Wai in Beijing - Beiginning Class at BLCU

Beijing Language & Culture University in Chinese

Moving onto starting class at BLCU. I ask them for my books when I collected my results, but they said the books are given to us in class. So on the day class starts the teacher asks why we have not got our books. So we go to queue up to collect our books. With 6 people in my class without books, I asked for 6 sets of books but another worker asks us to get out of the room and queue properly from outside. Since class started at 8am and it was already 830am, I actually told the woman worker who was shouting at the students (who by the way did not understand her as we were mostly new to the language) to be quiet and stop shouting and actually do some work to look for books as well. Then she actually did so and was more polite to me and the people. Well, I have found that China people really behave and respond totally different to the west to say the least. Being born in Hong Kong and brought up in England since 3 years of age with my Chinese family, I am in a culture shock!

Main Building No.1 - East Gate
This this where I had my placement test, a big building with many rooms insde. I did manage to sit in the wrong room. Even though it took me 20 mins being late to the correct room, I still finished the test faster than half the people who didn't go to the wrong room :-)

I was told class started at 8:30am but damn them it starts at 8am. But with the money paid before the official lesson announcement is a tough luck situation in China. I have also realised that I paid for 12 weeks course and I only get 11 weeks education due to the National holiday. When I phoned long distance call from UK to BLCU China back in July to check schedule and accommodation out. They did not say a 12 week course, really meant 11 weeks. I feel that BLCU has cheated me and I am yet to bother to complain to them. I spoke with my teacher and I asked him to help me explain to them as my Mandarin is not proficient enough to discuss this matter. He told me to ask for myself at the admin office as he is not paid much and he doesn't get involved with the finance. When the staff are proven so far to be extremely unhelpful - I wonder if there's any point in talking with them? Let’s see...

Autumn in blcu by the tennis courts... Relaxing!