Study Chinese and holiday at the beach?

[Erbse]

Hello everyone

 

I'm looking for some advice on how to combine holiday at the somewhat tropical beach and studying Chinese. My first idea was Sanya. It even has two universities (http://wy.sanyau.edu.cn/ieac.html and http://www.qzu.edu.cn/). But looking at the map, they both are a bit of a turnoff. They seem to be rather remote in terms of location. Haikou beaches are not that great when I read the reports correctly here on the forum.

 

My idea is study in the morning, relaxing at the beach in the afternoon, and a beer at a beer bar neaby the seaside. No more than 30 minutes by foot from the classroom to the beach. The reason for this is, I have been saving money for 5 years now to do my initial payment on the apparment I'm going to buy and the money has been saved. So this will be my frist real holiday in a long time and I want both, study Chinese and a beach.

 

So I looked at the map again and the next thing was Southern Taiwan. But I have absolutely no clue what's goign on there. Maybe someone can write a word about that place. Are there any other places in SE-Asia where there is a island of Chinese people, a beach and a language school?

 

My level of Chinese is now approaching HSK4. Budget is 2500 Euro max, preferably 2000 for 4 weeks, everything included. Prefered time would be september or october this year, possibly august. People should speak something that resembles putonghua to some degree. I've previously been to Chengdu and Kunming and feel comfortable with such accents.

 

What would you do? Any recommendations? Should I organize the whole thing on my own and hire a tutor? Looking for creative ideas to solve my problem

[Silent]

I'm no expert on beaches or language schools, but the first place to spring to mind is Xiamen. Maybe Singapore is worth to investgate too

[Ruben von Zwack]

Your idea of the perfect holiday sounds pretty much like my own. So my suggestion is... start a language school on Hainan! I'll book a class with you. 

 

A friend of mine, she's Taiwanese, recently holidayed on 蘭嶼 Lán Yǔ or Orchid Island. It sounded wonderful, but not like they were prepared for, or even expecting, western tourists or students there.

 

I wonder if it's possible to find Chinese Schools in Malaysia or Indonesia.

 

I gather the cost of living in Singapore is quite high, so Singapore may possibly max out your budget. I was told the beach isnt that great cause you are looking at container ships passing by, and if you want a real beach holiday, a Singaporean would typically go to Malaysia or Indonesia.

[Demonic_Duck]

I wouldn't really recommend Sanya. Nice beaches and weather, but seems like load of people that are just itching to rip you off everywhere you go.

 

What about Qingdao?

[abcdefg]

I wonder if it's possible to find Chinese Schools in Malaysia or Indonesia.

 

Some fine beaches all right. But aren't most of the Chinese living in Peninsular Malaysia Cantonese speakers? I've met Malaysians and Indonesians studying Mandarin in Kunming and got the impression from them that appropriate study resources back home were not abundant.

 

Looking for creative ideas to solve my problem.

 

Find a pretty and brilliant Chinese tutor in some poor, ugly and polluted mainland city. Charm her silly and fly her away to a pristine beach in Thailand for a one-month, all-expense-paid teaching vacation. Lessons in the morning, cool beer in shaded waterfront hammocks in the afternoon. Fresh grilled fish for supper, and so on. I don't see how she could resist.

[Takeshi]

It depends where in Malaysia. Like I hear KL is mostly Cantonese, but I hear most of the traditionally Hokkien-speaking areas like JB, which is close to Singapore, have mostly converted to Mandarin among younger generations. (Penang is perhaps an exception)

[Erbse]

Silent, I was also considering Xiamen, but I guess it offers more of a large city experience than tropical beach experience.

 

Ruben, there was a company offering exactly what I and you want. Unfortunately their homepage is down, so I guess they are out of business. However I found a promotional video: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/p0x57t2R4qU/

 

Demonic Duck, I guess there won't be much tropical beach feeling there. Add the bad air quality of the northern regions, then this is a no go.

 

abcdefg, nice idea, but I'm not sure if my girlfriend will agree. But I really don't want to limit myself to China. A few weeks in Thailand are quite cheap and then adding a teacher on top should be in my budget.

 

Takeshi, thanks for your input. In fact I have a friend here who has lived in Malaysia for a few years. I could ask her for more information.

[Erbse]

okay, I'll answer myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCwpsYJ84_A

http://wikitravel.org/de/Weizhou_Dao

 

I guess there is no Chinese school there. An organized class would be really great. But if I can't find anything else, this might be it.

[Silent]

 

Silent, I was also considering Xiamen, but I guess it offers more of a large city experience than tropical beach experience.

Never been to Xiamen so don't know how it is on the ground, but to Chinese standards it's not that big. In theory you could pick any town at the southern Chinese coast but it probably has to be touristic and/or decent sized to offer a decent language school that suits the needs of a western foreigner.  Of course you may pick some random guy/girl from the street to tutor you. It may work out very well, but don't expect a didactic sound and balanced approach. Also important to consider is the immersion factor.  A small town in coastal southern China is likely to speak it's own dialect. With size comes a better chance to find people that speak good standard Mandarin due to migration and education level. If you choose a (touristic) destination outside the core Chinese language area the immersion factor becomes even more of an issue. Specially with a western face communication is likely to default to English rather then Chinese.

[Erbse]

Of course you may pick some random guy/girl from the street to tutor you. It may work out very well, but don't expect a didactic sound and balanced approach.

True. And I do admit, sitting in a class with other learners adds some magic pressure on me, that I feel is helpful.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I'm in. Let's charm that pretty and brilliant Chinese teacher to Weizhou, as suggested by abcdefg, and open a language school slash beach bar there. I bet chinese-forums will want to sponsor! This is fool proof!

Oh wait... I am just watching a Chinese TV report on it. Is that pollution or fog just the winter weather? 
http://youtu.be/ERi-piLQGDk

[Lu]

I can recommend Kending for the beach, but I've never heard of a language school there. Given the popularity of learning Spanish in Spain and learning Italian in Italy holidays, it's actually surprising that nobody has had this idea yet. Ruben, you should go start that school!