Help!-Hainan Foreign Languages College

[Smashy]

Hey everyone-

I'm flying to China with a friend this Thursday, the initial plan being to study at Hainan Normal in Haikou, before heading up to Jilin University for the winter semester. Unfortunately I've just received an email from Hainan Foreign Languages College (http://www.cnlearn.net) telling me that H. Normal can't/won't take us over the summer (even though we sent application forms etc for H. Normal months ago). Weird.

So...Does anyone have any idea what HFLC might be like, even second or third hand? It seems to be legit, but obviously we'd much rather head somewhere with a recommendation of some kind. If any of you know of any institution/college/private school/whatever, that would take a couple of people (Both elementary/intermediate HSK standard) for a month over july in the south or west? Obviously its possible to find places online- but its hard to know what to expect when we arrive. I don't think most universities will be much good because we only want a month and its summer, and we don't particularly want to pay personal tuition rates!

Any recommendations or suggestions?

Thanks a bunch

Tom

[Przemek]

I see this thread is 3 years old, but perhaps someone has already been at this school (or at least has heard about it)? I'm considering going to study there, so all opinions are welcome!

[pandaxiongmao]

I haven't been there, but I can see from their webpages that it is in Wenchang. Wenchang is a small city on the eastern side of Hainan. They are famous for chicken, so if you like eating chicken, it is a great place to be. Not so great for vegetarians.

Probably very good if you don't want to be around other foreigners, but if your Chinese isn't already at a decent level, you could feel isolated. In Hainan, outside of the cities, there are quite a few people that only know basic Mandarin. They tend to use their own dialect most of the time. Hainanhua varies considerably from place to place, so learning the local variation may not even be that helpful.

If your goal is to save money, there are cheaper places to learn Chinese in China, like Kunming.

I studied at Hainan University before, in Haikou (largest city in Hainan), and even there there aren't that many foreigners. Haikou would be the place to be if you want to have some Western conveniences - they have a few large stores like Carrefour. Wenchang just has small shops.