Written by Griffith Hawk

Hello everyone! I have now been in China from just about two months, and I am happy to report that everything is going well.

While I am currently preparing for midterms and becoming increasingly busy with schoolwork, I wanted to update the BSC community with what my experience has been like adjusting to this very new and different country. This will be a quick summary, but if you want to read more about my life in China, visit my blog.

For starters, I am studying in China as part of a language scholarship called the Boren National Security Scholarship. Funding allows me to spend a year at a language school and university of my choosing in China, and I am currently studying Mandarin at Guangxi Normal University and the Chinese Language Institute in Guilin, China. Guilin is a smaller city in southeast China with a population of around eight million. China classifies this as a small city. (Shanghai has roughly 25 million in contrast.) I am spending my last two semesters at Birmingham-Southern here and will fly back for graduation in 2020.

Arrival

I arrived in Guilin at approximately 2 a.m. September 2. This was a bit of an issue, as my flight was delayed departing from Shanghai, and with no Chinese phone card or internet access, I had no way to contact my school. I discovered that all internet connections required a phone number or use of one of the terminals’ computers. Of course, the entire airport Wi-Fi was down for repair that night. When I collected my bags in Guilin, I discovered that no one was there to pick me up because my flight was assumed to have been cancelled.

With only the name of my university on my phone, I then had an opportunity to immediately test my Chinese with the only cab driver in front of the small, regional airport at 2 a.m.  Not only was this my first-time speaking Chinese with someone in “real life,” I also discovered my university had three campuses, and I did not know which I was going to. I was finally able to ask if I could borrow his phone and called every contact number I could until I reached someone at my school who could direct the driver to my dorm. Upon arrival, I had to rely on some other students to locate a school official at 4 a.m. to help me into my room. I still had no idea where my language school was, or what my next steps were in registration. The next day, I walked the streets surrounding my dorm until, by complete chance, I stumbled upon the language school.

This 48-hour period of confusion taught me a great deal about rolling with major hurdles in travel and how little Chinese I knew.

Learning Chinese

I am enrolled as a language study abroad student in Guangxi’s largest university, and I am taking private one-on-one classes at the Chinese Language Institute nearby. Each day, I have a class at the university, then my two hour lesson at the language school, followed by some Chinese culture and history classes taught at the university.

The course work is incredibly fast-paced, and I am constantly studying and practicing to keep up with the rapid progression I must make while here. It has been particularly important to realize how little I truly spoke Chinese when studying at BSC, and just how important daily practice and usage of language is to developing fluency. In just two months, I have become more comfortable with the language than after all my years of study at Birmingham-Southern. However, this is purely because I am surrounded by the language. Being a smaller city, there are not English speakers outside the classroom. Just ordering food is great speaking practice, and I am becoming less reliant on pointing at pictures and saying, “this one.”

The primary reason I wanted to come to China was to force myself to hear and speak the language daily, and my time in Guilin is certainly meeting this goal.

College Life

Aside from the very different scenery here, college life is not too different. I eat in school cafeterias, sleep in a dorm with a roommate, and spend the nights and weekends exploring the city with friends. However, the backgrounds of my friends in Guilin are quite different than those of my friends back home. We all live in the international student dorm next to the Chinese national student dorms. The majority of international students here are from Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, so I have had the wonderful opportunity to make friends with students from a variety of countries and backgrounds. My closest friends are from the Netherlands, East Timor, Indonesia, and Croatia. It has been wonderful to learn about their experiences and countries by practicing Chinese with them and exploring our new city.

Beyond studying, the Chinese Language Institute has also given me the opportunity to travel and see a lot of wonderful places near Guilin. The city has so much to offer, and I have taken every opportunity to try new things here.

Settling In

The first months have flown by. This experience is slowly beginning to feel less like a vacation and more like school. The classes are increasingly difficult, and I am beginning to adjust to the new and exciting aspects of China. That said, I have been able to see the city, rent scooters to explore the area surrounding Guilin, and take a trip to Shanghai with new friends. It has been an incredible learning experience already, and I am excited to see what the remaining six months of study have in store.

My personal goal is to begin preparation for the HSK 5 Chinese language test by the time I leave. Completing this test is regarded as the first goalpost towards fluency in Mandarin, and I have quite a long way to go before I can start the process. However, I am very happy with my progress so far in the language and can only improve from here!

The food is also incredible. I don’t know how I will go back to eating Chinese food in the States.

I hope all is well stateside for everyone at ’Southern, and I cannot thank BSC enough for the support given to make this experience possible for me. If you have any questions or wish to reach out, please contact me at [email protected] and follow along on Instagram @griffithhawkchina.

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Last year, Hawk was BSC’s Student Government Association president. He was involved in Theta Chi and the Stump Entrepreneurship Scholars, and he served as the president of Omicron Delta Kappa, a Southern Ambassador, and an orientation leader. Hawk is a business administration major with minors in political science and Chinese. Read his first student blog to learn more about how he found this study abroad opportunity.