CSS,

First, thank you for the reply and the advice.

I do venture throughout NYC (Flushing, China Town) to practice Mandarin and meet new people. I get the full spectrum of responses when I speak Mandarin. Some are surprised and very nice and want to talk, others look at me like I'm some kind of weirdo when my tones or pronunciations are off. Then, probably the most embarrassing, "I'm not Chinese". So I try to use the language as much as I can. The problem is that I am not constantly being sensitized to the Mandarin language. I am not put in do or die situations where I would be forced to use Mandarin to survive. From living in China my language ability would exponentially increase due to this rather than staying in the states. As far as the 217 dialects; for now I am only interested in 1, putonghua. To say 1 year of study would not necessarily help improve language ability is illogical. If a specific activity is engaged for one year guided by a definite plan backed by a burning desire the participator of that activity will get better at that activity or at least be better than s/he were a year ago.

Could you recommend any place where I could find one of these internships you inferred? As my quest to find a job in China continues the prospect of legally teaching English gets dimmer and dimmer. Could I get a Z visa if I was labeled a foreign expert? Would you mind if I asked you about some leads that I have drummed up?

To chime in on what Turnoi said, many of the students in my Mandarin class speak Cantonese fluently. The professor is always correcting their pronunciation.

Take care and thanks