So I emailed one of the people from the Chinese department asking about the textbook for business chinese. And he replied so vaguely that he didn't even answer the question, but mentioned that depending on demand, the class would be merged with an undergraduate class, which a) is gay because I am an all-superior post-grad student*, who does not deign to mix with under-grad underlings** and b) will probably be moved to a more 'undergrad' timeslot between 9am and 5pm, making it impossible for me to attend classes. Oh and by the way Simplified Characters are the style du jour. This spells serious trouble for me.
In related news, this caused me to investigate which subject it would be merged with, and that's when I discovered the array of Chinese subjects of all shapes and sizes, far more 'superior' than the selection at Usyd. Well I'll be damned. They've got 'Chinese Social and Cultural Change Through Visual Art' and 'Professional Communication Skills in Chinese', and an exchange subject with Singapore Uni where you spend 6 weeks doing Mandarin then spend a week on a tropical Malaysian island studying biodiversity or something. Sigh.


*actually I only find post-grad students who do research more superior - I am what I consider to be a Coursework Cop-out.
**to be honest I wouldn't mind  ¶ 09:23