Update from Nigel

我的朋友，你好。Hey Friends!!

So… after having a rough start in China—possible H1N1 and almost losing my wallet—it is so nice to finally be settled. I am living with a host family a few kilometers from the university. It’s kind of far so some days I walk the whole thing—about one and half hours—and others I do half walking half taxi, but I plan on buying a sweet pair of roller blades soon. Biking seems too dangerous; I’d rather blade (yes, I just said, “blade”).

My family lives right by Olympic park. Basically, I’m living in a brand new apartment complex that was used to house the Olympic athletes. Pretty cool, right? My host family has two children, one of which is still in high school and at home. She speaks some English which is a huge help, but most of the time I have to speak Mandarin/use makeshift sign language. 

My life here is pretty nonstop. I have class Tuesday through Friday, and on those days, I have 5 hours of one-on-one Chinese class and am not allowed to speak English at all. On weekends and skyping with friends/family, I can speak English. This has been both a frustration and a blessing. On one hand, my Chinese is improving exponentially. However, sometimes not being able to communicate with other American students is quite the inconvenience and isolating.

I can deal with the isolation and language frustration. What I’m worried about is burnout.  Five hours of one-on-one Chinese is very draining—the teaching only speaks in Chinese, and I have to use every ounce of brain power I have to understand her. In addition, I have to memorize about 30 Chinese characters a night. Every day before class starts I have 听写 (literally “hear-write”) which is where the teacher reads the new words for the day and I have to write the characters from memory. So when I’m not at school, or traveling to and from, I’m either memorizing characters or sleeping, and eating sometimes. So, please, pray that I am able to just keep up and not get completely overwhelmed.  Thank you for keeping me in your prayers!

下一次， (until next time)

Nigel

Ps.  I’ve included some pictures. The first few are of my home (the complex), my room, and my route that I take to school. The rest are from spending the evening at Hou Hai (a popular tourist and local venue) with my sister and some of her friends—we had quite the night, taking a boat ride, eating a huge meal (Peking duck included), and hitting up a local bar.