Contemplating a Homestay

Now that I’ve decided on continuing my intensive Mandarin Chinese immersion studies next semester¹, I have something else of arguably equal importance to decide. Homestay, or an off-campus apartment?

I am living in an off-campus apartment now and I love it. I lucked out and got a great roommate, which is awesome. My apartment building is also a mere 10 minutes away from my best friend’s building and 15 minutes away from the best bubble tea shop on earth. Essentially, there’s nothing not to love about what I’ve got going now.

Except… next semester, things will be different. If I choose the off-campus apartment option, there’s no guarantee I will keep my current apartment, although I think I likely will be able to. I will have a different roommate, as my current roommate is only here for the semester. I won’t be 10 minutes away from my best friend anymore, as he’s definitely doing a homestay. The bubble tea shop will still be there, though!

If I did a homestay, I’d obviously be in a position where I could improve my Chinese by leaps and bounds as my homestay family would presumably speak only Chinese, or very little English. I’d have a much longer commute to campus than my current one (a fifteen minute walk as opposed to up to an hour of public transport). I also probably wouldn’t be able to go out and stay out for as long as I do on the weekends… I’m sure that will depend on the family I’d end up with, but I wouldn’t want my “going out” schedule to interfere with that of the host family’s.

Currently, I speak more English than I should outside of class, so the fact that I’d improve my Chinese in a homestay is very appealing as the reason why I’m studying abroad in Beijing is to improve my Chinese. But I’m also hesitant to choose a homestay because of so many factors. What if I don’t like the host family? What if they don’t like me? I’ve had good and bad experiences with host families before, and a bad host family can totally break the abroad experience. What if the commute is too far? I don’t mind a commute, but I already spend way too much time in class so a long commute would be too much for me on top of that. What if I won’t be able to hang out with my friends the way I do now? I love how social I am here in Beijing, and how there’s never a shortage of fun things to do on the weekends with friends. Would that change if I did a homestay?

Yes, I realize that some of these factors are more trivial than others, but trivial or not, they matter on some level. I have a whole laundry list of pros and cons I’m going to need to draft in an effort to help me decide what I want my living arrangements to be like next semester…

1. There’s got to be a better way of phrasing that… [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.