Olympic Beijing

In year 2008 the whole world was looking towards China as the summer Olympics were held in Beijing. Massive construct works took place before to build up required facilities and thousands of volunteers were helping tourists to find their ways in Beijing. Also during that time the majority of the street signs, subway maps, etc. were translated in English, before that it was all in Chinese (Thank god, I haven’t been here before that time :D )

There are many smaller stadiums around Beijing which offers still a training place for different sports. The stadiums are called in pure Chinese way like “Workers Stadium, “Workers Gymnasium” etc., but besides those ones there one venue above others, the main stadium for the Olympics called “The Bird’s Nest.” It is part of the bigger area which also called the Olympic center. It is in total few kilometres long area built in Northern side of Beijing according to city’s North-South Axis including some landmarks, other sport venues and lots of area for different small stalls to sell something during the events. At North of the Olympic center there is a big actual park, which I think is the biggest green park in Beijing offering a chance for people to go cycling, walking, running etc. just to spend a nice day outdoors in green environment. There is also a hill in the park which provides a nice view across whole Olympic center area.

The Bird’s Nest itself is a massive complex, having the capacity of 90 000 people and can easily spotted from a distance. There would have been an opportunity to take a tour inside the nest but I thought that seeing it outside is enough me… Hopefully I didn’t miss anything spectacular. The stadium is still on use for concerts and sport competition, I was thinking that it would be awesome to go see some concert in there. One major event when the stadium will most likely be used for some occasion, is the winter Olympics which will be held in Beijing.

It seems like that Spring is really coming to Beijing: Days have become warmer and I have noticed that wearing both a jacket and a hoodie starts to be relatively warm combination during the day times. I have been lucky enough to join sunny days with blue sky, although there has been some days when the air haven’t been that clean… I also heard that more warmer it gets, especially in the hottest time summer season, the air is really bad... So we’ll see but at least so far I haven’t wear any kind of mask yet. J

Daily Life on Campus

First actual real week of ”studying” is now behind. If you wonder why I wrote “studying” instead of studying, it’s because during last week there was some education conference in Washington DC where almost all lecturers were. So last week there was no actual classes, I only manage to meet teacher assistant and got course syllabus and materials that I was able to do required readings… So this week is actually the first real week.

But about living on campus itself, as I wrote on one of the previous blog texts, it is what it is: Definitely not something to call home but as a place to stay its fine. Campus here is quite bigger than I have used to in Tampere but on the other hand, I think it is even smaller on its size than NUI Maynooth (Ireland) or this is just built in very compact size. Campus itself is like a small town inside a big city, there is everything you need so if I would not like to, there would be no need to leave campus area at all… Supermarkets, cafe places, restaurants, teaching facilities, sport field, doctor etc. But still I prefer also to move outside of campus once in a while, otherwise I would become crazy :D

The campus itself is truly nothing that could be called as beautiful. It well represents Chinese communism style architecture: box shaped, apartment buildings side by side and not barely nothing green (park etc.) between them. Beijing Normal University is established at 1902 and its most “beautiful” building is the main building (on the picture), so as you can see its nothing to compare NUI Maynooth (established at the end of 18^th century) or even Tampere University (established 1925) looks beautiful to compare on this one.

There are many places to eat on campus, even a real restaurants (i.e. one nice sushi place) but then there are a real student “restaurants.” One of them was actually more or less how I was imagining a student restaurant to be like: A big hall, with simple benches and long tables. In the hall there is eighteen different “booths” were you point out what you want and they just smash it on a plate. But in general what I do like, there is so many different option to choose from that I could easily go at least two weeks to eat different meals every day.

Teaching is arranged in teaching buildings (tadaaa..), and there are 10 of them (I think), but as far as I understood each subject is centralised into one or two different buildings. My classes are either on building two or four, which are like 10min walk from my dormitory. Facilities in a classroom actually reminds me like the classroom back in the school. There is about 25 desks in one classroom, a real old fashion blackboard and of course a “teacher’s area” at the front of the classroom is a small platform so teacher can stand a bit higher ground than students. Modern technology, not really, only a computer and projector.

Only a bit more modern area was library, or at least it looked like it as I entered there. Its quite big, eight floors high and guess what… Only one floor contains foreign books, all others are in Chinese. When I looked around a bit further it looked more or less as normal library as I’ve used to… except I didn’t see any group working rooms/areas, only areas that were reserved for reading. 

Chinese Bureaucracy

So it happened that after one week I realised that studying only Chinese language is not my case for few reasons. Firstly even that I was in beginners group, the level was way higher than mine so I could not handle the classes in longer run. Secondly my major is education so studying Chinese language is not beneficial for me if thinking on my degree (none of the credits would not count). Thirdly, I don't feel interested in to start learning how to write Chinese. If you wonder why I started Chinese studies here in first place, it was just the automatic process where they signed me up for Chinese College Language and Culture (CCLC) so it wasn’t my goal in first place anyway…

I found out that there is an English taught master degree program in education so I asked from international office (ISO) if I could change there to study courses that would count on my degree in English. They told that it should be possible but I have to go through “some” paperwork, printed me a form and told about what I have to do with it and to bring four copies with when the form is filled. So that is how the story got started:

Friday morning at 8am I walked to the Faculty of Education and ask from them do would they agree me to change to study there instead of in CCLC, got a positive answer. Then went to the CCLC office and asked from then that do they agree that I can leave from CCLC to change the major from language to education. I got first stamp on my form as they agreed. Then back to the Faculty of Education to collect second stamp on the form that they officially accept me to study in their faculty. Third address was called graduate school office to get the third stamp which probably symbolizes that the university in general accept me to transfer my major on the top of approval from the faculties. From graduate school they sent me to other place called teaching affairs office and from there they sent me back to the graduate school office but to the different room where I was first. Still didn't have my third stamp and they sent me to the the center of global education, and from there they took me to the international office where I finally got third stamp on my form. Then I needed to take one copy with me to the Faculty of Education and then I was allowed to study in there and choose courses.

This process wasn’t not just walking from one place to another since in every place it included some kind of activity like typing something on computer, making phone calls or asking colleague before each step was solved. In total it took 2,5 hours to complete this process which I now call "stamp hunting", but it was worth it. 

Now I am an exchange student at the Faculty of Education doing three MA level courses: Educational Policy Analysis: International Perspectives, Globalization and Education and Educational Management and Leadership. Plus because I am an exchange student, I am allowed to take one Chinese language course so I can still have the conversation Chinese course. Perfect!

Preparing For Studies

Spring break is over and it was time to orientate for university life.

At first I checked in on my student dormitory which is called “international student dormitory 2.” It is a bit ironic because at front desk staff barely speaks even a word in English. I still managed to have my room: I have shared bathroom and small entrance hall with one person, my own room is around 20 square meters, shape of a corridor having kind of window. By that I mean that I can see outside but I have to look a through the corner of other person room so I even that I can open window if flatmate window is not open it won’t help me at all. Heating system is under central control system so it can’t be adjusted so at the moment it is maybe around +25 degrees in the room because system is obviously on “winter adjust.” Besides those few little details it is okay, life has made really easy: Room is cleaned daily and bed sheets changed weekly.

After settling down on my new home I needed to register at Beijing Normal University (BNU), which was a show of its own indeed… First of all I needed to a decent amount of different documents with me like visa application, invitation letter, residence permit, passport, insurance papers etc… Whole process was in one meeting room where was different desks (I think 6 different) each one handling one thing and I needed to queue separately on each one. The whole process took me few hours, luckily I was there in the morning because on afternoon there was a much longer queue. Result: I got my student ID, small red student book which is full of characters and one stamp (no clue where it is used for) and three other books: Guide to studying at BNU, BNU rules and regulations and a handbook for international students.

I was signed up to study in College of Chinese Language and Culture (CCLC), so it means for next 3,5 months I will be studying Chinese. A day after registration there was a language placement test so they could put us all in correct groups according our Chinese level. I walked to the classroom where the test was held and I don’t remember when was the last time I have felt myself so stupid. Test included three parts: Listening, reading/writing (95 mcq questions) and the oral part, all in CHINESE!! I didn’t even know where to write my name on exam paper and I was proud of myself as I was able to follow numbers that which question on listening part was on. I scored 22/95 by purely guessing, it think I haven’t ever complete exam so quickly.  Then the oral part where teacher asked me do I speak Chinese. I answered that I know numbers and few basic sentences and random words. She looked at me and told, “thank you, we will put you on beginners group.” I smiled and said thank you.

 On third day there was an opening ceremony. Almost three hour long session in lecture hall for all new internationals spoken in Chinese but there was three interpreter who translated the ceremony in English, Korean and Japanese. The ceremony itself was full of talks about thanking everyone and telling how good university BNU, and then of course about laws and regulations in China what we should be aware of starting from the basics: “Don't take black taxi”, “Pay attention to traffic”, “Be aware of pickpockets”, “Carry your passport always with you and be aware of your visa expiration” etc…

After the ceremony we got our group adjustments and schedules and needed to buy books demanded. Now I have six books to study Chinese with. Workbook and textbook on each colour: Two blue ones (intensive reading), two yellow ones (conversation) and two green ones (listening). At least books are in English and Chinese so I might have even a little hope, we will see what is the reality soon…

Positive: Now I finally know what I will study here and how my schedules will be.

Negative: I have no idea which class I will have when (just look at my weekly schedule).