I need someone who already speaks English and Mandarin to talk to about the difficulties I am facing. I feel like there should be a huge group of people out there who are speaking Mandarin, trying to learn English, and looking for an American to have conversations with to practice their new language. Is there such a group? Where could I find them? What other methods could I use to truly master the language? I am broke as a crust punk that just got mugged. So it will be a while before I can make it over to China to get myself immersed. Is there a program where I can travel to China and live with a family for free while we learn each others language? How would I contact them?

There are 100's of web sites for language exchange. You can do some Google searches for language exchange.

If you have a college degree, you may find work easy in China.