It's hard to believe that I've been in Beijing for only two and a half days. Although I definitely haven't gotten over the jet lag yet, I feel as though I left Michigan ages ago. There's so much to write about since my last post! I suppose I'll proceed in a somewhat chronological fashion, but I'll probably gloss over some things and write more about others.
First, the flight: I was not much looking forward to spending a longer time on a plane than I ever have before (New York to Beijing beats out the Chicago to Tokyo flight I took in third grade), but it turned out to be no problem at all. The two Chinese women sitting next to me were both extremely friendly, and as we got settled we chatted about college and studying abroad, switching back and forth between their pretty good English and my very broken Chinese. By the time the plane took off, though, I was already asleep. I slept solidly for ten hours (according to my somewhat alarmed-looking companions) and missed both meals offered on the plane. When the captain announced we would be landing soon, I was actually confused, because I was convinced we couldn't have reached Beijing so quickly.
Once through customs, I was hailed by three very enthusiastic HBA teachers. All spoke incredibly quickly (at least so it seemed to me), and I probably understood about a tenth of what they were saying to me. Needless to say, this induced my first "what have I gotten myself into?" moment. I couldn't speak this language! Why was I going to sign away my English in exchange for a language of which I only knew the basics? Luckily, the teachers' friendliness and patience compensated for their fast speech. I calmed down quickly, and on the bus ride to BLCU, I was even able to take part in a conversation with a teacher and another student.
My first interactions with classmates the next day were quite fun. We were all somewhat giddy, probably because we knew we only had half a day left to speak English -- we wanted to make the most of it! I mostly spent time with fellow Yalies, some of whom had been in my Chinese classes, and some of whom I hadn't previously met, but I also met a few Harvard students. Most of our time we spent walking to various places in or near the campus like the bank, the supermarket, the computer store, and the cafeteria. The campus is quite pretty, with many trees along the roads and even a little park filled with flowers. Unfortunately, the Beijing air really is alarmingly smoggy -- I can't see very far out my window at all, and spending any length of time outside when it's not a clear day is pretty irritating to the eyes and throat.
After we had finished a lunch full of spirited English conversation, we headed for orientation, knowing what awaited us. Most of the second-year students could only understand bits and pieces of the convocation speeches, so we had lots of time to reflect on the pledge we were about to take. At this point, I was more excited than terrified. Even though I couldn't really understand what was going on, I knew that thanks to the language pledge, I would be able to by the end of the summer! So when it came time to sign, I did so quickly and happily, without even bothering to say a few final English words.
The language pledge proved itself very quickly to be quite interesting. What I've enjoyed the most about it so far is that it's so revealing about conversation in general. The first thing I noticed was that it wasn't actually too difficult -- people tend to say sort of the same things in chatty conversation, and even if there's a slight challenge expressing or understanding a thought, it's pretty easy to figure out what the intended meaning is. The second thing that struck me was the way we create humor when faced with severe linguistic restrictions. Since we can't really say funny things at our level, a lot of humor has come through the use of playing around with sounds that have meaning but aren't quite words: "mmm-hmm," "ohhh", and even some animal sounds. Of course, another source of humor is simply the situation itself. It's impossible not to laugh at the absurdity of some of our conversations. My mom always said that speaking a foreign language is a lot like playing the game Taboo, and I wholeheartedly agree. Naturally it can be frustrating to not be able to get your point across, but trying to is very much a game of talking your way around your limitations. One thing I hadn't thought about before beginning the pledge that I definitely appreciate now is how much it will be a great workout for my creativity.
I've already spent a long time writing this post, so I think I'll save a description of my classes and daily routine for a later post. Also, I hope to get out and take some pictures of campus in the next few days, so stay tuned!