Week 8 at HBA, my penultimate week, progressed in much the same manner as many of my other weeks at HBA. Academically, this was my toughest week at HBA thus far. In class, we went over traditional Chinese movie scripts, plays, and comic pieces. While the length of previous chapters normally ranged from 4-6 pages, these chapters totaled a whopping 12-18 pages each. Granted, much of it was dialogue, but I still found that I spent two to three times as much time preparing the material this week compared to others. That being said, I believe it was also my favorite week at HBA due to the incredibly interesting nature of the three works we explored. Out of them all, my favorite was 《暗恋》, a play about an estranged couple that emigrated from the mainland to Taiwan in order to escape the armed conflict ravaging China at the time. I found the portrayal of the characters to be very realistic and the plot to be captivating.
What stood out about this week for me was the Beijing talent show. I had the honor of serving as one of the hosts of the evening and in that capacity was able to practice public speaking in Chinese for the first time. Honestly, while I had mixed feelings about the show beforehand I ended up really enjoying it. I feel it brought all HBA students closer together and gave us the chance to work as groups to improvise surprisingly 精彩 acts. For example, in an act performed by my 四年级 classmates and I we put on a mock trial on stage for one of my classmates, motivated by the movie 十二公民 that we had watched several weeks earlier as a class. From the raps performed by some classmates throughout the trial to the outrageous roles that we jury-members played, I had a blast working with my classmates to put on such an act.