Leaving Dalian and the Chinese education system

[Tomas Tomas]

Hi,

 

Wanted to introduce myself a bit and my journey from starting Chinese through my decision to leave Dalian.

 

I am a 32 year old lawyer who left work in Singapore to study Chinese.  My current goal is to pass the HSK6 in the spring of 2015.  My studying Chinese process has gone like this:

 

Nov. 2012-June 2013:  

I studied and finished James Heisig's "Remembering the Hanzi" books, starting while I was at work, and I study/review with Anki (forwards and backwards).  So right now I have those two book's hanzi + about 180 other ones in a "Heisig" deck.

 

June-Aug 2013:  

I got the Kathryn Davis Fellowship to study Chinese at Middlebury College, where I completed their 一年级 course... was a great experience.  The Language Pledge, etc.  Starting from June 2013, I put all vocab into Anki in a separate deck for review and have kept up with that.

 

Sept 2013 -- Present:  I got the China Government Scholarship to study at Dalian University of Technology.  I've kept the "Language Pledge" here and don't speak English at all.  They have 7 levels.  I was initially put in their Level 3 in the fall of 2013, and studied Level 4 at the same time.  I tested out of Level 4 and was in Level 5 in the spring of 2014.  Now I'm in Level 6.

 

Current situation:

I plan to study all the grammar from Level 7 with my one-one-one tutor this semester, and just leave Dalian in January at winter break.

 

I'm not particularly happy with this school, and now I can use a Chinese-Chinese dictionary.  I feel like classes with 10-15 people aren't very useful anymore.

 

I have been doing Anki this whole way through... current stats are:  3,180 Heisig characters, 2,400 full knowledge characters, about 6,000 words and phrases.  By spring I should hit 3,150 full knowledge characters and 8,000 words/phrases.

 

I've realized that, since I need to learn all the HSK6 vocab, I will be unable to add vocab from the Level 7 books next semester, so coming back feels like it would be a waste of time, as I can study all the grammar this semester.  

 

I've also found the experience at school here to be pretty lonely -- I thought that since people were from different countries, that we would hang out and use Chinese together, but in reality, the Russians/Koreans/Japanese students all split off into groups by nationality after class and don't speak Chinese.  I hang out with my neighbors in the daytime, but they are blue collar workers who work 7 days and week and go home at night, so my social life here is really lacking.  There does not seem to be much in the way of events / clubs here.  

 

So now, I plan to go home for winter break and then move to Beijing in March, where I can prepare for HSK6 and study business Chinese, look for work etc.  I also will need a "cooling off" period for my vocabulary deck so that I can the daily review workload will decrease, so that I can keep up with Anki while working.  For instance, my Heisig deck now only takes about 7 minutes a day to review, because the deck is so mature.

 

So anyway, my thoughts on the Chinese education system here are that, once you get to an advanced enough level, the classes aren't very useful.  And also that the schools here, there really is no sense of community / activities like I enjoyed at other schools in the US, Singapore and Hong Kong.

 

I think I will be much happier in Beijing taking private tutoring to finish this out, having locals who speak more standard Mandarin and enjoying the wider array of activities that Beijing offers.  I hope to pass the HSK6 exam by some time this spring, and then let my vocab deck "cool off".

[abcdefg]

I've also found the experience at school here to be pretty lonely -- I thought that since people were from different countries, that we would hang out and use Chinese together, but in reality, the Russians/Koreans/Japanese students all split off into groups by nationality after class and don't speak Chinese.

 

 

I've found that having friends and a fulfilling personal life is extremely important in deciding when to stay longer and when to move on. If the school isn't too great or the traffic is bad and so on, I can deal with it if I have a network of friends. Being isolated and lonely can turn me against a place and make me want to move on down the road in search of greener pastures.

 

I've resettled in China 3 times: once in Zhuhai, then in Harbin, and now in Kunming. If I've learned nothing else, it's that spending time, effort, and money making and cultivating new friends is a top priority item. If I get too focused on the academics, the rest of my life turns to shit. I must stay balanced in order to thrive.

 

It goes without saying that everyone is not the same. I sincerely hope Beijing works out well for you and appreciate your having shared your experience with us here.

[Tomas Tomas]

Thanks for sharing.  Yea, I feel like I've hit a point where this place and this educational program have reached the limits of their utility.  3 more months (I'll go to the US for winter break on Jan 15th), that's OK, I can finish this out, but to come back again for another 4 months, that is a disheartening prospect.

 

I would lose the scholarship for the last semester, but it's not a crazy huge amount of money, and I can teach English part-time in Beijing while I finish the HSK6 etc.

[dementior]

Hi Tomas!

 

I decided I would share with you my thoughts since I have lived in Dalian for little over two years and I am about your age...

I will focus on the social life rather than the Chinese studies since it seems that part you have under control.

 

First I would say that to think that you would hang out with other foreigners/exchange students and speak Chinese sounds pretty unrealistic to me. The moment you have a few from the same nationality, like you have mentioned above (Russian, Japanese...), it is very hard for them not to stay together and build groups. But even if that were not the case, let's say one guy from each country most of us feel a lot more comfortable speaking English... I do not think honestly that if you hang out with a German and an Italian for example you would be able to speak Chinese with them even if you all speak fluent Chinese. For that to work you need "Chinese" glue: I have a good Chinese friend whose girlfriend is Russian (Chinese major) and we all speak together Chinese, never English.

 

For me, just like abcdefg pointed out, studying hard and focusing on your Chinese does not work well with enriching social life. We are just "too old" to be hanging out or learning at school, since Chinese people our age are married and are having/have had their kid already. I have been working here full time and all my colleagues (all Chinese) are very nice and friendly people but the social life outside the office is extremely limited, since they are all busy building families. It is very hard to make good Chinese friends within this age group but not impossible. Instead of hanging out with blue collars like you say, there are plenty of coffeshops to meet people and online software not only works for hooking up, you can also meet interesting individuals there.

 

Beijing will improve this situation since you have a lot more people basically but will not solve it in my opinion. In Beijing if you stay away from the expat scene in order to continue improving your Chinese you will still have to make an effort to go out and make friends. My personal experience is that probably the best group to socialize are the ones who "are back", which means Chinese who went abroad to study to UK, US, whatever... stayed, worked and came back when they got tired or broke up with their last boyfriend/girlfriend. They are in their early thirties/late twenties and normally are not in a hurry to get married. 

 

let me know if you are interested in having a drink before you leave

[Tomas Tomas]

in any case, I am outta here in 2.5 months, so I'm not concerned about the social aspect now, will enjoy the rest of this semester for what it is and move on!  also looking forward to being in the US for 6 weeks, i haven't been home since Aug 2013.

 

I have old friends in Beijing from Middlebury and HKU Law School, so I can have a more organic and balanced life there, start networking and building that kind of lifestyle, and there is way more going on there culturally to get involved with.  also i hope to be working by some time in the summer so will have moved on from this full-time study phase, this is a one-off thing

 

can you PM me your wechat?