Four Months in Beijing.
By 1999 I had sixteen years in as a software developer and I was tired. I had been studying Mandarin off and on for a decade and had finagled a modest scholarship to attend the Beijing Language Institute for their four-month immersion program. I reached a gentleman’s agreement with my company to take a four-month sabbatical and then relocate to their East Asia office.
The immersion program ran during the summer and was mostly East Asians and Europeans. I was the only American. This proved to be very beneficial to me; one of the teachers was seeking to improve her English and reached out to me. I studied with her a couple of nights a week and she made dinner – huge, multi-course dinners. Much appreciated since I was living on dorm food the other days. Even more importantly, she loaned me a bike for the entire summer.
I can’t emphasize enough how hard it is to get around in Beijing. At the time it was a city of thirteen million and, as best as I could tell, every single one of them was on the road trying to get to wherever I was going. I took to biking everywhere – down to the forbidden city and Tiananmen Square, out to the Summer Palace and all points in between.
The classes were great, but the real benefits of any immersion program are in day-to-day interactions with locals. I had to get my point across and then understand them as they got their point across. Sometimes I would bump into a person that wanted to try out their English, which often led to my bad Mandarin communicating with their bad English!
I had one memorable out-of-body experience. Studying in an empty bar on a Tuesday afternoon (hey, it got me through college), just me and the Chinese bartender cleaning beer glasses. He put on a CD. Matthew Ryan’s Guilty. Not only is this one of my favorite all-time albums but it’s fairly esoteric. It’s amazing how music can transport you to an entirely different place and time. He played a couple of songs and then put on something Chinese, and I was back in Beijing.
Towards the end of the program my teacher friend told me she accepted a job teaching in the United States. She told me it was at Howard. I was thrilled for her and told her I thought the school was in Washington DC. She said No, It’s in Boston. Then I realized she had accepted a job at Harvard! I think I can take all the credit no credit whatsoever for this.
So how good did my Mandarin get? After the program I went to go see the famous terracotta warriors in Xian. I flew a regional airline to get there and, to thank us, they gave everyone a commemorative T-shirt as we deplaned. (Note: THIS IS A CUSTOM THAT NEEDS TO BE ADOPTED WORLDWIDE). On the bus I struck up a conversation with the tour guide and the driver; I would say something and then the driver would ask the guide to repeat parts of it. Finally, I had to ask if my Mandarin that bad? She said no – he was having trouble with my Beijing accent!
In four months, things change all around you. My company was struggling and my job in the East Asia office had dried up. All they could offer me was a return to my programming job. I declined (just as well, that office was closed four months later and everyone fired). So, I came back to the States both unemployed and homeless. Luckily I had family and friends and they had couches and spare rooms. In short order, a friend connected me to a job I loved at a company that I stayed with for over twenty years.
That’s why I’m a firm believer that everything turns out all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, it’s not the end. I couldn’t encourage you more – if you want to do it, do it!
