Before I begin, I’d like to share something that one of my fellow Yalies, Niè Wànlǐ (a.k.a. Scott Nelson) sent to me and other Yalie PiBers: This Place Looks Familiar, but Where’s Starbucks?

Alright, so I’ll try my best to let you know what exactly has transpired in the past week and a half–I apologize for the long delay, getting into the groove here as been a little more difficult than I thought, and again, money was kind of an issue, mostly because I had intelligently entered the wrong PIN three times in Bank of China ATM. Yes, I know. I am a genius.  So, as a result of this, Wachovia blocked my card, and since they were unwilling to reach me by email, I was unaware of this…so I get an email this morning from my dad saying that Wachovia had mailed BY POST a letter to my house. Now, if they had seen where this particular ATM was located, they should have had the foresight to realize that I would not get the information that my card was blocked until after I got back home, which would be in six months. Luckily my dad was kind enough to let me know what was going on. Anyways I talked to the Wachovia people today and everything was sorted out, and I happily withdrew from the ATM so conveniently placed next to the McDonald’s by Dongmenr (East Gate).

This is one thing I love about out living situation. Xinsong Gongyu (the dorm where all the PiB 2nd years live) is in an excellent location–if only I could 降价 (jiang4jia4 - haggle over prices) a little better in Chinese, I think I would have it set. As still as of yet I’m pretty incapable of ordering off of menus without the help of friends–and I can’t say that since I’ve gotten here that aspect of shenghuo (life) has gotten much easier. It is, although, relatively easy to buy things from the very nearby chaoshi (supermarket). They sell nearly everything: shampoo, sodas, bread, snacks, you name it. And there is an extra bonus because you get to laugh at all the retarded English translations on nearly everything in the store. If you ever come to China and don’t speak English, expect to do a lot of deciphering, because signs and labels sometimes aren’t so clear.

Another added bonus is that I’ve found that things are extremely cheap. After my fiasco at the bank, where I managed to huan (change) about US$100 into Yuan, I managed to buy a SIM card, eat out every day of the week, buy toiletries, go out twice during the weekend, travel to Changcheng (the Great Wall), and visit Tiananmen Square. Mind you, this is for about eight full days of living here. And it’s not like I’m living on the cheap. I can imagine, though, that if you’re a tourist you’ll be herded into expensive touristy areas with American-like prices. I’ve only been eating at restaurants with only Chinese-speaking fuyuyuans (waitresses) and haven’t really encountered many English speakers.

So, let’s get down to business (i.e. exactly how this intensive Chinese thing is going).

So far, PiB has been incredible. It is the best language-teaching I have ever had, hands down. We have classes five days a week, four hours a day, from 7:30 to 11:30 in the morning. Technically, it’s really four classes every day. The first two classes are fifty minutes long and are the closest that PiB comes to to a lecture. It’s really not even close, because during class we (the students) are constantly kept on our toes, and have to remain very attentive, otherwise quickly falling behind is inevitable. In the first few minutes we are given a tingxie (literally “listen write”) which, for all you French students out there, is basically a Dictee, except a million times harder, because you don’t exactly have the option of sounding words out to spell them. Our teacher speaks, we write characters. Easier said then done, especially when you have more than thirty new characters every night.

After these two dabanke (big classes) we have two “drill” classes, at which point we are split up until groups of four students and are reinforced with the material covered in the earlier sections. Classes move very fast and we typically cover more than twenty grammar points every day (today I think it was more like thirty). On top of this we are forced to use the vocabulary from the previous night’s lesson in class.

Every afternoon (except Friday) we have one-on-one tutorials (gebietanhua) that last 50 minutes…in addition to this we are given to option to take on an extra 50-minute tutorial sometime during the week if we so desire. I chose to do this and I believe it was an excellent idea. These gebietanhua provide excellent opportunities to talk with your teacher about pretty much anything–yesterday I talked to my teacher about TV Shows (dianshi jiemu) in the U.S. and was quite surprised to hear that she was a fan of Pengyou (friends) and Er Shi Si (24). Heh.

On Fridays we are tested on the material from the week–despite my greatest fears, last Friday’s test was not as bad as I expected it would be. It was divided into several sections–one was fill in the blank, another was giving directions, another was essay-like in its wording. All in all not too bad. We are also expected to write an essay once per week, and from what I can tell, they’re gonna get harder. In fact, I think pretty much everything is gonna get harder. Last week our assignment was to write a letter to one of our American friends: 200 characters. This week we have to interview 3 Chinese people about the traffic in Beijing: 350 characters.

On Mondays and Wednesday we also have a Chinese table (Zhongwen zhuozi). We basically go out to lunch with our Xiaobanke (”drill class”) teachers and talk about anything. Although yesterday I have to say I wasn’t too interested in what we were talking about. At our table there were 4 girls/2 guys, and the guys being in the minority, the topic of conversation quickly deteriorated into a chat about hair. Yes, hair. And we are only 2nd year students.

Alas, I brought the issue up with everyone at the table and the conclusion was quickly made that the only way I’ll ever get a girlfriend is if I learn to love to talk about hair. I was not happy.

I have my gebietanhua in 10 minutes, so I should probably go. I’m gonna upload some pictures pretty soon.