Living on campus in China

The first pictures are of the facilitator dorm and bathroom facilities. The beautiful green trees were from last year's campus and the concrete buildings are from this year's campus.

This year, the TIP program was moved to another campus of Peking University. The former campus was about one hour out of Beijing and quite isolated. There was a lot of green space with trees everywhere, but the University decided to use the campus as a research center and there was no room for our program.

The University offered us the Yang Ming Yang campus in the city of Beijing, which had some advantages but several disadvantages. First of all, it was very small and had very little grass or trees. We felt a little like we were in a concrete jungle (last picture). Most important, because it was in the city, an inviting world was right outside the gate and it was very difficult to maintain an English Only environment. The most important element of our Total Immersion Program was NO CHINESE as much as possible for the entire three weeks. Since there were other students on campus, the guards didn't know who was allowed out and who wasn't, so many did leave at various times.

The dorms were better for the students since they had AC if they chose to use it, but many of the women weren't excited about using public showers. At least at the beginning, many took showers in their underwear and my favorite comment was from a student who was afraid others would look at her and think "too many dumplings". Actually, the other campus had similar shower facilities with fewer "hot water" hours, so apparently this is normal for a University campus.

The facilitators shared four western style bathrooms, so showers weren't so much of a problem, but with as many as 40 people sharing four showers, it was a challenge to find one available! (The shower schedule broke down very quickly as more and more people were included)

In general, however the dorms were spartan, but adequate for our short term use.