly the city characteristics (I'd like it to be not that much polluted since I'm taking care of my lungs; and not too huge either) and although I read positives about Dalian, there wasn't too much info, so I left it out. Persuade me not to

I'd like to learn Mandarin well, but I wouldn't like classes to be too fast-paced, stressful. I wouldn't like to have abundance of homework either, because I'd like to enjoy the city. Of course that doesn't mean I want an undemanding course. I'd just like to have full-quality, organized, nice and relaxing environment to study language, in class as well as in city.

It would be best if the local dialect would be closest to putonghua as possible. (Qingdao might be the best choice out of those, but I'm still tempted by South)

I'd also like to rent a flat, so the prices are of my interest as well.

My friend attended Ocean University in Qingdao and was very pleased. I know also that most of my mates are going to Hangzhou, but that's not really a 好处 for me. Nanda is, by all I've read so far, considered one of the best uni in China. But which university/course would you suggest?

[Steingletscher]

Kunming would also be great. It doesn't get cold there in the winter. All of the cities you posted are near the sea, which Kunming isn't, but it still is beautiful. The dialect is closer to Putonghua then Hangzhou's, but would still throw you off a bit (Sichuanchua does for me, but then again I'm just a beginner).

[Lanchong]

To be honest, I don't think it matters too much. You'll adapt to wherever you go. The quality of your Mandarin will mostly depend on how much work you put in, not where you're living.

[xh207hi]

But I consider the environment very helpful, that's why I am asking for suggestions

[zhouhaochen]

As none of your choices above speak putonghua as the local language, have you considered smaller Northern cities?

For example Chengde? Great air, 2.5h northeast of Beijing, in the mountains, relatively small (urban population about 1 Million), standard Mandarin spoken, and quite a pretty place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengde

[xh207hi]

zhouhaocheng, Chengde seems to be pretty interesting, indeed, but unfortunately I don't have it on my available university list. Oh, I haven't mentioned I have such thing. Thank you anyways, I'll check this city out in the future for sure

[xh207hi]

Oh yeah, and I seem to have narrowed the possibilities down to Qingdao, Hangzhou and Nanjing. Between Nanjing and Hangzhou, which would you rather suggest in general?