On Monday, students started classes. After breakfast, students started the day with a 20-minute tai-chi class, but a couple of minutes in, a sudden burst of heavy rain ended up cancelling class for the day. For the first 50-minute class section, students were in three large classes (Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3), and then for the next two sections, they were split in to small classes of 3 or 4 students each. Finally, they had small conversation classes of 1 or 2 students each. Most students agreed that classes were fast-paced and challenging, but liked the small class sizes and felt like their Chinese would improve very quickly!

After class, students ate lunch in the school cafeteria, then in the afternoon, they enjoyed their first culture class: calligraphy! A calligraphy (shufa) teacher came in to teach the class. Students learned the names of the materials they would be using, such as the brush, paper, mat, and ink stone, then they began learning clerical script. They practiced basic strokes so that next week, they could begin writing characters.

After calligraphy class, students attended an academic lecture by Andrew Bageant, a Harvard graduate, who has studied a lot of Chinese and has experience both studying and working in China. He discussed the differences between high school Chinese classes and college Chinese classes, the differences in education between China and the US, and his own experiences living and working in China. As he is an economics major, he also gave some background about China's development and what the future might look like.

Students came away from the lecture feeling inspired to continue their Chinese studies in higher education and with a clearer idea of the opportunities that studying Chinese provides.

After the lecture, students had free time until dinner. At 6:30, students met at the school gate to walk to see a Chinese acrobatics (zaji) show. The show featured all sorts of impressive feats, including gymnastics, bicycle tricks, balancing acts, and at the end, multiple motorcycles zooming around inside a large metal ball! The students were all very impressed, as most of them had never seen anything like it before.

We then walked back to the Yucai School and students had time to do homework and rest up for the next day of classes!

On Sunday, students had breakfast in the Yucai School cafeteria, then headed over to the classrooms for a placement test. After both written and speaking portions of the test, students hung out in the courtyard, playing ping-pong, badminton, and Chinese hacky-sack (jianzi). Some of the Chinese teachers even joined in!

Students were then placed into either first, second, or third year Chinese classes and went with their teachers to their classrooms to discuss class expectations, the syllabus, and so on.

After a quick lunch, we took a 20-minute walk to the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan), where the emperor Huangdi once prayed to the heavens. Students enjoyed this famous historical site despite the high heat and humidity. Some Chinese tourists even asked to take pictures with our students!

After walking back from the Temple of Heaven, students had free time until dinner. Most were happy to relax in their air-conditioned rooms.

At dinner, we were surprised by Lily's host family, who had come to the Yucai School to help celebrate her 15th birthday! Lily and the rest of the students were touched, and it made everyone a little more excited to meet their own host families.

After 14 hours on the plane from New York, we arrived in Beijing safe and sound on Saturday afternoon. Students all made it smoothly through customs and baggage claim at the Beijing Capital International Airport, and were then welcomed by China Institute staff. We took a bus from the airport to the Beijing Yucai School, where students will spend the first three days of their time in Beijing.

Once settled in to the international student dormitory at the Yucai School, we walked together to a nearby restaurant for a banquet-style welcome dinner. At dinner, students chatted with new friends while enjoying authentic Chinese dishes. They also learned more about the coming four weeks, met the Chinese teachers, and received their Chinese cell phones.

Afterwards, we returned to the Yucai School. The jetlagged students were happy to rest and prepare for the busy days ahead.