A lot has happened since I last posted, especially in regards to China vis-a-vis the international system (which, if you know me, you know that I might care about this topic...just a little). First there were riots in Tibet, then the mess that was the international leg of the Olympic torch relay, and then a disastrous earthquake in Sichuan. I've had a lot to say about all of this but had difficulty putting it into writing.
In China, as the rescue efforts progressed, the press and the people were constantly looking for miracles - inspiring stories that could provide a glimmer of hope in an otherwise depressing situation. People who lived for over 100 hours buried under rubble; teachers who died saving their students; young children who carried their younger siblings to safety after losing both parents. The stories go on and on. The West is also searching for its own miracle within this disaster - a freer China. In the free reporting allowed on the earthquake and the government's relief efforts, the Western media sees a glimmer of hope of happy, democratic, free days to come. (For one example of this view, see Nicholas Kristof's recent op-ed in the Nytimes that compares China today to Taiwan in the 1980s).
Before I address this topic, I first want to say that I have found the Chinese government's and the Chinese people's response to the earthquake nothing short of impressive. The government certainly learned from its past mistakes as well as the mistakes of other countries (see not only Myanmar but also Katrina, Hurricane). And if I were Chinese, I would be full of praise for Wen Jiabao right now too. Was jumping on a plane less than 2 hours after the disaster somewhat politically motivated? Yes. Does "Grandpa Wen" seem to genuinely care about the people? Also, yes - especially compared to his boss, Hu Jintao, and certainly compared to President Bush. I'm not Chinese, and I still felt incredibly moved by his compassion. And the decision to - eventually - permit open reporting on the disaster relief was also impressive. I believe that it was somewhat politically motivated and also somewhat beyond the control of the government, but it certainly worked to increase Chinese confidence in their own government as well as Western confidence in China. (As one of my students said, "For the first time, I actually like the government.")
Still, I think the Western media is overreacting for a few reasons. The first is obvious - the media loves to sensationalize. Sensationalism sells. Additionally, as much as the Western media loves to criticize China, they also love to find that glimmer of hope that change is on the way. The second reason is that I don't find the earthquake response as such a huge departure from the norm. No one would characterize the Chinese media as anywhere near free, but there's a lot that goes on online and even in print (see: Southern Weekend) that challenges the boundaries that traditionally confine the Chinese press. For example, the fact that Chang Ping was even allowed to publish his controversial article says something (long story short, Chang Ping, as a deputy editor, wrote an editorial calling for a freer press as well as a re-thinking of Han relations with minorities, which caused him to be branded a traitor and eventually demoted). So in many ways, I see the open reporting on the earthquake as more a part of China's current trajectory than a sudden, random anomaly.
The final reason is that the open reporting was part politically motivated and part unavoidable (this seems to contradict my last statement but let me continue...). The media has pushed the envelope before (see: nailhouse, 2007), but in most circumstances, the government puts the lid on open reporting. However, this time the government realized that not only would it be next to impossible to stop the open reporting on the disaster but that it would work in their own interests (at least the interests of the central government...) to allow it to continue.
So, although I think the Western media is overreacting and drawing somewhat far-fetched conclusions, I still remain hopeful myself. My firm belief that while this was a sudden bout of extreme openness but that it also fits into the general trajectory towards more media freedom actually makes me more optimistic than those who are hoping for sudden change. After all, gradual reform tends to work better than glasnost.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
选词 Word Choice
Anyone who has done any sort of direct translation knows how difficult it is. You may understand the article, story, whatever that is written in your second language, but portraying the ideas accurately in English is pretty difficult. This becomes doubly hard if you are translating from English into your second language (essentially impossible for me).
Phrasing matters. Sometimes even individual word choice is even more important. I was reminded of this when reading about the recent incidents in Tibet (my site is blocked in china anyway...). When reporting in English, the Chinese government talks about the "Dalai clique" that supposedly fueled the riots. However, in Chinese, the government talks about the "达赖集团." The second word, ji tuan, in most cases I would translate as "group." It doesn't have the negative (or 12 year old girl) connotation that clique has. Why translate it as clique? The CCP does a good job of portraying the Dalai Lama in a negative light within its borders, but I personally think that's a lost cause on the international stage. Most who read English reports already think DL is a pretty good guy, and condescending words by the Chinese government are the last things that are going to change such opinions. (Zi suggested that a clique sounds smaller - and more ridiculous. this definitely could have been the reason behind the word choice, but i still think it's a bad idea).
Furthermore, the Chinese government has a history of shooting itself in the foot with bad word choice. The word 宣传 can mean a lot of different things depending upon the context - publicity, public relations, or propaganda. For some reason, for many years, this was always translated as "propaganda." So China had a Propaganda Department (or ministry or something - i'm not sure of the full name). And most Chinese would not realize that the word "propaganda" has a bad connotation. It's nothing like shooting yourself in the foot before you start...
Phrasing matters. Sometimes even individual word choice is even more important. I was reminded of this when reading about the recent incidents in Tibet (my site is blocked in china anyway...). When reporting in English, the Chinese government talks about the "Dalai clique" that supposedly fueled the riots. However, in Chinese, the government talks about the "达赖集团." The second word, ji tuan, in most cases I would translate as "group." It doesn't have the negative (or 12 year old girl) connotation that clique has. Why translate it as clique? The CCP does a good job of portraying the Dalai Lama in a negative light within its borders, but I personally think that's a lost cause on the international stage. Most who read English reports already think DL is a pretty good guy, and condescending words by the Chinese government are the last things that are going to change such opinions. (Zi suggested that a clique sounds smaller - and more ridiculous. this definitely could have been the reason behind the word choice, but i still think it's a bad idea).
Furthermore, the Chinese government has a history of shooting itself in the foot with bad word choice. The word 宣传 can mean a lot of different things depending upon the context - publicity, public relations, or propaganda. For some reason, for many years, this was always translated as "propaganda." So China had a Propaganda Department (or ministry or something - i'm not sure of the full name). And most Chinese would not realize that the word "propaganda" has a bad connotation. It's nothing like shooting yourself in the foot before you start...
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 :)
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