Alan and Me

Alan and Me

Studying language abroad can go any number of directions. For those who attempted this endeavor in some capacity during college, you understand the massive spectrum of experiences that can take place. Some people go the homestay route and spend their time in a small town with a family and come out fluent. Some go in with no knowledge of the language and come out having learned basic conversational skills. Some just go to Australia and don't even try. My junior year, I went to Rome having taken a good deal of Italian. I studied incessantly before leaving, with high aspirations of coming out fluent. Well...I drank a lot, made some lifelong friends, had one of the best experiences of my life, and came out of the semester having forgotten much of what I had previously known

I kept this in mind while choosing a Chinese language class. I heard Shanghai was the coolest city in China, but a friend who lives there gave her earnest opinion that if I really wanted to try to learn any Mandarin, I needed to spend time in Beijing (or maybe she just didn't want me moving there and pestering her). I decided to take the plunge and looked up language classes here in Beijing. Much like many other well researched decisions in life, I basically took the route of "highest google result" and "best website" to choose my school. I read some reviews that said that the school was full of "hard partying Koreans and Japanese" but figured that I'd already chosen Beijing over Shanghai, and it wouldnt hurt to have some fun people around.

I arrived in Beijing on Sunday night and the school had a car pickup service at the airport. They helped me get set up in my room (which is adjacent to the school) and I went to bed with that giddiness that comes before the first day of school. What crazy ass Asians would I meet out here? Would I learn any Mandarin? Would the hard partying Koreans cower in fear of a large brown person?

I reported to the school office in the morning where my teacher was waiting, and he told me "let's head over to the classroom." We walked over and I began wondering, would the Jet-setting Japanese be already in the class? We walked in and sat down. Yup, it was just us. I nervously looked around wondering if I was about to get Hostel'ed or Turista'd. It then got even more awesomely weird. The teacher's name
was Alan, and he's a local Beijinger who was wearing a pink t-shirt that said "Volunteer Blood Donor" with an olympic logo on it. He attached some old school Labtec looking speakers to his laptop and said "we'll start your experience with a song". He then played this song, "Beijing Huan Ying Ni" (Beijing Welcomes You) which was apparently the song 'sung' by the cute little girl in the Olympic Opening Ceremony controversy. We sat there, just Alan and me, for the full 7:03 of the song, just kind of looking at each other. This was definitely his routine normally and he was not diverging. I sometimes forget that the gawker.com sense of irony, or Bill Simmons "unintentional comedy scale" certainly don't exist in the minds of the Chinese. There are generally 3-5 students in the other classes, but I am the only beginner starting in June. Four hours a day, just Alan and me.

Needless to say, my Mandarin is coming along splendidly.

Some other observations:

A major style for men is to sit outside in the heat and roll your t-shirt up to the chest area and just let your sweaty belly hang out, often patting it, with a cigarette hanging out the side of your mouth. I'm not gonna deny, they really look happy in this pose and at the rate I'm eating the amazing food here, I may be able to join them in a week's time.

Walking around Tiananmen Square on Tuesday, on two separate occassions I was stopped and people took pictures with me. They looked to be kinda the 'country or redneck' version of Chinese, and I guess they were just fascinated and perhaps never seen an Indian before? The city/rural distinction is definitely large here and I wonder if there's currently people playing Red State - Blue State, the Chinese edition.

Normally, if you're heading out for the afternoon and look at your window at a sea of people with umbrellas, you'll make sure to grab one. Definitely not the case out here.