Study holiday in 桂林， write up

[matteo]

Back from my study holiday in Guilin 桂林, I’ve been wanting to write a little report about it but the site has been down so I have been using that as an excuse to put it off!

It was an amazing holiday from any point of view and I’ve seen and learned heaps, hopefully I can give you some little interesting insights and share a few useful tips!

The plan was simple: flying to HK on the way there, jumping on the bullet train after spending a weekend there and off to Guilin, where girlfriend and I would spend the best part of three weeks studying at CLI.

 

Things did not seem to start well, as the supposed start of our holiday coincided with a massive typhoon off the 广东coast , directed straight to HK.

The following days were a nerve-racking waiting game, during which our flight got cancelled twice. Longest weekend ever and I almost had a nervous breakdown but all is well what ends well, so in the end the storm subsided, we managed to fly with only a couple of days delay and got to 香港 safely.

 

It was the first time for me in the city and it left a big impression on me.

Bustling with activity, full of shops and noise and people, a mix of green hills covered in tropical vegetation and forests of skyscrapers, it seems like a place that you could explore for a hundred years and still not get to discover all of it.

 

View of the city from Victoria Peak

 

Food was great and cheap – at least that was the impression I had on the way there fresh from NZ - I would come back at the end of the holiday to discover that in fact it's extremely expensive .

Transportation couldn’t be more convenient, as you can easily get an Octopus card at the airport and use it to get on the bus and metro, as well as pay in most restaurants.

I was surprised to discover that 微信/支付宝 is not a thing in HK – most places wouldn’t take it – and even credit cards were not widely accepted. We pretty much had to pay cash (or withdraw cash and put it on the Octopus card) everywhere we went, which was somewhat inconvenient. I have been later told by a friend that you can download the Octopus app on the phone instead of getting the card, and that should allow you to use money straight from your bank card – will try that next time I’m in HK.

Highlights of our stay in HK:

- Walking up Victoria Peak (太平山) was really cool, although I don’t think I’ve sweated so much in years. Got the green public bus to get down to HK central.

- Walking along the waterfront, crossing the Harbour on the ferry. It all feels really nice and modern, and I was surprised by the amount of people running despite the sweltering heat!

- Walking around at night in the Wan Chai area, checking out the people, the shops and the markets, open until late and selling food and beaufitul looking fruit. Staring up at the massive buildings covered in aircon units - you can’t see the top as they merge with the night sky - soaking up the cyberpunk atmosphere

 

     

HK feels like blade runner but 35 degrees C

 

One thing I didn’t really expect from HK was the western vibes. The amount of 外国人, the way that people dress, talk and behave felt to me more similar to a western city than what I experienced in any Chinese city. During our stay (admittedly very short) we found that 普通话 is not as widespread there as we were expecting. People everywhere speak english, and out of the few who don’t, only some speak Mandarin. I had been told this but I didn’t believe it would be true to such an extent.

So my impression of HK was that of an amazing , vibrant city full of interesting things to see and do, but we really couldn’t get that fleeting “connection” or “cultural insight” that we were looking for having studied Mandarin for many years.

 

After 2 days in HK we finally hopped on the bullet train for 昆明, which stops at the 桂林 train station.

Note: we were lazy and very busy with work prior to our departure, and purchased the train tickets from a travel agency (https://www.travelchinaguide.com/) for a small extra instead of trudging through the chinese railway website. This proved to be a great choice cause these guys were very helpful and rebooked everything at short notice when our flights got cancelled - it might have been quite stressful otherwise.

 

Travelling by high speed train is fast, you can move around and look outside and so much more confortable than the plane. Highly recommended.

 

桂林

Once we got to 桂林, a driver from CLI picked us up and took us straight to the school (nothing you can’t do with 滴滴 yourself but nice to have especially if you haven’t sorted out your phonecard).

桂林 is a nice little city, mostly built with small 3 or 4 floors apartment buildings that don’t block out the view of the surrounding hills, lots of green and a pleasantly relaxed atmosphere.

In September, it was very hot and humid. This is something we didn’t consider or - better said - the impact of which we understimated.

Temperature was above 30 degC, with 90% humidity and in some days (especially early in the month), that makes leaving your AC room really hard.

Especially since we were going around on foot, we were really impacted by the heat draining our energy and limiting the scope and frequency of our explorations.

However, this improved later in the month and didn’t prevent us to enjoy the city overall.

Food was amazing everywhere; there’s a mind-boggling number of restaurants, small and large walking distance from the school, although you can always catch a 滴滴 and venture further away to the city center and discover different spots.

 

日月双塔 one night in the city center. Exactly as in the postcards

 

The staple in 桂林 is the rice noodles 米粉, which you can find everywere. It’s usually served in small hole-in-the-wall little places, and a it comes standard with pork crackling. You can then add soup 汤, pickles 酸菜, cilly 辣椒 and other stuff which I don’t know the name of A medium 二两 bowl will set you back 5 元...not too bad!

We tried to make a point to experiment and taste different cuisine in different places, we tried so many different dishes that it would be impossible to try and describe them all. can’t remember a single meal that was not good.

 

Most people in 桂林 mostly speak the local dialect between them, but you also hear a lot of 普通话 on the street.

Communication was never a problem and we had many interesting conversation with all sorts of people.

Depending on who you are talking to, some people will have strong accents and they are harder to understand (at least for us), wereas some others are super clear.

I have a feeling that’s just a matter of getting used to, probably If we could stay there a few months that would have improved quickly!

 

shop selling 酒 not far from the school. but most importantly, on the left my hairdresser's shop . Honestly, can't find anyone as good as him back home for ten times the price.

 

The school

The school that we were staying at (CLI) is tucked in in a side street on the side of 七星公园, a big park smack in the middle of the city.

 

The CLI school building on the left

 

The whole building belongs to the school: on the first two floors you have the entrance hall, several classroms, the kitchen dininga area etc.

The place has a nice old-fashioned atmoshpere to it, definitely not too fancy but with character and a homely feeling.

In September, it was already past high season so the school was not super full, there must have been 15-20 students.

Most students were from the US, with many of them being about college age (early 20s?), plus a few outliers from any country and any age. As far as I know, the owner of the school is from the US and has strong connections there so that accounts for their customer base. This is sometimes annoying, as I had the feeling that everything, from prices to activities to written guides to payment methods is geared towards the US rather than catering for a truly “international” environment, but nothing too serious to complain about.

The cool thing about the school was that several teachers, interns and the people working there actually live in it, or even if they don’t they are always hanging around. This creates a cool sense of community; there is almost always someone you can have a chat with, or do something together with and it’s not necessarily other students.

When having lunch at the school, it’s really nice to seat with the teachers and have a chat and get to know them, and during our short stay we went out several times with them for dinner, watch a movie or try out a calligraphy lesson.

Of course, there is plenty going on among the students themselves; to me that was not too attractive mostly because of the difference in age, because of course they would be only speaking english among themselves and because we were really enjoying spending time with locals whenever possible.

That said, there were a few really cool students who were making an effort and speaking mostly chinese and we had a really good time with them as well.

I think it’s important to find a balance there, you don’t want to be spending much time in the english circle but at the same time you don’t want to be that guy that pretends not to see you on the stairs because you are not chinese - that’s just rude and at the end of the day, you are choosing to stay in a international school.

In my experience between all the lessons, the casual chitchats and your activities outside the school, you are going to have more chinese speaking time that your brain can take.

 

The only real complaint I had about staying at the school was the noise. The building is old and any noise really carries through the paper thin walls and ceilings. Many of the younger students are constantly in a party mood and a few times a week will stay up to 3 am chatting and laughing (drinking is technically prohibited in the school but I’m not sure the rule was enforced thoroughly), and going up and down the stairs. After hours, there’s no one in the school who really has the power to enforce quiet time and it sometimes feels like you are staying in a backpackers. To me that was a big problem cause I have a light sleep and sometimes couldn’t sleep at night, and would be knackered the following day. I talked to some teachers who have the same problem but they are careful not to blame students too much and just suck it up.

This is something I’d keep in mind if I went back again; I’d definitely go for low season and consider a host family maybe? Not sure.

 

 

Lessons

Every day you have 4 hours of classes, provided by 3 different teachers (综合, 口语, 阅读).

It may sound like a lot and it does feel tiring sometimes, but at the same time it provides you with a routine that makes you feel like you are “living” the place rather than being a simple tourist.

All the teachers were very good; well prepared, frendly, engaging.

My 综合 teacher was one of the best I’ve had so far; she always prepared lessons and grammar points in extreme detail, she was keen and effective in drilling down and work on my weak points, and she coordinated the contents and workload with the other two teachers. I think she was amazing value.

At the start of the course, you are informally “assessed” and the head or 综合 teacher reccomends a textbook and discussed with you what you want to focus most on and how to structure your lessons.

As what I wanted mostly to improve on is grammar and sentence structuring (see past thread xxx), the textbook of choice (Developing Chinese - 发展汉语) was heavily focused on grammar, with a lot of drills.

The teaching routine mostly revolved around:

- going through the list of new words 生词 in each unit: while this is normally fairly dry, my teachers forced me to use each word correcly in context, highlighted differences with similar words and explained how to use each. I found this deliberate emphasis on “active” use of the words very useful, and it provided me with a different mindset when approaching the study of vocabulary. Where before I’d read a word and think “ok I know it” now I think “can I use it in a sentence”.

- studying the grammar points, doing exercises and using the grammar points in creating sentences. Same as above, of course here what was invaluable was the instant feedback, and being able to drill down and branch out. For instance, if you said something and the teacher realized you don’t have clear the difference between say 一定 and 肯定, then she would explain when to use each and drill on it until you get it.

- reading the text and making sure you understand everything correctly (with questions, discussions etc)

- homework, usually based on writing a bunch of sentences or short essays using the words and grammar patterns studied during class.

 

This of course all came with several variations, additional materials (e.g. other textbooks, novels, chairman bao etc) and different flavours from the different teachers.

A few times, when the weather was good and not too hot, we had outdoor classes. My 口语 teacher took me to the art gallery and to visit 穿山, a scenic spot in 桂林.

We would chat and comment on the paintings and she would explain about what we were seeing and the city and whatever was going on, it was a really nice alternative way to practice.

 

View of 桂林 from 穿山

 

Conclusion

We really enjoyed the study-holiday format and we are looking forward to do it again. It’s really different from just briefly visiting a place for a few days, and we had so many little adventure and experiences that would have not been possible without spending a few weeks there (and without being able to communicate!)

I’d have so much more to tell but want to wrap it up and post it, will be happy to reply to any question if there’s anything you are curious about!!

 

 

 

[Flickserve]

On 10/15/2023 at 3:02 PM, matteo said:

I was surprised to discover that 微信/支付宝 is not a thing in HK – most places wouldn’t take it

 

This is rather odd. I can use it quite frequently - there's a HK version of both apps which is the one on my phone as opposed to the mainland version.

 

Did you have any issues using the apps within China?

 

Did you use your overseas bank card with Alipay and weixin? If so, how was the process of linking it up?

 

 

Very nice write up indeed.

[suMMit]

On 10/15/2023 at 3:02 PM, matteo said:

the western vibes. The amount of 外国人, the way that people dress, talk and behave felt to me more similar to a western city than what I experienced in any Chinese city. During our stay (admittedly very short) we found that 普通话 is not as widespread there as we were expecting. People everywhere speak english, and out of the few who don’t, only some speak Mandarin.

I've been to hk a few times and this is exactly why it doesn't really appeal to me, my Foreigner friends never understand this.

 

Which level of Developing Chinese did you use and did you use all the books ie. 听力，阅读。。。? How did you like it? How much did you get though in that time period, and if you didn't finish it, are you going to continue it on your own?

 

I like 广西 a lot，did you have 螺蛳粉? Sounds like you had a great trip.

[Singe]

That's a fairly comprehensive report matteo and much appreciated. To other readers, we've had private conversations before prior to matteo and his partner heading out as I'm planning to do similar next year and we both live in New Zealand. My initial intention was to head to Kunming but I can certainly be persuaded otherwise. If any others have experience of Guilin versus Kunming, I'd love to hear. The excessive noise would definitely be off putting for me but it sounds like you've had a great experience overall.

 

Would love to catch up, matteo, next time I'm up in Auckland.

[matteo]

On 10/16/2023 at 3:36 AM, Flickserve said:

 

This is rather odd. I can use it quite frequently - there's a HK version of both apps which is the one on my phone as opposed to the mainland version.

 

Did you have any issues using the apps within China?

 

Did you use your overseas bank card with Alipay and weixin? If so, how was the process of linking it up?

 

 

Mm it could be that I have the "mainland" version? I tried only a couple of times in HK and it didn't work, but we really didn't spend that much time there so we might have just been unlucky! 

Both 微信 and 支付宝 worked reliably in mainland China. Yes I linked my overseas bank card (credit card and debit card, they both worked) and it was great. 

There is a 3% fees on payments over 200 yuan, so it's free for most day to day expenses.

The limitation is, you can't use the "balance" function, you can't transfer money to friends, send 红包 etc. 

The linking process is very straightforward, I can't remember right now whether they ask for a photo of your passport or similar to confirm ID. 

 

On 10/16/2023 at 4:39 AM, suMMit said:

Which level of Developing Chinese did you use and did you use all the books ie. 听力，阅读。。。? How did you like it? How much did you get though in that time period, and if you didn't finish it, are you going to continue it on your own?

I used the "Comprehensive", level Intermediate I. I was studying quite intensively and doing 1 to 2 hours of homework every day, and went through 5 units in 3 weeks. The book's structure is very typical, with the new words 生词, text 课文, grammar notes 注释 and exercises 练习。 

The text is maybe slightly less arid than the average, but what I think really sets it apart is the large amount of exercises. They are not too hard and usually don't require a class environment to complete, so I can do a ton of them and try to get the grammar point to stick.

That really suits me because I want to straighten up my terrible grammar when writing and speaking. 

I thought this approach worked very well when done with the help of a teacher; I'm trying now to continue and do the same thing at home and mix it with what I was doing before for variety. 

I tried the same level 听力 at the school but it was way too easy and found it boring. 

I did very little 听力 exercises at the school (besides talking with the teachers of course); at home I'm using New Concept Chinese 5, which I find more interesting and challenging, but in my opinion the most effective way to improve listening comprehension is spending as much time as possible listening to different podcasts. 

 

On 10/16/2023 at 4:39 AM, suMMit said:

I like 广西 a lot，did you have 螺蛳粉? Sounds like you had a great trip.

Yeah tried 螺蛳粉 at this place (was recommended by a teacher and it was great). I thought it was a very very nice rice noodle soup but otherwise didn't find it super "special"! Is it worth the hype in your opinion??

 

 

[matteo]

On 10/16/2023 at 7:57 PM, Singe said:

That's a fairly comprehensive report matteo and much appreciated. To other readers, we've had private conversations before prior to matteo and his partner heading out as I'm planning to do similar next year and we both live in New Zealand. My initial intention was to head to Kunming but I can certainly be persuaded otherwise. If any others have experience of Guilin versus Kunming, I'd love to hear. The excessive noise would definitely be off putting for me but it sounds like you've had a great experience overall.

 

Would love to catch up, matteo, next time I'm up in Auckland.

I'm sure you'll have a great experience whatever place you choose! Let us know what you end up deciding on!

And yeah by all means give me a shout when you come round to the big city, it'll be great to catch up in person!:)

 

 

[abcdefg]

Thanks for taking the trouble to write it up, @matteo. It makes me feel like I was there, doing the exercises, enjoying the classes, interacting with the teachers, discovering the city and its charms! Did you have a "package" that included room and board, or did you take meals on your own outside?  

[nicklinjm]

Really comprehensive write-up, I love Guilin generally as a city, your report just confirms it as a good place to study Mandarin!

[suMMit]

On 10/19/2023 at 3:23 PM, matteo said:

Yeah tried 螺蛳粉 at this place (was recommended by a teacher and it was great). I thought it was a very very nice rice noodle soup but otherwise didn't find it super "special"! Is it worth the hype in your opinion??

Well, Im more a fan of 面条 as opposed to 米粉, so I haven't tried THAT many rice noodle soups. What has always struck me with 螺蛳粉 is the smell. The first time I was given it, I shirked away from the odor. My wife assured me that it was "bamboo" giving it the strong smell. I'm not sure that I believe that, but I have just decided not to investigate it, rather I just enjoy it when she waimais it every now and then. I guess I have taken a liking to it. I like the crunchy little rectangle things and the overall flavor, even the smell has grown on me.

[Flickserve]

On 10/19/2023 at 3:23 PM, matteo said:

Mm it could be that I have the "mainland" version? I tried only a couple of times in HK and it didn't work,

Quite possible. The HK version of WeChat allows you to switch between PRC and HK but not the PRC version. 

 

On 10/19/2023 at 3:23 PM, matteo said:

The limitation is, you can't use the "balance" function, you can't transfer money to friends, send 红包 etc. 

 

I did get a mainland colleague in hk to transfer rmb to my wallet after my trip. I gave her hkd cash in exchange. However, she couldn’t do 1000rmb - we think it was because my prc WeChat was new. She had to give x5 紅包 of 200rmb each. Haven’t had a chance of testing it though.