Language Immersion

I have decided to renew my efforts on learning Chinese.

Over the past few months, my language skills have stagnated. Although I have technically been "living in China" for almost 5 months now, for the most part, I have been taking the easy way out... staying mostly in tourist-friendly westernized cities, living out of hostels with English speaking staff, and spending most of my spare time hanging out with dirty foreigners. Even when I was studying Chinese full time, I was doing so in Yangshuo, one of the most touristic spots in China.

The level of my Chinese remains embarrassingly low So I'm trying to immerse myself in a non-English speaking community surrounded by nothing but my study materials and Chinese people until I can speak this language at an acceptable level.

I've rented out a room on the outskirts of Tianjin. There are two universities nearby and the area is developed, but I am pretty sure it is the least touristy place on the face of the planet. The air quality in the big Chinese cities is almost uniformly horrendous, but here in Tianjin it is literally tear-inducing. And, other than the universities, there isn't much to see here besides ugly industrial districts. But most importantly I haven't seen another foreigner in a week and the locals don't speak a lick of English.

Unfortunately, the Tianjinese people speak Mandarin with a fairly thick local accent, which even my Chinese friend sometimes has trouble understanding. So it's possible that I may be moving to the frozen northern plains of Dongbei soon, so that I can learn in an environment where everyone speaks "standard" Mandarin.

But for now, I have been spending my days studying Chinese characters (I'm up to over 1000), occasionally going outside to eat street food and chat with the street vendors.

Once I learn 1500 characters and can start trying to read newspapers in Chinese, I am pretty sure I will have turned the corner and it will be all downhill from there. :)