Ever since my first class while studying abroad at Peking University a few years ago, I have been amazed by how much freedom of speech there is in China. There are of course limits, most noticeably if you are publishing something in book, article, or blog form, and I've written recently about the limits of academic freedom. But otherwise, if you're not speaking in a public setting, you can say pretty much anything you want.
The original surprising incident for me was that our first class topic in an international relations class at PKU was the 1989 Tiananmen protests. Of course, it was a class taught in English of mostly foreigners, with a few Chinese students thrown in, and I'm pretty sure the professor, who received his phd in the US, chose the topic intentionally to destroy all previous notions we had about freedom of expression in China. He certainly succeeded. One of the Chinese IR majors in the class said that they did discuss this incident in her Chinese classes as well.
The recent incident was at my university's new years/end of the semester party. The opening act (Chinese parties are basically a combination of a variety show and banquet) was someone who did imitations of the top two leaders in China, as well as the previous top two leaders. At first I thought he was just going to poke fun at the school's leaders because I was under the belief that publicly making fun of the top leaders was unacceptable (of course, many people do so in private conversations and online). Granted, he didn't compare Hu Jintao to a monkey and his imitations were very very mild by Daily Show or Colbert Report standards, but there were parts I found funny and even more parts the Chinese teachers found funny. Still, this goes what most Westerners think of when they think of freedom of speech and China.
Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
麻烦 My day of annoyances
There is no English word like 麻烦. It basically means annoying or to annoy, but really those words do not live up to how great the word 麻烦 (ma fan) is. And really, today has all been about 麻烦.
First there was the 事情 that began yesterday. In trying to get a visa for the summer, I've been working though connections of connections, which means I need to go to 无锡 Wuxi, a city in Jiangsu, China. It also means the people who are helping me with this don't give a damn about me or my schedule. After I called them, they told me I need to go to Wuxi this Sunday. Which is great except that I have final exams scheduled for students this Monday. And apparently the time they schedule to process this visa cannot be changed. So now I need to change exam times for 50 students from about 5 different classes, some of which I don't have contact information for.
Then there's the little things: the student who called me this morning saying he can't make his exam time on Thursday and therefore he needs to take it on Monday (I think I forgot to tell him i'll be in Wuxi...). Another student just called, asking where I was. This is a student who I think may have come to class once before the final exam. Maybe. She's the only English major student who I did not recognize. Which means she never gave a speech, which means she needed to give one this Thursday. Apparently when I said Thursday she heard Wednesday. I would feel sorry for her but she never came to class.
Then there's the random person who had added me on MSN awhile ago. I said yes cuz I figured I must know this guy from somewhere. So he ims me today asking who I am. He thought I was Joseph Haskell, a common mistake with my email address. Everyone thinks i'm someone else. He keeps bothering me asking for Joseph's email address. Obviously I have absolutely no idea who Joseph is. It turns out this guy is a 12 year old from Canada. Before I found that out, he had asked my age and if I was married.
挺麻烦·
Thursday, March 13, 2008
中国的交通经历 Transportation in China
You know, it really doesn't feel like i'm riding the subway in Beijing unless i am literally packed liked sardines against lots of Chinese people to the point where I can't lift my hand up to the read the newspaper its holding let alone grab a handlebar. Otherwise I could be in, you know, a city with a few million less people. But actually, I've grown accustomed to rush hour traffic on the subway, as I commute literally across the city at rush hour twice a week if not more. And it's great to have a cheap, convenient, if not luxurious public transportation system that can take me anywhere I want to go. Chinese people don't believe me when I tell them that the public transportation system in the US sucks. And it does.
The point of this entry is actually to tell you my transportation stories from my travels. Traveling around the country is also cheap (minus the two plane tickets) and convenient, though definitely not luxurious either. I'm just thankful that I left Beijing and Hunan before unusually cold, snowy, and icy weather left hundreds of thousands stranded, waiting for trains (800,000 alone in Guangzhou). Camille and I did miss out on going to two places due to icy roads - Shaoshan, Mao's hometown (we found out that every long distance highway out of Changsha was iced over and not passable in the cab ride *back* from the bus station. we really should have guessed beforehand as every road near her house was in a similar state) and the Dragon Bone Rice Terraces in Guangxi. Otherwise we were pretty lucky.
Our first leg was an uneventful though freezing overnight train from Changsha to Guilin with two of my students . We were just thankful not to sleep through our stop, which came at 4am. Around Guilin, we took a number of buses, which were supposedly "fast" and "direct" but ended up stopping every 2 minutes or so along the way to pick up people on the side of the road until there was not a single place to stand, let alone sit, on the bus. After a bus ride to Nanning, we took our most interesting train ride, to Ningming, a small random town near the Vietnam border that we assumed would be warm (cuz, you know, it was south of everywhere else we had been to) but ended up being just as cold. There were no seats left when we bought tickets, and it was only a 3-4 hour ride so we bought standing room tickets. Apparently half the train is standing room, and there are cars with a long bench lining each side of the car. If you get there early, you get a seat. Otherwise you stand with a hundred other people. We found a relatively nice standing spot in a small space in between cars that looked like it might have been someone's office until passengers had taken a part the desk to sit on the drawers. And we actually ended up with seats on the desk after a PLA soldier came in and efficiently organized the space. It actually ended up being a nice ride, as we talked to a high school student and a university student who ended up helping us find a hotel when we arrived in Ningming.
Our train rides back and forth from Beihai were, in comparison, pretty luxurious (real seats!). As was our flight to Kunming. In Yunnan, however, you have to travel by bus because there are no trains due to the mountainous terrain. Our many bus trips included 3 sleeper buses, which is an experience in itself. Sleeping on a train is not so bad, but on a bus? Our trip from Dali to Xishuangbanna was not on the worst paved roads in Yunnan. However, that is only evident once you take other bus trips in Xishuangbanna or hear about others' experiences. There are some pretty bad roads in Yunnan, and trying to sleep while you are constantly jolted back and forth and up and down is an interesting experience. For a while, I gripped the side of my bed in an attempt to keep my body from going airborne to little avail. At least on that trip we had our own beds (for the most part). On the trip from Kunming to Lijiang, even though our tickets said otherwise, our group of three (Zi, Camille, and I) was shepherded to the back of the bus where there were 5 beds with no separation between them. A Chinese family (mom, dad, little kid) was occupying two of them, and we were given the other three. It's nothing like sleeping with complete strangers, especially when said little kid decides that 4:30am is a great time to have a conversation.
My flight back to Beijing from Kunming was also a nice change. I had actually hoped to buy train tickets, but nearly all trains out of Kunming for the next ten days (they begin selling tickets 10 days in advance) were sold out (Kunming is the end of the rail line so there aren't many trains leaving or going there, and it takes at least one day to get anywhere near the east coast of china from yunnan by train) - the one downside of China's convenient transport system is that it is often extremely difficult to get tickets during the Spring Festival season.
The point of this entry is actually to tell you my transportation stories from my travels. Traveling around the country is also cheap (minus the two plane tickets) and convenient, though definitely not luxurious either. I'm just thankful that I left Beijing and Hunan before unusually cold, snowy, and icy weather left hundreds of thousands stranded, waiting for trains (800,000 alone in Guangzhou). Camille and I did miss out on going to two places due to icy roads - Shaoshan, Mao's hometown (we found out that every long distance highway out of Changsha was iced over and not passable in the cab ride *back* from the bus station. we really should have guessed beforehand as every road near her house was in a similar state) and the Dragon Bone Rice Terraces in Guangxi. Otherwise we were pretty lucky.
Our first leg was an uneventful though freezing overnight train from Changsha to Guilin with two of my students . We were just thankful not to sleep through our stop, which came at 4am. Around Guilin, we took a number of buses, which were supposedly "fast" and "direct" but ended up stopping every 2 minutes or so along the way to pick up people on the side of the road until there was not a single place to stand, let alone sit, on the bus. After a bus ride to Nanning, we took our most interesting train ride, to Ningming, a small random town near the Vietnam border that we assumed would be warm (cuz, you know, it was south of everywhere else we had been to) but ended up being just as cold. There were no seats left when we bought tickets, and it was only a 3-4 hour ride so we bought standing room tickets. Apparently half the train is standing room, and there are cars with a long bench lining each side of the car. If you get there early, you get a seat. Otherwise you stand with a hundred other people. We found a relatively nice standing spot in a small space in between cars that looked like it might have been someone's office until passengers had taken a part the desk to sit on the drawers. And we actually ended up with seats on the desk after a PLA soldier came in and efficiently organized the space. It actually ended up being a nice ride, as we talked to a high school student and a university student who ended up helping us find a hotel when we arrived in Ningming.
Our train rides back and forth from Beihai were, in comparison, pretty luxurious (real seats!). As was our flight to Kunming. In Yunnan, however, you have to travel by bus because there are no trains due to the mountainous terrain. Our many bus trips included 3 sleeper buses, which is an experience in itself. Sleeping on a train is not so bad, but on a bus? Our trip from Dali to Xishuangbanna was not on the worst paved roads in Yunnan. However, that is only evident once you take other bus trips in Xishuangbanna or hear about others' experiences. There are some pretty bad roads in Yunnan, and trying to sleep while you are constantly jolted back and forth and up and down is an interesting experience. For a while, I gripped the side of my bed in an attempt to keep my body from going airborne to little avail. At least on that trip we had our own beds (for the most part). On the trip from Kunming to Lijiang, even though our tickets said otherwise, our group of three (Zi, Camille, and I) was shepherded to the back of the bus where there were 5 beds with no separation between them. A Chinese family (mom, dad, little kid) was occupying two of them, and we were given the other three. It's nothing like sleeping with complete strangers, especially when said little kid decides that 4:30am is a great time to have a conversation.
My flight back to Beijing from Kunming was also a nice change. I had actually hoped to buy train tickets, but nearly all trains out of Kunming for the next ten days (they begin selling tickets 10 days in advance) were sold out (Kunming is the end of the rail line so there aren't many trains leaving or going there, and it takes at least one day to get anywhere near the east coast of china from yunnan by train) - the one downside of China's convenient transport system is that it is often extremely difficult to get tickets during the Spring Festival season.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Beijing bicycle
In terms of many factors, I liked many of the cities I visited more than Beijing. Nanning was clean and easy to navigate around. Kunming had beautiful weather and a laid back feel, while Dali and Lijiang had clear skies and beautiful scenery. Jinghong was an interesting blend of SE Asia and China, with warm temperatures and roads lined with palm trees. Yet, I'm glad to be back in Beijing, with its familiar Mandarin (see last entry), familiar bus and subway system, familiar streets, and familiar atmosphere.
I finally did something very "Beijing" yesterday and rented a bicycle. Camille and I had rented bikes in Dali (where I ended up with a sore bottom) and in Jinghong. The latter experience was particularly entertaining, as Camille sat on the back of my bike in Chinese fashion, and I learned to balance correctly (actually not as hard as it looks). I'm sure we looked ridiculous.
Beijing may no longer be the bike capital of the world - its easy and cheap to buy a car, at least compared to Shanghai, which accounts for some of the pollution and much of the traffic. But the apeall of whizzing down the city's long avenues and tiny hutong streets has not lost its appeal. I didn't do much of the latter due to distance, but I did bike most of the way to Tiananmen Square, a long round-about way, stopping in Ritan park. I now know where the North Korean embassy is (you know, in case i ever need to go there), as well as the Russian section of town, whre signs are in cyrillic script and i saw a few guys that if they weren't in the Russian mafia or at least the smuggling business than they should have been.
I'm, again, considering buying a bike. I had thought about it when I first arrived, but the problem is (other than the high likelihood of it being stolen) that most places I go to on a daily or weekly basis are within walking distance (2 grocery stores, the one campus of my school) or too far to bike to(my school's other campus, Zi's apartment). Maybe its nostalgia for Stanford, but I still dream of seeing the city and navigating rush hour traffic on two wheels.
I finally did something very "Beijing" yesterday and rented a bicycle. Camille and I had rented bikes in Dali (where I ended up with a sore bottom) and in Jinghong. The latter experience was particularly entertaining, as Camille sat on the back of my bike in Chinese fashion, and I learned to balance correctly (actually not as hard as it looks). I'm sure we looked ridiculous.
Beijing may no longer be the bike capital of the world - its easy and cheap to buy a car, at least compared to Shanghai, which accounts for some of the pollution and much of the traffic. But the apeall of whizzing down the city's long avenues and tiny hutong streets has not lost its appeal. I didn't do much of the latter due to distance, but I did bike most of the way to Tiananmen Square, a long round-about way, stopping in Ritan park. I now know where the North Korean embassy is (you know, in case i ever need to go there), as well as the Russian section of town, whre signs are in cyrillic script and i saw a few guys that if they weren't in the Russian mafia or at least the smuggling business than they should have been.
I'm, again, considering buying a bike. I had thought about it when I first arrived, but the problem is (other than the high likelihood of it being stolen) that most places I go to on a daily or weekly basis are within walking distance (2 grocery stores, the one campus of my school) or too far to bike to(my school's other campus, Zi's apartment). Maybe its nostalgia for Stanford, but I still dream of seeing the city and navigating rush hour traffic on two wheels.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
“我恨方言”
The title of this post was the content of a text message Alex sent me late one night (ok, not that late but we were in the gorge and sleeping early...). Translated it means "I hate dialects." Like in France, Germany, and other European countries a few hundred years ago, Chinese people do not all speak the same language. A good majority, now, are competent in 普通话 (pu tong hua), or "common speech," or to most Americans, "Mandarin Chinese." This is the language that is spoken in schools, and what an educated person from Guangzhou would speak in while having a conversation with a colleague from Hebei. However, while it is the common language, in many places it is not at all common.
When leaving Beijing, I was relatively confident about my Chinese ability. For the most part, I could understand what was said to me and could also pick up bits and pieces of others' conversations around me. Everyone in Beijing speaks pu tong hua for two reasons: 1. the language is based on the native language of Beijingers. 北京话 is only different from standard mandarin in that the 儿 (er) sound is often added at the end of words. 2. people in Beijing are really from all over the country, so in order to communicate, one must speak Mandarin.
When I got off the train in Changsha, it was like arriving in a totally different country - I didn't understand anything that was being said around me. And in Hunan, even when people would talk to me in Mandarin, it was difficult to understand, as the accent was different, word usage tendencies were different, and often some Chansha hua would slip in. Changsha hua is not entirely different from Mandarin. While there, I attended Camille's end of the semester banquet with her. I spent most of the time being thankful that my end of semester dinner wasn't like this, as we sat through 2 1.5 hour speeches. Yes, really. CCP officials can really talk. I understood the main idea of the first woman's speech and a good portion of what she said, but during the second speech, I struggled to pick up whole phrases, let alone ideas. It sounded enough like Mandarin to have me perplexed as to why I couldn't understand his accent, but I found out later that he was speaking entirely in dialect.
Then when we moved on to Guangxi, things became even more complicated. In Beihai, my student told me that the dialect (basically the only language her parents speak) is basically Cantonese, as Beihai used to be a part of Guangdong. And Cantonese is basically a different language.
A cab driver who I had a long discussion with in Kunming, tried to teach me a few phrases of Kunming hua, if only to demonstrate that it was one of the most difficult dialects in the country. And while trekking in Xishuangbanna, we heard a bunch of different languages, Dai for example, that are much closer to South East Asian languages than to Mandarin. Thankfully, most of the people in the villages speak at least some Mandarin, learned, as our guide told us, by watching TV.
Now, back to Alex's comment. In many ways, I hate dialects too. Mandarin Chinese is an extremely difficult language in itself, and throwing in variants of that language only makes life more frustrating. Pu tong hua allows people from different parts of the country to communicate with each other, just as standardizing French (was that under Richelieu?) allowed people from all over France to communicate with each other. And, obviously, this is something that is increasingly important today. However, there is also something to be said for preserving dialects. There are entire languages lost at astonishing rates; only a few hundred people speak Manchurian. And with a language, goes many elements of a culture. So, its a difficult balance as are most questions about modernity and tradition are.
When leaving Beijing, I was relatively confident about my Chinese ability. For the most part, I could understand what was said to me and could also pick up bits and pieces of others' conversations around me. Everyone in Beijing speaks pu tong hua for two reasons: 1. the language is based on the native language of Beijingers. 北京话 is only different from standard mandarin in that the 儿 (er) sound is often added at the end of words. 2. people in Beijing are really from all over the country, so in order to communicate, one must speak Mandarin.
When I got off the train in Changsha, it was like arriving in a totally different country - I didn't understand anything that was being said around me. And in Hunan, even when people would talk to me in Mandarin, it was difficult to understand, as the accent was different, word usage tendencies were different, and often some Chansha hua would slip in. Changsha hua is not entirely different from Mandarin. While there, I attended Camille's end of the semester banquet with her. I spent most of the time being thankful that my end of semester dinner wasn't like this, as we sat through 2 1.5 hour speeches. Yes, really. CCP officials can really talk. I understood the main idea of the first woman's speech and a good portion of what she said, but during the second speech, I struggled to pick up whole phrases, let alone ideas. It sounded enough like Mandarin to have me perplexed as to why I couldn't understand his accent, but I found out later that he was speaking entirely in dialect.
Then when we moved on to Guangxi, things became even more complicated. In Beihai, my student told me that the dialect (basically the only language her parents speak) is basically Cantonese, as Beihai used to be a part of Guangdong. And Cantonese is basically a different language.
A cab driver who I had a long discussion with in Kunming, tried to teach me a few phrases of Kunming hua, if only to demonstrate that it was one of the most difficult dialects in the country. And while trekking in Xishuangbanna, we heard a bunch of different languages, Dai for example, that are much closer to South East Asian languages than to Mandarin. Thankfully, most of the people in the villages speak at least some Mandarin, learned, as our guide told us, by watching TV.
Now, back to Alex's comment. In many ways, I hate dialects too. Mandarin Chinese is an extremely difficult language in itself, and throwing in variants of that language only makes life more frustrating. Pu tong hua allows people from different parts of the country to communicate with each other, just as standardizing French (was that under Richelieu?) allowed people from all over France to communicate with each other. And, obviously, this is something that is increasingly important today. However, there is also something to be said for preserving dialects. There are entire languages lost at astonishing rates; only a few hundred people speak Manchurian. And with a language, goes many elements of a culture. So, its a difficult balance as are most questions about modernity and tradition are.
我回来了！
I am now back in Beijing after about 6 weeks on the road, and it is actually good to be back (of course if the weather weren't so mild, 15C, I might not be saying that). Of course, I have weeks worth of stories to share, and I plan to slowly post them. Below is a (very) brief outline of my trip, so you know where I was and when. Memory is often not linear and connections never are, so my blog posts may jump around a bit. Refer to the timeline or send me an angry email when confused.
Cheers!
PS. I will slowly be posting pictures, but that will be haphazard as well, as my camera had some problems during the trip, so I'll have to steal a bunch from Camille and Zi.
1/19-20: train from Beijing to Changsha, Hunan
1/20-23: stay with Camille in Changsha
1/23-24: overnight train to Guilin, Guangxi
1/24: Guilin
1/25-28: Yangshuo, Guangxi
1/28-30: Nanning, Guangxi
1/30-2/1: Ningming, Guangxi and surrounding area
2/1-2: back in Nanning
2/2 - 5: Beihai, Guangxi, visiting a student of mine
2/5: back in Nanning (again!) for a few hours, plane to Kunming
2/5-7: Kunming, Yunnan (Zi arrives)
2/7-8: overnight bus to Lijiang, Yunnan
2/8: Lijiang
2/9-10: hike in Tiger Leaping Gorge (near Lijiang)
2/11: Camille and I take a bus to Dali, Yunnan; Zi goes back to Beijing
2/11-13: Dali
2/13-14: overnight bus to Jinghong, capital of Xishuangbanna prefecture (still in Yunnan)
2/14-15: Jinghong
2/16-18: trek in Xishuangbanna
2/19: bus to Menghai
2/20: bus to Xiding
2/21: Xiding market, back to Jinghong
2/22 - 23: overnight bus back to Kunming; Camille flies back to Changsha on 23
2/23-25: Kunming; night flight back to Beijing
Cheers!
PS. I will slowly be posting pictures, but that will be haphazard as well, as my camera had some problems during the trip, so I'll have to steal a bunch from Camille and Zi.
1/19-20: train from Beijing to Changsha, Hunan
1/20-23: stay with Camille in Changsha
1/23-24: overnight train to Guilin, Guangxi
1/24: Guilin
1/25-28: Yangshuo, Guangxi
1/28-30: Nanning, Guangxi
1/30-2/1: Ningming, Guangxi and surrounding area
2/1-2: back in Nanning
2/2 - 5: Beihai, Guangxi, visiting a student of mine
2/5: back in Nanning (again!) for a few hours, plane to Kunming
2/5-7: Kunming, Yunnan (Zi arrives)
2/7-8: overnight bus to Lijiang, Yunnan
2/8: Lijiang
2/9-10: hike in Tiger Leaping Gorge (near Lijiang)
2/11: Camille and I take a bus to Dali, Yunnan; Zi goes back to Beijing
2/11-13: Dali
2/13-14: overnight bus to Jinghong, capital of Xishuangbanna prefecture (still in Yunnan)
2/14-15: Jinghong
2/16-18: trek in Xishuangbanna
2/19: bus to Menghai
2/20: bus to Xiding
2/21: Xiding market, back to Jinghong
2/22 - 23: overnight bus back to Kunming; Camille flies back to Changsha on 23
2/23-25: Kunming; night flight back to Beijing
Thursday, January 17, 2008
下雪
Somewhere around 2 weeks ago, when the weather was pretty warm for a period (around 10C which is around 50F....or exactly, i did just check. turns out my internal C->F converter is pretty good), Zi said something about how it was going to keep getting warmer. I laughed at his ignorance of how real winter weather works. Apparently, so did the weather gods. This week has been freezing.....or below freezing actually. Yesterday, the temperature in the morning was -10C (somewhere around 10F), and today it's snowing, with the possibility of more snow this weekend. Oh how I can't wait to head off to warmer climates....
Unfortunately, I picked last night to put my jacket in for dry cleaning (I had been putting it off since it was so cold and finally had to do it....). Thankfully I have enough layers.
Unfortunately, I picked last night to put my jacket in for dry cleaning (I had been putting it off since it was so cold and finally had to do it....). Thankfully I have enough layers.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
我爱谷歌
Yes, Mom and Grandpa, hell has frozen over and Jenny has uploaded photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/jhaskell
I've been pretty bad about consistently taking pictures, but the last picture (of spaghetti i cooked!) is from today, so I will try to improve in the new year ;)
Also, note the cool slideshow feature in blogger. Isn't google awesome?
On another google note, if any of you are new junkies like me - or news junkies not like me - you should check out google reader. It's a cool way to organized RSS feeds for news websites, blogs, etc. If you have a blog, this is probably how I read it. And it has an even cooler feature where you can share news articles with your friends.
I've been pretty bad about consistently taking pictures, but the last picture (of spaghetti i cooked!) is from today, so I will try to improve in the new year ;)
Also, note the cool slideshow feature in blogger. Isn't google awesome?
On another google note, if any of you are new junkies like me - or news junkies not like me - you should check out google reader. It's a cool way to organized RSS feeds for news websites, blogs, etc. If you have a blog, this is probably how I read it. And it has an even cooler feature where you can share news articles with your friends.
Friday, December 21, 2007
北京的圣诞节 (Christmas in Beijing)
It's that time of year, where if I were still a Stanford student, I would have just finished finals and would be at home sleeping in, frantically looking for Christmas gifts for family, and spending time with old friends. The Christmas season has, in many ways, hit China. I was in Walmart the day after Thanksgiving, and they were selling Christmas decorations and playing carols. Malls and restaurants have Christmas decorations up, just like in the States. I'm sure I could easily find a tree to put up in my apartment if I wanted to but getting it up 6 flights of stairs would be quite a task. Still, in China, Christmas is a work day. It's a Tuesday, so I don't have to teach but all my friends are still at work, and the plan probably consists of just a dinner out, which is how young Chinese people celebrate Christmas anyway.
I've been teaching a Christmas lesson this week during which the most interesting discussion question asked about whether its a good thing that Christmas is becoming so popular around the world, even in non-Christian countries. Most students said yes, citing the happiness and love that holidays inspire, as well as the cultural connection it could provide They also inevitably mentioned that businessmen profit greatly from Christmas and that the more days for rest and relaxation, the better. Most classes usually had at least one person who saw a downside. One girl called it "cultural invasion" (and she has a point - globalization brings a lot more of Western culture to China then Chinese culture to the West), while most others emphasized the importance of remembering traditional Chinese festivals instead.
Still, just as America changes its imported holidays, food, traditions, etc, there is a Chinese version of Christmas. Like in the US, it's highly commercialized and people love to shop, though it seems like usually on Christmas Eve. However, for young Chinese, Christmas is about spending time with friends, not family, since their parents do not normally celebrate the holiday and Spring Festival is right around the corner anyway. And most interesting of all (at least for Chinese learners/speakers) is the tradition of giving people apples and oranges. It comes from a play on words in Chinese - apple (苹果) stands for peace (平安 their first syllable is pronounced the same way), while orange (橙) stands for success (成功 ).
See this article for similar insights: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=10118
I've been teaching a Christmas lesson this week during which the most interesting discussion question asked about whether its a good thing that Christmas is becoming so popular around the world, even in non-Christian countries. Most students said yes, citing the happiness and love that holidays inspire, as well as the cultural connection it could provide They also inevitably mentioned that businessmen profit greatly from Christmas and that the more days for rest and relaxation, the better. Most classes usually had at least one person who saw a downside. One girl called it "cultural invasion" (and she has a point - globalization brings a lot more of Western culture to China then Chinese culture to the West), while most others emphasized the importance of remembering traditional Chinese festivals instead.
Still, just as America changes its imported holidays, food, traditions, etc, there is a Chinese version of Christmas. Like in the US, it's highly commercialized and people love to shop, though it seems like usually on Christmas Eve. However, for young Chinese, Christmas is about spending time with friends, not family, since their parents do not normally celebrate the holiday and Spring Festival is right around the corner anyway. And most interesting of all (at least for Chinese learners/speakers) is the tradition of giving people apples and oranges. It comes from a play on words in Chinese - apple (苹果) stands for peace (平安 their first syllable is pronounced the same way), while orange (橙) stands for success (成功 ).
See this article for similar insights: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=10118
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Chinglish
I have encountered two definitions of the word "Chinglish": 1. the ridiculous English mistakes that appear on various signs throughout China due to poor translation. Currently the Beijing government is working to get rid of such mistakes, at least within the capital, much to the dismay of most foreign residents, who actually find them amusing and endearing. 2. the Chinese spoken by many Chinese Americans, which often includes English grammar and random English words thrown in.
However, I propose a third: the intentional mixing of Chinese and English (somewhere around a 50/50 split) for the purpose of communication as well as learning the other language. I have three graduate students who I have eaten lunch with a few times now, and this is our preferred language of conversation. It's a lot of fun and at times funny - out of spoken English practice for many years, they aren't as adept at changing languages as I am and have more than one occasion said something in English to a Chinese person.
For a good part of the month of November, I stopped actively studying Chinese out of frustration with myself and what I saw as my lack of progress. However, first of all I realized that I often set bars for myself that are unreasonably high. Second, I've had more "good Chinese days" then bad recently - they include my Chinglish lunches, a 10 minute conversation with another student in Chinese, a developed friendship with my tutor (we talk about lots of random things ranging from politics in both the US and China, random stories, etc), and a conversation with a Chinese professor, in which I mostly listened but also mostly understood what he said.
Anyway, I'm back studying, back blogging, and of course still teaching. Oh and working for the NGO I worked for last summer that has a relationship with the Carter Center and therefore meeting Jimmy Carter on Friday :)
However, I propose a third: the intentional mixing of Chinese and English (somewhere around a 50/50 split) for the purpose of communication as well as learning the other language. I have three graduate students who I have eaten lunch with a few times now, and this is our preferred language of conversation. It's a lot of fun and at times funny - out of spoken English practice for many years, they aren't as adept at changing languages as I am and have more than one occasion said something in English to a Chinese person.
For a good part of the month of November, I stopped actively studying Chinese out of frustration with myself and what I saw as my lack of progress. However, first of all I realized that I often set bars for myself that are unreasonably high. Second, I've had more "good Chinese days" then bad recently - they include my Chinglish lunches, a 10 minute conversation with another student in Chinese, a developed friendship with my tutor (we talk about lots of random things ranging from politics in both the US and China, random stories, etc), and a conversation with a Chinese professor, in which I mostly listened but also mostly understood what he said.
Anyway, I'm back studying, back blogging, and of course still teaching. Oh and working for the NGO I worked for last summer that has a relationship with the Carter Center and therefore meeting Jimmy Carter on Friday :)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
因人而异
I'm very interested in talking to people who have very different lifestyles from mine - hearing their opinions or just talking about random things - but more often than not i'm too shy, embarrassed or don't know what to say to start a conversation. I'm trying to get better at this and also put myself in more situations where random people will start talking to me.
Today I arrived at the school early and picked a random place off campus to eat breakfast. The Western campus is kind of on the Southwestern outskirts of Beijing; it seems as if it was built on what used to be its own small town, where they are now building expensive high rises. I picked a cheap (1 kuai for 豆浆油条), dirty place, and people who came in almost immediately started talking about me to the store owner (though they didn't think I was Russian, Alex), which makes it much easier to start talking *to* them. The one man I talked to had the common misconception that everyone in the US is rich. He thought there were no beggars there, and mentioned the big gap between rich and poor in China, thinking the US was not the same (China's gini coefficient is higher that American's but not by much). They asked me my monthly salary - something apparently everyone shares in China - and were amazed that I had 3 siblings (America doesn't have a one child policy?).
Conversations with my students are interesting too, both during and after class. As an interesting anecdote, many of my students are quite liberal - most are for gay marriage. Though they still hate the Japanese.
Today I arrived at the school early and picked a random place off campus to eat breakfast. The Western campus is kind of on the Southwestern outskirts of Beijing; it seems as if it was built on what used to be its own small town, where they are now building expensive high rises. I picked a cheap (1 kuai for 豆浆油条), dirty place, and people who came in almost immediately started talking about me to the store owner (though they didn't think I was Russian, Alex), which makes it much easier to start talking *to* them. The one man I talked to had the common misconception that everyone in the US is rich. He thought there were no beggars there, and mentioned the big gap between rich and poor in China, thinking the US was not the same (China's gini coefficient is higher that American's but not by much). They asked me my monthly salary - something apparently everyone shares in China - and were amazed that I had 3 siblings (America doesn't have a one child policy?).
Conversations with my students are interesting too, both during and after class. As an interesting anecdote, many of my students are quite liberal - most are for gay marriage. Though they still hate the Japanese.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Random Interesting Anecdotes from Class...
~I did a lesson that included a list of letters to an advice column about family problems that the students were supposed to come up with solutions to. In one of my graduate student classes, one groups of girls performed a skit, where they suggested sending the rebellious teenage boy down to the countryside so he could learn to appreciate the benefits he had in life. For whatever reason, my immediate thoughts were "how very Chinese." However, many other groups thought that his parents should try harder to understand where he was coming from. I had more than one group devise a "Parent Trap"-like plan to stop two parents from fighting.
~I did a lesson in class today on describing people. The guy I asked to describe Hu Jintao stood up and said "He is cool. That's all."
It's interesting how each class of students has a different feel and leaves me with a different impression. Thankfully the class I was a bit anxious about in the beginning is turning out better than expected.
~I did a lesson in class today on describing people. The guy I asked to describe Hu Jintao stood up and said "He is cool. That's all."
It's interesting how each class of students has a different feel and leaves me with a different impression. Thankfully the class I was a bit anxious about in the beginning is turning out better than expected.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Autumn in Beijing
During my four years at Stanford, I tried to appreciate how lucky I was weather-wise, even while biking back to the dorm on a chilly, rainy winter evening. I never had to trek through the snow to class and rarely wore gloves and a hat. The one season I did miss, however, was the autumn. And now I finally have my autumn weather back in Beijing. The feel, the smell, the sight of autumn weather makes commuting in the city at least slightly more pleasant. The hints of colder weather to come, however, are making me anxious about the winter to come. As is the cold I caught that kept me at home drowsy and sneezing at the end of last week.
But for the most part, I'm enjoying my autumn - the weather, Mid-Autumn Festival and the yummy (though horribly fattening) mooncakes it brought with it, national week and Camille's visit, teaching, which is at the same time entertaining, frustrating, rewarding, and a headache. Though I'd like to say i'm getting the hang of it. Kind of.
This autumn also brings with it the 17th CCP Party Congress, which means hundreds of party delegates have descended upon Beijing to meet and discuss the party's trajectory, most importantly its hierarchy that will eventually determine Hu Jintao's successor. Hundreds, maybe thousands - i dont know the number - come; few make the decisions.
For the record, I find the whole thing as ridiculous as the next person. I have no idea where they found the people I heard quoted on the news saying the party congress would bring prosperity and harmony, as if the party bigwigs sitting around talking and spending the people's money on travel to Beijing and expensive food and drink will do that. But I also find the NY Times report (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/world/asia/16china.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) on the meeting a bit excessive. First of all, the title is flat out deceiving. Yes, Hu Jintao did rule out any political reform that would undermine the party's grip on power, but first of all, did this actually surprise anyone? Please raise your hand if you were expecting earth-shattering reforms that made it not only legal to form new political parties but also legal to compete with the CCP for power. Yeah, I didn't think so. He did *not* rule out smaller reforms, including intra-party democracy, which, as Joseph Kahn so bluntly points out, does not do much to promote real democracy, but it is a step in the right direction. No one should be expecting the PRC to reform overnight. Baby steps, people.
On another note: I can now read my own blog online legally. The whim of whoever has his hand on the buzzer, censoring subversive sites such as wikipedia and blogspot, has now decided that blogspot is not a threat to harmony and order in the PRC.
But for the most part, I'm enjoying my autumn - the weather, Mid-Autumn Festival and the yummy (though horribly fattening) mooncakes it brought with it, national week and Camille's visit, teaching, which is at the same time entertaining, frustrating, rewarding, and a headache. Though I'd like to say i'm getting the hang of it. Kind of.
This autumn also brings with it the 17th CCP Party Congress, which means hundreds of party delegates have descended upon Beijing to meet and discuss the party's trajectory, most importantly its hierarchy that will eventually determine Hu Jintao's successor. Hundreds, maybe thousands - i dont know the number - come; few make the decisions.
For the record, I find the whole thing as ridiculous as the next person. I have no idea where they found the people I heard quoted on the news saying the party congress would bring prosperity and harmony, as if the party bigwigs sitting around talking and spending the people's money on travel to Beijing and expensive food and drink will do that. But I also find the NY Times report (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/world/asia/16china.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin) on the meeting a bit excessive. First of all, the title is flat out deceiving. Yes, Hu Jintao did rule out any political reform that would undermine the party's grip on power, but first of all, did this actually surprise anyone? Please raise your hand if you were expecting earth-shattering reforms that made it not only legal to form new political parties but also legal to compete with the CCP for power. Yeah, I didn't think so. He did *not* rule out smaller reforms, including intra-party democracy, which, as Joseph Kahn so bluntly points out, does not do much to promote real democracy, but it is a step in the right direction. No one should be expecting the PRC to reform overnight. Baby steps, people.
On another note: I can now read my own blog online legally. The whim of whoever has his hand on the buzzer, censoring subversive sites such as wikipedia and blogspot, has now decided that blogspot is not a threat to harmony and order in the PRC.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Left Behind?
It's been a little bit since I've written a real entry...I've probably spent way too much of my online time waiting for www.espn.com to load, which for some reason is consistently slow in China. For those of you are aren't as big of a sports fan as I am, in the past week, the Philadelphia Phillies won the NL East after being 7 down a mere 17 games before but then lost in 3 to the Colorado Rockies, the hottest team in baseball. So Philly will - once again - have to wait til next year. Additionally, Stanford's football team - which espn described as "lowly" on their website - beat USC, the #2 team in the nation 24-23. It was USC's first home loss since 2001 when they were beaten by, you guessed it, Stanford.
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Camille, my friend from high school who is currently teaching in Hunan, came to visit this past week, as the PRC celebrated its birthday (and we celebrated having a week off from work). We went to all of the requisite sites, including the Great Wall, where we did a exhausting 10km trek from 景山岭 to 司马台. Both sites are farther from Beijing than the place where most tourists go and the views are even more impressive. (see pictures on facebook, once i get around to posting them).
Anyway, at the Great Wall, there are local women who spend their days pestering tourists to buy various souvenirs. A group attached themselves to Camille, Zi and I, one of which even walked with us for what had to be a few kilometers. She told us about random things, and at the end, we were expected to buy something from her - T-shirts - which we knowingly paid way too much for. She said she was a farmer from a local village, trying to put her two kids through school, in a place where you can't make enough money farming. This very well could have been true, especially since in most places in China, you can't make enough money just farming. Stories of people left behind as China has rapidly developed always sadden me, and, like in this case, make it more likely that I will feel sorry for them and spend more money, as this woman knew.
I thought about it later, though, especially the paradox. I had described this woman to myself as "being left behind as China has developed," but she has also greatly benefited from this development selling her souvenirs to tourists. And she probably makes a decent living, especially by the standards in her village, doing so. China is such a complicated place.
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Camille, my friend from high school who is currently teaching in Hunan, came to visit this past week, as the PRC celebrated its birthday (and we celebrated having a week off from work). We went to all of the requisite sites, including the Great Wall, where we did a exhausting 10km trek from 景山岭 to 司马台. Both sites are farther from Beijing than the place where most tourists go and the views are even more impressive. (see pictures on facebook, once i get around to posting them).
Anyway, at the Great Wall, there are local women who spend their days pestering tourists to buy various souvenirs. A group attached themselves to Camille, Zi and I, one of which even walked with us for what had to be a few kilometers. She told us about random things, and at the end, we were expected to buy something from her - T-shirts - which we knowingly paid way too much for. She said she was a farmer from a local village, trying to put her two kids through school, in a place where you can't make enough money farming. This very well could have been true, especially since in most places in China, you can't make enough money just farming. Stories of people left behind as China has rapidly developed always sadden me, and, like in this case, make it more likely that I will feel sorry for them and spend more money, as this woman knew.
I thought about it later, though, especially the paradox. I had described this woman to myself as "being left behind as China has developed," but she has also greatly benefited from this development selling her souvenirs to tourists. And she probably makes a decent living, especially by the standards in her village, doing so. China is such a complicated place.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
我就喜欢。。。
I love: autumn days that remind me of home, students who can get me free tickets to the China Open
I am not a fan of: teaching 6 hours in one day
I hate: a bus ride that is supposed to be 30-45 min taking 1.5 hours
*edited*
I am not a fan of: teaching 6 hours in one day
I hate: a bus ride that is supposed to be 30-45 min taking 1.5 hours
*edited*
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
胡说
(this post is actually going to turn into 3 different posts that i've been meaning to write lately).
In Beijing, you pass red banners everywhere. If you can't read Chinese then you probably just shrug, having no idea what the characters on the banners are saying. When you slowly learn the characters that are printed on the banners, you are amazed at the variety of aspects of daily life that they comment upon: the environment, traffic, safety on construction sights, the Olympics, etc. The fun part about the banners is that they always use propaganda-ish words. Hu Jintao's recent favorites are: construction a harmonious society (建设和谐社会）and being civilized (文明). Especially recently, some have advocated people's contributions to the Olympics, a la: 我参加，我奉献， 我快乐。 Anyway, there's a good recent article on Yahoo news on slogans in Chinese society and their importance: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070907/lf_nm/china_party_slogans_dc
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Jen's stupid moments
It's easy to stand out in China. As a foreigner who doesn't look at all Chinese, I have grown accustomed to the stares. However, I do try to minimize unnecessary attention, and having a decent level of Chinese usually does that. But sometimes my Chinese just doesn't work. On the bus the other day, the next stop was broadcast over the PA system, and I thought I might have read the schedule wrong and missed my stop. So I tried to ask the bus lady (there's a lady on most buses who takes tickets and makes sure people swipe their cards) what the stop following the next stop was. But I could not come up with how to phrase this question. Even if I don't know the exact words, usually I can get my message across. But this time, all she kept doing was repeating what the loud speaker said, and she even said it in English. Meanwhile, every person on that bus was staring at me, while my face turned bright red. Finally I got my point across, and thankfully, the next, next stop was the right one, and I quickly ran off the bus.
My other "stupid moment" was when I went to the gym the other day. I stood on the treadmill for a minute, trying to figure out how to use it, since this was the first time I was using this gym. After about 20 seconds of staring at it, the woman next to me points to the button I'm supposed to press. The stupid part is that all of the instructions on the treadmill were in English.
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Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy sucks in every country, but I think it's particularly bad in China. I went to the bank today to open account, and knowing I would have to wait a long time, I took my Chinese book with me. After taking my number and seeing that, yes indeed I had about 80 numbers in front of me, I decided to run to the post office. Even at the post office, the line was out the door, but I sighed and joined it. However, once we actually got into the building, I realized that there were two windows with no lines. I couldn't read the Chinese above the 4 windows, but I had an inkling that I could go to one of the open windows to buy my postage and mail the postcards. I asked a lady next to me, and she said that yes, I could. I noticed that everyone in the long lines had a slip of paper in their hands, but I had no idea what they could be waiting for. I kind of wanted to ask, but my eagerness to get out of line trumped my curiosity.
Back at the bank, I studied Chinese while waiting, and thankfully many with numbers before mine left. While I was sitting at the counter opening the account (which I did in Chinese without any problems!), a guy came up to the counter and said to the teller, "Why don't you open more windows? Everyone's waiting so long, and I'm wasting my time here." Almost every time I have been to a bank in China there has been a long wait, so I've learned to plan on it. Still, almost every time I have been to a bank in China, there has been someone complaining or making a big fuss over the wait. One time I took a few kids to cash travelers checks during EPGY; the wait was somewhere around 15 minutes, which is like a gift from God. But there were still two people behind us arguing with a bank employee. While I'm amazed that so many people have not grown accustomed to/begun to plan around waiting at the banks here, there arguments also provide me with an opportunity for Chinese listening practice as well as general amusement.
In Beijing, you pass red banners everywhere. If you can't read Chinese then you probably just shrug, having no idea what the characters on the banners are saying. When you slowly learn the characters that are printed on the banners, you are amazed at the variety of aspects of daily life that they comment upon: the environment, traffic, safety on construction sights, the Olympics, etc. The fun part about the banners is that they always use propaganda-ish words. Hu Jintao's recent favorites are: construction a harmonious society (建设和谐社会）and being civilized (文明). Especially recently, some have advocated people's contributions to the Olympics, a la: 我参加，我奉献， 我快乐。 Anyway, there's a good recent article on Yahoo news on slogans in Chinese society and their importance: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070907/lf_nm/china_party_slogans_dc
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Jen's stupid moments
It's easy to stand out in China. As a foreigner who doesn't look at all Chinese, I have grown accustomed to the stares. However, I do try to minimize unnecessary attention, and having a decent level of Chinese usually does that. But sometimes my Chinese just doesn't work. On the bus the other day, the next stop was broadcast over the PA system, and I thought I might have read the schedule wrong and missed my stop. So I tried to ask the bus lady (there's a lady on most buses who takes tickets and makes sure people swipe their cards) what the stop following the next stop was. But I could not come up with how to phrase this question. Even if I don't know the exact words, usually I can get my message across. But this time, all she kept doing was repeating what the loud speaker said, and she even said it in English. Meanwhile, every person on that bus was staring at me, while my face turned bright red. Finally I got my point across, and thankfully, the next, next stop was the right one, and I quickly ran off the bus.
My other "stupid moment" was when I went to the gym the other day. I stood on the treadmill for a minute, trying to figure out how to use it, since this was the first time I was using this gym. After about 20 seconds of staring at it, the woman next to me points to the button I'm supposed to press. The stupid part is that all of the instructions on the treadmill were in English.
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Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy sucks in every country, but I think it's particularly bad in China. I went to the bank today to open account, and knowing I would have to wait a long time, I took my Chinese book with me. After taking my number and seeing that, yes indeed I had about 80 numbers in front of me, I decided to run to the post office. Even at the post office, the line was out the door, but I sighed and joined it. However, once we actually got into the building, I realized that there were two windows with no lines. I couldn't read the Chinese above the 4 windows, but I had an inkling that I could go to one of the open windows to buy my postage and mail the postcards. I asked a lady next to me, and she said that yes, I could. I noticed that everyone in the long lines had a slip of paper in their hands, but I had no idea what they could be waiting for. I kind of wanted to ask, but my eagerness to get out of line trumped my curiosity.
Back at the bank, I studied Chinese while waiting, and thankfully many with numbers before mine left. While I was sitting at the counter opening the account (which I did in Chinese without any problems!), a guy came up to the counter and said to the teller, "Why don't you open more windows? Everyone's waiting so long, and I'm wasting my time here." Almost every time I have been to a bank in China there has been a long wait, so I've learned to plan on it. Still, almost every time I have been to a bank in China, there has been someone complaining or making a big fuss over the wait. One time I took a few kids to cash travelers checks during EPGY; the wait was somewhere around 15 minutes, which is like a gift from God. But there were still two people behind us arguing with a bank employee. While I'm amazed that so many people have not grown accustomed to/begun to plan around waiting at the banks here, there arguments also provide me with an opportunity for Chinese listening practice as well as general amusement.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Impressions from the First Week (and a half)
I began my teaching job last Monday and have so far taught 6 classes, 2 hours each. As the first class filed in, I felt that I should be with them sitting in a seat, looking up at the teacher/blackboard expectantly. After being a student for so long, standing in front of a class is a weird experience, especially since I was given no training what-so-ever and just told to teach. Thankfully, one of the other English teachers has been teaching in China for 3 years already and has even more years of ESL teaching experience, so the rest of us (three recent graduates from the US) have been stealing ideas from him.
So far I have taught 4 sections: 3 are made up of sophomores and business English majors while the other one is made up of juniors who study human resource management. This week and next, I add 3 more sections of graduate students. The 3 sections of English majors all have a decently high level of English and have been, for the most part, engaged. I'm actually really looking forward to having interesting discussions with them. The juniors have not taken any English in college, so their level is much lower. The lesson I had planned for this week (geared more towards the higher level students) fell totally flat in today's class of the juniors, so it seems as if I'll have to plan at least two lessons for each week.
However, despite my occasional stumbling through class, there have already been rewarding and amusing moments. When I them in small groups discussing a question, I usually wander around to listen in and help out, and they often have interesting questions. I've already been invited two places by students: a rock concert last saturday (i didnt go because it was too expensive) and a museum this saturday, which i probably will go to. Furthermore, when I told my class of juniors today that I was looking for a Chinese tutor, more than a quarter of the class stayed after to volunteer.
Probably the most amusing moment so far was when I had my first class brainstorming ideas for things they wanted to learn about, one girl wanted to learn how to meet foreign guys. In another class, the boys wanted to learn dating skills. Chinese students are almost always not allowed to date in high school, so when they get to college, they become like American 16 year olds - only interested in sex.
So far I have taught 4 sections: 3 are made up of sophomores and business English majors while the other one is made up of juniors who study human resource management. This week and next, I add 3 more sections of graduate students. The 3 sections of English majors all have a decently high level of English and have been, for the most part, engaged. I'm actually really looking forward to having interesting discussions with them. The juniors have not taken any English in college, so their level is much lower. The lesson I had planned for this week (geared more towards the higher level students) fell totally flat in today's class of the juniors, so it seems as if I'll have to plan at least two lessons for each week.
However, despite my occasional stumbling through class, there have already been rewarding and amusing moments. When I them in small groups discussing a question, I usually wander around to listen in and help out, and they often have interesting questions. I've already been invited two places by students: a rock concert last saturday (i didnt go because it was too expensive) and a museum this saturday, which i probably will go to. Furthermore, when I told my class of juniors today that I was looking for a Chinese tutor, more than a quarter of the class stayed after to volunteer.
Probably the most amusing moment so far was when I had my first class brainstorming ideas for things they wanted to learn about, one girl wanted to learn how to meet foreign guys. In another class, the boys wanted to learn dating skills. Chinese students are almost always not allowed to date in high school, so when they get to college, they become like American 16 year olds - only interested in sex.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Communists
The girl who I would consider my best Chinese friend from when I studied abroad last year is a Communist. Or rather she's a party member. In fact, she's not just a party member but she works for the CCP in the party's equivalent of the foreign affairs office, a job she started this summer. Now, I hadn't actually heard her say that she was a member until very recently (see later in the entry) but I had basically figured it out last summer when I found out that a different girl, who i worked with, was one. The Communist Party in China is not what it used to be, in that it really is only communist in rhetoric only. In fact, many people join the party for the reasons that my former co-worker gave: job opportunities and connections, both of which are pretty darn capitalist. I haven't asked my good friend why she joined the party, but I'm guessing that her reasons would be similar though probably not identical. She's smart and ambitious (the party recruits and only accepts the best and the brightest) and also interested in government and international relations. From conversations, I've gathered that she also has faith in the party's governing ability. (While the CCP has done some really horrible things in the past and continues to do some less horrible things, they have also helped raise tens of millions of people out of poverty - the largest number in the shortest amount of time in human history).
I brought all of this up because I had dinner with her and Jason this past weekend. We caught up and then went to our favorite place to hang out from our time together at bei da - a tea house where you pay 18 RMB for all you can drink/eat, though it becomes increasingly difficult to get the attention of the waiters and waitresses the longer you have been there. They also screw up your orders frequently, but it's fun to see what you actually end up with.
Anyway, one of Jason's other friends met us there, and we, again, told each other what we were doing. When she found out that my friend was a party member, she exclaimed, "you're a Communist?!?!" in shock. Her shock was rather shocking to the rest of us, as I'm pretty sure this girl attends Bei Da, which of all schools in China, should have one of the highest rates of party membership amoung its student population (second only to Qinghua, oh and the party's graduate school if you count that). Awkward silence follows of course, and I, also somewhat awkwardly, tried to brush it off by saying something along the lines of "you really can say anything in front of her, she's not going to report you or anything," which is true. I've had many conversations with my friend about topics that would be considered sensitive both before and after realizing she was a party member.
Two minutes later, at least a partial explanation for her shock/outburst is given. Jason's friend asks my friend if she knows why the government is recently cracking down on house churches and deporting foreigners who preach at them. As a Christian in China, she has two options; she can either attend state-sanctioned churches or churches held in people's houses, which are illegal but often permitted as long as they don't cause political trouble. Of course, my friend, a very new employee of the party's foreign affairs office, has about as much information on that topic as you or i do.
I brought all of this up because I had dinner with her and Jason this past weekend. We caught up and then went to our favorite place to hang out from our time together at bei da - a tea house where you pay 18 RMB for all you can drink/eat, though it becomes increasingly difficult to get the attention of the waiters and waitresses the longer you have been there. They also screw up your orders frequently, but it's fun to see what you actually end up with.
Anyway, one of Jason's other friends met us there, and we, again, told each other what we were doing. When she found out that my friend was a party member, she exclaimed, "you're a Communist?!?!" in shock. Her shock was rather shocking to the rest of us, as I'm pretty sure this girl attends Bei Da, which of all schools in China, should have one of the highest rates of party membership amoung its student population (second only to Qinghua, oh and the party's graduate school if you count that). Awkward silence follows of course, and I, also somewhat awkwardly, tried to brush it off by saying something along the lines of "you really can say anything in front of her, she's not going to report you or anything," which is true. I've had many conversations with my friend about topics that would be considered sensitive both before and after realizing she was a party member.
Two minutes later, at least a partial explanation for her shock/outburst is given. Jason's friend asks my friend if she knows why the government is recently cracking down on house churches and deporting foreigners who preach at them. As a Christian in China, she has two options; she can either attend state-sanctioned churches or churches held in people's houses, which are illegal but often permitted as long as they don't cause political trouble. Of course, my friend, a very new employee of the party's foreign affairs office, has about as much information on that topic as you or i do.
Friday, August 31, 2007
China Moments and Communication
As of the time I am writing this, I have been in my apartment now for a week (by the time this is posted, it will have been over a week). With no job yet to do and with many of the people I know here not currently in Beijing, it's been a rather quiet and sometimes lonely week. I've bought some things for the apartment, wandered around the area, slept a lot, finished the book I was reading as well as the season of west wing i was watching, and worked on learning Chinese vocab for two hours everyday. The one thing I have not done a lot of has been talking to people. (This is not inherently a bad thing, just an observation). I've talked briefly to any number of service people at restaurants and stores and had two longer conversations with workers at two of those restaurants. (at one, a young guy who was making the 串儿, or meat sticks, tried to sell me one made of some animal's kidney. thankfully, even though i didnt know how to say kidney - its 腰 in case you ever need to know - I didn't take him up on the offer). I've also texted and im-ed pretty often, and two nights ago, I had a rather long phone conversation with Camille (a high school friend currently in Southern China).
Otherwise, the one major exception to my week of "silence" was last Saturday when I met up with Jason (friend from college in Beijing for the week for job training). We picked a random restaurant near the drum tower and ordered what we knew to be way too much food, but we were both really hungry. Last year during my study abroad program, a bunch of us noted the alarming frequency with which things in China turned out drastically different than we expected. The end result could be good or bad and was obviously due to the language and cultural barrier, but we termed these instances "China moments." (I may have not remembered our exact phrase for them but close enough). My number of "china moments" seems to, so far, be drastically fewer this time around, but Jason and I definitely had one at dinner, possibly as a throwback to last year. One of the dishes we ordered was 饺子or dumplings, and they didn't arrive until much later than the rest of the food, so we thought they had been forgotten, which we were quite ok with considering the quantity of food we had ordered. But when they did arrive, they arrived in such large quantities that we almost fell over in our seats.
Jason: I'm sorry, we only ordered "yi liang" (the term usually given for a set of dumplings)Server: Oh, we don't count in "liang" we count in 斤 (term for 500g).
Jason/Jen: Oh!
We had ordered half a kilogram of dumplings! This would have been great, especially since the dumplings were so good, if we hadn't ordered 3 other dishes as well. Thankfully, we were able to unload much of our 500 g on three French guys who showed up at the restaurant shortly afterwards in need of translation help.
Thankfully, today I met one of the other teachers and my next door neighbor who had moved in the day before. In him, I get to see an exaggerated version of what I must have felt/looked like when I landed in Beijing for the first time a year a half ago (thankfully I had such a good support system then in the form of the program administrators and friends who spoke much better Chinese than I did). He's taken a year of Chinese but it was a conversational class, so he recognizes very few characters. I had forgotten what it felt like to look at a Chinese menu w/o pictures for the first time. Even with pictures, it is quite a daunting task, especially with the server standing at your table waiting for you to order. So I now have someone else to talk to, and I helped him order lunch and buy a cell phone. The other teachers should be arriving soon, and classes start on Monday, so things should pick up.
Otherwise, the one major exception to my week of "silence" was last Saturday when I met up with Jason (friend from college in Beijing for the week for job training). We picked a random restaurant near the drum tower and ordered what we knew to be way too much food, but we were both really hungry. Last year during my study abroad program, a bunch of us noted the alarming frequency with which things in China turned out drastically different than we expected. The end result could be good or bad and was obviously due to the language and cultural barrier, but we termed these instances "China moments." (I may have not remembered our exact phrase for them but close enough). My number of "china moments" seems to, so far, be drastically fewer this time around, but Jason and I definitely had one at dinner, possibly as a throwback to last year. One of the dishes we ordered was 饺子or dumplings, and they didn't arrive until much later than the rest of the food, so we thought they had been forgotten, which we were quite ok with considering the quantity of food we had ordered. But when they did arrive, they arrived in such large quantities that we almost fell over in our seats.
Jason: I'm sorry, we only ordered "yi liang" (the term usually given for a set of dumplings)Server: Oh, we don't count in "liang" we count in 斤 (term for 500g).
Jason/Jen: Oh!
We had ordered half a kilogram of dumplings! This would have been great, especially since the dumplings were so good, if we hadn't ordered 3 other dishes as well. Thankfully, we were able to unload much of our 500 g on three French guys who showed up at the restaurant shortly afterwards in need of translation help.
Thankfully, today I met one of the other teachers and my next door neighbor who had moved in the day before. In him, I get to see an exaggerated version of what I must have felt/looked like when I landed in Beijing for the first time a year a half ago (thankfully I had such a good support system then in the form of the program administrators and friends who spoke much better Chinese than I did). He's taken a year of Chinese but it was a conversational class, so he recognizes very few characters. I had forgotten what it felt like to look at a Chinese menu w/o pictures for the first time. Even with pictures, it is quite a daunting task, especially with the server standing at your table waiting for you to order. So I now have someone else to talk to, and I helped him order lunch and buy a cell phone. The other teachers should be arriving soon, and classes start on Monday, so things should pick up.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
EPGY: How do you measure four weeks?
I came to the EPGY program viewing it as a job, nothing more. The first meeting of the counselors at Stanford had left me with a very lukewarm impression, and the administrative issues with the program had been evident from the beginning. However, once you got past those persistent admin problems and the general chaos created because of them (especially during the first two weeks), the EPGY program was much more of an experience than a job, and i think most if not all of the other counselors and i got almost as much out of it as the kids did. Sure it was a job. During the first week, we literally worked from 9am until 11pm, and there was often a stack of papers to grade or research to do for Matt. And the trips to Silk Market did get tedious. Even so, it was definitely the most fun job I have ever had, and I learned a lot about what it's like to be a Chinese high schooler and what it would have been like to be an American high schooler in China without knowing much about the country or language.
Undoubtedly, the group of kids made the program amazing. Sure, integration was difficult at first, and there were more than a few moments when i wanted to knock some sense into a few of them. But by the last week and a half, it was evident that some sense of integration had been achieved and cross-cultural friendships had formed. Still, for me, it was the fun moments spent with the kids that I will remember. There was ping pong and capture the flag, chatting in Starbucks, our weekend addiction to mah jong, Karaoke, "chao er," truth or dare as well as a debate with a few of the Chinese kids - both in Chinese.
Then there were the other counselors/staff members. Working so closely together, even though it was only four weeks, I got to know all of them very well, and I couldn't imagine a better group. There was mafia and poker, fun nights out at hou hai and san li tun, gossiping like high school girls again, and wonderful (and wonderfully silly) conversations. Now we're all going our separate ways - some of us staying in Beijing, others returning to Stanford, others off to Paris and Tokyo - but I hope we'll see each other again some day. At times, the four weeks seemed to last forever, but now that they're over, it seems as if they flew by. I met so many amazing people, both among the kids and the staff members, and I made some great friendships, that I truly hope will continue.
Undoubtedly, the group of kids made the program amazing. Sure, integration was difficult at first, and there were more than a few moments when i wanted to knock some sense into a few of them. But by the last week and a half, it was evident that some sense of integration had been achieved and cross-cultural friendships had formed. Still, for me, it was the fun moments spent with the kids that I will remember. There was ping pong and capture the flag, chatting in Starbucks, our weekend addiction to mah jong, Karaoke, "chao er," truth or dare as well as a debate with a few of the Chinese kids - both in Chinese.
Then there were the other counselors/staff members. Working so closely together, even though it was only four weeks, I got to know all of them very well, and I couldn't imagine a better group. There was mafia and poker, fun nights out at hou hai and san li tun, gossiping like high school girls again, and wonderful (and wonderfully silly) conversations. Now we're all going our separate ways - some of us staying in Beijing, others returning to Stanford, others off to Paris and Tokyo - but I hope we'll see each other again some day. At times, the four weeks seemed to last forever, but now that they're over, it seems as if they flew by. I met so many amazing people, both among the kids and the staff members, and I made some great friendships, that I truly hope will continue.
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