The Day the English Died

We all knew it was coming, but we still weren't ready for it: The Language Pledge. I'll start from the beginning. Today, was supposed to be our orientation day, but instead, it turned out to be a sadistic drowning of unprepared students. We took a placement exam at 8 AM -- it was the hardest test I've ever taken in my life. NEVER in my whole life have I sat down in front of an exam and felt so blank. I actually knew just about nothing on this test. In the middle of the exam, we would also be summoned at random to go and get humiliated over how little we could speak for the oral part of the exam. It was mostly difficult because about 50 people were taking the oral exam at the same time in the same room, so it was hard to hear the teachers (whose voices are all quiet in the first place) ask the questions. So, anyway, the exam was 2 hours long.

When we finished that, we began the hectic process of trying to move out of our shared rooms and into our new singles. Trying to work out the details of exchanging old keys for new ones and making sure that people weren't still in our new rooms was excruciatingly hard because the fuwuyuan (front desk lady) speaks as if coffee -- not blood -- flows through her veins. Even the third year and fourth year students were having trouble. Once we figured everything out, though, I got pretty lucky. My new room did not smell like cigarettes, have food all over, have someone else's belongings still there, or anything else undesirable. It was a little smaller than the one I have spent the past two nights in, but it was very clean, and had many more windows. It's on the 8th (instead of the 5th) floor, too, so I'm both high up and have a lot of natural light. Oh, I forgot! Today was a sunny day! You could actually see your own shadow! Nothing like the smog on Friday. Anyway, I'm very happy to have some privacy, a bed, and a bathroom all to myself now. I'm all unpacked, too, which means I can get on with my life.

And what kind of life is that? We were given all the details and rules about the life we are to lead here in the orientation after the exam. What sets HBA apart from all the other university summer Chinese language programs in Beijing is its "Language Pledge." This is a piece of paper that every student signs, swearing not to speak anything but Mandarin for the entirety of our stay here. They are not joking around. Except for emergencies, we are not allowed to speak anything except Mandarin. Obviously, in the privacy of our own rooms, we can call home and friends, but the director said that the longer we have such conversations, the more our progress will be impeded. I wish you all could have seen our faces before signing the pledges. The words "terrified," "panic," "nausea," and "dread" come to mind. One person's last English word was a particular four letter word that starts with F ... he was not alone, though most people just sort of whimpered as they signed away their English.

Class seems like it is going to be very intense. We are going to have to learn about 60 words a day in both simplified and traditional characters. Each morning, we will have a dictation. Each day consists of about 2 hrs of lecture and 2 hrs of practice ("drill") class. Once a week, after lunch, we will have a 50 minute individual session (a one-on-one conversation with a teacher). This is the schedule for Monday - Thursday. Then, on Friday, we will have a 2 hour long test in addition to an oral presentation (a memorized presentation of an essay that we write for Wednesdays. Just writing this is making me cringe a little bit inside because it's not even 9 o'clock here and I'm already longing for bed.

Just to give you an idea of what the past couple of hours without English have been like, I have to tell you about my lunch experience. We wanted to branch out from the Muslim restaurant, which I've had at least one meal at per day, so we went to this fast food type of place above one of the dining halls. The dining halls themselves are disgusting. If you can imagine a mixture of cigarette smoke and dead fish, then you would have an accurate sense of what these places smell like. Anyway, the place above was hardly better in terms of cleanliness, but is known to have better food. Unfortunately for us, all of the menus were in characters. My two friends and I looked around, looked at each other, and just wanted to cry. So, we pathetically trudged over to one of the windows, recognized the characters for "chicken" and ordered some noodle dish. The woman kept asking me "chao de? chao de?? CHAO DE?!" and I felt terrible that I had no idea what she was saying (she was asking me, as I later learned, whether I wanted my food stir-fried). I kind of stared at her, trying to communicate that I didn't understand (a message that didn't take a lot of communication), until she threw her head back in exasperation and begged another worker to help us. We ended up with a very good and very spicy noodle dish, but the whole process made us feel pathetically incompetent.

When English was taken away from us, our conversations with each other multiplied in ridiculousness. We were, at first, reduced practically to "point and grunt." There were moments of wild gesturing, drawing with our hands, and accidental slips into English. One of my friends went to the bathroom in the middle of dinner, came back, and said without thinking, "I totally forgot about the bathroom situation here -- hole in the ground, just a hole in the ground." Or, when we went to the grocery store (we all needed hangers, a word that no one knew how to say), my new Yale friend got separated from the group; when we finally found him he smiled and said without any reaction, "Oh! There you guys are. What's up." Each time, we all looked at the offender in horror and exploded into laughter. I can't even describe our conversations. We were great on topics related to anything academic, the weather, hobbies, and any other uninterestingly themed vocabulary. When it came to trying to coordinate plans, deciding whether or not to eat at McDonalds, and splitting up the dinner bill, we earned ourselves the laughs of many a Beijing native. For the most part, we are pretty much communicating by lots of gesturing, pointing to words in our ever in hand dictionaries, and the slowest/simplest possible speech.

Honestly, I think that just these past couple of hours helped a lot. At first I was really frightened of not being able to get to know these people well and of being really limited. But, armed with our dictionaries and our own self-deprecating senses of humor, we will be able to get the most out of this. It's a fun challenge and unlike anything I've ever done before. I hope that it works and that we'll be able to speak pretty fluently by the end of the program!

Now, I have to learn 60 new words ... the theme is airport and airplanes. This is going to be a challenge because -- how do you say "jet lag" in Chinese? -- I am so jet lagged. I just had my 3rd Diet Coke. The Diet Coke here is so different! Not only does it have less caffeine, but it also tastes more citrus-y. To all my buddies in other countries this summer, have you found the same thing? I'm curious to know.

I miss you all a lot. It's been so great to hear from everyone. I wish you could be here, but I'm glad that I can at least talk (well ... not too much any more :) ) via Skype and email. Keep me posted and I'll write again tomorrow!