好久不见 as the chinese would, or "long time, no see".

So let's make a recipe to learn well chinese.

1) if some time before arriving in China, please try to follow some evening classes even if arrived in China, it will only help you to say ni hao (and even that seems difficult the first days..) so let's skip this first stage..

2) Arrived in China, just don't panic the few first hours if in some situation no one understands.. it's normal, just be patient and someone will help you.

3) So after settled down, take two or three days to fix all the other important stuff as work, studies, appartment, medical examination, etc..

4) Now you are ready to look for a good place to learn chinese, in my case, Di qiu cun Global village or better known as the corean school.. as they are almost only coreans coming there to study chinese at a "real" level and not like every western people..

5) Now is the time to get good habits and to review all the vocabulary you learn not in room alone before your desk but... on the street.. just take 15 min after each class, go walking randomly in the shops, in the basements of a strange building and talk to every chinese around you and the first times the conversation I have to admit will be very short.. like hello, .. hello.. how are u ? good..

6) Now that you also get used to the school after 1 or 2 weeks, let go on the 2nd speed because the first months are so precious you wouldn't like to miss such a opportunity to make a lot of chinese friends and to travel around without any fear of getting lost in the middle of nowhere.. So now you take more classes a day as the engineering work is still under control..

7) Important is not too panic when you get in a higher level class, just do as you understand the teacher, it is normal that the first days you don't understand a teacher speaking to you as to her child.. so just get used to it and don't forget to go practising by for example learning chinese chess on the street.. (but don't expect a chinese to let you win.. they will be very happy to eat all of your pieces as fast as possible.. )

8) Now it is time to make chinese friends and to quit the foreign sphere of students, yes sometimes in life you have to say no for a beer and yes for working on a homework with a chinese (one of the several ways to make a chinese friend..) or in place of going crazy on the dancefloor in a smoggy (terrible chinese cigaret..) go to the karaoke with only chinese without understanding the half of the characters (but I do really enjoy the atmosphere of the karaoke than the smoking noisy clubs..). This last is a very good exercise to review your characters and quite funny but maybe not everyday ;p

9) Next step is to plan a travel with no other foreigner and try to find your way by yourself.. important don't go to any place described in the lonely planet.. just take a random city (eyes closed) and try to get there for as cheap as possible :) it is a very nice game and after you can compair with your classmates who did the same ;p

10) No you proved yourself you can do it by your own, you can go with a friend who has about the same level of chinese as you, so everyone can enjoy the learning of chinese, still choose a city in the middle of nowhere, in the winter for example, go in the north where it is very cold and no tourist would even think about going there... A good sign is when you get to some place the people try to explain you that you cannot go further because there is no hotel.. then you are on the right way and just go to this place without hostel.. don't worry you will find a place somewhere in a half collapsed houses with a small fire and a bit of water ;)

11) The next levels are still under process.. update soon ;)

12) one other very important rule, what not allowed in china stays in Belgium, for example Facebook, but instead you have plenty of choice as QQ, renren Waixin, ... just don't give your QQ number to a class of 300 chinese students after a lecture about belgium.. just an advice ;p

last level) be able to understand a class of thermodynamics in Chinese.. ;)