Learning Chinese in China (or Taiwan)?

Xiangjiao

你好！

I'm just wondering has anyone here done this before, moved over for a set period and taken classes, etc?

I studied Chinese in my first year in University (last year), but couldn't continue with it (love history and Spanish far too much to drop either). I'd love to go over for a couple of months some summer, are there any agencies or institutes I could organise this through?

Also (and I realise this is a fairly vague thing to ask), how much would I need to cover typical living expenses for a month (accomodation, food, socialising etc)? I'd probably be tempted to go to Beijing, Nanning or Kunming on the mainland.

Cheers.

davros

I did a month of Chinese at Peking University once, though that was part of a longer summer Chinese course at a US college. I checked quickly now and noticed that Peking U accepts individual applications for short courses. The other colleges might be similar.

For the universities, accommodation is on campus so cost should be included in your fees. The canteen was extremely cheap, though not great. A much better meal could be had elsewhere on campus for only a few euros.

Socialising and getting around can also be very cheap if you have a modest level of Chinese. Depends whether you are hanging out in expat or local haunts. I also lived in China for a few years but it's quite some time ago and my prices would be out-of-date, even if I could remember them! The Lonely Planet would probably supply a good idea of various prices.

Cully

Beijing is more expensive than anywhere else, but if you look around, you should be able to get a hotel for €20 ish a night. We settled for €24 between 2 people and it was imacculate.

Now if you were going long term, it'd be better getting a place to rent, and I'm told that €150 per month would get you somewhere awesomely good...

Food is dirt cheap.. depends what kind of stuff you'd be eating. Mostly though the meals are only the price of a sandwich here (few euro).

You can get bicycles cheap for €20, but €50 would get you something pretty decent. Buses and Taxi's are very cheap also. I think it was 20c to go anywhere on a bus in beijing about a year ago. A taxi rid cost me something like 4-5 euro for a half hour journey, so that's cheap.

I'm told €10k and you'd be able to live comfortably for a year without having to work..

Of course that was coming from a chinese person.... If you are not chinese, you need to be very careful as they try to raise the price for lao wai's (foreigners). Depending on your level of chinese, you can argue/haggle with them... If your chinese is not great and you don't have anyone chinese who can do it for you, then I'm afraid you'll be stuck with higher prices. This is pretty much unavoidable.

Good Luck with your trip

EDIT: I went to china for a month about 1 year ago. I brought about €2000 for spending money and I think I spent about €600 total. We took the train for travelling which ended up being something like €20 for an 18 hour trip.. It was very much fun and we got a free bed, so it saved us booking a hotel for the night. If you fly, you save time, but costs a lot more. If you do go by train, make sure to book well in advance as tickets are scary scary to get :O

We ate in restaurants EVERY day... We didn't look for cheap, but they ended up being cheap for us anyway. If you end up going near LanZhou, you should look up a noodle restaurant called Ma Zi Lu (sorry don't know the chinese characters) and get a dish called La Mian (or Niou Rou Mian). It's basically Spicy Beef noodles.. costs 25c per bowl and is famous for being the best noodles in china... and I believe it.

davros

Cully wrote: »

If your chinese is not great and you don't have anyone chinese who can do it for you, then I'm afraid you'll be stuck with higher prices. This is pretty much unavoidable.

It used to be official policy to charge foreigners higher prices for hotels, admission to museums, etc. That might have changed now, I'm not sure, but while I was there I had a little green residency permit which I could produce and get local prices everywhere, no argument.

Cully

davros wrote: »

It used to be official policy to charge foreigners higher prices for hotels, admission to museums, etc. That might have changed now, I'm not sure, but while I was there I had a little green residency permit which I could produce and get local prices everywhere, no argument.

In big official stores maybe... but in the little shops which are all over the place... good luck

It's not as bad as it was 15 years ago though.

davros

Cully wrote: »

In big official stores maybe... but in the little shops which are all over the place... good luck

Right, sorry, in shops you are on your own

I only meant to refer to situations where there were openly and officially two different prices, like in guesthouses. I really hope that's gone now. It's not hard to see where small shops got the idea of overcharging foreigners from, ie the government!

Cully

It's because €10 for a meal is quite cheap in europe (for most meals), but in China that is very expensive. (for one person).... This knowledge gets spread throughout china and they realise.. "hey.. if I charge lots to this guy, he won't notice"... and yes.. it works.

Anyway.. I always try to have someone Chinese with me if I go there.. saves a lot of hassle