Austin to Beijing, a year studying abroad

By Yvonne Lim Wilson | November 2, 2008

Adam Schlegel with his Chinese host family and friends.

What’s it like to spend a year in China with just your basic “ni hao” working knowledge? We talked with St. Stephen’s senior Adam Schlegel about his year studying abroad in Beijing.

Through the School Year Abroad program, Schlegel attended a public school and stayed with a Chinese family. His Chinese father is an architect, his mother is a stay-at-home mother and his younger brother, 15, is a student. A normal school day for Schlegel included two Chinese classes taught in Chinese, plus English, Chinese history and calculus taught in English. Schlegel returned home last June and is currently taking an independent study class at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School.

How did you first become interested in studying Chinese?
It goes way back. Growing up in Singapore and Malaysia was the foundation for it. All my friends were Chinese or Malay and they all spoke Chinese to their parents.

What was your Chinese language ability before and after the trip?
I had taken Chinese about two years. I started in ninth grade at the Great Wall Chinese School. In tenth grade I started at [St. Stephen’s] school. That’s when I sort of fell in love with it. Before I left, I was not conversational. Now I can understand conversations with ease. I can’t measure how much I’ve improved but it’s a huge leap going from almost nothing to being to converse with anyone – not about every single topic, but eventually I’ll get there.

What was a typical school day like?
I woke at 7 a.m. Usually my parents and brother were already up. My brother had two hours of sleep every day because he was preparing for middle school exams. I would go outside the compound to the school, which was five minutes away. School started 8 a.m. I would have Chinese classes in the morning, then English, math, Chinese history and Chinese culture, and society class every once in awhile.

School ended around 3:30. I would usually spend five to six hours on homework every day. If there was no homework, I would go to parks or historic sites. Parks in China are very different; they’re not just playgrounds for little kids. It’s like a meeting ground for all sorts of people, classes are held there, and shows like amateur opera … it’s a great community area. Then I would go home, eat dinner with my parents and brother and talk. And then I would go to bed.

You mentioned your brother having to study so much that he only got two hours of sleep each night. Was life very stressful for the average Chinese student?
I can’t image the stress they go through everyday. From day one they’re taking standardized tests. There are tests to get into elementary, middle school, so on and so forth. Getting into high school is the apex of their educational career; it decides what they will do for the rest of their life. Education there is geared solely to the tests. There is a lack of creativity; it’s more about studying and memorizing, not so much discussion.

Tell me about your Chinese family.
It was really cool. Staying in a dorm, you can’t fully be immersed in the culture and the language without constant exposure. My host parents would constantly talk to me about anything – we would have conversations at dinner and in my room. They would take me to places I never would have thought about. And they encouraged me a lot – with my stress from school and also from being away from my family. They were there to support me. They weren’t my family, but they acted like it.

What were some of the challenges you faced studying abroad?
In the beginning it was strange. One minute you’re in Austin, Texas and the next minute you’re in Beijing, China. Two days after I got there I started school. It was a bit unnerving, being jet lagged, then having to sit through calculus. Another tough thing was the winters there. I’ve never lived anywhere where it was below freezing for so many days. The sun was out from 9 to 4. That added to my depression. That was my lowest point, plus calculus was getting really hard.

Was there anything you were surprised by in China?
I really wasn’t expecting the pace of life. It was extremely fast. Maybe that was because I was living in a city of 22 million people. Everyone speaks fast, walks fast, drives fast. Coming from Austin, it’s not exactly something I was used to.

And did you find the growth of the city was fast too?
It’s mindblowing, all the buildings they’re putting up. Things are built overnight. I would look out my window every morning to watch the buiding of a skyscraper. I went on a trip for two weeks. When I came back it was done halfway. You see roads built overnight.

What do you think about the Chinese program at St. Stephen’s?
I’m taking an independent study class. It’s going really well. I have a big influence on the curriculum, and there’s vocabulary and grammar. Literature is the focus right now; we’re studying authors in pre-communist Chinese cultural traditions. The program is awesome. It emphasizes the writing aspect of Chinese, which is often overlooked. My teachers do an amazing job teaching characters and other writing elements.

What about the program at the Great Wall School?
It’s a very good school. It’s excellent. Mainly the children who go there are children of native speakers, but the bilingual program is good as well. There is more of an emphasis on speaking, but they do writing also. It’s the only venue outside of St. Stephen’s where I can interact with other Chinese speakers. I recommended it to anyone.

Do you know how you might apply your Chinese language skills in your future?
I’m not sure where I’m going to go with it. I do know how I will go back to China in the future, either studying abroad or working. I feel a connection to China now. I was thinking about becoming a doctor at the moment, and there are opportunities over there. I’ll definitely study Chinese in college.

Anything else you’d like to add?
If anybody is really interested studying Chinese language and culture, I really recommend the School Year Abroad program – they have programs in other countries as well. It’s a great way to get a better perspective of the world and oneself. It was a great experience; it may sound cliché, but it changed my life.