Fantastic program for Chinese immersion out of the big cities

CLI and Guilin were a wonderful environment to spend 6 months in China. The school distinguishes itself by its flexibility, the quality and warmth of its teachers, and Guilin is relaxed, green, and offers lots of adventure options (some organized by the school). Even before getting there, they were super helpful with getting my visa and preparing for arrival.

Education:
Super flexible. I'm a picky learner and CLI let me try different teachers and work with them in adapting my lessons' structure. I ended up conversing a million topics with one teacher, correcting pages upon pages of my stories/translations to Chinese with another, and dialed down the use of textbooks when it didn't suit me. I gained a lot in fluency and making sense of the language, as has been obvious in my post-study travels.

School environment:
I chose an apartment stay whereas most students live in rooms in the school building, and my flat was fantastic. The delicious communal lunches were a daily highlight (5 dishes and one soup per day, with veggie options). I made use of the school's digital piano, and liked the variety of activities organized by the school every week.

City environment:
Guilin is said to be touristic, but it's mostly local tourists and in the downtown, not near the school, so you definitely get an immersive experience. The shared scooters are super convenient and fun and you can hike a different mountain every weekend for months.

One (self-imposed) downside is that 20h/w of class got to be too much after a few months, when I wanted to shift focus on my local life and activities. The apartment stay option implies prepaying, so I didn't have flexibility to adjust my class load or take some weeks off.