Perspectives programs interweave information and experience so that what you hear in class helps you understand more deeply what you experience beyond the classroom.   Your experiences in the community help fillout and deepen what you learn in classes.   Some “class days” are spent beyond the classrooms in field studies, taking oral histories, visiting museums, and working with local high school students.   Here are just some of the experiences that you can expect to have as part of the Chinese Culture- Intensive Mandarin program.  

• Asking families in Shanghai and Suzhou about the effects of the one-child policy
  
  
• Attending a concert of traditional Chinese music after learning how the instruments are played and trying to play them yourself
  
  
• Being shown around a traditional Chinese water town by students from the local high school and having them introduce you to the local delicacies over lunch
  
  
• Discovering why Taiji is as much for the spirit as for the body from your morning practice of this traditional Chinese exercise discipline
  
  
• Enjoying long discussions with Chinese college students, who are serving as program Teaching Assistants, comparing the education system in China with education in other countries
  
  
• Hearing presentations from government, business, and education leaders about the state of China and their views on China’s future
  
  
• Holding your Mandarin tutorial in a traditional Chinese tea house
  
  
• Interviewing executives, shopkeepers, teachers, waiters, migrant workers, and the unemployed about how China’s rapid economic growth has affected their lives
  
  
• Interviewing residents of neighborhoods built in different eras and now home for people of different socio-economic groups; asking them how they view their current homes in the context of all of the construction and change in Shanghai
  
  
• Interviewing women to find out their views on the current roles of women in China and what changes they have experienced personally
  
  
• Learning to improve your badminton and ping pong skills from intensive instruction by Chinese high school students
  
  
• Learning to navigate the city–the subways, buses, and taxis–so that after four weeks Shanghai, a city of 20 million people, feels like “your” city
  
  
• Living right in the heart of Shanghai–just minutes away from the Bund, Nanjing Road, People’s Square, and Old Town
  
  
• Practicing your Mandarin skills bargaining at a street market, ordering in a restaurant, or trying to compare views of your favorite musical groups with a Chinese high school student
  
  
• Reading, discussing, and asking a wide variety of Chinese to learn just what the “Confucianism” that is so talked about really means
  
  
• Searching out and eating in restaurants featuring the distinctive cuisines from around China; then planning menus at those restaurants for students from the entire program
  
  
• Stretching your Mandarin reading and speaking skills on a Mandarin-only city scavenger hunt
  
  
• Trying your hand at calligraphy under the direction of a skilled calligrapher and then visiting the Shanghai Museum to compare your work with the calligraphy displayed there
  
  
• Visiting a contemporary artist’s studio and learning the artist’s view on whether the deep tradition of traditional Chinese painting is a help or a hindrance for the development of a truly modern Chinese art