Choosing a City to Study in in China

[randall_flagg]

To libertango, who just posted a similar post: sorry! My question is really similar to yours, but I do have some specifics that you are not listing, so I don’t think this counts as a double post. And to those kind souls who are going to read through this, more or less, desperate cry for help: Thanks for helping.

If you had a choice....

Could you please help me chose?

The news couldn’t be any better: I will receive a full scholarship for 1-2 years at a Chinese university, mainly for a language student. I am just tickled pink and couldn’t be much happier than I am right now…except for one thing: I basically have a free pick and don’t know where I should go!

Where would you go if you could chose?

Now, I realize that:

- people like different things

- nobody can ever have tested all of the universities’ language programs (or even two or three), which makes a valid comparison even harder.

But I would appreciate if you could still offer some advice: I know everything I need to know is in your heads! I already have one particular school in mind, but I don’t want to bias you, so I’m not going to tell you just yet.

Let me tell you what I want:

- I DON’T want to go to Beijing or Shanghai

- My no.1 priority certainly is the air quality – I need to be able to breathe!- It would be nice if the school offered high-quality language classes, but I tend to learn more at home and on the streets anyway. So, oddly enough, that’s not my priority.

- I want to go somewhere where Putonghua (in some version or other, I am pretty flexible with that) is spoken on the streets.

- Don’t want to go to a place where it gets too cold during the wintertime (which kind of rules out all of Dongbei, except for the coastal regions).

- I would prefer a school with a small foreign student community for obvious reasons.

- Night club scene, fancy restaurants, movie theaters, concert and the like are totally irrelevant for me (Gosh, I sound really boring, don’t I?).

Can’t come up with anything else right now.

I would love for you guys and gals to come to the same conclusion I did. , that would be perfect and put and end to my pondering.

Oh, I don’t know if this matters much, but in order for you to be able to make the best statement possible, let me tell you about my 汉语水平 :

I think I’m doing alright. I’ve been to China twice and never had any serious trouble communicating, even more complex questions like the Taiwan issue, I guess. I only got one 听不懂 last year, and that was when I was hackling with a guy from Sichuan Province. I am at about 3,000 characters (wild guess here) right now and can read newspaper articles at an OK speed, but will need a dictionary every once in a while.

If you need any other info, PLEASE let me know. I would like to make the most of my year. And yes, I do realize that although the choice of a university is important, it’s not like it is the only factor that will determine the failure or success of my year (or years, hopefully).

Thanks in advance!

Randall

[Tobias]

i can only give you advice on one university as you already pointed out aboove, for i have only been to one.

that is the harbin university of technology

been there one year on a scholarship as well.

biggest reason for a no go would definitely be the air quality.

reason to go according to most chinese would be the standard chinese being spoken there. if you will decide to go there i guess you would fit into d-class at the very least. thing is it only goes up to f-class and it may well be you might want to start in e-class given your language skills.

not to mention that the language courses at gong da were pretty bad in my opinion.

so i guess you will not find yourself ending up in harbin.

but i hope i still was a help to confirm this based on what i wrote.

nice city though if you do not want to see foreign tourist-china.

[gato]

I thought you were going to Qingdao, which seems be a great city.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/82-mulan01&highlight=qingdao

[roddy]

Yeah, didn't we tell you to go to Qingdao already

Failing that, Dalian? Never actually been there, but people who live there seem to love it. It's in the north-east and coastal.

[randall_flagg]

Right, I am pretty much set on Qingdao, but it looks like I can choose again. Maybe this is childish, but I just want to be SURE! Also, I'll have to give names for 2nd and 3rd choices, in case the first one doesn't work out for some reason.

Has anyone been to Lanzhou or any other “odd” place far inland?

Thanks,

Randall.

[gato]

I want to go somewhere where Putonghua (in some version or other, I am pretty flexible with that) is spoken on the streets.

In many southern cities like Nanjing or Suzhou, everyone will be able to speak good Putonghua with you if you speak to them in Putonghua. I guess the advantage of having everyone speaking Putonghua ALL the time is that you will be able to eavesdrop on people. Is that that big of deal for you?

If it is, then you'll be limited roughly to only cities north of Shandong. You'll limit yourself to less than 25% of the country by area and probably also by population. Almost all the northern cities have bad air quality because they hardly ever get any rain.

[venture160]

the air quality in 哈尔滨 is NOT that bad, i spent a summer and fall there, and its a million times better than 北京, and most of the time in the summer and fall its beautiful outside. i really reccomend harbin because you can actually listen to people on the street, yes, southern china is nice, but its not the best place to learn 普通话.

i'd say harbin, not alot of foreigners either and not a whole lot of "western distractions" you will study in harbin. go north my friend, its better.

[Tobias]

well, the air qualty may not be as bad as it is in beijing....still does not mean its anywhere near good.

summer was ok, but the winter is much worse than anything i have ever experienced thanks to the coal-heating.

anyway, harbin is freakin cold in winter so its outruled.

qingdao is a very nice city but similar to dalian you will still have a big crowd of foreigners there. in qingdao there are alot of germans.....maybe because of the beer?

[venture160]

well a general rule of thumb is that the coastal cities will have better air quality because it is all blown away to some unlucky village. Try the coastal cities in Shandong. I know Shandong University has a campus in weihai.. i hear its on the beach.. and there are barely any foreigners out there. yantai is nice too.

[Green Pea]

Shenzhen meets all of your criteria, too. It's also close to Hong Kong in case you need a break.

[randall_flagg]

Do they actually speak Putonghua in Shenzhen?

[wushijiao]

What about Kunming? I think that meets almost all of your criteria as well. I'm about 80% sure I'm going to move there this summer.

Qingdao or Dalian would be great as well.

[randall_flagg]

OK I am filling out the application right now. One final nudge in the right direction would be great:

Out of these http://www.csc.edu.cn/en/readarticle/readarticle.asp?articleid=184 universities in Dalian, which one would you chose if you were in my shoes?

Thanks,

Randall

[atitarev]

Do they actually speak Putonghua in Shenzhen?

Yes, they do, I read about it too.

[Diego]

Hi man... maybe u can learn something from my experiences in China.

I have been in BJ (6 months), in Chengdu (5 moths), in Haikou (3 months) and now I am in Kunming.

Wht I have learnt is that where there are not many forgeigners students is where u can make good progress definetely.

Second, here in Kunming, as in chegndu was, locals generaly speak their dialect.. they just use mandarin to adress to u. On the contrary where u find chinese ppl from many provinces u will se them trying to speak the best mandarin they can. In Haikou my chinese friends (for example) came all from differente cities of china and they where obliged to speak mandarin. Anyway many Hainanese can not speak a good mandarin and they sometimes can not even understand when we speak it.

The city I like the most is Chengdu: best girl, best food and good quality in teaching chinese. Kunming too is ok for blue sky. But I do not know nothing about quality in teaching. I m just arrived. It seams good, anyway.

Take care! If u wanna c some pic of haikou and others city go here www.italy-asia.com

Photos = FOTO

Cities = Citta'

have a look to Haikou

[Harvey]

No one mentioned JILIN? I'm considering there. I hear it's a nice school, and they speak pretty much putonghua.

Anyone know anything about Jilin?

[gato]

I heard Jilin is dismal, something about the pollution and the unbearable cold. If they spoke good putonghua in Siberia, would you go?

[kaifaqu crue]

Out of these http://www.csc.edu.cn/en/readarticle...?articleid=184 universities in Dalian, which one would you chose if you were in my shoes?

I'd pick Liaoning Normal University. Smaller (English speaking) foreign student community than 大外.

[quanxie]

My vote is for Yangshuo,

air quality is the best of any of the above mentioned places...

Like Hainan, people come from all over China and are forced to use Putonghua...

There are several small "Language schools" to choose from that will give you a great deal on study-exchange for teaching-entertaining, or pay a small fee if you don't want to teach....

Yangshuo has a small catering to foreign tastes, when you need to fulfill the westerner in you....

Not to mention the magnitude of things to do around here in nature...

Good luck,

Phil

[mrtoga]

If you want quality of life - Dalian. Magnificient town although they speak a bit funny.

If you want to improve your speaking / listening as much as possible as fast as possible - Harbin. 哈工大 is the most famous and their advanced programme is pretty good but you can also attend a private school that offers special classes to get you through level 10 HSK - realistic if you have 3,000 characters.

Wherever you end up, just make sure it isn't Jilin!