By "I'll save that for tomorrow" I clearly meant "I'll save that for late Saturday night". At this point, I really should be going to bed, because I leave for my social study project in the countryside at 7, but this is the last chance I'll have to write before I get back on Thursday.
I guess I'll start with a quick description of what I'll be doing this week. For my social study project, I am going to the countryside town of Yuxian in Hebei province. Hebei is the province that wraps all the way around Beijing, so we won't be going too far, but it sounds like the living conditions couldn't be more different from what we're used to seeing here. On the trip, we'll get to visit a school, see a local fair, explore Yuxian and a nearby village, visit the farms, stay in a farmer's house, and apparently even go to castles in the surrounding countryside. We were also advised that while we will not be swimming, we may fish at some point. Needless to say, I'm really excited about this trip. Most relevant to my particular research will be our visit to the school on the first day, since I have decided to write my social study report on education in the Chinese countryside. I'm planning to ask the teachers and parents questions like "What do you think the most important aspect of children's education is?" and "In what way could China's education system be most improved?", and ask the kids questions about what they want to do when they grow up, their favorite quality in a teacher, and their favorite subjects. Although I'm really excited to find out how people answer all my questions, I'm a little nervous about being able to follow and take down their answers. Luckily I'm bringing along my phone, which has a "voice memo" feature, so I'm hoping I can record my interviews.
Obviously, the point of this week is to learn as much as I can culturally. I think it's really great that HBA gives us an opportunity to get outside Beijing and explore some aspect of Chinese culture in depth -- it's definitely not something most of us would have the chance to do without their help. But the social study project certainly isn't the only way to learn about Chinese culture in this program. As I've mentioned before, the one-on-one classes we have every day here can be a lot of fun. They're almost always my favorite part of the day; after I recite the day's short memorized passage for the teacher, we can just talk about basically anything. Unsurprisingly, our conversation often turns to the lesson of the day (it is, after all, another class in which we're supposed to be practicing new vocabulary and grammar structures). Each lesson is in the form of a dialogue, always starring at least two of three fictional HBA students as they adjust to their lives in Beijing. This week, every dialogue focused on some aspect of Chinese customs, particularly what to do in certain kinds of social interactions and get-togethers. While it was certainly very interesting to read about this, I remained skeptical because of the alarming over-simplification of a lot of the characterizations in the text (our Tuesday's recitation was something along the lines of: "To Americans, Chinese people seem to overdo politeness to the point of deceit, but to Chinese people, Americans' extreme frankness seems rude"). Fortunately, the one-on-one classes were perfectly suited for discussing my dissatisfaction with this black-and-white mentality. It was great to really talk to the teachers about what is considered polite in the two cultures, especially since a lot of them had never been to America, so they could learn from me too. On Monday, I spent almost the whole class discussing the finer points of wedding etiquette (which I hope I got right, since I'm not exactly an expert), and amused my teacher by explaining the concept of a gift registry. Tuesday's conversation focused on the interesting topic of when it's appropriate to tell white lies to various people in your life. By Wednesday and Thursday, we had moved away from the "customs" side of things a bit, but I still had great conversations. My favorite of the week was probably Wednesday's, in which we discussed food and agriculture and I tried to explain factory farms, subsidized corn, and the local and sustainable food movement.
It's so nice to be getting to a level of Chinese where I actually am able to have conversations like these. Of course I still often find myself reaching for my dictionary (usually after attempting elaborate and very unsuccessful pantomimes), but it's clear that I have a much better grasp of the language. I don't know if I'll ever be in a language-learning situation this fast and this intense again, so I'm especially savoring the feeling of incredibly tangible progress.
Stay tuned for pictures and a report of the countryside!