another adventure

Well,

In a few days (seven days, to be precise), I'll board a plane to Beijing. Next semester, I'll be participating in the Beijing Program of Asian studies (see link to the right).

I'll be taking 15 credits of immersion Mandarin. This looks like 6 hours per day of class time, including an hour of one-on-one instruction. The goal: to become functional (or something like it) in Mandarin.

Make no mistake, I have no definitive plans or clear understanding of the role that this trip may or may not play in my life. Who knows what the semester will bring, who knows whether my career path and China will intersect. The only thing that I do know for certain is that I'd like to learn a language to some level of competency. Two years of high school French and one of Koine Greek have not developed into much of anything, and after three semesters studying Mandarin, I'd like to do something meaningful with it.

What do I expect? Well, who knows. I'll be living in foreign student housing on the campus of Peking University (again, see link at right for the site, in English), located in northwest Beijing. Travel plans include places like Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, and Lhasa (Tibet). But beyond that, I don't know what the semester will bring. South Africa was a completely different sort of trip, one that was Gordon-operated and included familiar people. I must have had some expectations going into that trip...however, I find the idea of striking out on my own (with little expectation) to be refreshing.

So I suppose there's very little to say as yet. But I imagine things will be quite different as I land in Beijing and discover and experience.