I would highly recommend 8 weeks at BLCU, I have done this in 2010. The teaching is excellent and over the weekends there are excursions to Inner Mongolia, Xi'an among others. In 2011 I spent 9 weeks in Xi'an taking 3 hours of Chinese a day plus 6 hours per week on history of the Silk Road. The teaching at Shaanxi Normal University was of lesser quality IMO but the Silk Road part was great. The program organized through Alliance for Global Education (check their website) include a two week excursion on the Chinese part of the Silk Road. This was the highlight. Bottom line got to BLCU but spend at least 8 weeks instead of 3-4.

gdeboeck@mac.com