My host parents, Gao mama and Tan bobo, live on the third floor of a modest apartment—their home consists of a kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. (I’m staying in the room of their 29-year-old son, who moved out when he got married several years ago). Gao mama and Tan bobo have retired, but because they both formerly worked as administrators at Capital Normal University (首都师范大学), the location of the DSIC program, they still live in their apartment located in a residential part of the campus designated for teachers and administrators. The 20-minute walk from here to the DSIC classrooms each morning is sufficiently lengthy for me to inhale a boatload of toxic chemicals* and to forget half of the characters I memorize the night before.
*Beijing is extremely polluted. (Relevant post coming soon.)
Here are a few pictures of the apartment building and the part of campus where it’s located:
