About Qingdao
As the host city for the sailing events for the 2008 BeiJing Olympic games Qingdao is now being developed as ‘China’s Sailing City’. Located on the south seaboard of Shandong province Qingdao is now one of the premier destinations for Chinese language study for students from all over the world.
Qingdao was originally a small town until the start of the 20th century when it was granted as a concession to Germany. Over the next 20 years the town developed quickly and among other things two churches and a German beer brewery were built along with numerous European style houses. Today in the Badaguan area there is still a lot of European style architecture to be found the Brewery has expanded so that ‘Tsingtao’ is now the most famous Chinese beer both in China and around the world.
Qingdao today is a modern prosperous city with some of China’s best beaches and pleasant year round climate. As with Dalian it is a popular summer retreat for people from all around China.
The mandarin spoken is Qingdao is very close to that spoken in Beijing (though perhaps not quite as close to official mandarin as spoken in Beijing or Dalian) and there are now several thousand language students coming to study Chinese language in Qingdao each year.
Chinese in China is offering programmes in ‘Chinese language’ and ‘International Chinese Business’ at Qingdao Ocean University from August 2008.