Blogging aims, placement concerns

I was reading a few of the Light Fellowship blogs from previous years, and some seem to have a very no-nonsense style: information about the program curriculum, neighboring area, etc. Not that I won't have my own say about that sort of thing, but I hope that my blogging style won't come off as completely useless or uninformative either when I write about what seems to be less "practical." At least I'll be honest about whatever real issues I find myself dealing with, and anyone who reads this blog will find a reasonably thoughtful perspective related to living/studying abroad.

For that reason, in case anyone is actually reading this blog to learn about IUP or studying/living in East Asia, I'll try to keep my entries fairly coherent and tag them properly.

In particular, I hope that I can give a nuanced account based on my own background as a Chinese American and a Ph.D. student in literature.

During my phone interview, I was told that IUP has had very few heritage speakers as advanced as I am. They may be wrong about that, or perhaps the interviewer was being kind, since I have really shoddy writing skills and talk with the vocabulary of an elementary school student. However, since heritage speakers seem to end up being a minority in these programs, I'm interested in seeing how things will work out--how successfully IUP can manage training heritage speakers with a language background skewed very differently from that of total non-native speakers.

Also, as a Ph.D. student in Japanese literature, I'm interested in seeing the composition of students (undergraduate, graduate, and professional). Are there many crossover students such as myself who come from an academic background NOT centered around Chinese studies? How much hand-holding is there when it comes to dealing with living arrangements, etc.?

Not surprisingly, I'm currently most concerned about the placement exam during the first week at IUP. (T_T)

I would really appreciate placing into 4th- or 5th-year Chinese. Please don't make me sit through basic Chinese classes where it's 50%+ review--I'm sure filling in gaps is important, but right now it's most important for me to increase my vocabulary so I can actually read modern literature. I would love being able to speak impressive Chinese with perfect pronunciation and grammar, but unfortunately, I can't make it first-priority right now. I have to admit that I'm rather relieved to hear that there isn't an emphasis on tingxie 听写, since I think writing characters is a lost cause unless you're actually going to do it regularly on a long-term basis (which I will not be doing in grad. school). Another issue I need to figure out is how I will balance learning traditional/simplified characters, since I'm told that both are used at the program. I'm more familiar with traditional, but of course I would like to be able to at least read simplified fluently.

My plan? I have three weeks for: a copy of 社会与思想 from the ICLP program in Taiwan, which seems to be a 4th-year textbook (I believe they have the same one at IUP, but modified to fit a program being taught in China?), as well as the textbook in simplified from Chinese 153, a dictionary of the most basic 1,000 characters, and light reading that I've picked up. I also should just watch the news while I'm in Taiwan and start reading the news online, but there lies my weakness, since even in English I only go so far as to skim the NYTimes headlines. At an advanced level, language learning also becomes hard because you can get by reasonably well with what you already have, and it's difficult to push yourself to constantly be on the alert to pick up new vocabulary and pay attention to what's going on around you.

Right, I definitely don't obsess over language classes or anything. :) Hmm...I suppose after 5 or so lengthy years of Japanese language instruction, I'm even more determined to get the most out of my classroom time. I definitely do not want to be spending more time than necessary at language programs in the future, since I have enough to do with learning about literature!

Pre-Summer Thoughts

I have to admit that, getting the Light Fellowship, I've been feeling a bit out of place. Most other students are undergraduates, some of whom are going overseas for the first time or at least haven't spent a considerable amount of time living abroad. In general, they seem more optimistic and a lot more excited.

With that said, perhaps it isn't obvious, so I'd like to say that I am quite happy to be spending another summer outside of the U.S. While some of my fellow Ph.D. students in the dept. would rather stay in New Haven and read, I'm planning on spending the majority of my summers in East Asia. I need to visit my parents anyway, and I like being in East Asia. Tokyo--and Taipei, to some extent--feel like home to me just the way the East Coast does. Since I'm always worrying about my language abilities, refreshing them in the right country is a plus.

But spending several months in China for the first time, I feel more like I'm gearing myself for battle than setting out bright-eyed in search of adventure. For me, going to a foreign country means once again putting on some sort of protective mental armor. I need to prepare myself to field questions about who I am, shift into a different language, and struggle with deciding who I will be. I'm thinking about--body image issues in countries populated by skinny girls; lack of comprehension concerning what "Asian American" means; people talking about me/over me since I apparently don't understand; commentary about my facial structure, that inescapable question - "Are you mixed?"*; being asked whether or not I'm friends with any real black people; etc, etc.

My background overseas: I threw myself into an immersion program in Holland when I was 17--the experience shook me out of my shyness but only as a beginning. A summer at ICU's Summer Courses in Japanese (highly recommended), a summer interning at the TV station TBS, a year at IUC in Yokohama (also recommended) + another year (more or less) working at a major Japanese corporation--it took all of this for me to start feeling okay about my Japanese, and work out some of my issues with living in Japan. Going to Taiwan over & over for brief visits has left me with a constant vague irritation about my poor Chinese, and resignation concerning how even my relatives will always have confused & irrational assumptions about my language skills, as well as discuss my nose and how I look Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern.

Beijing will be interesting because as a Taiwanese Chinese American**, I have a very different accent and most likely quite different political views. Japanese politeness and indirectness resonate more with me than Chinese directness, and I'm easily irritated by mainland Chinese who come off as oblivious (KY--or 空気読めない in Japanese) and rude. I really don't think that the Beijing accent is the best thing on earth. ...I need to learn simplified characters. IUP will be my first serious attempt at improving my Chinese although I've been speaking and using it all my life, and I'll have to work on turning any frustration & impatience I have into productivity. It's always a struggle to find my way out of my reserve to be willing to engage with people more fully.



*Footnote: I do most likely have some Western blood on my mom's side, but it's only enough that I ended up looking "mixed" while my sister & brother look thoroughly Chinese, whatever that means.
**Footnote 2: My parents are from Nationalist Chinese stock in Fujian but were raised in Taiwan.

Plans for the summer!

I would like to thank those who are making this trip possible. As a Yale graduate student, I was lucky enough to receive the Light Fellowship this year for my summer at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (henceforth, IUP) in Beijing, China. Thanks!

I have to admit that for awhile, at some point during the semester, I rather lost my enthusiasm for my summer plans. Dealing with bronchitis & other unexplained respiratory issues for over five months, I definitely did not look forward to spending a summer hacking and coughing away in Beijing's pollution. However, I've been feeling a lot better over the past few weeks, and I'm ready to go!

First, I'll be flying to Taipei, Taiwan, on May 22 to spend a bit over a week visiting with my parents in Linkou. I've been visiting Taiwan almost every year (usually in the summer) for the past seven years--usually for less than a month. My plans involve cramming Chinese language study on my own, lounging around the apartment soaking up the AC, trying to learn how to swim in the apartment pool, and going out to Taipei to hang out occasionally.

In early June, I'll be in Tokyo, Japan, for about the same length of time to reconnect with the city and also spend time with a few friends. I lived in the Tokyo/Yokohama area for two years before coming to Yale, and I'm already very happy to think that I will be revisiting my old haunts soon. I'll be visiting a bunch of places on the JR East Pass for the first time--planning for Nikko, Sendai, Matsushima, and Joetsu.

Finally, I arrive in Beijing, China, in mid-June and will be studying at IUP until mid-August while living in the foreign student dormitories. Afterwards, I'm planning on visiting Shanghai to see a high school friend, along with Hangzhou & Suzhou, and stopping at Xiamen to meet some long-lost relatives. From there I'll fly back to Taipei for a bit, and then return to Yale at last.

I'll be writing mainly about my experiences in Beijing and elsewhere in China, but I will probably also blog a few times when in Taiwan and Japan since I hope that will make things a bit more interesting. :)

More later on thoughts that I've been having about this summer...