Dave Wallace from the U.S.A.

People keep asking me about living in Hainan. I imagine this is because people would all love to do it, but can’t quite grasp the fact that it is actually possible. Hainan is absolutely beautiful. The weather is fantastic, the people are kind, and the beaches are open year-round. However, what people don’t realize is that Hainan is more than just a vacation destination. For the disciplined student of Chinese language, it is also a place where you can make the linguistic leap to becoming an advanced learner of Mandarin Chinese.
Nestled among the beach resorts and expensive Hotels of Haikou is the sprawling campus of Hainan University. The school’s reputation throughout China is growing, and it is attracting more and more students from the mainland. Students at HaiDa treasure the opportunity to study, and as a result they are disciplined and serious. But from the perspective of a foreigner, here you have a school that meets and surpasses every standard of Chinese instructors for foreigners, yet is offered at a price much less that what you’ll find in Beijing or Shanghai. My Chinese teachers were all experts in their fields, and considering the small class size, I got to know each of them very well. Meeting up on campus for a few rounds of badmitton or for dinner at some nearby resort were common occurrences. The school offers modern facilities for living and studying, and I found the learning materials available to me were diverse, instructive, and challenging. This is a school that is very dedicated to its foreign students.
I returned to Shanghai after my studies in Hainan thinking, writing, and sounding like a native speaker. I would not have been able to accomplish this in Beijing. When you come to Hainan to study, you will be in a completely Chinese environment. Your fellow foreign classmates will in many cases not be able to speak English themselves. You will not be able to find other expatriates living or working in the city. There are a few, but not many. Even pirated Hollywood movies are difficult to find. The result is that you will go for days and days speaking nothing but Chinese, and you won’t realize it until friends call from home and you hear yourself speaking English like a Chinese person.
HaiDa offers a rigorous curriculum that is challenging no matter what your level of Chinese. The basic five courses are held each morning, with supplemental courses in the afternoon. Your teachers will be seasoned professionals who are very dedicated to seeing you improve. The school is very flexible in terms of building a curriculum that matches each student’s needs. Depending on the amount of time you have available, your learning style, or your goals as a Chinese speaker, HaiDa will be able to arrange a program for you. Personally, I was very concerned about improving my spoken Chinese. Because of HaiDa’s excellent language environment and instruction, my spoken Chinese improved rapidly and I was able to refocus my studies mid-semester to taking the HSK. The versatility in the program at HaiDa is something I don’t believe you could find anywhere else.
Of course, what I remember most about Hainan is Hainan. By tutoring in the afternoon I made enough money to enjoy the island completely, and being able to speak the language meant I could travel to places other ex-pats don’t know about. There is much more to Hainan than Sanya and YaLong Bay. For most of my friends on the mainland, traveling to Hainan was a possibility maybe once or twice a year. I could take short trips to hidden coves and relaxed seaside resorts every weekend. And of course, since there were no other ex-pats around, I always traveled with my Chinese friends, and I always spoke Chinese. The opportunities for adventure are boundless. I will always treasure the lazy weekends I would spend sitting in a hammock watching the waves roll in and out, wading into the water to catch fish for dinner, or just strolling along rocks and feeling the spray of the ocean hit my face.
At HaiDa you will find the best of so many worlds. You will receive a first-class education. You will live in a tropical paradise. You will experience China in a way few other ex-pats can. And you will see your Mandarin reach a surprising level of fluency. I encourage anyone serious about learning Chinese to consider Hainan and HaiDa. It is an experience that you’ll value for the rest of your life, and the whole island will welcome you with open arms. The next time I’ve got a break from work and decide to head to Hainan, it will feel less like a vacation and more like going home.