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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm taking a time out from our regularly scheduled program...

to congratulate the PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES on WINNING THE NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST after a tumultuous season.

Sorry Mets, there's always next year. Trust me, we know how that feels.

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*

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.

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.

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.

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.