I come from loving parents. Especially when it comes to learning, my parents have always prioritized and supported what I have been interested in and let me learn whatever I enjoyed doing, from learning piano to coming to America to pursue a critical learning experience.
However, there is one thing that they expected: Chinese language. Being an international businessman himself, my father has been emphasizing the need to know Chinese before I join the job force. During the summer before my freshman year, I took a month-long Chinese language course, but I did not quite get interested since the class was at 8 in the morning every day. Since then, my parents, disappointed that I kind of gave up, set a verbal contract with me that I shall learn Chinese language before graduating in 2014, as a requirement. It is funny because the U of R’s open curriculum only has one requirement, the freshman writing class, and I get to have a Chinese language requirement as well. I still do love my parents and I hope my readers do not mistake my parents as being like Mike Chang’s father in the “Asian F” episode of Glee. I could not take Chinese in my freshman year because the class was full by the time I wanted to register, so I started this semester with Chinese 101 class with professor Ping Pian. Anyway, that is how I ended up being on track with the Chinese Language and Culture Program.
At the University of Rochester, the Asian language program is fairly new to the academic system. I remember reading in the Campus Times last year that the school had created a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Language and a minor in Chinese. Currently, Professor Pian told me that a student has to petition his/her Chinese-related course history in order to apply for a Chinese major. A minor in Chinese requires any three courses of Chinese language sequence and three further courses in the language, culture, literature, film, art history, or politics, according to the Modern Languages and Cultures department. It is also possible to do a cluster in Chinese language in many ways: taking three language courses, two culture courses with a language course, or two language courses with one culture course. There are also study-abroad programs in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai.
The University offers eight Chinese language courses, from elementary Chinese to advanced and conversational Chinese. Out of these multiple opportunities, my current plan is to get a minor in Chinese language and, if I have time in later years, I would petition to get another major in the language, along with my financial economics major and business minor.
Regarding the difficulty and workload of the class, just like any language courses offered at UR, there are classes every day. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes are 50 minutes long, and Tuesday and Thursday classes are 75 minutes. In my Chinese 101 class, there are two vocab quizzes, workbook assignments, Mandarin character exercises, and lesson tests each week. It sure is not easy, but the thrill of learning a new and the hardest (heavily opinionated wording of mine) language, and comparing the Chinese culture to my Korean origin and to American culture, is quite fascinating. I am taking the next sequence of Chinese language (Elementary Chinese 102) and a culture/history course (China’s Silk Road).
Even though I have an amazing professor, I have woken up every morning wishing that the classes were in the afternoon, not at 9 AM. Fortunately enough, next semester I will be enjoying Chinese more, because the class is in the afternoon!