Bummed about studying in Beijing - any city suggestions?

[liqi]

Hello! So, I came to tsinghua this semester for the chinese language program, but... I felt it was kinda dissapointing. The classes themselves aren't bad, but I feel like the course is pretty badly structured, there's only 3 levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced, with no sublevels. That means you finish beginner at around HSK3 with 500 words and next semester you're expected to go to intermediate that starts at 3000 words 🫠. And although the campus itself is amazing, life in Beijing feels kinda dead to me, I dont know, too big for it's own good. Almost everything in Haidian turns off after 10PM, no street vendors or markets, everything's far etc (although transportation is great)

 

I don't wish to stop my studies here after just one semester though, so I'm looking at options in other universities and cities. I'm looking for something less "perfect" and mega than Beijing and more “down to earth", Tsinghua's campus is great, too great even that there isn't much need to do anything outside it. I have in mind Sichuan University in Chengdu, really loved the city and the campus location is great, but I dont know how the uni is or if it's any good. I also absolutely LOVED Chongqing (although my legs didn't), felt like a true megacity for me, although I can't really pinpoint a reason why.

 

Would love to hear opinions about this from y'all! Thanks！😁

[Lu]

I agree on Beijing. Too big for its own good is a good description.

 

Does it have to be China, or would you also consider Taiwan? In Taipei there is NTNU, with the Mandarin Training Center. It's been years since I studied there so do check on what things are like now, but they have many decades of experience teaching Chinese to foreigners and had (and still have, I assume) classes at all conceivable levels with excellent teachers. Taipei is a lovely city, with nice people, nightlife and night markets, and even though it's a large city it's on a human scale.

[liqi]

On 5/9/2024 at 4:48 PM, Lu said:

I agree on Beijing. Too big for its own good is a good description

 

Good to know I'm not the only one that thinks this way then hahaha. I don't dislike it, but it feels a little souless for me, I don't know. 

 

And no, I don't rule out Taiwan! But I've only been in China for one semester somewhere I didn't like much, so I'd like to try out another semester in a different place first to figure it out if I just don't like China or if I just don't like Beijing 😆. Is the cost of studying in Taiwan high though? Like rent (or dorms), daily life, tuition etc, being somewhat cheap is definitely one of the things that keeps me here hahaha. I'll keep it in mind though, thanks! I researched Taiwan before but didn't really knew what was good and what wasn't 😕

 

[becky82]

I moved to Weihai (it's on the beach).  People here are quite friendly, and sometimes stop and chat with you for 10+ minutes.  It's far more laid back and slower paced.  It's so nice not having the stress of Beijing.  Although I'm not taking them, there's university courses at Shandong University.  (I'm more of a morning person, so I can't comment on the nightlife here.)

 

You can check out one of my livestreams (e.g. this one) for a glimpse of what life is like here.

[liqi]

Oh, I think I've seen you before on reddit at the ChineseLanguage sub! 😝（also, your link is broken, it's linking to this post ;P)

 

And thanks for the suggestion too! Looked it up and Weihai does actually look nice as hell! Shangdong university also looks pretty great, definitely a fit for what I was looking for! I'm not really a night person for stuff like bars, parties, KTVs etc, but I do enjoy a city that feels alive at night, shops open, people on and about, lights on... does that make sense? I'm from one of Latin America's biggest cities, so I think I just grew up to enjoy the pure chaos hahaha. Maybe that's what I liked in Chongqing, super dense and definitely more disorganized and chaotic than Beijing, felt just like home 😂

 

But Il'll definitelly keep Weihai in my list! Feels like it has those suburban Chinese vibes I got in Chende (although chinese suburbans are fucking enourmos lol), and those were pretty nice. I actually think I have a friend who's from there, so I'm gonna ask her out more about it

[liqi]

(whoops... Chengde*, looks like i cant edit it)

[becky82]

On 5/9/2024 at 7:33 PM, liqi said:

（also, your link is broken, it's linking to this post ;P)

 

Oh?  Maybe the platform didn't like the link I posted (?).  I changed it to another one and it seems to work now.

[becky82]

I was thinking about this yesterday.  I think the reason Beijing seems both overcrowded yet unalive is because of the lack of street vendors.  I think they're banned in Beijing (or at least, heavily restricted).

[liqi]

Yeah, that's my own view too. I think it's also a recent thing, because my chinese teacher back home would always rave so much about how street food in Beijing was so amazing and everything, and it hasn't been that long since she left. Another thing is that I think Beijing's design is pretty car-centric (at least compared to other chinese cities), the streets are usually so big and wide and everything is pretty spread out, so it makes just walking around not only a pain but pretty pointless as well as there's nothing on the streets. Dunno if it's just a Haidian problem, but there's just soooo many gated communities too, takes out the life out of the streets even further when you walk around and it's just walls and walls

 

Oh well, in the end, I signed up for Sichuan University! Really liked Chengdu, and their campus is in a really good location. No idea if I'll be accepted (or if they'll even look at my application, my payment's been processing for 3 days haha), I'm scared that since I already studied here they'll ask a lot of documents from Tsinghua I can't provide, but it doesn't seems to be a major university, so maybe they won't care...

 

(also, your video is private!)

[Lu]

On 5/12/2024 at 6:44 AM, liqi said:

the streets are usually so big and wide and everything is pretty spread out, so it makes just walking around not only a pain but pretty pointless as well as there's nothing on the streets. Dunno if it's just a Haidian problem

I used to live in Shuangjing and it very much had this problem too. There are exceptions -- I really like Andingmennei, and Sanlitun-Liangmahe is fairly walkable -- but too much of the city is like this.

[anonymoose]

On 5/9/2024 at 9:11 AM, liqi said:

Almost everything in Haidian turns off after 10PM, no street vendors or markets, everything's far etc (although transportation is great)

 

I think this is common to all of China, though. Generally speaking, I think people tend to go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier than in the west. I guess it is because people tend to work longer hours, and have less time to rest. I'm not that familiar with Beijing as I've never spent more than a few days there, but I also get the impression that touring the city on foot is hard work because you end up walking long distances through wide streets with not much in them. This, I think, is pretty unique to Beijing though. I have been to many other cities in China, and only Beijing is like this. I used to live in Shanghai which is a very walkable city, at least in the central region (although with the demolition of a lot of the old neighbourhoods, maybe it is not as nice as it used to be). Nevertheless, like Beijing, the streets are fairly quiet after about 9 pm.

[suMMit]

On 5/12/2024 at 12:44 PM, liqi said:

Dunno if it's just a Haidian problem, but there's just soooo many gated communities too, takes out the life out of the streets even further when you walk around and it's just walls and walls

Best place by far to walk around in BJ is in the Hutongs. And I read somewhere that there are still over 2000 of them within the 2nd ring road. 共享单车 is also a good alternative to walking in BJ.

[becky82]

On 5/12/2024 at 12:44 PM, liqi said:

(also, your video is private!)

 

Argh, I give up.  Here's one from the other day.

[liqi]

On 5/12/2024 at 4:09 PM, Lu said:

used to live in Shuangjing and it very much had this problem too

Shuangjing is in Chaoyang though, no? That's at least much better than Haidian already haha. Yeah, I like Sanlitun too (or Sanliturrrrrr, as Beijing got me used to say lol), but it's just pretty far for it to be something daily or spontaneous. Transport is great, but it's still tiresome having to take 1hr subway trips to do something outside Wudaokou (which by itself is already much worse than it was before, or so I'm told)

 

On 5/12/2024 at 11:12 PM, anonymoose said:

I think this is common to all of China

I don't disagree that China as a whole does go to sleep earlier, but I don't think this level of nothingness is the standard, at least not from the other places I visited. In Chongqing it's not like the roads were mega packed with everything turned on, but there was still street vendors and markets, people going on and about etc. In Beijing there's nothing, hell, I like to bike around outside campus at night sometimes and I've been stopped by police asking what I was doing out so late... not really nice.

 

In Chengdu a very old dude approached me at like 11PM making innapropriate adult symbols and whispering in the thickest english possible "want? want? want?", which left me extremelly confused and annoyed as to why some random geezer was hitting on me so boldly and suddendly 😅. It was only later when another guy came up to me making the same symbols and whispering 美女美女美女 that I got what was going on, yikes! Although I laughed a lot at my own misinterpretation of the situation haha

 

On 5/13/2024 at 8:22 AM, suMMit said:

Best place by far to walk around in BJ is in the Hutongs. And I read somewhere that there are still over 2000 of them within the 2nd ring road.

That's my point though: it's far! I live near the 5th ring road, so getting to the 2nd is quite an ordeal. Doable, but it's not something you can do spontaneously, having to take the subway for hours takes away much of the fun of just exploring around 😕

 

[abcdefg]

I always found Chengdu much more congenial than Beijing. I got to the point that I would only go to Beijing if I had a "mission" -- a specific reason; something that could not be accomplished remotely. The chronic traffic congestion and long travel times really were the icing on the cake.

 

I lived in Kunming, in an old neighborhood, people walked everywhere or rode their bikes. People nodded to each other or even said hello if it was near the apartment complex. The local Kunming friends with whom I often traveled felt the same way about BJ. We dreaded going to see the Emperor. 

 

But Chengdu felt like real life. Went there often. Terrible weather, delicious food, decent public transportation, lots to see and do. People, generally, less guarded and hurried and tightly wound. Hope you like it there, @liqi. The accent, however, is damn near impenetrable. Of course, you could say the same about the local "hua" in most of Yunnan. 方言。

[nicklinjm]

Would confirm a lot of other people's impressions on this thread. Am currently living in Beijing and previously lived in Shanghai for 5+ years. Nowadays both Beijing and Shanghai are pretty dead after, say, 10pm except in a few v specific locales (a few hutongs in the case of Beijing, maybe Anfu Lu in Shanghai's case). Also the street vendors were banned in Beijing during covid and so have pretty much disappeared.

 

If the OP is looking for great street life / street food and friendlier people, Sichuan in general and Chengdu / Chongqing would seem to be a great choice. Just on business trips to the area I was always amazed how much there was to see and do even v late at night, especially given that Chengdu is actually considered a 2nd tier city in China! Not sure about the options in terms of universities, etc though..... 

[lordsuso]

A friend of mine lived in Chengdu for 5+ years, and he loved it there (special mention to the food). He eventually left because the pollution was unbearable, although I guess it can't be much worse than Beijing.