Tag-Archive for » beijing student life «

BLCU Accommodation: Scholarship Students

July

Due to the high demand from my BLCU Dorm Accommodation post, I thought it best to make another post in hopes of answering questions regarding accommodation for scholarship students going to BLCU.

Disclaimer: Although I received the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Scholarship, I was never a Chinese Government Scholarship Student and anything I post here is from what I have gathered from friends, friends of friends, aquaintances etc. which may or may not be accurate!

More likely than not, scholarship students will be allocated to Dorms 1 and 2. These dorms have communal showers, toilets, kitchen, laundry etc per level, thus each floor alternates males and females. As a very general guide, the girls are usually in the lower levels and the guys are in the upper levels.

BLCU Dorm 1 & 2 Map

I don’t like the sound of Dorm 1 &2, is it possible to change accommodation?

The simple answer: Yes

It seems to be possible for a few persistant students to change to a different dorm within BLCU for a cost (money and/or time).

I’ve been told that some scholarship students have been successful in transfering from Dorms 1/2 to Dorm 9 at no extra cost. You may possibly be able to ‘upgrade’ (and pay the difference) to another dorm, however I haven’t heard of anyone actually being allowed so it may not be possible afterall…

You can also stay in other dorms if you wish, but you will have to fork out the cost yourself (with no compensation from your scholarship) – This also applies for staying in apartments off-campus.

I still want to give it a go, what needs to be done?

The best way is to talk to the Housing Staff in charge of student accommodation, they had an office in Dorm 4 when I was there but may have moved to the new offices near Dorm 1 & 2. (Refer to BLCU Campus Map)

Another option is to talk to the fuyuans (staff) at the specific dorm, don’t assume that if you ask one fuyuan that all the fuyuans will give the same answer.

Although I have never asked about accommodation for scholarship students I have asked about changing dorms, and from experience they will say “No, it’s not possible” almost all the time. The trick is to get past the lower level fuyuans and talk to the person in charge – this way at least you have a chance! Unfortunately I don’t know any tricks to getting their attention, the only reason why our request was brought up to the higher level was because we had a justified reason to move.

Category: BLCU Tags: beijing language and culture university, beijing student life, BLCU One Comment

5 Quick Questions About Going To BLCU

July

Selina Lai

As you know, I get emailed about BLCU and my experience in Beijing, so I thought I’ld share my answers to these questions a reader emailed me just in case other people are also curious (seems very likely).

Did you use an agent to go to BLCU?

No, I went through my university as a student exchange (which I was accredited for) and received the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Scholarship. My university arranged my tuition, via the scholarship, but everything else was expected to be arranged by me (accommodation, transport, visa, flights etc).

How did you get a roomate at BLCU?

The BLCU staff at each dorm will automatically assign you to someone… generally they go by the country you are from. I think they try to pair up different countries to encourage a multicultural environment, but if you have a someone you want to share with, you just need to let them know. They do NOT allow different sex sharing the same room, although the dorms are unisex.

Does BLCU take the students around the city (sightseeing, shopping, etc) during the weekend?

BLCU does arrange some touristy things to do (mostly for short term students), but you’re expected to do your own shopping. There’s so many shops in Beijing that you won’t even realise you’re in one!

Maybe going to Beijing with a friend made it easy?

Having a familiar face will definitely make it easier and less scary for a first timer in Beijing, and the best person to have around is someone who can translate for you!! My friend arrived before me and made all her arrangements, even finding the chaoshifa, without me around. It just saves you lots of misunderstandings, headaches and frustration if you have someone there to vent with =)

However, you can very easily go to BLCU without knowing a single person because it’s very very easy to make friends on campus.

How about reporting to the police about my arrival?

hAHa, to be honest I didn’t even think about reporting anything to the cops… I’m not sure if it’s even effective? Just remember that there are hundreds and thousands of students going on exchange to foreign countries all the time. You Are Not Alone! Worst case scenario, find your embassy and get their help. I don’t know about other countries, but (once you get past the check point) the Australian embassy is very friendly and helpful.

Category: BLCU Tags: beijing, beijing language and culture university, beijing student life, BLCU, student exchange 2 Comments

Worth going to BLCU?

April

Selina Lai

I’ve received quite a few emails from readers about BLCU (Beijing Language and Culture University), and many people ask me about my exchange experience in Beijing… And then I got an email asking: “Was it worth it?” It wasn’t the first time, so I fell right into my automated response talking through rose-coloured glasses. But whilst writing a response, I had to stop when I realised that I wasn’t being objective enough.

Most people ask me about my experience in Beijing:
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Would you go back?”
“Is it safe?”
etc.
And my automated response is a big “Yes!”, without a doubt I loved every moment I had in Beijing. From the smelly torrential rain, to the street vendors and even the kids pooping/peeing in public. There’s no doubt I have very fond (both good and bad) memories of Beijing and my student life at BLCU.

Now, back to the question at hand: “Is it worth going to BLCU?“
Well, if I look at the question objectively… there’s just no way for me to answer it because. First of all it depends on the expectations of what you want to get out of the experience, for example if I expected to speak like a pro Beijinger at the end of the trip versus expecting to meet all the wonderful people and learning about the differences in drinking cultures of other students. Secondly I (sadly) don’t have any student exchange experience to compare with.

What I can say is what other students have told me about their experiences and my personal observations…

Teaching

The teaching style in Beijing/China seems pretty standardized with slight variations depending on each teacher. The style, although standard to many of the Koreans and Japanese students attending classes as well, is definitely not what a western educated person like myself is used to. To be quite honest, during the short 6 months I spent studying at BLCU, it was probably the hardest I have ever studied in my lifetime.

A typical class at BLCU would consist of:

The teacher randomly calling students up to the front of the class to do dictation or write sentences on the board.
Everyone was expected to read the new chapter and be able to recite it at the end of class, sometimes even performing the dialogue in front of classmates.
综合 zonghe (comprehension) taught us new chapters, new words, new gramma, new exercise and more homework.
During 口语 kouyu (speaking) we would take turns to tell the class a story
朗读 Langdu (tones) involved reading and reciting famous literature slowly but very accurately (to the point we would be repeating the same tones over and over… and over again),
听力 Tingli (listening) had us in a daze struggling to listen to recordings and attempting to answer questions which we couldn’t even understand.
Dear old 语法 yufa (gramma) bored us to tears with exercises like fill-in-the-blanks and crosswords.

Campus

In regards to the campus life, I’m quite sure many universities around Beijing and even China are all quite similar.

Attend classes with fellow international students
Socialise and explore with fellow international students
Eat with fellow international students
Get drunk with fellow international students
Sleep with fellow international students
Sleep at the dorms for international students

Okay I admit, I might be generalising a bit… I know that there are international students who befriend many local students (vice versa) and it’s not rare to see a local and foreigner couple together.

BLCU is actually the smaller university in the Wudaokou area so there’s a lot less students and amenities compared to the other universities (especially Peking and Tsinghua). The one time I went to Beida (Peking University) left me at awe at what an amazing campus it was. The buildings, Weiming lake, pagodas, bridges etc made you feel like you were in city of its own.

I have to admit that it was the massive Weiming lake in the middle of the Peking campus that caught my attention, but the traditional style of their campus buildings were also just as impressive. Beida is definitely the more elegant (almost regal-like) campus compared to BLCU.

Tsinghua on the other hand, although just as impressive as Beida, has a more modern/westernized style of buildings. I can’t say too much about Tsinghua, but like BLCU, it is much closer to the Wudaokou area and subway line (which in my opinion is a huge advantage over Peking campus).

Students

Wudaokou is well known as being the international students hangout, and regardless of which university (Peking, Tsinghua or BLCU) you attend, you will be surrounded by foreign students when in the area (refer to above: campus life).

It’s difficult to say what proportion of the population is foreign and from which country (the university website might have some statistics though). And from my experience, international students don’t interact much with local students (except the canteen) because class times are different and in different locations on BLCU campus.

At the end of the day, if I was to go back to Beijing to study again, BLCU would definitely be on the top of the list. What I like most about BLCU is that it’s extremely convenient because of the location (even if you have to walk a bit to get into Wudaokou), but mostly because the campus is quite small, you always end up seeing familiar faces and bumping into fellow students around campus (takes the edge off the loneliness if you don’t know anyone there).

It would also be pretty interesting to go to Peking or Tsinghua just to experience a different campus, and I’m quite sure that Peking and Tsinghua will be a little less ‘dodgy’ than BLCU because they seem to be a lot more established and are much larger institutions than BLCU.

So was it worth going to BLCU? Yeah definitely, I fulfilled my expectations and more! And the main reason for that was that I actively went out and made sure I fulfilled them (plus it helps not to have high expectations~).

Category: BLCU, Education, Reviews Tags: beijing language and culture university, beijing student life, BLCU 10 Comments

Language Partners and Tutors

April

Selina Lai

A very common and useful way of improving your spoken Chinese (汉语) is to have a language partner (also known as tandem partner) or a private tutor. I only thought about language partners when I was studying at BLCU because that seemed to be the norm, but language partners can actually be really good if you can find the right one.

There’s generally two reasons people go to BLCU:

Study and learn the language and culture
Cheap food, cheap booze, cheap shopping and party

For those who really want to work on their Chinese, it won’t take you long to realise that hanging out with international students who speak English (or Russian or Korean or whatever language other than Chinese) is not quite effective. This is why most real students will have a language partner (tandem partner)

Definition: Language Partner

Language partners are individuals who are (preferably) native speakers in which they can help you improve your verbal skills in their language. In exchange you will help them improve their verbal skills in your native language. (tandem partners, 互相朋友)

Definition: Private Tutor

Private Tutors are individuals who help aid and teach you in a topic (Chinese) in exchange for money.

Finding a Language Partner/Tutor

Language Partners can be really good if you can find the right one, and unfortunately that’s the main issue I had with them. I found it a bit harder (and when I say harder, I mean that I actually had to put some effort in) to get a language partner because I look Asian. The local Chinese will walk up and approach Caucasians because they prefer Americans or those from UK (to copy the accents). In my case, my roommate introduced me to a local friend she met in her tai chi class.

The best way to find a language partner or private tutor is by asking your teacher. Hopefully your teacher also teaches local students, if not, they would probably know of another teacher which does. Your teacher would also hopefully know of some new/student teachers who are looking for side jobs. From my understanding, many of the younger teachers don’t get paid much, and so they tutor for some extra cash.

And another option would be to advertise for a language partner or private tutor. There are pin-up boards at some language schools in Wudaokou, and even the classified section of The Beijinger which could be easily utilised. There’s also the option of attending a nearby language school instead of private tutoring, but I would personally rather have a one on one session… it’s not that expensive (forgot how much it cost…. ~50RMB/hr?)

What to expect with a Language Partner/Tutor

A private tutor is pretty straightforward; you get exactly what you paid for: a person who will tutor you. But a language partner should be two individuals who get along to some degree. In my opinion, you should be able to call your language partner a ‘friend’ and go on social outings and excursions together, this way you can actually learn words which are relevant to day to day life. But some language partners do one-on-one sessions where you spend 1hr teaching them and then they spend the next hours teaching you.

The funny thing about language partners is that it really highlights the cultural differences between nationalities. I didn’t really notice any differences beforehand because of the minimal interaction with the local students, and the local Chinese I did meet were quite typical.

You just need to keep in mind the differences in social interaction… The easiest way for me to describe a typical local Chinese student in a social situation is to use the analogy of the shy fat kid who suffers from verbal diarrhoea and/or foot-in-mouth when put under pressure.

Don’t get me wrong, not all the locals are socially stunted, there’s just seems to be a higher prevalence of them around international student hangouts? Or maybe I was just unlucky? Either way, you need to watch out for dodgy language partners (especially if you’re female) because it seems to be a common occurrence to use the ‘language partner’ excuse to pick up and/or hit on international students.

The arrangement I had with my language partner was 1hr teaching, 1hr learning. I actually wanted a more ‘hands on’ approach (ie going on learning excursions), but my partner didn’t understand the concept. And it was because of the very rigid class-room approach (although I had more fun in class) which had me very tired of the sessions with her very fast. I was already doing 25hrs of classes a week, at least 1hr a day for homework (yes I actually did it!), and I didn’t feel the need to kill my brain with another 2hr session once or twice a week.

To my language partner’s credit, she really helped me improve my tones (you could actually hear the difference after the first session). And if I was more dedicated in being accurate with my tones rather than improving my vocab, I might have actually appreciated her a lot more.

Conclusion

Language partners and private tutors will help you improve your spoken Chinese, but at the same time you shouldn’t be disappointed with the lack of effectiveness if you don’t find the right language partner for you.

I also want to add that I personally found it more effective to befriend those whom can only communicate with you in Chinese. This way it’ll force you to slowly struggle through conversations and improve your Chinese.

Example 1: Roommate

My roommate, although she’s an international student, didn’t know any English and I can honestly say that she was a huge contributing factor to my improvement of vocabulary. Our simple daily conversations usually ended with both of us flipping through the dictionary trying to work out what the other was saying.

Example 2: Classmates

Classmates are probably the best ones to talk to because you’re all on the same level and it’s a good opportunity to get know them. By the end of your course, you’ll find that you’ve made some life long friends. The bad thing about speaking with classmates is that it’s very easy to slip into English because many of the international students know some English or are learning it as well.

Example 3: Locals

I accidentally befriended a local Chinese storekeeper when I was at BLCU, she works at the Wudaokou Clothing Market 五道口服装市场 and we had some really interesting conversations where she would tell me things and I would only grasp about 60% of what she said. It was a real challenge to chat to her beyond the basics because of my limited vocabulary, but it was very satisfying when you finally understand what was said. Another plus was that I didn’t even have to bargain for the clothes in her stall =D

Category: BLCU Tags: beijing language and culture university, beijing student life, BLCU, language partner, tutor 3 Comments

BLCU Dorms

December

Selina Lai

Please visit:

BLCU Accommodation Rates if you want to have an idea of the cost of BLCU Dorms

BLCU Accommodation – Scholarship Students if you are a scholarship student

When preparing to go to BLCU, TJ and I did a quick check over which dorm buildings were good or at least were decent to stay in. It didn’t take long for us to work out that Dorm 17 is the most popular and most difficult to book, one of our classmates stayed at Dorm 17 only because he booked and paid it the semester before. [Note: cost of accommodation in each dorm varies]

Booking Dorms

The actual process of booking the dorm room involve:

Calling up BLCU
Explaining it to someone (in Mandarin)
Making a payment (1 month)
Showing them your proof of payment when you get there

I did it the ‘easier’ way by just rocking up and asking for a room. It seems like it’s a lot more like a first come first serve basis because they’ll always say they’re “fully booked” but somehow magically find a room when needed.

Dorm 17

These are the pros of Dorm 17 from my experience. Please take into account that I never actually stayed in dorm building 17

It’s newer (clean)
The fuyuans are nicer
It’s “off campus”
The rooms are bigger (questionable)
Closer to Wudaokou and train station
Private gate keepers
Buzzing with international students

The downside of Dorm 17 would be that it’s the dorm furtherest away from Building 1 (the main study building), this means waking up extra early in the mornings to get to class or even buying a bike (highly recommended). I also question the rumour that Dorm 17 has bigger rooms because I discovered some super-huge dorm rooms in dorm building 4 (I snuck peeks while walking past open doors).

TJ and I were tossing up between Dorm 4 and Dorm 6, near the basketball courts. TJ arrived at BLCU before me and had settled in Dorm 4, so when I got there I checked out one of Dorm 4’s rooms, and decided to check out one of the rooms in Dorm 6 too. The major downside was that Dorm 6 didn’t have elevators.

Apartments

Before my final decision, I went around checking out the apartments nearby (some of which also do not have elevators). There were apartments still under renovation, rooms for rent, people looking for an extra roommate etc. My conclusion was that living off-campus would not be beneficial for someone staying short term (up to 6 months), so I went back to Dorm 4. By that time, a lot more international students had arrived and the available rooms in the building was running out fast!

At first, I didn’t understand why they always get you to check out the room before you agree to move in, but it didn’t take long for me to realise that EVERY room I went to was DIFFERENT. Most of the rooms are standard in size (sorry, I never took a photo), with bathroom/toilet in each room. TJ had a smaller room compared to mine because hers had a balcony (the balcony can be useful for laundry), but some other friends didn’t even have a balcony like TJ or the extra space I had.

I didn’t think the rooms at Dorm 17 were bigger than compared to my dorm room though, and I’m sure that there are bigger rooms than the one I had… You just need to know which ones they are!

Dorm 4

Pros of Dorm 4

Very central (convenient)
Hope internet café/restaurant downstairs (you can leech off it in the stairwell on the 1st & 2nd floor, sometimes the 3rd floor)
They don’t lock the doors when it’s past curfew
Some of the fuyuans are nice
Newly installed security cameras
Buzzing with international students

On a side note, the “24” on the ‘Hope’ sign doesn’t mean 24hrs a day! They’ll stay open for as long as people are there, but sometimes close quite early (1-2am).

The furniture found in each room is the same: wardrobe, 2 study tables, 2 beds, mini fridge and TV. I like the fact that there’s a lock on the wardrobe as well as the drawer of the study table. But don’t expect all furniture to be functioning 100%.

Dorm 8

And last of all, I just want to mention that I had a look at the single (单人) room in Dorm 8. Just seeing the room made me glad that I was in a shared room because it’s very small, and the room looks very lonely. But of course, there are downsides of a shared dorm too (bad roommate, no privacy etc).

P.S. If you decide to stay in Dorm Building 4, try and avoid the first floor!! There’s a rumour that there was a death in one of those rooms at the beginning of 2007.

P.P.S. Beware, the elevators can jam up. You might not want to stay on the top floors, I was on the 3rd floor which seemed to be low enough to use the stairs when the elevators were off or out of function.

P.P.P.S. Scholarship students are put into Dorm 1 or 2… That means communal showers and toilets (squatting toilets)! O_O visit BLCU Accommodation – Scholarship Students for more information.

Category: BLCU, Education, Reviews Tags: beijing student life, BLCU 33 Comments

New Year Greetings 2008 from Beijing!

January

Selina Lai

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been in Beijing for Christmas and New Years! It feels odd that I’m here in little Wudaokou studying for the up-coming exams (starting Friday 4th) when I’ve always had this time of year to sit back, relax and bum!

One thing I find really stupid though, is the fact that we technically still have to go to classes 2nd and 3rd January! The staff at BLCU (语言大学) can’t really expect us to attend do they? What in the world could we learn the couple of days before exams?? Even our teachers were shocked that some of us attended classes after Christmas!

Anyhow, I have got to say that 2007 has to be one of the best years I’ve ever had in my life! Not only have I made a whole bunch of great friends, I also feel like I’ve been given a breath of fresh air.

I think I really needed that time away from the routine I had myself trapped in.

Now all I need to do is to keep focused and not get distracted!!

加油！加油！

Anyway, I’ll end this with photos of my New Years in Beijing =P
The People