The Unexpected Beijing Experience - Part 2

I still remember vividly exactly 21 weeks ago, when I first received the offer from Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) to study intensive mandarin Chinese for 12 Weeks course. And I would ask myself again and again if I would be able to survive the most populous city and known to be one of the most air polluted city too, considering that I have asthma (recurring periods of wheezing in bad air and environment) and I did not know anyone else except for (2) office colleagues in Beijing that I have only communicated with via email who has helped me to advise about places to live and would help me to settle in. 

However, I took the biggest courage after reading a few student blogs and videos of their experiences in BLCU, spoke to a few friends and family, and considered the experiences of friends who have studied and lived in Beijing. I was reminded of my goals and the dreams that I had to achieve. I have always wondered what would have been if I could live and study Mandarin in the city that the main language is from! And I just said to myself, why not it's just 3 months! LET'S GO!! 

What I read on the blogs and videos that we would have to study 4-6 hours a day, depending on which classes we took. And continuously study and practice on our own. Do the homework, try to write the new words on a flash cards and keep practicing conversations with classmates and people around. While people kept saying outside BLCU don't expect anyone to speak English (that's the point anyway right). I knew that this environment would help me tremendously to try and force myself to make conversations and search for words that I did not know how to say or read upon situations like, taking the bus/train, telling the taxi driver where to go, buying things at grocery store, and most importantly ordering food! And I will tell you how I managed to survive the 12 weeks experience in Beijing...

The first week or so when I arrived I depended a lot on my Chinese friend Ying Ying, she greeted my family and I and welcomed us to the city.. helped me to look for my accommodations and registered at the University. She was the one who wrote my Chinese name 丽莎 (Lì shā) on the registrations

paper. And called the house agents for me. Brought me to places that I would need to know (Grocery store, laundry place and searched for good halal places to eat). I don't know how am I ever gonna be able to thank this lady for making me settling in this city so much easier. Considering she had to negotiate and search for the places in Mandarin that I had no idea how to - I would have been so lost! And she kept being my personal dictionary whenever I get into a little trouble negotiating or understanding she's my life saviour, really!

And then there's these amazing classmates of mine in A5 class who would study, eat, travel and explore the city together!! That made everything so exciting, and we always had each other to motivate and cheer each other up (especially on our WeChat group with their crazy GIF emoticons). The WeChat is so popular and useful in China especially, I wish my friends in KL would use it too! And I was so blessed to have met these people that I now call friends, to have experienced this journey together. We would cheer each other up whenever the skies are grey (literally grey because they were polluted) on average they were only 3 or maybe 4 clear days to enjoy and when it is we would take advantage to explore the city better! It was so important to have positive friends around in any circumstances that you want to be successful in anything! 

They were so many other classes that I could have gotten into, I was very lucky to have met these people that enjoys taking selfies as much as I do, and we would have lunch together after classes and study at the Harney's Cafe too. Once again, I learned so much more for being in an international setting and surprisingly half of the class were Koreans so I managed to learn a few important words in Korean too (now am thinking I should learn the language too haha!) That helped me to learn a lot more about myself and others understanding my culture and religion too. Since I would ask them to go to Halal restaurants to try with me! And they did :)) (will be in the #MyFoodHunt Beijing post)

(Picture above) The Beihai Park on the first clear day after 4 days hazardous polluted days, so we decided to get out and clear our lungs with the supposedly clear air and explore the city! PURE HAPPINESS! On any other polluted day, most of the days we would spend it in the class, cafes and restaurants. Our lives would still proceed as any other Beijingers would, just that we would try to stay indoors more. We are obviously foreigners who needed time to get use to this daily phenomenon. haha! After few weeks, it still does not get easier but we had to adapt and accept it anyway. 

I was also happy to have another Chinese friend that would practice Mandarin with me, my language partner (Yu Ban 语伴), Zhou Lan or I call her Lan Jie (Lan big sister) for being so helpful to improve my grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Which helped me to realise that trying to speak is not so hard when I try and putting in extra effort to look up the words in the dictionary even though we would be looking at each other when we fail to communicate properly and laugh it out! haha Nonetheless this friendship gave me so much confidence to speak since she does not speak English at all. So, the deal was that every 2 hour meet up 1hour would be for me teaching her english and I would have to know what it is in Mandarin and the other hour would be focusing on how to make daily conversations. 

On a fairly clear day, inter-class competitions of tug the war and the jumping ropes. It is the University's way to get us out of classes and have a team building which we already did anyway! With our typical peace Asian pose without a miss.  Peace!

And I have to thank these two lovely darlings of mine that would be with me almost everyday of the journey together, Ola and Sujin Unnie (sister in korean). We would meet in class, go for coffee break, study together, shopping, travel together (Xian post that I promise to write next) and would be on each other's back no matter what happens! I am blessed to have them to constantly be of support on our crazy WeChat group.  No one else understood me the way they did, and would laugh at my stupid jokes or entertain my ideas of places to go and eat. haha! And they were the ones that gave me a little security if anything happened, I know that I had friends in Beijing who would help me (back to me being paranoid if in case I had an asthma attack considering that I lived alone and 40mins walk to and another 40 mins on foot to go home). Thus, having them to be of support helps a lot! Other than my mother and father who are constantly online on whatsapp and my good friends Wani, Salma, Victoria and Tania who would be there for me too whenever I need a little boost!! 

All in all, you only need supportive and positive family and friends who would believe in things you want to achieve. Which they constantly reminded me of my goals and dreams that I only managed to realise it..... 

My certificate from Beijing Language and Culture University that I completed 12 weeks intensive mandarin course- Elementary level. Congratulations to my classmates who made it to the 20 weeks course. And to many more levels in the future. May we set forth to better things in the future InsyaAllah. I will post more later! 

May peace be upon all of you. Zai Jian 再见

Xoxo, 

One and only MsOrangeLisa

The Unexpected Beijing Experience - Part 1

The first post of the year would be for my experience, and state of mind for the 13 weeks in Beijing, China. That has taught me so much despite being there in a short time span, more than any other cities that I had the privilege living in last year, London, Dubai and San Francisco. The Beijing city, where beyond the Olympic hype, China's ancient history, futuristic architecture and as the daily smog runs through the city. I find myself bewildered by so many things, that a city can offer so many marvels of experience, ancient and modern. 

For 13 weeks, I had to keep up with mental power to adapt in an entirely new culture, language and people. I thought to myself, 'I have moved to all these other cities, and travelled to as many as I could within  juggling 12 months of learning and consulting work. I can definitely do another city for just 3 months!'. Oh no, how could I ever be so simple minded. Everyday in Beijing was an entirely new eye opener, before I left a lot of people have told me to be careful of the pollution, the food is not so good or even be careful of the road traffic. I arrived Beijing with thoughts running my mind to always be careful but it won't be difficult. 

But, I didn't let the warnings/advise take the better of me or scare me from going. I still decided to go and experience this city myself. For that, I am ever grateful that I would have one on my bucket-list checked. I have always been interested in learning new cultures and languages, thus all the travelings. 

And WHY Mandarin out of so many other world languages? I have always wanted to learn Mandarin Chinese particularly because I am surrounded by so many business people, or encounters in my life that needs me to be a Mandarin speaker considering business partners, colleagues or places I would go to would speak Mandarin or Cantonese. And being a Malaysian that lives in this multicultural country, I have so many Chinese friends, teachers, colleagues, and neighbours included. Thus, I would always be intrigue to know what they are speaking about and wondered if one day I could reply back or have a conversation with them too. And WHY NOT? China is a major economy power, and continues to grow at 7.2% rate according to China central Bank.  

I started learning Mandarin since I was 6 years old, my parents sent me to a kindergarten that had Mandarin class included, I went to a primary school that had Mandarin extra classes, and I continued learning Mandarin on my own with private tutoring in high school, I went to a language college while I was pursuing my Degree in Sydney, and even when I started working continued in Inter-Cultural Language School (ICLS) Uptown Damansara, every weekend for 2 hours classes. Yet, I have always been a Basic-Intermediate level at best for conversational. And when I met an inspiring lady that told me she learned her basic Mandarin in Beijing Language and Cultural University for 6 months, I told myself that I would do the same! It was her strong influence that made me wonder if I could one day achieve this and finally master the language better in the mainland. 

And I chose Beijing out of all the cities, as it offers so many things I have always wanted to see or heard of so much, especially the Great Wall of China, Forbidden City, Bird's Nest stadium, and the Beijing Old Hutongs, and experience the modern yet filled with so much history. Having said that, I have never been to China (Hong Kong with exception visited before they join China).  While Beijing is China's preeminent city, hosting more traveler than any other city in China- and for a good reason, all in I was intrigued. 

The day I first arrived Beijing, I could tell that I was in for a challenging 3 months. From the moment I needed to speak to the driver which hotel I was going to, or what are our plans for the week. Despite having the basic 50 words or so in my Mandarin vocabulary. We still managed to go about the first week, looked for accommodations, registered in the University that I have always wanted to go - Beijing Language & Cultural University (BLCU). Which I had an offer 2 years ago but did not have the courage then until I graduated from HULT that had given me all kinds of experience and confidence to take on moving from one city to another. 

I was blessed with so much last year, and achieved so many dreams at once. Syukur Alhamdulillah (Praise to God). It was all in good faith that I did everything with good intentions and with the best support system, parents, family and good friends. And managed to pull through the challenging 3 months, that I am happy to say I could at least have a decent conversation with a restaurant/cafe owner, taxi driver, or buy anything at the convenient store. Bought my travelling bullet train tickets with ease. I completed the Level A Mandarin intensive course, we had daily 8am-12pm classes, with listening, writing, speaking all included. Learning a new language which I thought I had the basics. As the last 10 years was not enough, I always had to learn everything from the start as I did not practice or was too shy to try to speak. 

Thus, making the decision to be in Beijing was a good one to pick up the language quickly, I was forced to speak. I was in the learning environment. Making a mistake was okay, as I was learning, (so the Chinese would forgive me I hope) and I had no choice, I could not give up. I had to look up any word that I needed to say in a sentence, ask my Chinese friends who could speak English or look up in my digital dictionary what was the word on the signage. And having the supportive and fun classmates that always had me excited and happy to get up at 6.30am and be in class at 8am every Monday-Friday.

And some days I had to go through smog (some days had bad pollution up to 540AQI - the worse I had to experience), which I would check my Air Quality Index application every morning before I leave the room and the bad road traffic on foot for 40 minutes from my room to the class. That took a lot of my mental power, to wake up and forced myself to be strong and GET TO CLASS! Despite the culture and environment shock, I was always happy to see new things, learn new words, meet new people, and most importantly eat really good Chinese halal food. I was really surprised to see HALAL (food permitted to eat according to Islamic guidelines) signage within the University compound there was one Muslim restaurant, and within my home vicinity I found 5. And I know exactly where are the best places to eat in the city(I will have to write a different post for this #MyFoodHunt in Beijing). 

I have so many things that I miss about Beijing now, and everyday I do. I wish I had more time to explore other cities too, and I managed to visit Shanghai and Xian (travelling in China post will be up later too). I would have to catch up on my blog postings huh! 

All in all, travelling in the city was so easy, taking a taxi was so cheap, the subway train only costs 2yuan (equivalent to USD$0.30) and there's an app that assisted me (Beijing Subway Guide). And although the block  no access for Facebook, Instagram, Google, you would need VPN access to unblock which I willingly paid $8.99 monthly to get a good access from ExpressVPN provider, or you could find free ones but I could not be bothered when I first tried, I was kicked out every 3 minutes it was not worth it as it added to my stress (Mainly because I need my Instagram access at all times haha! Social media addict problems). 

Other than that, I could go on and on about my challenging experiences or moments that I would have been scammed but was lucky to get out of it. I will save that for Part 2 of this post. And more of my learning experience, the must visit places because this post is getting on too long as I had so much to write every day, but was not able to since I had to focus on learning and exploring the city! Only on good blue skies kinda day which was on average 2 out of 7 days a week. But it still got me so challenged to wake up and grab more of the cities vibe. Till the next post!  再见 zài jiàn Goodbye! May peace be upon all of you 

Xoxo, one and only Msorangelisa