One good thing that's come out of our little China adventure is me overcoming my inability to sit through entire movies. Perhaps this has happened because I often feel the need to escape from this place and movies offer a way to do that. I've watched the following movies in the past month or so:
Thank You For Smoking
Walk the Line
The Shawshank Redemption
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
A Beautiful Mind
Bridget Jones' Diary
Honey
Mission: Impossible
Groundhog Day
Snakes on a Plane
(The movies are ranked in the order in which I enjoyed them.)
Ten movies! In just a month! I typically watch only a handful of films per year.
Anyways, about my China funk. Some might think "Why are you unhappy? You seriously disrupted your and your husband's life after having the desire to do this for over two years -- why aren't you enjoying it?" Well, I don't know. I never thought of this trip as any kind of vacation. I guess living abroad is something I've always expected of myself, sort of in the same way certain countries require all of their young people to spend two years in the military. It was just something I had to do, and with China being a "hot topic" and a country I already had some level of interest in/experience with, it seemed like a good choice. But I'm sure it's odd to see someone struggling with something they have only a self-imposed obligation to do.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Sunday, December 03, 2006
D - Letter from a Student
Below, I have pasted an email I received from one of my students. His class will be finishing up shortly so he sent me a note. I have removed personally identifying materials. I should also mention that C has also been getting thoughtful emails and text messages thanking her for her class. I suppose it's possible they are buttering us up for a better grade but I think it's highly unlikely. Most of these students are in line for As anyway. They are just appreciative of having encountered a different teaching style.
NOTE: I didn't correct the mistakes in the mail, but I am not leaving them in to ridicule my student. I couldn't even come close to writing something like this in Chinese. He is a very good student and I enjoyed having him in class.
==================
Dear David：
I am a student of yours ,in Class10 Maritime Engineering. Yes I am XXXX who is interested in both you and your lesson.Since you know ,I always used to sit in front of classroom. Although,I am not good at English ,especial spoken English,I can grasp the main ideal you espressed at lesson .I have leared more from you ,which I can never gain from any ohher place ,for instance ,the accent of American ,the form of expression ,the culture of westerner ,and so on .On this point ,all of my classmates should express great gratitude to you ,think you very much,David.
I do not know how do you feel about our class .In the process ,some of my mates were not earnest,and not all of us were punctual,and so forth ,which allways made you at loss .Some times you had to make us be quiet .I know ,all of this bad phemenomenon or perfonrmance made you felt disappointed ,to a foreign teacher ,especially you as a new comer ,that might be a kind of disappointment or a chellenge of your job in China. But in fact,almost none of us do not like you or your tuition.You are our first foreign teacher,so you are particulliar.Comparing whit our former Chinese English teacher ,the class you tought is very interesting .To say the least ,I am a loyal fan of you. Approaching to the end of the semester ,I feel relucktant to say farewell to you and your excellent class .Once so many times ,I had made up my mind to make friends with you, so as to helped you and learned smothly spoken English from you ,but I never expressed this mind to you for no apparent reasons.
Well ! I will never meet you and communicate with you after the final exam.Which is a kind of grief to me in a sense. In one"s life ,a person will come to so many people,but the person will only can keep few of them in his\her mind. I belive you will be one of those who are kept in my mind untill the day I disapear from the world ! Nest monday ,obviously,is the end of the course ,but not the end of the motion ,as well as the relationship between us. Whenever and wherever you can resort to me when you are in trouble ,on the piont you belive I have the ability to offer what you need ! Lasterly ,resly think you for your teach !The years will obscure what teach me ,but not you -David my first foreign teacher !
Best wishes
NOTE: I didn't correct the mistakes in the mail, but I am not leaving them in to ridicule my student. I couldn't even come close to writing something like this in Chinese. He is a very good student and I enjoyed having him in class.
==================
Dear David：
I am a student of yours ,in Class10 Maritime Engineering. Yes I am XXXX who is interested in both you and your lesson.Since you know ,I always used to sit in front of classroom. Although,I am not good at English ,especial spoken English,I can grasp the main ideal you espressed at lesson .I have leared more from you ,which I can never gain from any ohher place ,for instance ,the accent of American ,the form of expression ,the culture of westerner ,and so on .On this point ,all of my classmates should express great gratitude to you ,think you very much,David.
I do not know how do you feel about our class .In the process ,some of my mates were not earnest,and not all of us were punctual,and so forth ,which allways made you at loss .Some times you had to make us be quiet .I know ,all of this bad phemenomenon or perfonrmance made you felt disappointed ,to a foreign teacher ,especially you as a new comer ,that might be a kind of disappointment or a chellenge of your job in China. But in fact,almost none of us do not like you or your tuition.You are our first foreign teacher,so you are particulliar.Comparing whit our former Chinese English teacher ,the class you tought is very interesting .To say the least ,I am a loyal fan of you. Approaching to the end of the semester ,I feel relucktant to say farewell to you and your excellent class .Once so many times ,I had made up my mind to make friends with you, so as to helped you and learned smothly spoken English from you ,but I never expressed this mind to you for no apparent reasons.
Well ! I will never meet you and communicate with you after the final exam.Which is a kind of grief to me in a sense. In one"s life ,a person will come to so many people,but the person will only can keep few of them in his\her mind. I belive you will be one of those who are kept in my mind untill the day I disapear from the world ! Nest monday ,obviously,is the end of the course ,but not the end of the motion ,as well as the relationship between us. Whenever and wherever you can resort to me when you are in trouble ,on the piont you belive I have the ability to offer what you need ! Lasterly ,resly think you for your teach !The years will obscure what teach me ,but not you -David my first foreign teacher !
Best wishes
Thursday, November 30, 2006
D - Examining the Chinese Mind
17 days until we return to the US for a couple of weeks. Almost there! In the mean time, class has been keeping us busy. In this post I wanted to talk about some of our past lessons and how we're doing examinations.
As an Oral English teacher, one of the dilemmas is deciding what the final exam should be. We've worked on a broad array of different topics - from directions to music to job interviews. The primary focus is on pronunciation and on-the-fly creation of english. The problem is that testing someone's speaking, while not difficult, can take some time. Our classes are 1 hour and 30 minutes, and each class has about 30 students. To examine a student for even five minutes would take 2 and a half hours. There are no classes during lunch here, so for exams my classes will get extended into eating time. Pity the poor students that catch me at 1pm when I haven't eaten since 8:30am!
I have two sets of students - 3rd year marine engineers and 1st year automation students. I haven't decided on an exam for the freshmen yet but for the marine engineers I am going to have them use phrases from our "For and Against" lesson.
Each students will get one of 8 proposal.
What else have we been up to? Well C and I have been showing movies to our freshman classes. Allowing them to see how real people communicate in English is beneficial and helpful to their listening abilities. We turn on the English subtitles because their reading is far past their speaking. C has been showing "Walk the Line" (The Johnny Cash story). I showed that once but I have also shown "A Beautiful Mind". The students really seem to like both movies overall. Yesterday C noted how the Chinese are somewhat obsessed with the fact that a native Chinese person from the People's Republic of China has never won the Nobel Prize. There's a massive inferiority complex that results in the PRC thumping its chest whenever possible. "A Beautiful Mind" of course is about a schizophrenic mathematical genius who eventually wins the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994. C commented that the movie would no doubt increase their Nobel fever - "Look, even crazy people in our country can win this award! What's wrong with China??"
I think "A Beautiful Mind" is a good movie for them to see. It demonstrates that in America, despite the odds, even a mentally ill man can meaningfully contribute. I don't have any knowledge about the Chinese mental health system but somehow I too many John Nash's have been allowed to escape.
I feel like this has been an exceedingly boring entry. There have been many moments I wanted to report but you really have to write them down while they are emotionally fresh. This blogging thing is not as easy as it looks!
As an Oral English teacher, one of the dilemmas is deciding what the final exam should be. We've worked on a broad array of different topics - from directions to music to job interviews. The primary focus is on pronunciation and on-the-fly creation of english. The problem is that testing someone's speaking, while not difficult, can take some time. Our classes are 1 hour and 30 minutes, and each class has about 30 students. To examine a student for even five minutes would take 2 and a half hours. There are no classes during lunch here, so for exams my classes will get extended into eating time. Pity the poor students that catch me at 1pm when I haven't eaten since 8:30am!
I have two sets of students - 3rd year marine engineers and 1st year automation students. I haven't decided on an exam for the freshmen yet but for the marine engineers I am going to have them use phrases from our "For and Against" lesson.
Each students will get one of 8 proposal.
- Providing Free University Education
- Voting for Government Officials
- Paying Government Officials More Money
- Requiring China College Entry Examination
- Giving Money to the Poor
- Banning Smoking in Public Places
- Creating high taxes on alcohol
- Allowing Women in the Military
What else have we been up to? Well C and I have been showing movies to our freshman classes. Allowing them to see how real people communicate in English is beneficial and helpful to their listening abilities. We turn on the English subtitles because their reading is far past their speaking. C has been showing "Walk the Line" (The Johnny Cash story). I showed that once but I have also shown "A Beautiful Mind". The students really seem to like both movies overall. Yesterday C noted how the Chinese are somewhat obsessed with the fact that a native Chinese person from the People's Republic of China has never won the Nobel Prize. There's a massive inferiority complex that results in the PRC thumping its chest whenever possible. "A Beautiful Mind" of course is about a schizophrenic mathematical genius who eventually wins the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994. C commented that the movie would no doubt increase their Nobel fever - "Look, even crazy people in our country can win this award! What's wrong with China??"
I think "A Beautiful Mind" is a good movie for them to see. It demonstrates that in America, despite the odds, even a mentally ill man can meaningfully contribute. I don't have any knowledge about the Chinese mental health system but somehow I too many John Nash's have been allowed to escape.
I feel like this has been an exceedingly boring entry. There have been many moments I wanted to report but you really have to write them down while they are emotionally fresh. This blogging thing is not as easy as it looks!
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
D - In the Home Stretch
Wow, it's been awhile, but I promise we haven't been taken to prison or anything. The easy part of my schedule is over now and I am in the midst of the final push to the end of the semester. It's currently week 14 of 17 at DMU, so we're moving closer to our return to the US (which we are rather excited about).
The new apartment is good. If you're curious to see what it looks like, check out our photo album. Try to ignore the handsome fellow wearing long johns to keep warm. In reality though, we are plenty warm now. Turns out our air conditioners are also heat pumps that can warm the place up. And obviously our internet is working now. It's odd, we have much bigger apartment in China that we did when living in New Jersey. Of course everything here has the tinny quality you come to expect in China. You look at the faucet fixtures and they look pretty normal, but you touch them and something is just off. The handle is loose, the silver finish flecks off, it feels like it's going to break. This is the way for most things in China that are not carefully purchased. Everything has an overwhelming cheapness.
I want to relate an interesting story about the move. The FAO indicated that some student volunteers and movers would show up Saturday at 10am. They did and the moving was quite efficient. Within two hours we were pretty much moved to our new place. The method of moving surprised me a little bit. If you've seen a picture of our refrigerator in the photo album, you know it's not a full American style fridge, but neither is it a dormitory fridge. It's a sizable and heavy piece of equipment. Well the Chinese movers handled it as follows. One man stands in front of the fridge and pulls it on to his back. One of the the others helps him push it fully on to his back. AND THEN HE CARRIES IT ON HIS BACK DOWN FOUR FLIGHTS OF STAIRS. Likewise, when arriving at the new building, again he carries it on his back up 5 flights. I might add that we're not talking about Yao Ming here. This is a 5 foot 7 Chinese guy that can't weigh more than 145 lbs. They also carried our TV and our washing machine in this manner. To be honest, my heart was a little sick. A few days of that could ruin your back forever, and they probably do it every single day.
When the moving was over for the day, the movers had taken care of two foreign teacher apartments. The moving crew included 4 underlings and a boss. How much were they paid for their trouble? 160 Yuan, about $20 for the 5 of them. How ridiculously cheap. And I am quite sure they are happy to have the job - how many other able bodied Chinese men would take their position? Let's say that they make 30 Yuan per day in their moving job. That's only 900 Yuan per month, less than I take out from the ATM at one time.
I have one other new apartment anecdote for this post. Unlike our old apartment, our washing machine will not be in our bathroom. Every 2 floors they have a designated laundry room. The rooms have the requisite equipment - namely pipes to supply water and drains to accept the waste water. Unfortunately our Chinese friends made a critical error when designing the laundry room. The drains were elevated! The Chinese washing machines have a hose that you lay down on the floor to release the waste water. This means for the machine to effectively drain, the drain must be (at highest) on the ground level with the machine, and preferably at a lower level than the washer. But in our new laundry room it was the opposite. Luckily, they finally figured this out and put a BRICKS and MORTAR ledge in the laundry room, which they are then covering with tile. When placed on the new ledge, the machines should be able to drain properly. But why was the room so poorly designed to start with?
The new apartment is good. If you're curious to see what it looks like, check out our photo album. Try to ignore the handsome fellow wearing long johns to keep warm. In reality though, we are plenty warm now. Turns out our air conditioners are also heat pumps that can warm the place up. And obviously our internet is working now. It's odd, we have much bigger apartment in China that we did when living in New Jersey. Of course everything here has the tinny quality you come to expect in China. You look at the faucet fixtures and they look pretty normal, but you touch them and something is just off. The handle is loose, the silver finish flecks off, it feels like it's going to break. This is the way for most things in China that are not carefully purchased. Everything has an overwhelming cheapness.
I want to relate an interesting story about the move. The FAO indicated that some student volunteers and movers would show up Saturday at 10am. They did and the moving was quite efficient. Within two hours we were pretty much moved to our new place. The method of moving surprised me a little bit. If you've seen a picture of our refrigerator in the photo album, you know it's not a full American style fridge, but neither is it a dormitory fridge. It's a sizable and heavy piece of equipment. Well the Chinese movers handled it as follows. One man stands in front of the fridge and pulls it on to his back. One of the the others helps him push it fully on to his back. AND THEN HE CARRIES IT ON HIS BACK DOWN FOUR FLIGHTS OF STAIRS. Likewise, when arriving at the new building, again he carries it on his back up 5 flights. I might add that we're not talking about Yao Ming here. This is a 5 foot 7 Chinese guy that can't weigh more than 145 lbs. They also carried our TV and our washing machine in this manner. To be honest, my heart was a little sick. A few days of that could ruin your back forever, and they probably do it every single day.
When the moving was over for the day, the movers had taken care of two foreign teacher apartments. The moving crew included 4 underlings and a boss. How much were they paid for their trouble? 160 Yuan, about $20 for the 5 of them. How ridiculously cheap. And I am quite sure they are happy to have the job - how many other able bodied Chinese men would take their position? Let's say that they make 30 Yuan per day in their moving job. That's only 900 Yuan per month, less than I take out from the ATM at one time.
I have one other new apartment anecdote for this post. Unlike our old apartment, our washing machine will not be in our bathroom. Every 2 floors they have a designated laundry room. The rooms have the requisite equipment - namely pipes to supply water and drains to accept the waste water. Unfortunately our Chinese friends made a critical error when designing the laundry room. The drains were elevated! The Chinese washing machines have a hose that you lay down on the floor to release the waste water. This means for the machine to effectively drain, the drain must be (at highest) on the ground level with the machine, and preferably at a lower level than the washer. But in our new laundry room it was the opposite. Luckily, they finally figured this out and put a BRICKS and MORTAR ledge in the laundry room, which they are then covering with tile. When placed on the new ledge, the machines should be able to drain properly. But why was the room so poorly designed to start with?
Sunday, November 12, 2006
D - Movin' Out
We have moved into new digs here in Dalian. The old foreign teacher building has been under renovation for several months now and they finally finished the work. Unfortunately, the DSL in the new apartment isn't up and running and probably won't be for several days. We came back to our old apartment this morning to use the internet (and watch Tennessee get waxed by Arkansas). Hopefully this will be the last outage! The new place looks nicer. It has better fixtures and nicer furniture. It's also cleaner and so far seems to be inhabited by fewer bugs. Unfortunately it's also freezing. Our old apartment isn't exactly cozy but for some reason seems to retain heat better. Well, that's all for now. Hopefully we will return to regular posting in a few days when all is well in the new foreign teacher building.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
C - it's the most wonderful time of the year
Lately it's been pretty cold here in our apartment, and D and I have both been frustrated that the heat has not yet been turned on. Yesterday it snowed, and I thought "Ha! They'll HAVE to turn the heat on now!" But no such luck.
With our apartment so cold, I've been spending most of my free time in bed under my very warm comforter. I get in bed with the intention of reading, studying, or grading papers, but of course, I always end up falling asleep. I haven't taken afternoon naps since I was a junior in college, and I'd forgotten how much I hate the feeling of waking up in the evening when it's dark. Sunset time here is quite early -- around 4:45 pm -- so I've experienced this uncomfortable feeling more often than I'd have liked to this week. Today was one of those days.
On top of the fogginess produced by my indulgent afternoon nap, I've got a mountain of paperwork to do for my students, since three of my seven classes are taking their final exam this week. It mainly consists of answering comprehension questions about the movie "Walk the Line", and I was amused to see that the students must have found the Wikipedia entry on the movie. (Incidentally, China just granted access to Wikipedia a few weeks ago, to which I alerted them -- the timing couldn't have been better for my students.) Some of them got the question "What causes Johnny Cash's interest in Folsom Prison?", to which they've all responded "A B-movie called 'Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.'" I then asked them "Do you know what a B-movie is?" They, of course, did not. But I'm pleased to see them researching things on wikipedia. They haven't found the Chinese-language version yet, thankfully -- that would've made my final exam a lot easier!
With our apartment so cold, I've been spending most of my free time in bed under my very warm comforter. I get in bed with the intention of reading, studying, or grading papers, but of course, I always end up falling asleep. I haven't taken afternoon naps since I was a junior in college, and I'd forgotten how much I hate the feeling of waking up in the evening when it's dark. Sunset time here is quite early -- around 4:45 pm -- so I've experienced this uncomfortable feeling more often than I'd have liked to this week. Today was one of those days.
On top of the fogginess produced by my indulgent afternoon nap, I've got a mountain of paperwork to do for my students, since three of my seven classes are taking their final exam this week. It mainly consists of answering comprehension questions about the movie "Walk the Line", and I was amused to see that the students must have found the Wikipedia entry on the movie. (Incidentally, China just granted access to Wikipedia a few weeks ago, to which I alerted them -- the timing couldn't have been better for my students.) Some of them got the question "What causes Johnny Cash's interest in Folsom Prison?", to which they've all responded "A B-movie called 'Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.'" I then asked them "Do you know what a B-movie is?" They, of course, did not. But I'm pleased to see them researching things on wikipedia. They haven't found the Chinese-language version yet, thankfully -- that would've made my final exam a lot easier!
Monday, November 06, 2006
D - Chills, Church, and Communists
The high here in Dalian today is about 45 degrees fahrenheit, but it's been colder most of the day. The formerly temperate ocean breeze has turned into a bone chilling face slapper. I almost felt like I was in Rochester, NY (site of my university education and many a cold sprint to class). If weather.com can be trusted for China though, it will supposedly be 62 tomorrow. Ah the weather, go figure.
I have a few short stories to relate from China. Last Friday evening, I joined our Danish friends at their home for dinner. About a month ago they opted out of the school provided housing and now live in a relatively posh condo just up the road. The walk to school is a little longer but they have a bathroom to die for. Imagine this - the water from the shower actually goes into a shower specific drain. This is in stark contrast to our bathroom, where the shower floor and the bathroom floor are identical. Thus if someone needs to use the toilet subsequent to a recent shower, their pants will become soaked. To combat this problem, C had a brilliant idea - she picked up a squeegee (reminiscent of something you might use on your car windshield), which we employ when exiting the shower. In China, even simple things get a little more complicated than we are used to.
But I digress. Also invited to the dinner were another couple consisting of a late 30s/early 40s American businessman turned Oral English teacher (K), and his Chinese wife (B). He said he is principally teaching at DMU because it's easier to get a residence permit in China as a teacher than a foreign businessman. They met because she was his interpreter in his various business dealings in China, which they are still engaged in on the side. My impression is that while he teaches, she is running the import/export business. Anyway, they are good people and we had a lovely conversation at dinner and afterwards. Even the Chinese wine that was consumed was passable. One part of the night was a bit disturbing however. Although K is married to a Chinese woman and does all of his business with the Chinese, he has a very negative attitude towards China. After B shared one story with us, I could start to understand why. Her grandfather was a member of the KMT (Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek) before the Communists took over China. Unfortunately he was captured by the Communists and tortured repeatedly. They would put him on a stage with his arms behind his back in some contorted, painful positions, and then groups of people gathered in the audience would yell anti-KMT slogans and pro-Communist slogans. Apparently B's grandmother was forced to yell insults against her own husband and pretend that he was an enemy of the state. As B said "She did what she had to in order to survive." I can't fathom the world we live in sometimes.
Continuing on that note, our Danish friends relayed another scary story, this one more recent. Last Thursday they had the day off so they decided to take a couple of random buses and then just walk around Dalian to see what they could see. Apparently they ended up in a part of Dalian that is off limits because it's near a Chinese military submarine base, a fact of which they were ignorant. There were no signs indicating it was a forbidden area until right next to the base. When they saw the sign, they immediately turned around and left to go back towards the bus stop. Despite this, a couple of soldiers caught up with them and politely asked them to return to the base for some questions. They did so and they were briefly questioned by some soldiers who didn't have a strong command of English. Eventually they were kept waiting for 2 hours while the People's Security Bureau (PSB) aka Chinese "Secret Police" were called. Four very large gentlemen with an fluent translator showed up and questioned them further. They called DMU to confirm their story. They reviewed their passports which they most fortunately brought along. Our friends managed to maintain their calm, which I am sure expedited things in their favor. Eventually, the FAO from DMU came to pick them up. So nothing negative came of it but you can imagine how terrified they were. It's a reminder that while China may be improving, it has a long way to go.
On a different note, I went to church in China for the first time on Sunday. Along with our Canadian friends, I caught the bus downtown. Just off of Zhongshan Square, there was a tall building. We met some people outside and they led us up a few flights of stairs. There was a large room with perhaps 75 rows of 8 chairs each. They were very soft and comfortable and every seat was taken. At the front of the room there was a video projector showing the actual church sanctuary, which was down the street in an actual church like building which was apparently built by the Dutch (?). The church was a legal Protestant church operating with government sanction, and the whole service was conducted in Chinese. Two Chinese girls offered to translate for us. One sat between L and T (Canadians) and another sat next to me. During the hymns and the sermon she would lean over every minute or two and whisper the translation in English, which is certainly unique in my experience. I recognized the tune of some of the hymns but couldn't recall the names. The service was essentially 3 hymns, some Bible readings, the sermon, and a closing hymn. All in all, what you would call a pretty traditional service! The only thing they didn't do was take up an offering, which I had expected when they sung the doxology at the end of the service. The message was traditional as well, espousing standard Christian doctrines such as loving your enemies, loving and obeying God, and following Jesus. Apparently some of the young people at the church hold a study (in English) on Tuesday evenings near DMU, so I think I will check that out as well. It's one thing to visit a church in a place like the US where there's a cultural tradition for doing so, and another in a place like China where people are risking their necks and reputations. This I have to see.
I have a few short stories to relate from China. Last Friday evening, I joined our Danish friends at their home for dinner. About a month ago they opted out of the school provided housing and now live in a relatively posh condo just up the road. The walk to school is a little longer but they have a bathroom to die for. Imagine this - the water from the shower actually goes into a shower specific drain. This is in stark contrast to our bathroom, where the shower floor and the bathroom floor are identical. Thus if someone needs to use the toilet subsequent to a recent shower, their pants will become soaked. To combat this problem, C had a brilliant idea - she picked up a squeegee (reminiscent of something you might use on your car windshield), which we employ when exiting the shower. In China, even simple things get a little more complicated than we are used to.
But I digress. Also invited to the dinner were another couple consisting of a late 30s/early 40s American businessman turned Oral English teacher (K), and his Chinese wife (B). He said he is principally teaching at DMU because it's easier to get a residence permit in China as a teacher than a foreign businessman. They met because she was his interpreter in his various business dealings in China, which they are still engaged in on the side. My impression is that while he teaches, she is running the import/export business. Anyway, they are good people and we had a lovely conversation at dinner and afterwards. Even the Chinese wine that was consumed was passable. One part of the night was a bit disturbing however. Although K is married to a Chinese woman and does all of his business with the Chinese, he has a very negative attitude towards China. After B shared one story with us, I could start to understand why. Her grandfather was a member of the KMT (Chinese nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek) before the Communists took over China. Unfortunately he was captured by the Communists and tortured repeatedly. They would put him on a stage with his arms behind his back in some contorted, painful positions, and then groups of people gathered in the audience would yell anti-KMT slogans and pro-Communist slogans. Apparently B's grandmother was forced to yell insults against her own husband and pretend that he was an enemy of the state. As B said "She did what she had to in order to survive." I can't fathom the world we live in sometimes.
Continuing on that note, our Danish friends relayed another scary story, this one more recent. Last Thursday they had the day off so they decided to take a couple of random buses and then just walk around Dalian to see what they could see. Apparently they ended up in a part of Dalian that is off limits because it's near a Chinese military submarine base, a fact of which they were ignorant. There were no signs indicating it was a forbidden area until right next to the base. When they saw the sign, they immediately turned around and left to go back towards the bus stop. Despite this, a couple of soldiers caught up with them and politely asked them to return to the base for some questions. They did so and they were briefly questioned by some soldiers who didn't have a strong command of English. Eventually they were kept waiting for 2 hours while the People's Security Bureau (PSB) aka Chinese "Secret Police" were called. Four very large gentlemen with an fluent translator showed up and questioned them further. They called DMU to confirm their story. They reviewed their passports which they most fortunately brought along. Our friends managed to maintain their calm, which I am sure expedited things in their favor. Eventually, the FAO from DMU came to pick them up. So nothing negative came of it but you can imagine how terrified they were. It's a reminder that while China may be improving, it has a long way to go.
On a different note, I went to church in China for the first time on Sunday. Along with our Canadian friends, I caught the bus downtown. Just off of Zhongshan Square, there was a tall building. We met some people outside and they led us up a few flights of stairs. There was a large room with perhaps 75 rows of 8 chairs each. They were very soft and comfortable and every seat was taken. At the front of the room there was a video projector showing the actual church sanctuary, which was down the street in an actual church like building which was apparently built by the Dutch (?). The church was a legal Protestant church operating with government sanction, and the whole service was conducted in Chinese. Two Chinese girls offered to translate for us. One sat between L and T (Canadians) and another sat next to me. During the hymns and the sermon she would lean over every minute or two and whisper the translation in English, which is certainly unique in my experience. I recognized the tune of some of the hymns but couldn't recall the names. The service was essentially 3 hymns, some Bible readings, the sermon, and a closing hymn. All in all, what you would call a pretty traditional service! The only thing they didn't do was take up an offering, which I had expected when they sung the doxology at the end of the service. The message was traditional as well, espousing standard Christian doctrines such as loving your enemies, loving and obeying God, and following Jesus. Apparently some of the young people at the church hold a study (in English) on Tuesday evenings near DMU, so I think I will check that out as well. It's one thing to visit a church in a place like the US where there's a cultural tradition for doing so, and another in a place like China where people are risking their necks and reputations. This I have to see.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
C - day by day
Lately I've been feeling incredibly happy to be in China. When I left our apartment to get some food for lunch this afternoon, everything smelled wonderful. First I smelled burning leaves, which were very autumnal and lovely, and then I smelled some sort of food being grilled or barbecued. Even though I wasn't really in the mood for Chinese food (I was en route to KFC, in fact) it still smelled delicious.
Then I walked a bit further up the road and was overwhelmed by the smell of, well, human waste.
Regardless, I'm quite pleased to be living here in China. It's such food for thought, because the cultural foundation is quite foreign to that of my own, and meanwhile no single political or social ideology is really prevailing because everything is changing so fast. It's impossible not to reconsider one's fundamental principles in a place like this. My mind is constantly churning out new theories and suggestions -- almost as fast as I can make observations.
I'm definitely a tad homesick, though. I've been telling myself that things are the same as they would be if I'd gone to Duke for law school this fall; I most likely would've last seen my family in mid-August and would be seeing them again at Christmastime. In that case, however, I at least would've been living in the United States, in a culture that I can make a bit more sense of, under a government that is currently troubling but not nearly as terrifying to me as China's. But if someone offered to wave a magic wand where our teaching contracts would go away and a free flight home and terrific 9-month job offer would appear, I wouldn't take it. There's too much to be learned here, and we just have to wade through it, homesickness and all. Or, as my mother would say, "put one foot in front of the other." And that's what we'll do.
Then I walked a bit further up the road and was overwhelmed by the smell of, well, human waste.
Regardless, I'm quite pleased to be living here in China. It's such food for thought, because the cultural foundation is quite foreign to that of my own, and meanwhile no single political or social ideology is really prevailing because everything is changing so fast. It's impossible not to reconsider one's fundamental principles in a place like this. My mind is constantly churning out new theories and suggestions -- almost as fast as I can make observations.
I'm definitely a tad homesick, though. I've been telling myself that things are the same as they would be if I'd gone to Duke for law school this fall; I most likely would've last seen my family in mid-August and would be seeing them again at Christmastime. In that case, however, I at least would've been living in the United States, in a culture that I can make a bit more sense of, under a government that is currently troubling but not nearly as terrifying to me as China's. But if someone offered to wave a magic wand where our teaching contracts would go away and a free flight home and terrific 9-month job offer would appear, I wouldn't take it. There's too much to be learned here, and we just have to wade through it, homesickness and all. Or, as my mother would say, "put one foot in front of the other." And that's what we'll do.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Out of the saddle, back in the saloon
This is just a quick post to share that C and I are internet-less in our apartment again. Despite all appearances that it should work, it's just not. Our Chinese friends are on the case but no resolution just yet. Thus, I am back in the Internet saloon. My eyes aren't watering yet though...
Sunday, October 29, 2006
D - Questions on Contentment
I fear for anyone continuing to read this blog for insights into China. With any luck, you will still find some but more and more our journey here is turning introspective. Our trip has been a great opportunity to learn about a foreign culture and people, but I never realized that being here would ultimately turn our thoughts inward. When you are in your home country, virtually everyone you speak with is a mirror. Since you share common cultural values it is easy not to question the assumptions that are being made in the everyday. In a foreign land however, those assumptions fall idle. You must confront your most basic precepts.
In the first post of this blog, I discussed my mild dissatisfaction with my work life prior to China. As I indicated then, it was easy for me to question the validity of my occupation. In America, an upper middle class person such as myself has the world open to them. I could get rich working at a large investment bank in New York. I could go back to school and become a history professor. I could get my MBA and command prestige. Maybe I could run for political office. There are so many choices it's a little overwhelming. But what if I didn't have so many choices? How would that change my perspective or life? If I was less than thrilled with what by all accounts was an excellent job, how would I feel stripped of opportunity and confined to one path?
In China (and everywhere except the middle crust and above in Western countries), people don't have a lot of choice. Even in the "new" China, if high school students don't get the requisite score on the China College Entrance Exam, they are relegated to factory work or service jobs for the rest of their lives.
As an example, there is a Chinese couple that owns a food stand just outside the Foreign Teacher Building here at DMU. Inside the food stand, they have a couple of fryers and a cutting board. Their stand is strategically located on the path between the DMU West Campus and the DMU East Campus, so they see quite a bit of foot traffic. Sometimes they both man their booth, sometimes it's just the husband, and others it's just the wife. She wears a red shirt that seems intended to suggest a fast food motif and tops it off with a red cap that I've never seen her doff. During the warmer months, he wore these tank top muscle shirts - and he could pull them off! He was pretty built although I don't think it was because of his gym membership. He probably has a manual labor job somewhere else. The thing I will always remember about him is the ever present smile on his face. He never seemed stressed or cross, even when students would throng around the booth at lunch time.
They offer two dishes. One is the Jian Bing Guo Zi, which they make by pouring batter on a flat fryer. Next they break an egg onto the batter, spread it around and then flip the pancake. Into the pancake they place green onions, two crispy flour shells, and a Chinese hot dog split in two. They fold this up into a pocket and voila. Dish number two is known as "han ba", aka the chicken hamburger. They put a fried chicken patty in a sesame roll with some lettuce and mayonnaise. Both of them are surprisingly good and have become regular staples in our diet. The price has something to do with it - the Jian Bing Guo Zi is 2 yuan and Han ba is 3 yuan. In China you can easily eat on a dollar a day if you really want to.
So why spend all that time describing two people that would be identified as having no significance in the world? Who will remember them for serving up fried chicken patties? Because they are two of the finest people I have ever met. I say that knowing them in the most cursory fashion. Our conversations in Chinese are basic to say the least. But when I see them work in that stand, day after day, I can see real contentment. There is no sense of resenting the work that they do. We've all seen it in a fast food place. The sullen eyes of the bored cashier who seems like they would rather be in the iron maiden than taking your order. And how many of us have thought in the back of our minds while gathering up our double cheeseburgers - "you know, I'd be miserable too if I were stuck behind that counter".
We're not breaking any new ground here, are we? Everyone knows that your job can't be your life and sometimes you have to grin and bear it. What's paradoxical about life is that you can know something in your mind but until you feel it and experience it for yourself it's not real. I think that's what China is doing for me. I have plenty of time to think here and at the same time I'm confronted by people who not only get by with less money but are incredibly contented doing so. That has a way of getting inside you.
I want to close this entry with a quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a famous Russian author who survived the Soviet gulag and became a prominent writer and philosopher. He made many enemies criticizing both capitalism and communism.
"If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism." - from "A World Split Apart", 1978
In the first post of this blog, I discussed my mild dissatisfaction with my work life prior to China. As I indicated then, it was easy for me to question the validity of my occupation. In America, an upper middle class person such as myself has the world open to them. I could get rich working at a large investment bank in New York. I could go back to school and become a history professor. I could get my MBA and command prestige. Maybe I could run for political office. There are so many choices it's a little overwhelming. But what if I didn't have so many choices? How would that change my perspective or life? If I was less than thrilled with what by all accounts was an excellent job, how would I feel stripped of opportunity and confined to one path?
In China (and everywhere except the middle crust and above in Western countries), people don't have a lot of choice. Even in the "new" China, if high school students don't get the requisite score on the China College Entrance Exam, they are relegated to factory work or service jobs for the rest of their lives.
As an example, there is a Chinese couple that owns a food stand just outside the Foreign Teacher Building here at DMU. Inside the food stand, they have a couple of fryers and a cutting board. Their stand is strategically located on the path between the DMU West Campus and the DMU East Campus, so they see quite a bit of foot traffic. Sometimes they both man their booth, sometimes it's just the husband, and others it's just the wife. She wears a red shirt that seems intended to suggest a fast food motif and tops it off with a red cap that I've never seen her doff. During the warmer months, he wore these tank top muscle shirts - and he could pull them off! He was pretty built although I don't think it was because of his gym membership. He probably has a manual labor job somewhere else. The thing I will always remember about him is the ever present smile on his face. He never seemed stressed or cross, even when students would throng around the booth at lunch time.
They offer two dishes. One is the Jian Bing Guo Zi, which they make by pouring batter on a flat fryer. Next they break an egg onto the batter, spread it around and then flip the pancake. Into the pancake they place green onions, two crispy flour shells, and a Chinese hot dog split in two. They fold this up into a pocket and voila. Dish number two is known as "han ba", aka the chicken hamburger. They put a fried chicken patty in a sesame roll with some lettuce and mayonnaise. Both of them are surprisingly good and have become regular staples in our diet. The price has something to do with it - the Jian Bing Guo Zi is 2 yuan and Han ba is 3 yuan. In China you can easily eat on a dollar a day if you really want to.
So why spend all that time describing two people that would be identified as having no significance in the world? Who will remember them for serving up fried chicken patties? Because they are two of the finest people I have ever met. I say that knowing them in the most cursory fashion. Our conversations in Chinese are basic to say the least. But when I see them work in that stand, day after day, I can see real contentment. There is no sense of resenting the work that they do. We've all seen it in a fast food place. The sullen eyes of the bored cashier who seems like they would rather be in the iron maiden than taking your order. And how many of us have thought in the back of our minds while gathering up our double cheeseburgers - "you know, I'd be miserable too if I were stuck behind that counter".
We're not breaking any new ground here, are we? Everyone knows that your job can't be your life and sometimes you have to grin and bear it. What's paradoxical about life is that you can know something in your mind but until you feel it and experience it for yourself it's not real. I think that's what China is doing for me. I have plenty of time to think here and at the same time I'm confronted by people who not only get by with less money but are incredibly contented doing so. That has a way of getting inside you.
I want to close this entry with a quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a famous Russian author who survived the Soviet gulag and became a prominent writer and philosopher. He made many enemies criticizing both capitalism and communism.
"If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism." - from "A World Split Apart", 1978
Thursday, October 26, 2006
D - Odds and Ends
The post rate on our blog has slowed a bit, as I'm sure regular readers have noticed. I haven't been feeling that well this week and there's been less to report. Nonetheless, there are a few odds and ends to report.
-Last Saturday we went out with a bunch of people to an Indian Restaurant in the Zhongshan Hotel on Jiefang Lu. The Hindu holiday of Diwali (I think it's their New Year) was Saturday and the one Indian foreign teacher suggested an outing. He is here for 3 months as part of an exchange program between his university, Kennesaw State College (Atlanta, GA area) and DMU. He's teaching management courses. Apparently DMU and KS have been doing this for a number of years. It sounds like a neat program and 3 months is long enough to get your feet wet without going mad. The food at the restaurant was decent. For 70 RMB each, we had access to an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. It was pretty standard Indian fare featuring various curries, plenty of naan, and strangely - french fries. I was disappointed there was no Chicken Tikka Masala but you take what you can get in China!
-My primary lesson for my classes this week was to teach them English words for discussing music. The principal focus of the class was explaining musical genres - such as rock, country, punk, ska, r&b, hip-hop/rap, folk, electronica, etc. The routine was for me to play 3 songs from a particular genre. For example, to illustrate HipHop/Rap I played some Black Eyed Peas, Dr. Dre, and Eminem. Then I would call on a student after each song ask them to say if they liked it or not and to compare it to their liking for other musical genres. Needless to say they were thrilled to get away from my standard English classes. I think only 1 or 2 students were sleeping! Interestingly, a lot of them liked country. But by far their biggest interest is in the mainstream Pop. They love the Backstreet Boys of all people. I tried to explain that Americans would laugh at 21 year Chinese men who love the Backstreet Boys, but I felt guilty making them feel bad. It's like telling your 5 year old that you're not actually the smartest person in the world.
-I've been feeling a strong desire to check out the international church here in Dalian. Chinese people of course can't openly attend services, but the PRC doesn't mind if the foreigners do their Jesus thing. We are told by a Canadian couple that there are house churches. 500 people will meet in tiny sweltering churches for 3 hours on Sundays. Ironically the international church is shepherded by a Korean pastor. Those who know us well are aware that our last church in New Jersey was predominantly Korean. The problem is that the church is a long way out in downtown from where we are. That shouldn't be an obstacle but when it involves riding a packed Chinese bus for 45 minutes it makes you hesitate. I think C and I are going to make the trip soon though. Maybe not this weekend though because I feel like I've been run over by a rickshaw.
-Last Saturday we went out with a bunch of people to an Indian Restaurant in the Zhongshan Hotel on Jiefang Lu. The Hindu holiday of Diwali (I think it's their New Year) was Saturday and the one Indian foreign teacher suggested an outing. He is here for 3 months as part of an exchange program between his university, Kennesaw State College (Atlanta, GA area) and DMU. He's teaching management courses. Apparently DMU and KS have been doing this for a number of years. It sounds like a neat program and 3 months is long enough to get your feet wet without going mad. The food at the restaurant was decent. For 70 RMB each, we had access to an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. It was pretty standard Indian fare featuring various curries, plenty of naan, and strangely - french fries. I was disappointed there was no Chicken Tikka Masala but you take what you can get in China!
-My primary lesson for my classes this week was to teach them English words for discussing music. The principal focus of the class was explaining musical genres - such as rock, country, punk, ska, r&b, hip-hop/rap, folk, electronica, etc. The routine was for me to play 3 songs from a particular genre. For example, to illustrate HipHop/Rap I played some Black Eyed Peas, Dr. Dre, and Eminem. Then I would call on a student after each song ask them to say if they liked it or not and to compare it to their liking for other musical genres. Needless to say they were thrilled to get away from my standard English classes. I think only 1 or 2 students were sleeping! Interestingly, a lot of them liked country. But by far their biggest interest is in the mainstream Pop. They love the Backstreet Boys of all people. I tried to explain that Americans would laugh at 21 year Chinese men who love the Backstreet Boys, but I felt guilty making them feel bad. It's like telling your 5 year old that you're not actually the smartest person in the world.
-I've been feeling a strong desire to check out the international church here in Dalian. Chinese people of course can't openly attend services, but the PRC doesn't mind if the foreigners do their Jesus thing. We are told by a Canadian couple that there are house churches. 500 people will meet in tiny sweltering churches for 3 hours on Sundays. Ironically the international church is shepherded by a Korean pastor. Those who know us well are aware that our last church in New Jersey was predominantly Korean. The problem is that the church is a long way out in downtown from where we are. That shouldn't be an obstacle but when it involves riding a packed Chinese bus for 45 minutes it makes you hesitate. I think C and I are going to make the trip soon though. Maybe not this weekend though because I feel like I've been run over by a rickshaw.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
D - Truth and Freedom
I can't claim credit for one of the most interesting observations I've heard while being in China. C has remarked on several occasions that Americans may have a mistaken impression about freedom. We believe that every person in the world is longing for American-style freedom. They may whisper about their desire in dark corners to avoid the secret police, but it exists. To an extent, I agree with this common American belief. The desire to be free is a part of human nature. Most of us just want to be left alone to live our lives how we see fit.
It may surprise many in the West however to learn that ordinary Chinese people don't share this belief, and it's not simply a matter of being afraid of their government. People here are incredibly accepting of their lot in life. While Americans commonly rage against the machine - by protesting on the National Mall or even just cursing Uncle Sam around the kitchen table, the Chinese do not. In class this week, we were practicing words and phrases for expressing opinions - e.g. "I'm for it" / "I'm against it" / "I support this" / "I'm opposed to this". First, I taught the students the words and gave examples. Next, I would write an issue on the board and they would have to write down if they were for it, against it, or didn't care - and why. For example, I wrote things like "smoking in public places", "taxes on beer and liquor", "women in the military" - relatively benign issues I thought they could easily have an opinion on. It's not like I asked them if Taiwan should be an independent state (which will get you a lynch mob and deportation in China).
Well, you would have thought I had three heads. "You want us to express an opinion? What?! But we don't know how to do that!" Before asking individual students about their opinions, I would try to help them develop their democratic impulses by asking the "For"s to raise their hands and the "Against"s to raise their hands. You know, see where public opinion lay. Both times I would get a smattering of hands - but not anywhere near the total number of students in the class. "Do you understand what I am saying?" "Yes we do." "Then why aren't you raising your hands?" The concept of expressing your opinion actively was so foreign to them. They almost seemed embarrassed to have one. I'm sure the language barrier has something to do with it but I don't believe it can account for the reluctance they showed. After repeatedly haranguing them about giving me their opinions the general consensus was that smoking in public should be illegal, there should be no tax on beer, and women should serve in the military along with men. Another interesting aspect of the discussion was that they were much more loathe to talk about women in the military - presumably because it's the only thing the government has a clear opinion on (they are pro-equality, woot!).
Anyway, at the end of one of my For & Against classes, I asked them if they liked the War on Iraq. Of course unanimously, they were against it. They asked my opinion and I talked about my dismay with how things have been done and how they are going.
"Do you think it is strange I disagree with my government over the war?". "Not at all!" they said - you are right, it is a bad thing. "But my government says we should continue to fight!" "It doesn't matter, you are right." So I asked if anyone in the room ever disagreed with the Chinese government. Dead silence. Finally I asked one of the students that speaks English well if he ever disagreed with his leaders - he need not tell me where his areas of disagreement were - just that he did. He indicated there were some things so I inquired why he wasn't trying to change the government's policy. "There is no point - I have no ability to change things". And that sums up our interactions in a nutshell. The people here are not idiots. They have opinions about their government, mostly positive but certainly they are aware of failures and poor policies. But Chinese culture has an incredibly strong acceptance of things as they are. They don't get bent out of shape like Americans do. The idea of the Republicans getting thrown out of power this November would blow them away.
On the other hand, people here do want to know the truth. Last week we went to a Korean restaurant with S (student volunteer/best Chinese friend). After dinner we were walking home and she told us a story about one of her friends. This friend gave her a video of the Tian'anmen Square confrontation in 1989 and told her to watch it behind closed doors. She was struck that students could get so angry with their government. How could it be that they could try and fight the government? Her explanation? Someone put them up to it. It wasn't an independent movement. Maybe Taiwanese or Tibetan spies forced them to rebel. The concept of spontaneous revolt was untenable - the idea that Chinese people would break out of their cultural deference seemed impossible. At the same time, I understand. You grow up your whole life being fed the stories of the greatness of your government. It's infallible and always has the best interests of the Chinese people at heart. Yet despite the conflict between her education and the facts of 1989, no amount of education could steal her desire for truth.
S comes and tutors us in Chinese once a week and we return the favor and help her with her English compositions. I decided to take a risk and offer to print off the independent account of the Tian'anmen Square event from Wikipedia (which even has a Chinese language version). She very much wanted the account. C was reluctant given how dangerous this was for us - we could get fired from our university and deported or worse for supplying her with this information. She promised not to tell anyone, just to read it privately.
It's an interesting dynamic between truth and freedom. Maybe we have it a little backwards. Perhaps the desire for freedom does lie in every human heart - as is oft spoken about America's efforts to democratize the world. But I am beginning to believe though that the stronger power is truth. As the light of truth pierces the darkness and touches the human mind, change can and will come to China.
They will know the truth and the truth will set them free.
It may surprise many in the West however to learn that ordinary Chinese people don't share this belief, and it's not simply a matter of being afraid of their government. People here are incredibly accepting of their lot in life. While Americans commonly rage against the machine - by protesting on the National Mall or even just cursing Uncle Sam around the kitchen table, the Chinese do not. In class this week, we were practicing words and phrases for expressing opinions - e.g. "I'm for it" / "I'm against it" / "I support this" / "I'm opposed to this". First, I taught the students the words and gave examples. Next, I would write an issue on the board and they would have to write down if they were for it, against it, or didn't care - and why. For example, I wrote things like "smoking in public places", "taxes on beer and liquor", "women in the military" - relatively benign issues I thought they could easily have an opinion on. It's not like I asked them if Taiwan should be an independent state (which will get you a lynch mob and deportation in China).
Well, you would have thought I had three heads. "You want us to express an opinion? What?! But we don't know how to do that!" Before asking individual students about their opinions, I would try to help them develop their democratic impulses by asking the "For"s to raise their hands and the "Against"s to raise their hands. You know, see where public opinion lay. Both times I would get a smattering of hands - but not anywhere near the total number of students in the class. "Do you understand what I am saying?" "Yes we do." "Then why aren't you raising your hands?" The concept of expressing your opinion actively was so foreign to them. They almost seemed embarrassed to have one. I'm sure the language barrier has something to do with it but I don't believe it can account for the reluctance they showed. After repeatedly haranguing them about giving me their opinions the general consensus was that smoking in public should be illegal, there should be no tax on beer, and women should serve in the military along with men. Another interesting aspect of the discussion was that they were much more loathe to talk about women in the military - presumably because it's the only thing the government has a clear opinion on (they are pro-equality, woot!).
Anyway, at the end of one of my For & Against classes, I asked them if they liked the War on Iraq. Of course unanimously, they were against it. They asked my opinion and I talked about my dismay with how things have been done and how they are going.
"Do you think it is strange I disagree with my government over the war?". "Not at all!" they said - you are right, it is a bad thing. "But my government says we should continue to fight!" "It doesn't matter, you are right." So I asked if anyone in the room ever disagreed with the Chinese government. Dead silence. Finally I asked one of the students that speaks English well if he ever disagreed with his leaders - he need not tell me where his areas of disagreement were - just that he did. He indicated there were some things so I inquired why he wasn't trying to change the government's policy. "There is no point - I have no ability to change things". And that sums up our interactions in a nutshell. The people here are not idiots. They have opinions about their government, mostly positive but certainly they are aware of failures and poor policies. But Chinese culture has an incredibly strong acceptance of things as they are. They don't get bent out of shape like Americans do. The idea of the Republicans getting thrown out of power this November would blow them away.
On the other hand, people here do want to know the truth. Last week we went to a Korean restaurant with S (student volunteer/best Chinese friend). After dinner we were walking home and she told us a story about one of her friends. This friend gave her a video of the Tian'anmen Square confrontation in 1989 and told her to watch it behind closed doors. She was struck that students could get so angry with their government. How could it be that they could try and fight the government? Her explanation? Someone put them up to it. It wasn't an independent movement. Maybe Taiwanese or Tibetan spies forced them to rebel. The concept of spontaneous revolt was untenable - the idea that Chinese people would break out of their cultural deference seemed impossible. At the same time, I understand. You grow up your whole life being fed the stories of the greatness of your government. It's infallible and always has the best interests of the Chinese people at heart. Yet despite the conflict between her education and the facts of 1989, no amount of education could steal her desire for truth.
S comes and tutors us in Chinese once a week and we return the favor and help her with her English compositions. I decided to take a risk and offer to print off the independent account of the Tian'anmen Square event from Wikipedia (which even has a Chinese language version). She very much wanted the account. C was reluctant given how dangerous this was for us - we could get fired from our university and deported or worse for supplying her with this information. She promised not to tell anyone, just to read it privately.
It's an interesting dynamic between truth and freedom. Maybe we have it a little backwards. Perhaps the desire for freedom does lie in every human heart - as is oft spoken about America's efforts to democratize the world. But I am beginning to believe though that the stronger power is truth. As the light of truth pierces the darkness and touches the human mind, change can and will come to China.
They will know the truth and the truth will set them free.
Monday, October 16, 2006
C - a dinner to remember
Since we first met the student that was assigned to help D and I learn how to function in Dalian, she's mentioned the possibility of us having dinner with her parents at their home. (Her parents live in Dalian, so unlike many of her classmates, our friend doesn't have to undertake a multiple-day train ride to get to school in the fall.) Apparently this past weekend was convenient for all parties involved, so plans were made for us to be picked up at our apartment and driven to her parent's apartment by her father. I was terribly nervous about this meeting, and since D and I seemed to be both coming down with a cold, I thought we could put it off awhile longer. No such luck, though -- D confirmed the plans when he saw Sylvia the day before for the banking fiasco.
The dinner ended up being held at a restaurant, since Sylvia's aunt, uncle, and cousin apparently also wanted to have a peek at the long-nosed white devils (hehe, kidding) that their niece was spending so much time with, and her parents' apartment wasn't large enough to hold eight people. Her parents chose a seafood restaurant, the kind where you pick your own food while it's still alive and kicking. We find it hard enough to choose dishes given our limited exposure to Chinese cuisine and usually prefer the natives to order for us, so imagine our difficulty overcoming both our lack of knowledge of what's good and what's bad AND our feeling that we were in some sort of aquarium or zoo instead of a restaurant.
We eventually selected some dishes and ultimately had a delicious dinner. Of course, the evening wouldn't be complete without a few social gaffes on my part. Upon learning that Sylvia's aunt was an economics professor, I insensitively asked "So do you think China's currency should be allowed to float on the open market?" But this is essentially asking her aunt whether she toes the party line or not, which of course she does. I've found that even if a Chinese individual isn't a party member, they're not comfortable showing disagreement with the CCP while in the presence of a foreigner.
Then I had the insatiable urge to pick some food out of my teeth, which is apparently the number-one no-no when it comes to Chinese table manners. Every website on Chinese manners that I've even seen clearly states that if one must use a toothpick, the mouth should be covered by the non-picking hand. Well, despite reading it a dozen times in the past few months, I forgot this rule, and even though I don't think anyone noticed, I still felt dumb.
One good thing that happened during the dinner was being called by our Chinese names. (D's is 长天，pronounced sort of like "chahng tee-en", and mine is 秋水, pronounced sort of like "chew shway"). Our names come from a line of a famous chinese poem and are very romantic, because the poem says that in the fall, the water and sky combine to form one color. (秋水共长天一色). But our names don't get a lot of use, so it was fun to see them serving their purpose.
And here is a photo of the happy dining party:
Sylvia is on D's left, her parents are next to me, and her aunt and uncle are to their right.
The dinner ended up being held at a restaurant, since Sylvia's aunt, uncle, and cousin apparently also wanted to have a peek at the long-nosed white devils (hehe, kidding) that their niece was spending so much time with, and her parents' apartment wasn't large enough to hold eight people. Her parents chose a seafood restaurant, the kind where you pick your own food while it's still alive and kicking. We find it hard enough to choose dishes given our limited exposure to Chinese cuisine and usually prefer the natives to order for us, so imagine our difficulty overcoming both our lack of knowledge of what's good and what's bad AND our feeling that we were in some sort of aquarium or zoo instead of a restaurant.
We eventually selected some dishes and ultimately had a delicious dinner. Of course, the evening wouldn't be complete without a few social gaffes on my part. Upon learning that Sylvia's aunt was an economics professor, I insensitively asked "So do you think China's currency should be allowed to float on the open market?" But this is essentially asking her aunt whether she toes the party line or not, which of course she does. I've found that even if a Chinese individual isn't a party member, they're not comfortable showing disagreement with the CCP while in the presence of a foreigner.
Then I had the insatiable urge to pick some food out of my teeth, which is apparently the number-one no-no when it comes to Chinese table manners. Every website on Chinese manners that I've even seen clearly states that if one must use a toothpick, the mouth should be covered by the non-picking hand. Well, despite reading it a dozen times in the past few months, I forgot this rule, and even though I don't think anyone noticed, I still felt dumb.
One good thing that happened during the dinner was being called by our Chinese names. (D's is 长天，pronounced sort of like "chahng tee-en", and mine is 秋水, pronounced sort of like "chew shway"). Our names come from a line of a famous chinese poem and are very romantic, because the poem says that in the fall, the water and sky combine to form one color. (秋水共长天一色). But our names don't get a lot of use, so it was fun to see them serving their purpose.
And here is a photo of the happy dining party:
Sylvia is on D's left, her parents are next to me, and her aunt and uncle are to their right.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
D - Banking in the Mirror Universe
Some of the poor souls that know us are aware of our affection for Star Trek in its various forms. Before you reach for the "Close" button, I promise the Trek-related portion of this post will be over shortly, so bear with me. Some episodes of Star Trek feature a concept known as the "Mirror Universe". The Mirror Universe contains the same characters, ships, places, and concepts as the regular universe where the heroes dwell - except that everything and everyone in the Mirror Universe is twisted. For example, rather than Earth being part of a peace-loving interstellar Federation, in the mirror universe, bloodthirsty humans seek to destroy and enslave other planets. And as the following pictures of Spock show, people in the Mirror Universe have more facial hair.
Okay, okay - I'm getting there! You're asking "what does this pointless Star Trek trivia have to do with China?" Well, my experience at the Bank of China on Friday of this week was a bit like banking in the mirror universe. Everything looks and sounds the same. The BoC features 5 tellers. They have savings accounts, they have checking accounts, they advertise Certificates of Deposit. China has ubiquitous ATMs dotting the landscape of every town and city. Oh yes, it looks quite normal but in fact evil is lurking just beneath the surface.
First, a little background before I get to the meat of my suffering. C and I did not have to open our Bank of China accounts. We simply showed up to the Foreign Affairs Officer's room at the University one day and she handed us our ATM cards, PIN numbers, and bank books. On the appointed day our salary was automatically deposited in the bank account. We used the ATM and our PIN worked and we got money. It couldn't have been easier. Life was good.
Then one dark day I was in a bit of a hurry. My friends and family know that I am a bit absent-minded. I am actually quite thorough with most things but if my mind gets occupied or I am worried about being late somewhere, all my usual exacting detail goes out the window. Yes, I lost my ATM card like an idiot. I've been banking in the US for 9 years and I have NEVER lost my ATM card. But because we're in China and banking in the mirror universe, I of course managed to do so here. I take full responsibility - it's not the Bank of China's fault that I was careless.
So I called the Foreign Affairs Officer and explained the situation, confident that she would grease the wheels of financial service as she had before. She indicated that all I needed to do was to take two copies of my passport to the bank on campus and they would take care of it. Ah good - that sounds easy. I asked our student volunteer Sylvia to go with me since my finance Chinese is sorely lacking. Upon our arrival she explained the situation to the teller who indicated the following stipulations.
1) All lost card requests must be submitted prior to 3:30 PM
2) The lost card request must be written out in Chinese
3) The lost card request must be written by the person who wants the new card.
At the time, it was 4pm so we couldn't submit the request that day. The following day Sylvia and I returned, this time at 2pm. We gave the teller my passport copies. The copies were not full size -- they were slightly smaller than my actual passport. She had to call someone to confirm they were usable, and thankfully they were. Next, she gave us two forms to fill out and sternly instructed Sylvia that I MUST write it myself or it could not be accepted. We took several copies of the form so Sylvia could fill one out and I could do my best to emulate her writing. The first few parts of the form weren't too bad but eventually some VERY complex characters were required and I made a mistake. Well, it turns out that you can't scratch anything out on the form. If you make even the smallest error, you MUST fill out a new form - they cannot accept a damaged one. Sylvia realized that if we kept going at our snail's pace we would never finish by 3:30pm. Our new strategy was for her to fill the form out with her left hand. It would look different from her normal handwriting and crude enough to pass for a foreigner that had no idea what he was writing.
The process went like this - we waited for a customer to be served by our particular teller, then Sylvia would fill the form out with her left hand, while I would pretend to be writing on a separate sheet of paper. We finished those two forms...then were handed another 3 to fill out! We were essentially filling out the same information over and over, just in different forms. One was the "I lost my card" form, another was the "Please give me a new one" form, and yet another was the "Authorize an investigation of the loss of the card" form. They were endless. Oh -- and the forms must be filled out with black ink. We did one form in blue and it was rejected. In another instance, the forms had carbon copies attached but Sylvia's left-hand Chinese didn't press all the way through to the last sheet - we had to do it again.
Finally we finished all the forms after an hour and 15 minutes...just inside the 3:30 deadline. The teller asked Sylvia repeatedly if I had filled out the forms. "Of course!" she answered - which was partially true. I did write the account numbers, my english name, and the date. I am so glad they didn't ask me...I am the worst liar.
Some of you may read that and think it's not that surprising. We've all been in situations with large bureaucracies and dealt with paper pushers and silly rules that don't make sense. The bank teller said I had to fill the form because some Chinese person had a stolen a foreigner's money by filling out such a form and tricking them. I argued that I had to trust that Sylvia was writing the correct things anyway - it was a useless precaution. I think what is instructive about this event is the comparison of Chinese business and American business. I can remember when I worked in New York at a large investment bank. EVERYTHING is about efficiency. Don't have 6 forms when 1 will do. Make it easier for the customer and faster for the company. Make it require fewer people. Who knows, maybe it's just as bad to get a new ATM card in the US - not sure since it hasn't happened to me. And yes, US corporations do take security seriously at the same time they put things online and streamline how routine tasks like new ATM cards are handled. But the mentality here is totally different. Processes in China are designed to incorporate more people rather than fewer.
It's funny, on occasion the extra people required for every task in China are good for the customer. Sometimes you get better service because there are so many people looking out for you. Most of the time though, it's inefficiency for inefficiency's sake. C and I both laugh at the grocery stores here -- EVERY single aisle has an employee in it, ostensibly to help you find what you need in that aisle, but more likely the purpose is to give the people jobs. Perhaps they'll be bored to tears because they get to talk to only one customer a day, but at least they won't be staring down tanks or complaining they can't read the news everyone else in the world gets to read.
Normal Spock | Mirror Spock  |
Okay, okay - I'm getting there! You're asking "what does this pointless Star Trek trivia have to do with China?" Well, my experience at the Bank of China on Friday of this week was a bit like banking in the mirror universe. Everything looks and sounds the same. The BoC features 5 tellers. They have savings accounts, they have checking accounts, they advertise Certificates of Deposit. China has ubiquitous ATMs dotting the landscape of every town and city. Oh yes, it looks quite normal but in fact evil is lurking just beneath the surface.
First, a little background before I get to the meat of my suffering. C and I did not have to open our Bank of China accounts. We simply showed up to the Foreign Affairs Officer's room at the University one day and she handed us our ATM cards, PIN numbers, and bank books. On the appointed day our salary was automatically deposited in the bank account. We used the ATM and our PIN worked and we got money. It couldn't have been easier. Life was good.
Then one dark day I was in a bit of a hurry. My friends and family know that I am a bit absent-minded. I am actually quite thorough with most things but if my mind gets occupied or I am worried about being late somewhere, all my usual exacting detail goes out the window. Yes, I lost my ATM card like an idiot. I've been banking in the US for 9 years and I have NEVER lost my ATM card. But because we're in China and banking in the mirror universe, I of course managed to do so here. I take full responsibility - it's not the Bank of China's fault that I was careless.
So I called the Foreign Affairs Officer and explained the situation, confident that she would grease the wheels of financial service as she had before. She indicated that all I needed to do was to take two copies of my passport to the bank on campus and they would take care of it. Ah good - that sounds easy. I asked our student volunteer Sylvia to go with me since my finance Chinese is sorely lacking. Upon our arrival she explained the situation to the teller who indicated the following stipulations.
1) All lost card requests must be submitted prior to 3:30 PM
2) The lost card request must be written out in Chinese
3) The lost card request must be written by the person who wants the new card.
At the time, it was 4pm so we couldn't submit the request that day. The following day Sylvia and I returned, this time at 2pm. We gave the teller my passport copies. The copies were not full size -- they were slightly smaller than my actual passport. She had to call someone to confirm they were usable, and thankfully they were. Next, she gave us two forms to fill out and sternly instructed Sylvia that I MUST write it myself or it could not be accepted. We took several copies of the form so Sylvia could fill one out and I could do my best to emulate her writing. The first few parts of the form weren't too bad but eventually some VERY complex characters were required and I made a mistake. Well, it turns out that you can't scratch anything out on the form. If you make even the smallest error, you MUST fill out a new form - they cannot accept a damaged one. Sylvia realized that if we kept going at our snail's pace we would never finish by 3:30pm. Our new strategy was for her to fill the form out with her left hand. It would look different from her normal handwriting and crude enough to pass for a foreigner that had no idea what he was writing.
The process went like this - we waited for a customer to be served by our particular teller, then Sylvia would fill the form out with her left hand, while I would pretend to be writing on a separate sheet of paper. We finished those two forms...then were handed another 3 to fill out! We were essentially filling out the same information over and over, just in different forms. One was the "I lost my card" form, another was the "Please give me a new one" form, and yet another was the "Authorize an investigation of the loss of the card" form. They were endless. Oh -- and the forms must be filled out with black ink. We did one form in blue and it was rejected. In another instance, the forms had carbon copies attached but Sylvia's left-hand Chinese didn't press all the way through to the last sheet - we had to do it again.
Finally we finished all the forms after an hour and 15 minutes...just inside the 3:30 deadline. The teller asked Sylvia repeatedly if I had filled out the forms. "Of course!" she answered - which was partially true. I did write the account numbers, my english name, and the date. I am so glad they didn't ask me...I am the worst liar.
Some of you may read that and think it's not that surprising. We've all been in situations with large bureaucracies and dealt with paper pushers and silly rules that don't make sense. The bank teller said I had to fill the form because some Chinese person had a stolen a foreigner's money by filling out such a form and tricking them. I argued that I had to trust that Sylvia was writing the correct things anyway - it was a useless precaution. I think what is instructive about this event is the comparison of Chinese business and American business. I can remember when I worked in New York at a large investment bank. EVERYTHING is about efficiency. Don't have 6 forms when 1 will do. Make it easier for the customer and faster for the company. Make it require fewer people. Who knows, maybe it's just as bad to get a new ATM card in the US - not sure since it hasn't happened to me. And yes, US corporations do take security seriously at the same time they put things online and streamline how routine tasks like new ATM cards are handled. But the mentality here is totally different. Processes in China are designed to incorporate more people rather than fewer.
It's funny, on occasion the extra people required for every task in China are good for the customer. Sometimes you get better service because there are so many people looking out for you. Most of the time though, it's inefficiency for inefficiency's sake. C and I both laugh at the grocery stores here -- EVERY single aisle has an employee in it, ostensibly to help you find what you need in that aisle, but more likely the purpose is to give the people jobs. Perhaps they'll be bored to tears because they get to talk to only one customer a day, but at least they won't be staring down tanks or complaining they can't read the news everyone else in the world gets to read.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
D - Being There
When you move to a new country, you feel like you're living on Mars for awhile. Everything is unique and different. The smallest comment from a native can generate a laugh or an insightful comment into the subtle differences separating your two countries. Eventually though, you settle in. You develop a routine. The place isn't home, but you carve out a niche and find some local comforts, or maybe spend a little too much money buying some from your homeland. You never forget that you're in a foreign place, but you adjust.
I think that's the point that C and I have hit this week. Our families know that we've been struggling a bit with teaching - and no matter where you are or what you're doing, your job is a big part of your life. If it's a struggle then the whole of your existence can be trying at times. The lesson here is pretty straightforward. No matter where you go and no matter what you do, you've got to find the something more that makes life worthwhile. For us, that's our faith and our family and a belief that every experience in life has a purpose. We're not in China just because it's a great place to be a tourist and I can assure it's not because we love teaching English to unmotivated Chinese university students. Just like everything else, it's preparing us for some future step in life.
It's weeks like this where I dwell on these things, primarily because I am pretty frustrated with teaching. You'll find a number of different attitudes from the other English teachers. Some of them don't care much at all. They do what they have to get by and little more. Others like teaching and spend all class long playing games but I am not convinced they ever teach the students anything. Finally, the last set actually care to impart knowledge to the students but are frustrated to no end by the peculiarities of trying to teach English here. I won't lie - I have been in each category. Sometimes in the same day my attitude will shift from to the other.
Here's why teaching here can be difficult-
1) Skill level varies tremendously between students. The freshmen I have are closer in ability than the juniors but it's still a wide range.
2) The students lack a tremendous amount of vocabulary. Our class is Oral English I. The book we use is primarily to get students to speak and to practice pronunciation. And that's all well good but it's hard to have even a basic conversation if you don't know certain words. But I don't have a vocabulary book to use to teach them with even if I could incorporate it.
3) Students almost NEVER raise their hand. At first I didn't mind calling on people but it's really frustrating after awhile when you ask really easy yes or no questions and not a single person will bother. You have to call on them every time.
4) You can plan a very detailed lesson and have it fail. Teaching requires a lot of effort. You have to plan and then present in class. Then in class you have to adjust on the fly to how students are responding. Are they learning? Is it interesting? Do I need to move to something else if they don't like this, or do I force them to do it?
My mother is a teacher and I know she is a good one. Being here has given me even more respect for her than I had before. And she teaches "at-risk" youth, which makes teaching ESL look like a day at the beach. Teaching is not easy! I am now amazed at the good teachers and professors I had in school and in college. And now I understand why the bad ones were bad. When you work a 9-5, you can have a good hour at work and produce something that made the whole 8 hours worthwhile. As a teacher, you prepare beforehand, then you have to present the preparation well. Finally, you have to give good out of class assignments and deal with grading them. If you fail at any step along the way, they don't learn - and to top it off, you may feel awkward in class knowing that the lesson is a partial failure. Teaching is the curse of caring. I used curse there primarily for the alliteration - but it often feels like those who long to do good are fighting an uphill battle.
My hometown newspaper has a regular column called "The Vent" where people call in to express their frustration about some local (usually insignificant) issue. I guess this is my Vent entry! I don't think they will publish it in the China Daily though.
I think that's the point that C and I have hit this week. Our families know that we've been struggling a bit with teaching - and no matter where you are or what you're doing, your job is a big part of your life. If it's a struggle then the whole of your existence can be trying at times. The lesson here is pretty straightforward. No matter where you go and no matter what you do, you've got to find the something more that makes life worthwhile. For us, that's our faith and our family and a belief that every experience in life has a purpose. We're not in China just because it's a great place to be a tourist and I can assure it's not because we love teaching English to unmotivated Chinese university students. Just like everything else, it's preparing us for some future step in life.
It's weeks like this where I dwell on these things, primarily because I am pretty frustrated with teaching. You'll find a number of different attitudes from the other English teachers. Some of them don't care much at all. They do what they have to get by and little more. Others like teaching and spend all class long playing games but I am not convinced they ever teach the students anything. Finally, the last set actually care to impart knowledge to the students but are frustrated to no end by the peculiarities of trying to teach English here. I won't lie - I have been in each category. Sometimes in the same day my attitude will shift from to the other.
Here's why teaching here can be difficult-
1) Skill level varies tremendously between students. The freshmen I have are closer in ability than the juniors but it's still a wide range.
2) The students lack a tremendous amount of vocabulary. Our class is Oral English I. The book we use is primarily to get students to speak and to practice pronunciation. And that's all well good but it's hard to have even a basic conversation if you don't know certain words. But I don't have a vocabulary book to use to teach them with even if I could incorporate it.
3) Students almost NEVER raise their hand. At first I didn't mind calling on people but it's really frustrating after awhile when you ask really easy yes or no questions and not a single person will bother. You have to call on them every time.
4) You can plan a very detailed lesson and have it fail. Teaching requires a lot of effort. You have to plan and then present in class. Then in class you have to adjust on the fly to how students are responding. Are they learning? Is it interesting? Do I need to move to something else if they don't like this, or do I force them to do it?
My mother is a teacher and I know she is a good one. Being here has given me even more respect for her than I had before. And she teaches "at-risk" youth, which makes teaching ESL look like a day at the beach. Teaching is not easy! I am now amazed at the good teachers and professors I had in school and in college. And now I understand why the bad ones were bad. When you work a 9-5, you can have a good hour at work and produce something that made the whole 8 hours worthwhile. As a teacher, you prepare beforehand, then you have to present the preparation well. Finally, you have to give good out of class assignments and deal with grading them. If you fail at any step along the way, they don't learn - and to top it off, you may feel awkward in class knowing that the lesson is a partial failure. Teaching is the curse of caring. I used curse there primarily for the alliteration - but it often feels like those who long to do good are fighting an uphill battle.
My hometown newspaper has a regular column called "The Vent" where people call in to express their frustration about some local (usually insignificant) issue. I guess this is my Vent entry! I don't think they will publish it in the China Daily though.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
C - on absorbing (culture) shock
Sometimes I feel that China is a rubik's cube that I'm ever so slowly putting in order. Week by week, I notice that the signs and billboards are revealing more and more bits of their meaning and that conversations are becoming less and less unintelligible to me. It's a good feeling.
It's exhilarating to feel the blinders coming off, the clouds clearing up, the little mysteries being solved. Every little thing I figure out fuels my motivation to keep studying, keep practicing, keep trying. But then China gets in the way. Just when I start to feel even moderately adjusted, confident, and content, China finds some new way to offend, annoy, horrify, or confound me. And then I don't want to talk to ANY Chinese people, and if I don't want to do that, why would I study the language?
But the point of this entry is not to rant about Chinese culture. I do that vicariously through talktalkchina.com. The thought that's been brewing in my head all day is amazement at the people I know whose parents (or they themselves as children) emigrated from China or Korea. I knew in my mind that these cultures were different from that of the United States, but living here in China has caused me to grasp more fully the enormity of the fundamental incompatibility that exists between East and West.
At our old church in New Jersey (www.emetro.org), we met and became friends with a good amount of first-generation Americans. These people were proud of their Asian heritage and (rightfully) considered it an important part of their identity, but I didn't feel an enormous gulf separating us like the one that exists between me and the Chinese people here in China. Sometimes I feel like I have absolutely nothing in common with the people here.
Obviously my friends' parents felt they weren't completely incompatible with life in the US if they moved their family there, but I'm amazed at the open-mindedness both they and their children seem to possess in order to be able to function in both cultures. So, P, J, A/Y, S/P, S, K, Y, and anyone else I might have failed to think of, if you're reading this, please know that I think you guys are amazing. Right now I need to take a lesson from your great example!
It's exhilarating to feel the blinders coming off, the clouds clearing up, the little mysteries being solved. Every little thing I figure out fuels my motivation to keep studying, keep practicing, keep trying. But then China gets in the way. Just when I start to feel even moderately adjusted, confident, and content, China finds some new way to offend, annoy, horrify, or confound me. And then I don't want to talk to ANY Chinese people, and if I don't want to do that, why would I study the language?
But the point of this entry is not to rant about Chinese culture. I do that vicariously through talktalkchina.com. The thought that's been brewing in my head all day is amazement at the people I know whose parents (or they themselves as children) emigrated from China or Korea. I knew in my mind that these cultures were different from that of the United States, but living here in China has caused me to grasp more fully the enormity of the fundamental incompatibility that exists between East and West.
At our old church in New Jersey (www.emetro.org), we met and became friends with a good amount of first-generation Americans. These people were proud of their Asian heritage and (rightfully) considered it an important part of their identity, but I didn't feel an enormous gulf separating us like the one that exists between me and the Chinese people here in China. Sometimes I feel like I have absolutely nothing in common with the people here.
Obviously my friends' parents felt they weren't completely incompatible with life in the US if they moved their family there, but I'm amazed at the open-mindedness both they and their children seem to possess in order to be able to function in both cultures. So, P, J, A/Y, S/P, S, K, Y, and anyone else I might have failed to think of, if you're reading this, please know that I think you guys are amazing. Right now I need to take a lesson from your great example!
D - Shenyang Concluded
We have returned from Xi'an and I'm still writing about Shenyang. When you have a lot to work on and a lot to say it's easy to get behind. I finally decided to use the Google Picasa Photo Albums so now we can just upload all our pictures and you can view them at your leisure. The general link to all our photos will be this and the Shenyang specific link is here.
I want to close out Shenyang with a video. It's the usual handheld herky-jerky-likely-to-make-you-ill variety, but it will give you a sense of the energy that a Chinese city can have. The energy is why many people come to China. Even in New York City, it's hard to find the same kind of excitement and adrenaline. The street in Shenyang featured hundreds of people milling about - shopping, talking, laughing, eating. Some western cities have one-off events that feature this level of atmosphere but in China it happens everyday. If you hate crowds, it can be maddening but if you let go of your personal space for a few minutes it can be truly exhilarating. The night markets in China are quite a sight. The peddlers have DVDs, socks, bras, candy, cell phones, terra cotta soldiers, and trinkets out the wazoo.
Without further ado, the video.
I want to close out Shenyang with a video. It's the usual handheld herky-jerky-likely-to-make-you-ill variety, but it will give you a sense of the energy that a Chinese city can have. The energy is why many people come to China. Even in New York City, it's hard to find the same kind of excitement and adrenaline. The street in Shenyang featured hundreds of people milling about - shopping, talking, laughing, eating. Some western cities have one-off events that feature this level of atmosphere but in China it happens everyday. If you hate crowds, it can be maddening but if you let go of your personal space for a few minutes it can be truly exhilarating. The night markets in China are quite a sight. The peddlers have DVDs, socks, bras, candy, cell phones, terra cotta soldiers, and trinkets out the wazoo.
Without further ado, the video.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
D - On the road again
Well, now we're headed to Xi'an with our Danish friends. I haven't even finished uploading the entries about Shenyang...but what can you do. We will be back next Thursday evening with another boatload of pictures. With our additional classes this last week time was at a premium, but fear not loyal readers, we will continue posting for your vicarious China enjoyment.
Until then
再见
Until then
再见
Saturday, September 30, 2006
D - Shenyang Part 2 - The Exposition
After getting off the train Friday night, we found a very nice taxi driver to take us to our hotel. He was Shenyangese and claimed he could be an excellent tour guide. Sylvia judged him to be trustworthy so we invited him to pick us up at 8am the next morning to take us to the Exposition. The Expo was located about 15km east of Shenyang city and was surrounded by a very beautiful countryside. Only the faint tinge of brown on the horizon could detract from the views around the Expo grounds.
The Exposition began at the end of May and continues through the end of October 2006. So we were catching it at the end of its life. Despite this, overall it was a good experience. One thing you have to remember when judging it is that it's in China. In other words, even if the presentation is bad, it would be good, because we're learning how other people do things and what exhibits are interesting to their mind. Anyway, I would liken it almost more to a World's Fair than a Horticultural Exposition. There were two main categories of sites - Chinese Domestic Exhibitions and International Exhibitions. Each site had plants and gardens from the respective region or country, but there were also stores selling (supposedly) unique items from their culture. Strange how Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar all seemed to be selling the same stuff! Of course, my favorite display was put on by Turkey. They didn't actually setup a garden or sell any kitsch, but they grilled up some mean mutton kebabs - very tasty! Our only non-food purchase of the day was made at the India garden where C picked up some incense.
And here are the pictures...starting with the entrance to the exposition. We have many more than this but I still haven't found a photo gallery site I like yet.
Some interesting tree root art
Doing a "Miao" dance in front of a prototypical "Miao" home
One of the many China Regional Gardens. Who's the funny white guy?
Chinese sentiments can seem cheesy to a Westerner
Something you won't see at a US Exposition: A North Korean booth
The Lily Tower built for the exposition
Something else you won't see at a US Exposition: a ropes course??
The Dutch Garden sporting some Van Gogh
The American garden seeks to educate about great American leaders like Washinglon and Einstin.
Sylvia and Cassie hanging out in front of the Italian garden
A rose is a rose
The Exposition began at the end of May and continues through the end of October 2006. So we were catching it at the end of its life. Despite this, overall it was a good experience. One thing you have to remember when judging it is that it's in China. In other words, even if the presentation is bad, it would be good, because we're learning how other people do things and what exhibits are interesting to their mind. Anyway, I would liken it almost more to a World's Fair than a Horticultural Exposition. There were two main categories of sites - Chinese Domestic Exhibitions and International Exhibitions. Each site had plants and gardens from the respective region or country, but there were also stores selling (supposedly) unique items from their culture. Strange how Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar all seemed to be selling the same stuff! Of course, my favorite display was put on by Turkey. They didn't actually setup a garden or sell any kitsch, but they grilled up some mean mutton kebabs - very tasty! Our only non-food purchase of the day was made at the India garden where C picked up some incense.
And here are the pictures...starting with the entrance to the exposition. We have many more than this but I still haven't found a photo gallery site I like yet.
Some interesting tree root art
Doing a "Miao" dance in front of a prototypical "Miao" home
One of the many China Regional Gardens. Who's the funny white guy?
Chinese sentiments can seem cheesy to a Westerner
Something you won't see at a US Exposition: A North Korean booth
The Lily Tower built for the exposition
Something else you won't see at a US Exposition: a ropes course??
The Dutch Garden sporting some Van Gogh
The American garden seeks to educate about great American leaders like Washinglon and Einstin.
Sylvia and Cassie hanging out in front of the Italian garden
A rose is a rose
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
D - Shenyang Part 1 - The Train
Well we have returned successfully from our first intra-China travel experience. It began Friday afternoon when we met our student volunteer Sylvia and her roommate Cassie at the closest bus stop. We took the 502 downtown and got off near the train station, which was the haven of madness we expected. Not only was it packed to the brim with everyday Chinese travellers, but there were hundreds of soldiers everywhere, apparently headed off from Dalian to fill the train station of another city. We were about an hour early for the train so we hung out in the waiting area. There were probably a 1000 people milling about where we were and we felt like every single one of them was staring at us. People would be minding their own business and then make a sudden veer our way. They would inquire in Chinese with our friends as to where we were from and what we were doing. Sylvia explained that many people who travel by train are farmers who may have never seen a foreigner before - and I believe it. The tickets for our friends to Shenyang were 15 RMB - about $1.90! China's train system make it possible for even the poorest to get transportation.
Right before we headed to get on the train at 3:30, I decided to hit the WC. Now the bathroom in any public place like the train station is never nice, but this was a whole new level of unniceness. Actually, the bathroom itself was no worse than your average interstate rest stop, but the air was literally like breathing pure tobacco smoke. You can't smoke in the train station central area (and it's actually enforced), but I know where they go to get their fix! Ugh. Finally, we got on the train. Sadly, we don't have any pictures of the station or the train. From the outside, it was a pale green and looked every bit to be from a bygone communist era. I should add that we took the 2209 train, which is the slowest and least comfortable train. From what I read, there are some very nice trains here but our students of course chose the most economic option.
There are four classes of seats on most Chinese trains: hard seats, soft seats, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper - if you're curious on the distinctions, click here. The picture of the hard seats (our class) is relatively close to our experience with a few exceptions. For example, MANY people in China will stand in the hard seat compartments for incredibly long journeys. Having an aisle seat isn't as advantageous when you have people roaming up and down hoping to find a spare seat, or maybe just leaning on your seat. I was talking to a student today and he told me that to get from his home in central China to Dalian, he would STAND for 22 hours. Another girl got to sit on her train journey to Dalian, but it took 50 hours from her home in Gansu province.
Thankfully we didn't need the restroom on the train so I can't report any findings there. Our dinner consisted of ramen noodles brought by our friends. You can get hot water on the train to make that sort of ready-to-eat dish. The journey itself was okay - there were probably 6 or 7 stops of 3-10 minutes on the way to Shenyang. My bottom was certainly ready to get off though at the 6 hour and 15 minute mark when we arrived at the Shenyang North train station.
Right before we headed to get on the train at 3:30, I decided to hit the WC. Now the bathroom in any public place like the train station is never nice, but this was a whole new level of unniceness. Actually, the bathroom itself was no worse than your average interstate rest stop, but the air was literally like breathing pure tobacco smoke. You can't smoke in the train station central area (and it's actually enforced), but I know where they go to get their fix! Ugh. Finally, we got on the train. Sadly, we don't have any pictures of the station or the train. From the outside, it was a pale green and looked every bit to be from a bygone communist era. I should add that we took the 2209 train, which is the slowest and least comfortable train. From what I read, there are some very nice trains here but our students of course chose the most economic option.
There are four classes of seats on most Chinese trains: hard seats, soft seats, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper - if you're curious on the distinctions, click here. The picture of the hard seats (our class) is relatively close to our experience with a few exceptions. For example, MANY people in China will stand in the hard seat compartments for incredibly long journeys. Having an aisle seat isn't as advantageous when you have people roaming up and down hoping to find a spare seat, or maybe just leaning on your seat. I was talking to a student today and he told me that to get from his home in central China to Dalian, he would STAND for 22 hours. Another girl got to sit on her train journey to Dalian, but it took 50 hours from her home in Gansu province.
Thankfully we didn't need the restroom on the train so I can't report any findings there. Our dinner consisted of ramen noodles brought by our friends. You can get hot water on the train to make that sort of ready-to-eat dish. The journey itself was okay - there were probably 6 or 7 stops of 3-10 minutes on the way to Shenyang. My bottom was certainly ready to get off though at the 6 hour and 15 minute mark when we arrived at the Shenyang North train station.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
D - Holy Shenyang Batman!
Well, this entry will be the last for a few days. We're one week away from our trip to Xi'an and somehow we managed to get another trip together. Our student volunteer was going to the International Horticultural Exposition in Shenyang, China this weekend with her roommate and we asked her if we could tag along. Shenyang is a heavily industrial city about 6 hours north of Dalian by train. The pronunciation sounds like "Shunyahng" according to the Chinese pinyin phonetic system. It's the capital of Liaoning province. Once known as Mukden, it was a hub of industry setup by the Japanese during their occupation of Manchuria during the second Sino-Japanese War. Throughout the 60s and 70s it was among the most successful industrial cities in China, but as market reforms took place in the 80s and 90s it fell behind some of the other cities. It's supposed to be rather dirty and polluted so I suspect this exposition is an effort to try and rebuild some of its reputation.
Ironically, my father has actually been to Shenyang. He gave a speech that was broadcast on state TV in the mid 90s. He gives an interesting description of his visit there. His company was investing about $50,000 in a local Chinese firm, which is pretty small. The hosts of his visit however went all out with a huge banquet and celebration at this magnificent occasion of Sino-American partnership!
The trip will see a number of firsts for me (C is far more Chinaperienced with her study abroad trip so this is old hat for her).
First stay at a Chinese hotel
First train trip in China
First visit to Shenyang
First trip with Chinese friends
One of the firsts I hope to avoid is - "First time using a squat toilet while going around a curve on a Chinese train"!
Some maps from the exposition web site are below...in English.
Ironically, my father has actually been to Shenyang. He gave a speech that was broadcast on state TV in the mid 90s. He gives an interesting description of his visit there. His company was investing about $50,000 in a local Chinese firm, which is pretty small. The hosts of his visit however went all out with a huge banquet and celebration at this magnificent occasion of Sino-American partnership!
The trip will see a number of firsts for me (C is far more Chinaperienced with her study abroad trip so this is old hat for her).
First stay at a Chinese hotel
First train trip in China
First visit to Shenyang
First trip with Chinese friends
One of the firsts I hope to avoid is - "First time using a squat toilet while going around a curve on a Chinese train"!
Some maps from the exposition web site are below...in English.
C - worth a thousand characters
Before we take off for the weekend, here are some pictures from our latest adventures:
At Noah's For Your Ark bar, which D alluded to in his previous post, we came across this very special menu:
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I've been wanting a Chinese scroll painting for some time, so our student volunteer, Sylvia, took us to a mall downtown last Friday. I was able to find a beautiful painting and a very pretty fan. Each item cost 50 yuan, or just over 6 USD. I am very pleased with both:
The photos don't give a very good sense of scale, so I'll guess that the painting is 10" x 30", and the fan is probably just over a foot wide.
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This next photo is of a bizarre food made from potato that is apparently exclusive to Dalian. It's pretty tasty. I forget the name of it, but here you can see me chopping up what was left over after Sylvia made it for us the night before:
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And finally, a delightful photo I took just now of my dearest darling D:
He was feeling pretty bad this evening after finding out that he hugely offended our student volunteer by offering to pay for the hotel we booked for our trip to Shenyang, and then I had to ask him for computer help afterwards, which always puts him in a rather, how shall we say, brusque mood, so he wasn't exactly inclined to take a silly picture. I REALLY thought that the cookies he was eating looked like cigars, though, and after some pleading on my part he agreed to put his feet up on his desk and "smoke". And that is why I love him.
At Noah's For Your Ark bar, which D alluded to in his previous post, we came across this very special menu:
The picture isn't the greatest, but if you click on the photo and view it full-sized, you can clearly view the many humorous offerings, not the least of which is "peach pai" ("pai" would be pronounced "pie" in the Chinese phonetic system.) What really takes the cake (or pai, perhaps) for me, though, is #9 -- BBQ wikipedia. I knew that the Chinese government didn't like the thing, but jeez! This is a bit cruel!
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China is corrupting my value system. Two American businesses I've consciously objected to buying from for years, KFC and Wal-mart, are now something I treasure and look forward to patronizing! I realized the extent of my depravity the other day while throwing KFC take-out containers into a plastic bag from Wal-mart we're using for garbage:
Sad.
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I've been wanting a Chinese scroll painting for some time, so our student volunteer, Sylvia, took us to a mall downtown last Friday. I was able to find a beautiful painting and a very pretty fan. Each item cost 50 yuan, or just over 6 USD. I am very pleased with both:
The photos don't give a very good sense of scale, so I'll guess that the painting is 10" x 30", and the fan is probably just over a foot wide.
-----------
This next photo is of a bizarre food made from potato that is apparently exclusive to Dalian. It's pretty tasty. I forget the name of it, but here you can see me chopping up what was left over after Sylvia made it for us the night before:
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And finally, a delightful photo I took just now of my dearest darling D:
He was feeling pretty bad this evening after finding out that he hugely offended our student volunteer by offering to pay for the hotel we booked for our trip to Shenyang, and then I had to ask him for computer help afterwards, which always puts him in a rather, how shall we say, brusque mood, so he wasn't exactly inclined to take a silly picture. I REALLY thought that the cookies he was eating looked like cigars, though, and after some pleading on my part he agreed to put his feet up on his desk and "smoke". And that is why I love him.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
D - Socializing with Chinese characteristics
Well, this has been an easy week for me. Currently I have 4 sections of students. 2 of those sections only have 1 class this week (8-9:30 Friday and 10-11:30 Friday), and the other 2 sections have shipped off to the island of Hainan for some hands on ship training. While my charges are enjoying the cramped splendor of a Chinese freighter, this means I have Monday through Thursday totally off. Really it's just the calm before the storm. Next week the freshmen, who have been marching around the first 5 weeks of school for required military training, will begin their class for the semester. The impact for us is that our measly 8-9 hours a week of teaching will rise to 12, 14, and finally 16 during certain weeks. It won't be too bad though because now we have a few lesson plans stored up.
So what have we been up to the last few days? Well last week we were conferring with our Danish friends about our trip to Xi'an when one of the student volunteers stopped by. She wanted to formalize the group of students who help the foreign teachers and students into a "Student Union" (Club) and she needed a good name. We bandied about several ideas but eventually she settled on my suggestion - "Foreign Friendship Volunteers". The criteria were that the name be "easy to remember" but "clearly state what our purpose is". Now in Chinese, this is easy - slap down 3 or 4 characters and you can tell the history of a dynasty it seems. In English though, you need a lot of letters!
Once the name was chosen, this volunteer wanted to organize a party for the students and the foreigners to celebrate the official kick-off of the student union. We helped draft their advertisements which were sent out via email and posted on the outside of the foreign teachers building. Well last Saturday was the day for the big event. It took place in the Student Activity Center on campus. The volunteers had a staffed bar serving (warm) beer and soda, and a nicely appointed dance floor replete with the requisite disco balls, light patterns, and spotlights. The evening kicked off with several dance performances. A few Chinese girls did some hip hop, while there was even a bit of Latin dancing from an older Chinese couple, who were followed by their younger proteges. There were two vocal performances in English by the winners of their equivalent to the American Idol contest at DMU. They also managed to talk Derek, a foreign teacher into playing the guitar and singing a few songs - he regaled the Chinese students with Oasis and John Denver. He had quite the singing voice, I was impressed. The evening continued with a bit of slow dancing. C and I were recruited on to the dance floor, but separately. I tried to dance with some Chinese girl, and some Chinese guy tried to show her the dance. Sadly we were not too successful but at least we gave it try. Finally, the rest of the evening was caught up in an epileptic's worst nightmare as the Chinese students flooded the dance floor to break it down to the world's best english techno. Apparently dancing all night to electronica is the Chinese night life, although they didn't so much dance as rotate in concentric human circles.
We topped off Saturday night with a brief visit to "Noah's: For your ark bar" with a few of the foreign teachers. We had some Asahi (very dry Japanese beer) and enjoyed some pizza from their oven, which wasn't all bad. All in all it was a good night. The student volunteers did a great job putting the event together on incredibly short notice. They are really great to us. All the teachers keep raving about the students. DMU should really advertise that the student volunteers exist - without them this experience would not be the great thing that it's been so far. We are certainly getting better at navigating with our limited Chinese but there are times it is invaluable to have a fluent speaker. It's also just a great cultural exchange. For example, we needed to go to the post office to mail our absentee voting request to our districts back in the US. We asked our volunteer to help us mail them. "Could you give us some help, we're trying to VOTE?"
On the way to the post office our volunteer remarked that it would be very expensive for 1.3 billion Chinese to vote in an election. A very astute economic observation no doubt, but nothing good comes cheap!
So what have we been up to the last few days? Well last week we were conferring with our Danish friends about our trip to Xi'an when one of the student volunteers stopped by. She wanted to formalize the group of students who help the foreign teachers and students into a "Student Union" (Club) and she needed a good name. We bandied about several ideas but eventually she settled on my suggestion - "Foreign Friendship Volunteers". The criteria were that the name be "easy to remember" but "clearly state what our purpose is". Now in Chinese, this is easy - slap down 3 or 4 characters and you can tell the history of a dynasty it seems. In English though, you need a lot of letters!
Once the name was chosen, this volunteer wanted to organize a party for the students and the foreigners to celebrate the official kick-off of the student union. We helped draft their advertisements which were sent out via email and posted on the outside of the foreign teachers building. Well last Saturday was the day for the big event. It took place in the Student Activity Center on campus. The volunteers had a staffed bar serving (warm) beer and soda, and a nicely appointed dance floor replete with the requisite disco balls, light patterns, and spotlights. The evening kicked off with several dance performances. A few Chinese girls did some hip hop, while there was even a bit of Latin dancing from an older Chinese couple, who were followed by their younger proteges. There were two vocal performances in English by the winners of their equivalent to the American Idol contest at DMU. They also managed to talk Derek, a foreign teacher into playing the guitar and singing a few songs - he regaled the Chinese students with Oasis and John Denver. He had quite the singing voice, I was impressed. The evening continued with a bit of slow dancing. C and I were recruited on to the dance floor, but separately. I tried to dance with some Chinese girl, and some Chinese guy tried to show her the dance. Sadly we were not too successful but at least we gave it try. Finally, the rest of the evening was caught up in an epileptic's worst nightmare as the Chinese students flooded the dance floor to break it down to the world's best english techno. Apparently dancing all night to electronica is the Chinese night life, although they didn't so much dance as rotate in concentric human circles.
We topped off Saturday night with a brief visit to "Noah's: For your ark bar" with a few of the foreign teachers. We had some Asahi (very dry Japanese beer) and enjoyed some pizza from their oven, which wasn't all bad. All in all it was a good night. The student volunteers did a great job putting the event together on incredibly short notice. They are really great to us. All the teachers keep raving about the students. DMU should really advertise that the student volunteers exist - without them this experience would not be the great thing that it's been so far. We are certainly getting better at navigating with our limited Chinese but there are times it is invaluable to have a fluent speaker. It's also just a great cultural exchange. For example, we needed to go to the post office to mail our absentee voting request to our districts back in the US. We asked our volunteer to help us mail them. "Could you give us some help, we're trying to VOTE?"
On the way to the post office our volunteer remarked that it would be very expensive for 1.3 billion Chinese to vote in an election. A very astute economic observation no doubt, but nothing good comes cheap!
Saturday, September 16, 2006
C - on a heavier note
You can easily judge the character of a man by the way he treats those who can do nothing for him. -- Unknown
For the past several days, I have been unable to practice Chinese, develop lesson plans, reply to emails, or work on my law school applications. Any higher-level thought processes I might be capable of have been completely overwhelmed by my aching heart and screaming conscience.
In my ninth grade “Global Studies” class, I learned about the sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, and abandonment of baby girls that takes place at astonishing levels in China. The stories of these practices made an impression on me like nothing else ever had. Even though it would be years before I would hear of feminism, I instinctively felt that there was something very wrong with valuing girls less than boys, and certainly it was downright evil to murder baby girls simply because they are girls.
That day’s lessons have stayed with me. In fact, what I learned in that class has in large part motivated my current year-long relocation to China. What I was completely unaware of until recently, however, was that the Chinese customs that privilege males over females are actually used as justification for the unhealthy attitudes toward girls. The customs aren’t questioned, and since the values are based on the customs, how could the values be wrong? I’ve had this argument made to me half a dozen times, and in none of the instances did the other person ever think to consider that perhaps the customs are inappropriate as well. “Thinking outside the box” is not a very Chinese thing to do, apparently.
Speaking about these cultural phenomena on a sociological level, though, isn’t what’s been keeping me up at night. What makes my heart ache is to hear a beautiful, intelligent girl tell me that it doesn’t bother her that her grandparents love her male cousin more, just because he’s male, or to see my immature and lazy (male) students act so smugly superior day in and day out. The young women at this university, even those who don’t have boyfriends and are otherwise unconcerned with marriage and parenthood, desperately want to have a son in the future. They don’t see anything wrong with preferring males; in fact, given their culture, it would be illogical not to prefer males.
Some cultural differences, such as music, food, fashion, etiquette, etc, are completely relative, and any preference for one culture over another would simply be a matter of individual taste. I would defend these aspects of Chinese culture to the end against any Westerner who thinks that their culture is superior. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the opposite of an arrogant, idiotic American who believes that the whole world should be like the USA. For me to be so upset, then, this must be a matter of a different sort.
I believe that the quote located at the beginning of this entry is true. Even if the Chinese customs that disadvantage females were immutable (although I don’t believe that they are), it’s still not right for females to be valued less. They can’t pass on your family name? Won’t be expected to live with you in your old age? Can’t work the land as hard? Can’t give you your “own” grandchildren? Love them equally anyways. Value them equally anyways. Even better would be to change the customs that have created the preference of sons over daughters, but if that isn’t possible, it’s still no excuse to prefer males. Letting the girls live is just the first step. The preference, in and of itself, is what I am taking issue with.
Think of the precedent that is set by the kind of thinking that values girls less than boys. If we as humans value others only to the extent that they are helpful and useful to us, we exchange our humanity for a cold, calculating kind of utilitarianism that creates a world I don’t think any of us would want to live in. We all have shortcomings and flaws, but instead of bearing with one another in patience and love, we would simply lower our view of the offending party’s level of innate worth according to the extent we were harmed by it.
The choice is either to value other human beings for their innate dignity, worth, and personhood, or diminish humanity altogether: those devalued for obvious reasons, and those doing the de-valuing by being allowed to develop such selfish patterns of thought. I don’t know if this aspect of Chinese culture will ever change. All I know is that I’m deeply troubled, and that I seem to be the only person here who is.
For the past several days, I have been unable to practice Chinese, develop lesson plans, reply to emails, or work on my law school applications. Any higher-level thought processes I might be capable of have been completely overwhelmed by my aching heart and screaming conscience.
In my ninth grade “Global Studies” class, I learned about the sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, and abandonment of baby girls that takes place at astonishing levels in China. The stories of these practices made an impression on me like nothing else ever had. Even though it would be years before I would hear of feminism, I instinctively felt that there was something very wrong with valuing girls less than boys, and certainly it was downright evil to murder baby girls simply because they are girls.
That day’s lessons have stayed with me. In fact, what I learned in that class has in large part motivated my current year-long relocation to China. What I was completely unaware of until recently, however, was that the Chinese customs that privilege males over females are actually used as justification for the unhealthy attitudes toward girls. The customs aren’t questioned, and since the values are based on the customs, how could the values be wrong? I’ve had this argument made to me half a dozen times, and in none of the instances did the other person ever think to consider that perhaps the customs are inappropriate as well. “Thinking outside the box” is not a very Chinese thing to do, apparently.
Speaking about these cultural phenomena on a sociological level, though, isn’t what’s been keeping me up at night. What makes my heart ache is to hear a beautiful, intelligent girl tell me that it doesn’t bother her that her grandparents love her male cousin more, just because he’s male, or to see my immature and lazy (male) students act so smugly superior day in and day out. The young women at this university, even those who don’t have boyfriends and are otherwise unconcerned with marriage and parenthood, desperately want to have a son in the future. They don’t see anything wrong with preferring males; in fact, given their culture, it would be illogical not to prefer males.
Some cultural differences, such as music, food, fashion, etiquette, etc, are completely relative, and any preference for one culture over another would simply be a matter of individual taste. I would defend these aspects of Chinese culture to the end against any Westerner who thinks that their culture is superior. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the opposite of an arrogant, idiotic American who believes that the whole world should be like the USA. For me to be so upset, then, this must be a matter of a different sort.
I believe that the quote located at the beginning of this entry is true. Even if the Chinese customs that disadvantage females were immutable (although I don’t believe that they are), it’s still not right for females to be valued less. They can’t pass on your family name? Won’t be expected to live with you in your old age? Can’t work the land as hard? Can’t give you your “own” grandchildren? Love them equally anyways. Value them equally anyways. Even better would be to change the customs that have created the preference of sons over daughters, but if that isn’t possible, it’s still no excuse to prefer males. Letting the girls live is just the first step. The preference, in and of itself, is what I am taking issue with.
Think of the precedent that is set by the kind of thinking that values girls less than boys. If we as humans value others only to the extent that they are helpful and useful to us, we exchange our humanity for a cold, calculating kind of utilitarianism that creates a world I don’t think any of us would want to live in. We all have shortcomings and flaws, but instead of bearing with one another in patience and love, we would simply lower our view of the offending party’s level of innate worth according to the extent we were harmed by it.
The choice is either to value other human beings for their innate dignity, worth, and personhood, or diminish humanity altogether: those devalued for obvious reasons, and those doing the de-valuing by being allowed to develop such selfish patterns of thought. I don’t know if this aspect of Chinese culture will ever change. All I know is that I’m deeply troubled, and that I seem to be the only person here who is.
D - Xi'an or bust
Well C and I have decided to go to the city of Xi'an for 十一（10/1 - The Chinese National Holiday). We get a week off from school and we didn't want to putter around campus for 7 days thinking about all the cool places we could be going.
Dalian has been a real success story for us in terms of a place to live. The air IS actually clean. It is a modern, accessible city and there's Western food when we think we can't take another bowl of rice. As expected, however, it completely lacks in the culture department. There's a few museums here and there but nothing that speaks to China's long history. The only place remotely close that qualifies is the city to the south of Dalian known as Lushun. There's a former Japanese prison where many Chinese were killed and they turned it into a museum on the occupation. Of course Lushun is also home to the Chinese Navy so parts of the city are forbidden to foreigners. Until we find someone who knows Lushun well we will probably avoid it so we don't have an uncomfortable meeting with a Chinese policeman.
So, Xi'an -- what's there? Well, Xi'an was the first capital of China and the home of the first emperor. A brutal but intelligent dictator named Qin Shi Huang united the warring clans of China into a single Chinese empire spanning much of modern China. As seems par for the course for ancient dictators, Mr Qin (Chinese surnames come first) decided he wanted to live forever, so he commissioned hundreds of sailors to go searching for the islands of eternal youth. Not surprisingly, they didn't come back - his response to their lack of results would not have been favorable. Failing to obtain eternal life through the usual means, Qin realized he must build a tremendous army to protect him in the afterlife. Thus he commanded the construction of the Terra Cotta soldiers, a massive group of life-size soldiers and generals surrounding his tomb. Qin likely shortened his lifespan by consuming mercury pills, which were thought to provide immortality. He spent so many resources of his empire on building the Terra Cotta soldiers that his reign was increasing brutal to keep control. Reportedly he kept body doubles and slept in a different place every night to ward off the assassination attempts.
Xi'an has many other interesting sights, such as an ancient city wall, the Wild Goose Pagoda, the Bell and Drum Towers, and the Hot Springs where Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped prior to the temporary unification of the Communists and Nationalists to fight the Japanese. We are actually going with a retired couple from Denmark who are also here at DMU. So the 4 foreigners are going to brave a Chinese city alone - stay tuned, this could get interesting!
We originally wanted to take the train to Xi'an. It would have been 7 hours overnight to Beijing, and then a day in Beijing followed by a 12 hour journey overnight to Xi'an. We were going to book the best possible class (known as Soft Sleepers) which has 4 bunks in an enclosed compartment. Alas (or perhaps for the best) because the holiday is so significantly travelled, all the train tickets were sold out and we were forced to look into airfare. The only web site in English you can book through is Elong. Usually the airfare in China is very cheap but being a peak travel time it wasn't as nice.
After consulting with our Danish friends, I went ahead and booked the flights as I would on any other web site (minus the Credit card...they call you to get that information, or so I thought). A few minutes later I got a call from a nice gentleman from Elong who spoke English. He confirmed the reservation but he also informed me that to use a credit card they charged a 2% fee and they couldn't issue the tickets and thus book the prices unless I mailed them a signed authorization. Given that the prices were going up daily, we couldn't afford that option. So I said we could pay cash. He indicated they could deliver the plane tickets that afternoon. I tried to give him the address but he didn't believe me so I had to have him call a Chinese friend who gave him directions to the Administration building of our university.
Now picture this - the total for all 4 roundtrip plane tickets was 7600 Yuan. The largest denomination of currency in China is the 100 Yuan note. 76 notes to carry around! I felt like Al Capone...Of course when we went to meet the driver I accidentally dropped all the money...haha
(Try to ignore my latest face experiment)
Dalian has been a real success story for us in terms of a place to live. The air IS actually clean. It is a modern, accessible city and there's Western food when we think we can't take another bowl of rice. As expected, however, it completely lacks in the culture department. There's a few museums here and there but nothing that speaks to China's long history. The only place remotely close that qualifies is the city to the south of Dalian known as Lushun. There's a former Japanese prison where many Chinese were killed and they turned it into a museum on the occupation. Of course Lushun is also home to the Chinese Navy so parts of the city are forbidden to foreigners. Until we find someone who knows Lushun well we will probably avoid it so we don't have an uncomfortable meeting with a Chinese policeman.
So, Xi'an -- what's there? Well, Xi'an was the first capital of China and the home of the first emperor. A brutal but intelligent dictator named Qin Shi Huang united the warring clans of China into a single Chinese empire spanning much of modern China. As seems par for the course for ancient dictators, Mr Qin (Chinese surnames come first) decided he wanted to live forever, so he commissioned hundreds of sailors to go searching for the islands of eternal youth. Not surprisingly, they didn't come back - his response to their lack of results would not have been favorable. Failing to obtain eternal life through the usual means, Qin realized he must build a tremendous army to protect him in the afterlife. Thus he commanded the construction of the Terra Cotta soldiers, a massive group of life-size soldiers and generals surrounding his tomb. Qin likely shortened his lifespan by consuming mercury pills, which were thought to provide immortality. He spent so many resources of his empire on building the Terra Cotta soldiers that his reign was increasing brutal to keep control. Reportedly he kept body doubles and slept in a different place every night to ward off the assassination attempts.
Xi'an has many other interesting sights, such as an ancient city wall, the Wild Goose Pagoda, the Bell and Drum Towers, and the Hot Springs where Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped prior to the temporary unification of the Communists and Nationalists to fight the Japanese. We are actually going with a retired couple from Denmark who are also here at DMU. So the 4 foreigners are going to brave a Chinese city alone - stay tuned, this could get interesting!
We originally wanted to take the train to Xi'an. It would have been 7 hours overnight to Beijing, and then a day in Beijing followed by a 12 hour journey overnight to Xi'an. We were going to book the best possible class (known as Soft Sleepers) which has 4 bunks in an enclosed compartment. Alas (or perhaps for the best) because the holiday is so significantly travelled, all the train tickets were sold out and we were forced to look into airfare. The only web site in English you can book through is Elong. Usually the airfare in China is very cheap but being a peak travel time it wasn't as nice.
After consulting with our Danish friends, I went ahead and booked the flights as I would on any other web site (minus the Credit card...they call you to get that information, or so I thought). A few minutes later I got a call from a nice gentleman from Elong who spoke English. He confirmed the reservation but he also informed me that to use a credit card they charged a 2% fee and they couldn't issue the tickets and thus book the prices unless I mailed them a signed authorization. Given that the prices were going up daily, we couldn't afford that option. So I said we could pay cash. He indicated they could deliver the plane tickets that afternoon. I tried to give him the address but he didn't believe me so I had to have him call a Chinese friend who gave him directions to the Administration building of our university.
Now picture this - the total for all 4 roundtrip plane tickets was 7600 Yuan. The largest denomination of currency in China is the 100 Yuan note. 76 notes to carry around! I felt like Al Capone...Of course when we went to meet the driver I accidentally dropped all the money...haha
(Try to ignore my latest face experiment)
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
D - The world's greatest detective...
a coke fiend??? Okay so this is only moderately related to China, but I found it so amusing I had to post. Last week C was accompanied by a Chinese friend to the local English bookstore which contains literary classics such as The Da Vinci Code. The selection is not the greatest as I understand it. However, the bookstore did have "The Complete Sherlock Holmes". C has always been a big Holmes fan so she picked it up. The book is entirely in English so it's as good as buying it back home (perhaps with the exception of the rubber book binding).
In a few bored moments, I've picked up the book and read some of the stories. My previous Holmes experiences were not good so I was surprised that I quite enjoyed the repartee between Holmes and his assistant Dr.Watson. So last night I decided to read one of the longer stories, which is called "The Sign of Four". Here are a few quotes from the opening chapter...
"Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantlepiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. He thrust the shar point home, pressed, the tiny piston, and sank back into the armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction."
or
Watson: "Which is it today? Cocaine or morphine?"
Holmes: "It is cocaine, a 7% solution. Would you care to try it?"
and later in the first chapter...
Watson: "Would you think it impertinent if I put your theories to a more severe test?"
Holmes: "On the contrary, it would prevent me from taking another dose of cocaine."
Now I haven't finished the story of course, so maybe Holmes beats his cocaine habit by solving a mystery in a rehab facility, but I was shocked! To the author's credit, Watson does lecture him about the ills of addiction but I did not realize Holmes had such a bad habit. No wonder he can get away with wearing that hat...
In a few bored moments, I've picked up the book and read some of the stories. My previous Holmes experiences were not good so I was surprised that I quite enjoyed the repartee between Holmes and his assistant Dr.Watson. So last night I decided to read one of the longer stories, which is called "The Sign of Four". Here are a few quotes from the opening chapter...
"Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantlepiece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirtcuff. He thrust the shar point home, pressed, the tiny piston, and sank back into the armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction."
or
Watson: "Which is it today? Cocaine or morphine?"
Holmes: "It is cocaine, a 7% solution. Would you care to try it?"
and later in the first chapter...
Watson: "Would you think it impertinent if I put your theories to a more severe test?"
Holmes: "On the contrary, it would prevent me from taking another dose of cocaine."
Now I haven't finished the story of course, so maybe Holmes beats his cocaine habit by solving a mystery in a rehab facility, but I was shocked! To the author's credit, Watson does lecture him about the ills of addiction but I did not realize Holmes had such a bad habit. No wonder he can get away with wearing that hat...
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
D - Our students
Looking over the blog, I realized we've really only alluded to our job here, which is teaching English.
As our faithful readers know, we are teaching at Dalian Maritime University. What may not be obvious is that the school is more than just teaching sailors. There are English majors, Information Management majors, Electrical Engineers, and so on. In other words, at least for China, it's a standard multi-disciplinary university covering liberal arts and science. They do have a special program for maritime students however. The two majors for martime are Marine Engineering and Navigation. The Marine Engineers will apparently end up on ship supporting the chief engineers and working on huge diesel engines and so forth. Eventually they will work their way up to chief engineer. The Navigation students will hang out on the bridge of ships and use a telescope to navigate the seas. Er, only kidding, they do have GPS on Chinese ships. Some intrepid navigators may end up as ship captains.
Although it's somewhat easy to mock the career choice of maritime students because it's so foreign to us, they are really excited about it. Managing a ship for import/export companies and multinationals is a very important part of the global economy so I am glad these students exist. I hope they like us enough to keep them on commercial ships and not serving on future Chinese aircraft carriers!
Anyway, so how do C and I relate to these various majors? Well, most likely because we don't have a TESOL (teach english as a second language) certificate and no prior teaching experiences, we've been assigned to teach majors called Marine Engineering, Automation, and Mechanism. The class for all of them is called Oral English I. The Automation and Mechanism students are completing military training through week 6 so we haven't had them yet. It's unclear to me what these majors are but I suspect they are also shipboard. The 4 classes I do have (C's as well) are all Marine Engineers and they are ALL male. Yes, not a single girl in any of our classes. And yes, they all wear cute little white sailor outfits with lapels on the the shoulders.
The engineering students we have are okay. Their english ability varies widely from inability to say anything to students you can actually have a conversation with. The skill disparity of course makes it difficult to plan lessons.
Interesting observations about our Chinese students
1) Must harness the group mentality rather than working against it. I swear that if I asked a question and only one student in the class knew the answer that the other 29 students would have it written on their paper within 30 seconds. You cannot create the concept of individual work. You will tell them you will fail them, you will make sure they understand and agree that this is an individual assignment....and without fail they will all "collaborate". My response to this is to create group activities where each group has different materials or objectives...and although some better students end up doing more of the work, at least it's not a total wash.
2) Lack of maturity. The students we have in our engineering classes are Juniors. Now freshmen are often immature in the US as well but usually by Junior year there's a certain amount of maturity gained. My personal belief is that these students have everything chosen for them. Their parents, their teachers, the school administrators either directly make the choice or strongly influence every choice. They also lack life experience - buying train tickets, awareness of other cultures, managing your own life. In a lot of ways I feel more like I teach high schoolers than college students. Our student volunteers don't fall into this category - they are a lot more mature than the other students but even there I have a sense of this almost child-like earnestness rather than adulthood. You begin to understand where this comes from when you find out that they can't change their major. Whatever they pick going in is what they are required to do the rest of the time!
In a future entry I'll address the trials and tribulations of lesson planning.
As our faithful readers know, we are teaching at Dalian Maritime University. What may not be obvious is that the school is more than just teaching sailors. There are English majors, Information Management majors, Electrical Engineers, and so on. In other words, at least for China, it's a standard multi-disciplinary university covering liberal arts and science. They do have a special program for maritime students however. The two majors for martime are Marine Engineering and Navigation. The Marine Engineers will apparently end up on ship supporting the chief engineers and working on huge diesel engines and so forth. Eventually they will work their way up to chief engineer. The Navigation students will hang out on the bridge of ships and use a telescope to navigate the seas. Er, only kidding, they do have GPS on Chinese ships. Some intrepid navigators may end up as ship captains.
Although it's somewhat easy to mock the career choice of maritime students because it's so foreign to us, they are really excited about it. Managing a ship for import/export companies and multinationals is a very important part of the global economy so I am glad these students exist. I hope they like us enough to keep them on commercial ships and not serving on future Chinese aircraft carriers!
Anyway, so how do C and I relate to these various majors? Well, most likely because we don't have a TESOL (teach english as a second language) certificate and no prior teaching experiences, we've been assigned to teach majors called Marine Engineering, Automation, and Mechanism. The class for all of them is called Oral English I. The Automation and Mechanism students are completing military training through week 6 so we haven't had them yet. It's unclear to me what these majors are but I suspect they are also shipboard. The 4 classes I do have (C's as well) are all Marine Engineers and they are ALL male. Yes, not a single girl in any of our classes. And yes, they all wear cute little white sailor outfits with lapels on the the shoulders.
The engineering students we have are okay. Their english ability varies widely from inability to say anything to students you can actually have a conversation with. The skill disparity of course makes it difficult to plan lessons.
Interesting observations about our Chinese students
1) Must harness the group mentality rather than working against it. I swear that if I asked a question and only one student in the class knew the answer that the other 29 students would have it written on their paper within 30 seconds. You cannot create the concept of individual work. You will tell them you will fail them, you will make sure they understand and agree that this is an individual assignment....and without fail they will all "collaborate". My response to this is to create group activities where each group has different materials or objectives...and although some better students end up doing more of the work, at least it's not a total wash.
2) Lack of maturity. The students we have in our engineering classes are Juniors. Now freshmen are often immature in the US as well but usually by Junior year there's a certain amount of maturity gained. My personal belief is that these students have everything chosen for them. Their parents, their teachers, the school administrators either directly make the choice or strongly influence every choice. They also lack life experience - buying train tickets, awareness of other cultures, managing your own life. In a lot of ways I feel more like I teach high schoolers than college students. Our student volunteers don't fall into this category - they are a lot more mature than the other students but even there I have a sense of this almost child-like earnestness rather than adulthood. You begin to understand where this comes from when you find out that they can't change their major. Whatever they pick going in is what they are required to do the rest of the time!
In a future entry I'll address the trials and tribulations of lesson planning.
Friday, September 08, 2006
C - in sickness and in health
A few minutes ago, D headed out for an evening on the town with some of the other foreign teachers. I didn't share his desperate need to escape the apartment, though, because I recently caught a cold and have been feeling really lousy. I didn't expect D to stay home and watch his wife Sniffleupagus blow her nose into her shirt all night, but tonight is "a dark and stormy night" if there ever was one, and the wind is rattling our apartment door in a way that is, if not unsettling, certainly far from settling. This rattling door combined with my plugged-yet-somehow-dripping nose are pretty much guaranteeing my inability to sleep tonight, and if D were here, I would probably feel a little bit better/calmer/safer etc. But I will instead spend time with our little blog here and my quickly-dwindling box of Kleenex. (And no, that isn't an instance of a brand name being substituted for a generic one -- I really do have Kleenex® brand tissues!)
I slept so little last night that I asked D to cancel my 8:00 am and 10:00 am classes for me, since he was going to the be teaching one room down the hall at both of those times, but I finally managed to get myself up and teach every class scheduled today. The 8:00 class isn't my favorite group of students, but I got through it okay, and consoled myself with the fact that my 10:00 class is much, much better. I wasn't prepared for how much better they actually would end up being, though; they had written "Happy Teachers' Day!" on the board in perfect English, and on top of that, they gave me flowers and applauded for me.
Needless to say, all of that made me feel a great deal better! The 2:00 class went on forever, though, because a random graduate student decided that he will be auditing my class for the semester, and he talked with me for what felt like an eternity after class about Jack Welch, how I should teach bible stories (???), and maybe we could go out to dinner some time! Sigh. How I would love to have just ONE female student!
I slept so little last night that I asked D to cancel my 8:00 am and 10:00 am classes for me, since he was going to the be teaching one room down the hall at both of those times, but I finally managed to get myself up and teach every class scheduled today. The 8:00 class isn't my favorite group of students, but I got through it okay, and consoled myself with the fact that my 10:00 class is much, much better. I wasn't prepared for how much better they actually would end up being, though; they had written "Happy Teachers' Day!" on the board in perfect English, and on top of that, they gave me flowers and applauded for me.
Needless to say, all of that made me feel a great deal better! The 2:00 class went on forever, though, because a random graduate student decided that he will be auditing my class for the semester, and he talked with me for what felt like an eternity after class about Jack Welch, how I should teach bible stories (???), and maybe we could go out to dinner some time! Sigh. How I would love to have just ONE female student!
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