Founder Ilya on Culture Yard's Courtyard Closing Shop, Moving Online

After 11 years, Mandarin language school and communicant of Chinese culture, Culture Yard has announced that they will have to close their courtyard space in the hutongs now that it has been sold by the property owner.

Founders Ilya and Eden say that the change is bittersweet. On the one hand, they've got to say goodbye to a place that holds a lot of memories, but on the other, it allows the organization to make some much-needed changes. Meanwhile, the pair will be moving to Dali Yunnan to continue and run Culture Yard's online activities from there.

Before their departure, we talked with Ilya about his memories of the old place and what's coming next.

It seems like losing the courtyard was a bit out of your hands, but you believe that staying online is best for now. Can you take us through your thought process on that?
Culture Yard always had two sides to our business – the Mandarin learning part and the cultural events part, with the Mandarin learning part being the main one.

To be completely honest, we have been contemplating expanding our services online already for a few years and we just needed Covid to really push us in that direction.

On the Mandarin learning part of our business, over the last year and a half, we have developed completely new online courses, set up a smart and convenient scheduling system for our students, and have upped our online marketing efforts.

And during this year and a half, we were running classes both online and offline.

So when the news that the landlord is selling the space came, it was like the decision to go completely online was made for us – and we are excited to put all our team’s efforts in building even better online Mandarin programs.

I strongly believe that online language learning provides a lot of opportunities that didn’t exist before from our side – we are now reaching people from all over the world, from Belize to India to Japan. Also, it is very convenient for students – students can meet people from all over the world, study on the go and review missed classes easily by watching recordings.

On the cultural events side of things, we are separating it from our Mandarin learning business; cultural events will continue running via our sister company Our Beijing (more about that later).

Can you share some of your favorite memories of the space？
I have just so many good memories that it is difficult to choose. Here are some of my favorites:

• Our yearly Thanksgiving dinners. Every year for the last 11 years, we would meet with our team and a few friends for a potluck dinner that became a tradition – which is funny because coming from Israel, I never celebrated Thanksgiving before, and in China it became the one holiday I look forward to the most.
• Hosting the first film screening in China of the award-winning Chinese documentary “Last Train Home” and having the director present and give a talk about it in our courtyard.
• Having my mom and grandma sleep in our space in what is now a classroom, but when Culture Yard started, was a spare bedroom for friends and family.
• All the friends’ and staff birthdays we celebrated at the space.
• Celebrating our 10-year anniversary last year at the courtyard over hot-pot with our team.

Now that you’re going fully online, will you be expanding your online projects? How so?
Yes, we have big plans for that. Our current biggest project is creating a “reverse classroom” hybrid learning model for all our HSK courses. The way it is going to work is that we are going to reverse the teaching-homework relationship.

Usually, the way most classes anywhere work is that a teacher spends a lot of class time explaining new material and then homework is used for practicing the new material.

We are going to do exactly the opposite – we are pre-recording all the explanations of vocabulary and grammar and putting on a student portal. So students will first watch the explanations on their own and then join a live class to practice.

This will make classes both more effective and, most importantly, much more enjoyable.

There are many more plans in the pipeline, including new and exciting courses like “Chinese Pronunciation for Beginners” and “Chinese through Media” for advanced students. 

And are there any other ways that Culture Yard will be continuing its mission without a fixed physical space?
Yes. First of all, on the cultural events side of things, many of our events – including film screening and Mahjong workshops – will continue running in Beijing under our sister organization, Our Beijing.

In addition, we are also planning to do in-person intensive summer Mandarin courses in pop-up locations, either in Beijing or in other locations in China (maybe Yunnan or Hainan?).

We are also contemplating full-immersion language programs that will include a full program where a student signs a language pledge and goes to a remote and beautiful location in China for language classes plus a full travel and cultural program completely delivered in Mandarin. I believe that only through such programs students can really make a very big jump in their language progress in the shortest period of time.

Your announcement mentioned you may be looking for a new space in the future – any idea what that might look like and if you have a timeline in mind?|
I think it really depends on Covid and on borders being open. At the moment we want to focus on growing our online and on having special in-person summer programs.

Our Beijing will be looking for a new space though to run cultural programs in Beijing.

You mentioned you will be moving to Yunnan – have you been looking to make this sort of lifestyle change for a while? And what do you expect life will be like for you there? (And will you come back to visit Beijing often?!)
I have always been attracted to Yunnan and have traveled there dozens of times. Last winter we moved there for four months to see what it is like to actually live there and we completely fell in love.

Maybe it is age, maybe something else, but I personally don’t need big city life at the moment and am happy to live in a smaller community, with more access to nature and cheaper prices.

How can people get involved with the Culture Yards events now?
For cultural events, you can get in touch with Dominic from Our Beijing – Wechat ID – ourbeijing and for online Mandarin classes, you can get in touch with us via Wechat ID - cultureyardoffice

Anything else you’d like to add?
I am happy and proud to have met so many amazing people at our space and I will cherish those memories forever!

READ: Mandarin Monday: Work Out Your Mind and Your Muscles With This Gym Vocab

Image courtesy of the Culture Yard