Michael Evans travelled to China for Mandarin immersion

by Barbara Black

Many people come to Canada and wrestle with a new language, but Michael Evans has done it in reverse. He spent three summer months at Nankai University, where he studied Mandarin - no English allowed.

He sent long descriptive e-mails home: “I have two classes: reading, which involves grammar and sentence structure, and a spoken Chinese course, which is more fun because we act out plays and try to converse in Chinese.”

“Both classes are hard, though, because the teachers only talk in Chinese, so if I don’t understand a word, I normally don’t understand their explanations, either.”

The university is in Tianjin, which has 9.3 million people, 5.8 million of them city-dwellers. Tianjin Municipality is 11,000 square km in area, and is bordered by Hebei Province and Beijing Municipality. The city centres of Tianjin and Beijing are about 120 km apart.

“The campus is huge and it’s beautiful,” Michael told his friends and family. “The city is a huge, sprawling metropolis. It’s completely flat, no hills whatsoever, and it’s strange because there seem to be no specific residential or downtown areas. Everywhere you go there are huge commercial centers and apartment buildings mixed together.

“Everyone has a bike, and no cars obey the traffic rules, so crossing the streets is an exhilarating experience. What's even more exhilarating is riding in a taxi. These drivers make Montreal drivers look like old grannies.”

One of Michael’s deepest impressions of China is the upbeat attitude of its citizens. “They love their country, and they seem happier than we are. They’re more approachable, always joking and smiling.” He was drawn to Chinese culture many years ago, and his childhood interest developed from Jackie Chan movies to something deeper. At CEGEP, he did projects on Marco Polo and on the Mongolian Empire, and he was hooked.

At Concordia, he took a 300-level Chinese history class, and became determined to learn the language. He signed up for a Level I Mandarin at McGill last year, because Concordia didn’t offer it, although this year it is available. He answered an ad on a bulletin board for a language partner, and met with her to talk in Mandarin (for him) and English (for her). Then he discovered the Nankai Summer Program on the Internet, and applied. His academic advisor, Lynda Clarke, helped him through the relatively easy bureaucracy, and he enrolled to learn Level II Mandarin.

The program cost $1,500 U.S., and of course, the plane fare was costly, but once there, Michael said, his dorm room was fine, and the food was cheap. China was more overtly capitalist than he expected, with big shopping malls and bargains in DVDs and clothes.

As far as he knows, he’s the first Concordia student to attend the program, which is worth 12 credits toward his degree. He is entering his fourth year of honours religion, with a minor in history. After he graduates, Michael thinks he will apply to a TESL program, and become an English teacher abroad. “When I went to China, I had maybe 500 words, but I had trouble making sentences. Even after only a few weeks there, I could have sustained conversations. IÕm generally a shy person, but I found it easy to walk up to people and start a conversation, because Chinese people would never reject you outright.”

He found that the stereotype of the rigidly controlled, form-based Asian classroom no longer applies. His classes were full of talk and skits, and Michael said he really got into it, translating a Beatle songs into Mandarin and performing it with his friends.

He was even recruited as a movie extra, because the film producers know they can find foreign faces on campus. The movie starred a glamorous actress called Zhang Yen. In one scene, Michael was a reporter covering a story, walking backwards with a video camera trying to film the star; in another, he was dribbling a basketball in the background, being a typical American.