On June 5th I arrived in Beijing for Harvard in Beijing Academy (HBA), a two-month long intensive Chinese immersion program on the campus of Beijing Language and Culture University in the Haidian District. The small campus has an enormous amount of international students, and the entire district is filled with college students. Our teachers are Harvard professors and BLCU students getting their Master's in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, so a lot of super friendly, young, enthusiastic Chinese natives. We have four hours of class every morning and then an hour of one-on-one with a teacher every afternoon. Every night the teachers hold office hours where you can opt in for another two and a half hours of one-on-one tutoring.
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| My dorm room |
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| Basketball courts on campus |
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| The equivalent of Yale's Cross Campus |
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| View from top of a building near campus |
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| Student cafeteria building |
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| The bluest the sky has ever been over BLCU (main gate) |
I discovered the most amazing thing on campus last night. I was walking across campus to my favorite nighttime street vendor who sells lychees outside the entrance of the nearest metro stop, when I noticed the track right next to my dorm was swarming with people. Maybe because it's not as hot, sunny, or polluted at night, but tons of Chinese people were walking or jogging on the track, sitting and talking or doing tai chi in the field in the center, kids running around all over. It makes the most pleasant night run.
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