Walk Walk China

南菁中学 NanJing High School

2009-10-04T17:17:00.001+08:00

Oh, I just don't see the light at the end of the censorship tunnel anymore. Everything from facebook to blogger is still blocked--and cracks found are cracks soon patched. The one blinding ray of bright light in this storm of well-executed oppression is that I'm no longer wasting time. Yeah! I never realized how much time facebook and blogging cost me until this paranoid government crushed them to itty bitty little pieces and forced me to concentrate on the job at hand. And so I guess in some ways this prolonged block on all things social is sorta working out for me because as it turns out I'm so much busier this year. I can use the time!

Anyways, the block is still leaky enough for me to toss things out at ya. As I mentioned below, I can't read my blog, but I can still email things to it so that you can stay updated. And so I'm going to take this occassion of my 8-day holiday to bring you up to speed.

I am living in the affluent city of Jiangyin (江阴) of the affluent province of Jiangsu (江苏). After spending a month here, I am convinced that this place is nearly perfect. Nearly, not quite. Let's air out these complaints to dry before we take in the clean laundry. (1) I'm not a big fan of the food here; bland blends of vegetables and rice don't get me overly excited for lunch or dinner. Luckily there are immigrants from Sichuan and Gansu who can cook up some dishes with a bit more flavor (adding sugar to dishes is not much of a trick, to all you Jiangsu loyalists). Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any food representing the flavors of 陕西. Anyways, so I'm not amazed by the food; but I'm definitely eating my fill. (2) The weather disappoints me mostly. We're sitting in October here, and the only jacket I get to wear is a rain coat. That's because it's still warm, sometimes muggy, and sometimes rainy. Meh, no big deal; it's just not the kind of autumn I prefer.

But everything else is great. The city size is neither too big nor too small. It has restaurants, shopping, and entertainment that range in price and quality--and all are easily accessed as a product of the convenient layout of the city. The city is clean. It feels safe. It's modern. It has an ace public transportation system.

As nice as all of that is, it's all bonus. I came here to teach; and this school provides the educational environment of every teacher's dreams. The school is modern (construction 'finished' this summer). Every classroom has advanced technology, including a computer, a projector system, sliding layers of blackboards, a smartboard, and a network for accessing the Internet and shared folders across the entire school. All teachers have access to a printing room with limitless opportunity to make photocopies and print classroom materials. In most classes, there are about 50 students in a spacious room, but my classrooms have a little over 30 students in each. The school also boasts a massive three-floor cafeteria with the top floor being the teachers' cafeteria decorated to look like an elegant restaurant. The school has a colossal outdoors sports complex with a track, regulation soccer pitch, and multiple basketball courts; a separate library building; a separate, multi-floored indoor gymnasium building; a eight-story administration building; a theatre; multiple classroom buildings; and multiple large lecture halls. Oh, and we can't forget the parking garage, the students' dorms, the teachers' dorms, and the International Center--which includes hotel rooms and our foreign teachers' apartments. This is all that I've seen--there's probably still more stuff here. I estimate it takes 10 minutes to walk from one side of campus to the other!

How about some pictures!...

towering administration building, gymnasium to the right, library far back right

grade3 classroom building to the left and tower in the back

Grade1 building to the left; Grade2 building to the right; courtyard in the center

courtyard and lecture halls, theatre back left, not sure about other building

a pond courtyard... yes, it has a pond courtyard too! You should see it at night!

THEATRE ROOM

Holiday performances

A school is nothing without the proper internal structure, but this school has that too. I am blessed to have been placed within a cohesive and talented department of foreign and Chinese teachers. We cooperate in every aspect of teaching--from lesson integration to grading. Let me give you an example--I teach the students advanced vocabulary words in their TOEFL class. The literature teacher highlightst those words in her class and uses them whenever possible. The chemistry teacher has begun to use the words in her classes too! The literature teacher and I even co-teach two lessons a week--entirely on our own initiative. I'm telling you, we all work together on a level that I would have had a hard time imagining two months ago. In short, our Ameson department of teachers are flexible, determined, and supportive. We also have suitable support from the administrators at our school and the administrators at the Ameson Institute. Let me give you an example. The lesson that the literature teacher and I co-teach involves active learning and going outside. The administration let us do this (remember, Chinese teachers don't take their students outside!). In the second week, our students were too noisy, and many Chinese teachers complained to the administrators. The administrators only told us that we should choose a place that is further away from the classroom area. They still completely support our method.

our department office

Well, there's one more subject to addres. Think about it... Yeah, I haven't told you about the students yet. They're are the critical part of the equation, eh? Well, the students are...

[stay tuned for scenes from the next episode]

singing "Nanjing welcomes You"

2009-08-25T07:47:00.001+08:00

This is just a quick blog entry to note that I am back in China after a safe but chaotic and exhuasting adventure hopping between trains, planes, and automobiles to arrive at my destination in Nanjing comfortably 1 hour before the hostel I had booked closed. To keep a long, interesting story short and bland: a lot of little things went wrong, but the big things went right. That I arrived is all that matters, right? Well, I imagine you might be thinking this blog entry would be a heck of a lot more exciting if I could report that I had to spend my first night back in China sleeping on the streets? It would have been manageable... I could have made a castle out of the library of books that I brought between my two 50 pound suticases. And then just tuck mysef to sleep under the thick quilt of humidity in the Nanjing air. Anyways... that didn't happen... I got my secure, air-conditioned, wifi access room! Luck always be mine in the end!

Some other notes:

(1) THe blog: many communication and social networking sites are still blocked in China (recall that we talked about this as a consequence of the Xinjiang riots back in July). I can't access facebook. And I still can't access my blog. So how am I writing this? Well I am emailing this message to my blog. THat means the formating is probably a little weird and it will take an extra step to add pictures. It also means I can't check my own blog. So I have no idea how any of this appears or that it even appears at all. I can't read any of your comments, but please do continue to comment if you please because EVENTUALLY this block will be lifted (or at the very least I'll return to America, where even hate-spewing racists are allowed to blog) and then I can go back and read all of your comments, which I enjoy doing. Hey that run-on sentence was longer than my flight across the Pacific!

(2) Things are looking more and more encouraging with my new position. There will be at least 3 other foreign teachers at our school. What a change from HuaiYa! What's more, I am hearing amazing things about the quality of this school's campus and facilities... but let's save details until they can be verified. There's still a lot of pressure, but I am feeling more relieved because on the one hand (A) the other 3 teachers who are going with me to Jiangyin are young and new to AP and teaching and on the other hand (B) the older, more experienced teachers who work in Nanjing are helpful, encouraging, and available. In other words, the workload and standards are just as intense as they ever were, but the atmosphere seems pleasant. Anyways, let a few months go by before you accept any verdicts from me...

Okay, folks, that's it. Nothing interesting about this blog entry. Just an update.

back in the world

2009-07-24T20:16:00.005+08:00

On the Barbarian's Side of the Great Firewall of China

Wow! There are enough cobwebs on this blog to embroider a replica of the QingMing Shanghe Tu!!! Where the heck have I been?!

WAITING...and sometimes not so patiently. Blogspot has been blocked in China since sometime in April or May. Who really knows why. One month approaching the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen '89, the lights just went out. And not only blogspot--for a while, Twitter and hotmail were down too. And Youtube of course--Youtube has been among the dead and missing since March or earlier. I assumed that all of the paranoia would end abrubtly and arbitrarily... some Monday in June... or maybe June 15th. Nope.

It dragged on and on until July 5th or July 6th, when it got worse. July 5th brought the beginning of a tragic, see-saw series of protests and riots in Urumqi of Xinjiang Province. I assume this news was as big worldwide as it was in China. You know about it, right? As far as the Internet, well, you can imagine--all but the candles went out. No more facebook; Skype and Yahoo! mail were my only connection to the outside world.

For me, this ever-higher wall has been an aggrevation. In the last two or three months, I experienced and did some incredible things. The final months flooded my life with a whirlwind of amazing stories and spectacular pictures. But I can't share them now... not enough time to say so much.

So how am I blogging again? Did China lift the block? No. Did I use a proxy to tunnel my way under the wall? No (I can't seem to make proxies work). I am taking advantage of the third option--I took a 747 over the wall and landed somewhere on the other side of the Great Firewall of China. From America, I can blogspot, facebook, twitter, youtube, wiki, and google my life away again!

But... that's not what's going to happen. Don't expect any blogs until September. And you won't see much of me on facebook either. You see, I only have a month at home before I pick up my bags and return to China for another (hopefully) wonderful year. Now come on, don't cry about it. No one wants to read blog entries about my first cheeseburger back in the States. So until September--or until China unblocks blogspot--zaijian!

This post is due for a disclaimer: It's clear that China's policy of censorship and blocking annoys me at the personal level. And I would argue further that these tools are probably not as effective and in some ways potentially counter-productive in terms of China's objectives. Yet all-in-all I understand China's rationale. In recognition of blogspot's capacity as a medium to incite anger/hate/division or facebook's capacity as a medium to organize a protest-come-riot, I understand how censorship and blocking are justified as a means for maintaining social order. In terms of human rights, I value one human's right to safety from death, injury, or vandalism at the hands of a mob over many human's rights to chat at leisure on social networking websites.

And let's not forget that America has censorship too. Many 'Youku' videos, for example, are blocked in American. Why? Because they blatantly violate copyrights! That's a good enough rationale for me. Well, agree or disagree, but China has its rationale too.

Yan'an Revolutions

2009-04-30T07:55:00.009+08:00

Welcome to Yan'an

The Nursery of Chinese Revolutions

Last weekend, the headmaster of the school invited me to join him and some other teachers from the school on a trip to Yan'an. The trip aimed to combine sightseeing, food tourism, and meet-n-greets with schools in Yan'an Prefecture. Now find your maps and guide your eyes to northern Shaanxi Province. Yan'an will be not too, too far to the north of Xi'an. Yan'an is important enough to be on your map.

On the map, it would appear that Yan'an is not far from my HuaiYa neighborhood. Six-hour drive by car, maybe. But in every way, Yan'an is a different world. The geography is dramatically different. I hope to have an entry on that in the near future. The food is different. They have a wide variety of mutton/lamb/goat entrees (including lamb hoof meat and goat head meat served in the cracked-open and hollowed skull of an adult goat), a potato'y local special food, and squash (in April!). The Yan'an folk have never heard of our local special food (mianpi'er). And their best chefs attempt to imitate saozi mian (our local, China-wide famous noodle), but the word "dud" comes to mind when I think of it. HuaiYa and Yan'an may be in the same province, but they are different worlds.

Anyways, talking about food has pushed us to the brink of eternal aimlessness. Let's return to planet earth. Yan'an is famous as the site of revolution. One revolution changed China 70 years ago. A contemporary revolution may change China in the decades to come.

Revolution #1:

I am by no means an expert on China's communist revolution. To be honest, reading about this critical period of modern Chinese history makes my eyelids heavy. You know what I mean? Let me explain: it bores the life out of me. In fact, I did not even want to go to Yan'an, but I sensed the headmaster's "offer" was something of a request.

Old ideas, new ideas, merging and pounding of ideologies, propaganda, legends of godly men, blah, blah, blah. I don't know why, but it bores me. And I suspect it bores you too. So let's condense the history and make it colorful.

Communist thought arrived in China and evolved in China and was ultimately accepted in China as the antidote to the toxic 'poisons' of feudalism, capitalism, and imperialism. In the infant years, an assortment of Chinese intellectuals created a rainbow of communist thought. This rainbow was the backdrop of a dark foreground: corruption, drugs, warlords, civil war, foreign exploitation, and bold aggression at the barrel tips of the Japanese military. The conservative leaders in China despised communism (and the associated threats against their leadership) and therefore attempted to purge the country of communist thought. They shot from the hip and killed many people. But although the surviving Chinese communists dwindled in number, they strengthed in unity. Facing the threat of extermination, this nugget of revolutionary diehards went on a long, long march across China to escape persecution.

At long last, these fleeing communists arrived and found safety in Yan'an. They unpacked their rainbow and put in the skies over China once again. But this particular rainbow coming from Yan'an began to lose its colors. Soon there was no more violet in the rainbow of Chinese communist thought. They next day no more blue. No more green. No more yellow. No more orange! The variety of ideologies and policies that once existed were being streamlined into one pure thought at the hands of a small group of increasingly influential communist leaders in Yan'an. By the mid1940s, the rainbow of Chinese communist thought shining from Yan'an cast a single, pure shade of red. And by the end of the 1940s, the Chinese communists defeated the Chinese nationalists and so cast Mao Zedong's red rainbow all over mainland China.

The point is that the political revolution, which began as a hundred schools of thought from places all over the world, was molded into a focused vision there in Yan'an. Afterwards, this vision was applied across China and hence profoundly changed Chinese society and culture.

After a long day of scheming about how to take the future of China into his hands, Mao Zedong ate dinner and slept here.

Important decisions about the future of Chinese communism and China in general were discussed and debated here. In the beginning they were probably genuine discussions and debates. In the end, maybe not so much. I imagine scenes of yes-men praising and rubber stamping everything Mao Zedong says. Maybe I'm unfairly critical of Mao?

.
Revolution #2

Well another revolution may be brewing in Yan'an these days. And it could be very, very influential. This revolution is not political. It is a revolution in education methodology.

Get this! The students at Yichuan Junior Middle School arrange their desks in formations that put the students face-to-face! The teachers give students assignments, projects, and opportunities to practice what they have learned during class! Students create things. Students discuss things. Students even give speaches and attempt to teach things! And students get to display their creations inside and outside of the classroom. What else but a revolution?!!!! Have a look:

In this classroom, students sit face-to-face in groups of 4 or 5. They work as a group. They help each other. They are responsible for each other. When the water rises, the entire boat floats.

In this classroom, the students sit in long rows of desks that face each other. Although not as cohesive as the groups described above, the students still have better opportunities to discuss things with each other, ask questions of each other, help each other, participate in class activities together, etc.

All the classrooms are decorated inside and outside with students' projects. I have toured so many middle and high schools in China that I had begun to think white walls were natural. But then when I saw these classrooms with the color of pride and achievement everywhere, I re-awakened to the reality of what a classroom should be. A forest without trees is not a forest. A classroom without stimulating materials everywhere is not a classroom.

If you have forgotten, please go back to my September and October entries and remind yourself of what the classrooms at my school look like. All desks face forward. Barely any room to move around. Mostly white walls. Few if any students' projects on display. A different world here at Yichuan Middle School! If you could have seen the shock and excitement of the student who accompanied us from my school as he entered the realm of student-centered learning, oh then you would understand why this is a revolution.

In some ways, this is hardly new. America has many, MANY classroom environments like this. And indeed there are classrooms like this all over the world. There have already been classrooms like this even in China. Indeed the school leaders modeled their recent change after a school from Shandong Province that has been using this method for quite some time. So how is this a Yan'an revolution?

Well, generally speaking, this method is new to most of China. This method, imagined in the minds of distant educators worldwide, has arrived in China. Now the method needs to be defined, refined, and studied. And then the method needs to spread far and wide. Yan'an did it before. Yan'an can do it again.

Imitation is the way of life in China. If something is successful, there is a stampede to imitate. Last weekend, our school leaders went to Yan'an to observe the method at Yichuan Middle School. Because Yichuan school leaders had only just introduced the new classroom environment policy in February 2009, right now the method is only a curiosity. Our school leaders are merely observing and asking questions at this point. I guess other school leaders will do the same. At first, only the schools from Shaanxi will be interested. But if this school is truly successful, school leaders will come from all over China to study the method. If this school can send more and more students to top-tier universities, there will be school leaders begging to apply it all over China.

Side story: there is a famous high school in Hebei Province that last year sent 40 students to BeiDa, China's most esteemed university. Most schools are thrilled if they can send one student to BeiDa. So 40 students is incredible! Now administrators flock to this school in Hebei to learn the method. Unfortunately, the secret to their success at that particular school is to have the students always studying. The students at that school never have P.E. and are encouraged to eat lunch for 5 minutes... and to read their textbooks as they eat their lunches. Creepy, eh?

Needless to say, I hope Yichuan Middle School will be successful. It will send a ripple that will change China's education system profoundly. The quality of education will improve. The productivity of the labor force will improve. Fate has given Yan'an a second chance to deliver a "great leap forward."

PingYao tales

2009-04-19T13:27:00.015+08:00

I went to PingYao a long time ago (check the January and February entries about PingYao), but recently decided to write an entry about the history of PingYao. Bare with the seemingly odd story-telling sequence and the repetition of theme here. Enjoy!

If the walls of PingYao could talk, they would say,

"adversity is opportunity"

Tale 3:
One day many many years ago, a clever young clerkboy named Mao Honghui of XinCun Village of PingYao Prefecture journeyed on an errand to buy vegetable oil stock for his manager. On arriving at such-n-such town, the famed vegetable-oil city in Northern Shanxi Province (山西), the young man found himself in an unenviable situation: a desperate supply shortage of vegetable oil this year. There were simply too many merchants eager to buy the oil and not enough oil to satisfy the quantity demanded. Despite having even arrived early on the rush, Mao Honghui and countless other merchants stood with money to offer but nothing to buy because the well-experienced, old-timer merchants had contractually pre-ordered the entire supply. These wise merchants were on their leisurely way to pick up their promised stock.

"没办法!... there's nothing we can do," the unlucky young merchants dejectedly agreed. They all packed up and went home to face the wrath of their managers--or worse--the complete evaporation of their companies. But that clever Mao Honghui had a brilliant idea. He took the money and bought every last basket in the city. Why did he buy baskets, you ask? Well let me tell you.

A few days later, when the elderly merchants arrived they found their own little problem--every last drop of vegetable oil they had pre-ordered awaited them exactly as expected, but not one basket was available with which to transport it home! Mao Honghui then appeared to make his proposal. He offered the group of experienced merchants as many baskets as they needed in exchange for their collective contribution to meeting his vegetable oil needs. With no alternative, they agreed. A little here and a litter there later, Mao Honghui's stock was full. He walked away with not only all the vegetable oil he needed but also a handsome personal profit (since baskets were so cheap) and a far-spreading reputation as something of a genius. Indeed,

adversity is opportunity

Tale 1

"Located on the banks of the Fen River, PingYao Prefecture is composed of three parts: the plain, the hilly land, and the mountain area. There are a lot of people but not enough farm land. In addition, there are not enough underground water resources, and the farming conditions are simple and crude."

--Pingyao County Records (1707)

To this very day in April 2009, Shanxi Province (山西) is anything but a farmer's paradise. It rains too rarely. Winters are long, cold, and dry. Spring brings nothing but dust raining from the even dryer skies. Summers bring heat and humidity, but not enough water to cultivate bountiful harvests. The record quoted above testifies to a hostile agricultural environment stretching back for centuries.

But what is hostility if not a chance to overcome and fly higher? The costs of squeezing water out of a turnip are too high.... and there are other ways to get water, which can bring a flood. The wisest of the Shanxi people realized that instead of growing or making things to feed themselves, they could trade what others grow or make to feed themselves. And what a feast they found! Shanxi is a central province. To the north: Beijing and beyond. To the east: the coastal provinces. To the south: the fertile agricultural lands of South China. To the west: my Sha'anxi province, Xi'an, and its gateway to the globe-turning Silk Road. So whereas geography frowned on Shanxi's chances of making a living by farming, geography smiled, winked, and nudged at Shanxi's prospect of making a living by trade and business.

Indeed, to historians Shanxi Province is most famous for one thing--the Shanxi Businessman and the Shanxi business culture. They traded and transported grain, salt, silk, cloth, iron, and information. And PingYao--at the center of Shanxi's agricultural poverty--was for centuries the axis of a wealthy network of trade and commerce that spanned China and wider Asia. An old saying in China: "Where you find sparrows, you find the people of Pingyao."

The deep ruts of 100,001 wagon wheels have carved a unique story of economic history into the streets of PingYao

trade made this

PingYao

the sprawling Wang Family Mansion, a few kilometers to the south of PingYao; once the home of an incredibly rich merchant family, now a monument to their lifestyle and the economic history of Shanxi; said to be the civilian equivalent of the Forbidden City Palace in size and splendor... this picture is from Google Images since I was not able to go there myself

adversity is opportunity

Tale 2

The Shanxi businessmen were tireless spiders spreading their web of trade and commerce across Asia. Almost immediately, however, they encountered a problem that only intensified as their web got larger: bandits. When merchants carried profits in the form of hard currency, their wagons became targets with the promise of dense loot. As the wealth and distances travelled increased, so did the chances of running into armed thieves. And with the infiltration of firearms into Asia, the thieves became a serious threat. A small group of bandits could pillage a company into bankruptcy with one raid. What to do?

Some merchants played it safe by restricting their business to the confines of their city wall. [sigh] Limited opportunities. Some more clever merchants took up the idea of hiring armed escort services. They could travel the world... at a heavy but reasonable cost. Risky opportunities!

Enter Lei Lutai of PingYao. This visionary merchant first distinguished himself as the manager of the Beijing branch of Li Xiyeng Dye Shop. Faced with the problem of transporting silver past the thieves, Lei Lutai stepped into the limelight of China's economic history with his brilliant idea: remittances.

Here's how it works. A PingYao merchant sells silk to a retailer in Beijing. The retailer gives him a sum of silver. The PingYao merchant then deposits this silver at the Beijing branch of XYZ silver inventory. The XYZ silver inventory clerk gives him a piece of paper that says he is entitled to this amount of silver at any of the XYZ silver inventories. The PingYao merchant leaves Beijing with nothing but a piece of paper in his hands. When the PingYao merchant returns to PingYao, he goes to the PingYao branch of XYZ silver inventory and hands the clerk there the piece of paper. After a little verification, he can withdraw as much silver as he deposited in Beijing.
.

Yep. It's a bank! Have you ever thought about how valuable banks are to you? Banks create wealth in more ways than interest on savings. Take note. The remittance service eliminated the threat of bandits and reduced the expense of hiring escort services for merchants transporting profit. And since merchants carrying a remittance no longer needed carts, horses, fodder, or drivers to transport a single piece of paper, Lei Lutai's idea reduced transportation costs too. In addition, ambitious merchants who used the remittance banks to take out loans were able to access quick capital to finance investments that enhanced efficiency and productivity. In short, the remittance method stimulated a surge of trade and commerce all over China.

What about our hero, Lei Lutai? Well at first, his remittance method helped make his boss's dye business a lot of money. Then recognizing even more opportunity, Lei Lutai persuaded his boss to quit the dye business altogether in order to become a remittance bank company with serious inventories and branch offices in as many places as possible. Earning profit on fees and loan interests, the bank soon made its boss a fortune. Other PingYao merchants hopped on the bandwagon. Successful dye shops, grocery stores, lacquer ware shops, etc. closed down to become headquarters of banking empires.

Lei Lutai became rich and famous. PingYao became a finance capital..."Asia's Wall Street" of the 19th Century, as some historians say. Other Shanxi merchants and cities prospered too. And consumers across China benefited from the lower prices of an increasing variety of goods... all thanks, in a twisted sort of way, to the bandits.

goods and currency were carried in these wagons and protected by escorts trained in the martial arts

service desk at Lei LuTai's Ri Sheng Chang... the first piaohao (draft bank) in China

one of the silver inventory vaults at Ri Sheng Chang

the silver inventory space was impressively large. The silver was protected from thieves above by hexagonal iron wire netting and from fellow employees by a strict system of accountability

adversity is opportunity

Tale 4

The twilight years of the Qing Dynasty were mostly unkind to PingYao. Europe and the U.S. brought conflicts, skirmishes, rebellions, and civil wars that disrupted the flow of trade so vital to PingYao and Shanxi's economy. Europeans also brought opium, which devastated the minds and energy of China's upper class elite. As the nail in PingYao's coffin, the Western powers also introduced a finance system that surpassed the remittance banks in scale, efficiency, and reliability. The Western banks were great for coastal, Southern China but devastating for PingYao.

Just as quickly as they rose to fortune, the PingYao banks collapsed toward total ruin. Most of the remittance banks layed off their personnel and converted their shops into other enterprises. It was a stampede to quit the market. Two unemployed bank clerks, Meng Hongren and Liu Qinghe, however, sniffed the scent of opportunity. They decided to re-enter the market, this time as managers of their own bank, Xie Tong Qing. Why enter a shrinking market? First, they predicted that the rush to quit the market had created an environment of less fierce competition. They also recognized that the pool of laid-off bank clerks provided a cheap and bottomless supply of expertise in the banking industry. Finally, these two Xie Tong Qing founders saw that foreign powers had penetrated southern and eastern China with their finance services, but were too far from Western China to have any influence there. So they sought to advance a banking empire westward. And their forsight paid dividends... fortune and glory for Xie Tong Qing!

Tale 5

Fortune and glory for Xie Tong Qing!... well, briefly at least. The Qing Dynasty fell from power, but conditions only soured for the PingYao merchants. The power vaccuum nurtured warlord feudalism and civil war. Opium went wild. And the foreign powers' capital and political power gained even more influence. By the end of the 1930s, PingYao merchants had become the tools of the Japanese military. The merchants had lost everything.

Well, conditions in PingYao stabilized with the defeat and retreat of Japan from China following WW2 and the unification of mainland China under Communist control in 1949. But stability was not all that PingYao needed. The days of remittance banks and Shanxi businessmen were over. Turn to agriculture for prosperity? Fat chance!

By the 1980s PingYao was in a pretty sorry state. It was as if the economy had been stalled for almost a century. The roads were too small. The schools were poor. Houses were crumbling. There wasn't enough water. The city and its people were stuck in the 19th Century. How could the city grow? How could there ever be prosperity in PingYao again?

One day in the '80s, Professor Ruan Yisan of Shanghai Tongji University saw the answer. Whereas nearly every other city in China had developed gradually with the reforms of the 20th Century, PingYao really was stuck in time. Almost nothing had changed. But this stagnation was not a curse. It was a blessing in disguise! Because nothing had changed, PingYao stood as a rare living history museum of a bygone era. The preservation of PingYao was worth far more than wider streets, cars, gas stations, dance clubs, fast food, Wal-Marts, movie theaters, state-of-the-art schools, etc. People would learn and appreciate Chinese history and culture by walking the streets of PingYao. And they would pay a lot of money to do it!

As a city representative of the culture of elite Han society of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, PingYao is so well-preserved and so valuable that the Chinese government declared it a landmark site and gave it state protection in 1986. In the early 1990s, famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou used one of the merchant family mansions (Qiao Family Mansion) outside of PingYao as the site for his famous movie Raise the Red Lantern. And then in 1997 it applied and was approved as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These recognitions have brought a stream of spend-happy tourists to PingYao. First local tourists. Then tourists from Beijing and Xi'an. Then tourists from all over China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. And with its recent inclusion in Lonely Planet's Guide to China, PingYao now hosts tourists from all over the world. PingYao is hot! HOT!!!

adversity is opportunity

Story 6

When I went to PingYao in January, it was in the dead of winter just days before the Spring Festival rush. No business. Bad times for restaurant cooks, shopkeepers, hotel owners, hostel owners, postcard sellers, etc. In fact, the manager at my hostel told me that hostels in PingYao lose money each day for about 7 or 8 months of the year surrounding the jackpot of holiday vacation times. That's just how it is.

Well listen here. The Shanxi Business man is not just someone you read about in books. I met the Shanxi Businessman face-to-face in the living flesh as soon as I got off the train. Five or six hostel owners greeted me in a chorus of pleas to come stay at each of their hostels. They spoke English that was not only smooth but also smooth--if you know what I mean. They had fancy brochures. One promised free coffee, another free Internet. All offered discounts... name a price! And they all offered to bring me to PingYao downtown free of charge. They really spoke to me!!!

200 years ago they were selling dyed silk and vegetable oil. Today they're selling a room at the hostel with wi-fi. Tomorrow they're selling me a scarf when the weather is a hellish -20C and windy. The Shanxi Business man... building fortunes sailing rough seas.

adversity is opportunity

note on sources: this entry owes everything to the following book: Dong Jianyun and Dong Peiliang, A Brown Paper Book of PingYao, Beiyue Literature & Art Publishing House (2007), which I purchased in PingYao. This book provided the information and the inspiration for this entry. All I did was condense it, wrap it all around a theme, rewrite it in my own style, and illustrate it with my own pictures. I can't emphasize enough how important this book has been. I probably would have only stayed in PingYao a few days if not for this book. I probably should have paid full retail price (98 RMB) for it, but ever the opportunist I was able to bargain it down to 80 RMB because there was literally not another living soul walking the streets of PingYao on that day! :-)

adversity is opportunity

It's Optional

2009-04-18T11:11:00.011+08:00

it's optional

In America, what happens if you (1) don't pay the utility bill on time? (2) The cable bill? (3) The telephone bill? (4) The local property tax?

Yeah, you know: (1) the energy company rather immediately shuts off the stream of energy going to your house and you sit in the dark and hope you can make macaroni n cheese with matches. (2) You have to find out who was booted from America Idol last night by listening to co-workers' reactions the next day at the office water cooler (3) no more late night chatty kathy sessions with friends... but also no more calls from telemarketers (4) well, if your house burns down from your failed attempt to cook macaroni n cheese with matches, the firefighters will only arrive to make sure the fire doesn't spread to other taxpayers' houses... you're on your own.

In the U.S., we take bills and financial obligations pretty seriously. You play; you pay. In China, it's a little different. You play; you pay... eventually... or maybe never.

STORYtime

Within hours of moving in to my apartment in HuaiYa way back in September, I got a message from some Chinese robot woman. A really smooth, clear, pleasant, upbeat, and excessively polite voice. Oh, so I guess they have telemarketers in China too, eh? [hang up the phone]

She called back later that afternoon [hang up] and then again later that evening. Finally I decided to hear her out. But I couldn't understand her. I only knew that she was telling me my phone number. Okay... thanks lady, so now I know my phone number... goodbye.

Well, she called back again and again... each day 2 or 3 times... again and again for the next 3 months. Annoying but regular, I grew accustomed to her kindly daily remindings of my telephone number. When I was bored, I would even listen to her message all the way through. In fact, she was beginning to teach me Chinese.

Then one day in November I got a special call from this number. Having nearly hung up on her, I was shocked straight up and out of my shoes and socks to hear the rough, heavily accented, and not-so-polite (but not rude or angry) voice of a living, breathing man on the other line. He only spoke Chinese, so we fumbled around a bit. But I could gather the gist of his call very clearly: I had to pay my telephone bill. In that instant, it all clicked. I suddenly realized that that woman had been calling me every day to tell me to pay my telephone bill! And this guy suddenly realized why all those calls from the robot to my house had never been effective. Really, if that robot lady hadn't used such polite and fancy-pants language, I would have understood her a long time ago! Plain language ="PAY YOUR BILL!" I would have understood. Add some urgency and an ounce of threat to the message and I would have understood all the sooner!

Now the careful reader will notice an odd thing. This robot had called me on my first day in HuaiYa. How did I already have an outstanding telephone bill on my first day? Well, it turns out the foreign teacher before me hadn't paid her own bill since May. So by the time I paid the telephone bill in November, the telephone company was sitting on a debt that spanned June, July, August, September, and October.

And now the careful observer will be stunned! Yes, indeed, the telephone company does not shut off your telephone service if you don't pay your bills. Count them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 months without paying! And telephone service is really something of a leisure compared to basic needs, don't you think? So the company should have no guilt disconnecting service until the customer coughs up the money. Nope. Not in China, er, at least not in HuaiYa.

Just a fluke, you say? Oh no, it happened again. As you know, I paid the bill in November. Then I didn't get around to paying the telephone bill again until... oh, I don't know... last week (!)... yeah, we're sitting in April! Count 'em up: November, December, January, February, and March... another 5 months! Another 5 months with daily calls from my dear robot friend, who was ever as polite as always. So I have irrefutable proof that you can default on your telephone bill for at least 5 months without interruption in service.

five months of consecutive non-payment, behold:

Now at this point my mother--the responsible bill payer extraordinaire--must be pitifully ashamed of me. But I have a defense. In fact, I TRIED to pay the bill on three occassions. The first two times I went to pay, the bill paying office was closed. I looked carefully at the posted hours-of-business sign: 9:00am to 5:00pm, weekdays. Well I was standing there at 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon in December with money in hand. Why was this place closed?! I went back to ask one of the teachers and he informed me, "Oh, it's a government place. At these kind of places, often the worker arrives late, goes home early, or just doesn't show up for the day. Try again tomorrow."

Well the time it takes to walk to this place is worth more than a year of outstanding telephone bills at the rate they charge me. So I decided to pay it when I was in the neighborhood. It just so happens that I was never in the neighborhood at the same time the place was actually open until last week. This chance event sorta felt like all 8 planets and Pluto were aligned.

So... it's optional. You pay your telephone bill... if you want to (think about it, the previous foreign teacher effectively skipped out of town without having paid for two months of service, inadvertenly I'm sure... and at this rate I could do the same... but I won't). So, you pay your telephone bill if you want to. The government clerks show up to work... if they want to. I often get the feeling that there are so many more options here in China! :-)

But don't get the wrong idea. Not all state employees can decide whether to work on such whims. Government-employed teachers have no such luxury, for example. And not all bills are collected so patiently. In fact, it may be that if my telephone bill had been any larger, they would have cut off service sooner. My telephone bill for FIVE MONTHS was only 20yuan...roughly 3 U.S. dollars. Even in China, that is incredibly cheap.

And it necessary to note that the U.S. is not without it's quirks in the culture of obligations. Indeed, in these times where "bailout" is the buzz phrase, homeowners and banks get to default with minimal penalty, and crooked Ponzi schemers get to 'suffer' the punishment of house arrest in elaborate mansions financed by the very fraud for which they are being prosecuted... perhaps the U.S. is the more grotesque example of 'pay if you want'???

Now pardon me, I'm going to go off to buy some pineapples... the fruit vendors of the streets of China are more faithful than the geysers at Yellowstone... they will be there!

2009-04-07T02:30:00.006+08:00

QingMing 清明节

Side B: Celebrate Life

(peach blossom)

Qingming Festival is like a coin with two sides. In the previous entry, I described how one aspect of the festival focuses on honoring ancestors--personal and communal. People go to visit tombs on QingMingJie. In this way, one side of the QingMing coin relates to the dead.

The other side of the QingMing coin pushes us to celebrate life. On this holiday, people are encouraged to take in the freshly budding natural world that surrounds them. They visit parks. They travel to the countryside. They go for boat rides. They go on picnics. They sing. They soak in the energy of Spring at its climax. And these activities are true to the translation of QingMing... clear, bright, fresh, vivid... alive!

Well we did this too. And let me tell you, the experience was stunning. The Chinese countryside in the Spring is painted with the myriad colors of blossoming fruits, vegetables, grains, spices, and seeds. It may be hard for contemporary Americans to imagine what I describe because we come from a culture of mega-farms where the farmer cultivates one single crop over a massive expanse of territory. For Northern Illinois, that means we get to look at a sea of corn or soybeans. And while this has its own unique beauty, imagine what it might look like if instead of one mega-farm there were 1,000 small farm plots each growing 2 or 3 different crops. Orchards of peach trees neighbor wheat, strawberries, pears, kiwis, corn, and vegetable-oil seeds. And the fields extend far and wide--falling all the way back to the foothills of the mountains and then climbing the mountains high into the sky via layers and layers of terraces.

Taking in the Shaanxi countryside is something of a spiritual experience for me. It's not just the colorful, carved landscape. It's the energy of life. It's the energy of labor. The sun, water, and fresh air do their work by actionless-action. Bees do their work. Flowers do their work. Farmers do their work. And each completes each other. It's also the energy of economics! Farmers plant and cultivate peach trees to make income... to improve their quality of life. And we buy their peaches at harvest to improve our quality of life. In every way, the Shaanxi countryside reflects one word: harmony.

Well, I'm going to let you look at the pictures now. I will try to caption things below, but realize that I am no botanist, florist, or farmer. I don't know what these things are, and there's a good chance that the people who told me what they are don't know either. Also remember, staring at photographs for an eternity cannot compensate for what the five senses accomplish in half a second. They merely offer a glimpse.

a special kind of flower tree... has no leaves...

you can see I have no idea what I'm talking about.

wheat, I think: noodles begin here

peach trees make the world safe for pink

my Chinese friends laughed at me for taking this photo...

and you're probably laughing at me for posting it... I just like it

nothing symbolizes the Dao of the Universe like flowing water

water is everything

listen to the water wheel's song

The Good (terraced) Earth

stairway to heaven

climb higher and higher until you can touch the moon

pure China

there will be pears

I just like this picture, okay?

the floating world

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vivid

Zhuge Liang's spirit rests here

vegetable-oil seeds

Do you see the Dao? I do.

QingMing Shanghe ZhaoPian

2009-04-06T06:16:00.007+08:00

QingMing Festival

Side A: Revere our Ancestors

(above) A young girl stands before the tomb of Zhou Gong

This last Saturday (April 4) was 清明节 (QingMing Festival). This festival ranks highly on China's long list of holidays as one of the more important ones. What is it all about? And what did I do to celebrate it? Well now, you know I'm going to give you the long, drawn-out story... so read on if you have time...

QingMing is a coin with two sides... two aspects. One aspect is reverence. Chinese people use the day to honor their ancestors. They visit their ancestors' graves, offer sacrificial items, and reflect. That is why one English translation of 清明节 is "Tomb-Sweeping Holiday" despite the fact that the word qingming holds no meaning of sweeping tombs, visiting graves, etc.

But here's a problem. What should you do if your parents' and grandparents' tombs are nowhere near you? In fact, that is the circumstance of a great many people in China. The turbulence of the 20th Century--wars, floods, droughts, famines--forced countless migrations. In the last three decades, economic growth has spurred a second wave of urbanization and migrations. So now there are many, many people who live far from their ancestral hometown and far from the tombs of their ancestors.

In fact, this situation is precisely the situation of our school headmaster's family. His family came to Shaanxi Province from Henan Province in the 1940s due to floods. His grandparents are still alive (I think), and their family's ancestral tablet and tombs are still in Henan. What do on QingMing Festival?

Well, Chinese people regard each other as family. And heroes of the past are everyone's ancestors. So people who do not have the option to visit family ancestors can go to the tombs of famous people of China's glory days.

Now luck always shines on me. It really does. Maybe that's why my face is permanently red?... We can call it "luck-shine burn," perhaps? Ahem, it just so happens that of all the places at which I chose (half randomly) to teach, I landed on the periphery of the plains of WuZhang... the place where my personal hero Zhuge Liang fought his final battle. This is the place where he died. This the place where his tomb lies.

Everyone at my school knows how much I idolize Zhuge Liang. Perhaps this is why the headmaster invited me and his family to visit some Zhuge Liang places of interest this QingMing Festival. How appropriate! In honoring Zhuge Liang, we satisfy one of the purposes of the QingMing Festival. Moreover, it gives me a chance to experience firsthand the Zhuge Liang history that enchanted me in the history books.

Statue of Chief Strategist Zhuge Liang
Doesn't he look brilliant with that goose-feather fan in hand?

Zhuge Liang the Prolific Writer

The wisdom and fine calligraphy of Zhuge Liang's writing has been etched into record on numerous stone stele tablets. This is one of them. If only I could read Chinese...

Zhuge Liang's Tombstone at WuZhangYuan

After his death, Zhuge Liang's body was transported and buried elsewhere. But his clothing was buried in this mound and a tombstone was erected to honor the man on the battlefield that took his life. Zhuge Liang died not of battle injuries but of exhaustion. He worked himself to death.... thinking... always thinking. That's called tenacity.

Tree of Eternal Brotherhood

If you are familiar with Sanguo history, you know that Zhuge Liang served Lord Liu Bei. Liu Bei had sworn friendship with two others: Zhang Fei and Guan Yu. The three--Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei--are the paragon model of friendship in Chinese history and culture. Nothing could undermine this friendship--nothing. Well this tree pictured below grows outside of Zhuge Liang's temple. With its three limbs sprouting from one trunk, the locals long, long ago imagined it to symbolize the legendary trio and so referred to it as the Friendship Tree. It is as if the three brothers embodied in this tree watch over Zhuge Liang--the man who so nearly realized the dream that brought these friends together in the first place

Reach out and Touch History: Walking Zhuge Liang's Road

So I've been rattling on and on about Zhuge Liang, and you doubtless have no idea why I worship this man. Because he was brilliant! He proves with his life how the mind overpowers the sword. He proves with his life how it is preferrable to worker smarter, not harder. Read the epic novel SanguoYanYi and see if you can survive it without becoming a Zhuge Liang devotee!

Here is a famous example of his brilliance. To conquer CaoWei Kingdom, Zhuge Liang's Shu forces had to cross the towering Qinling Mountains. This meant going through mountain passes. Well, as you can imagine, all the mountain passes were well guarded... duh.

The average leader would just buckle down, train his troops, and attack the mountain passes. He would suffer considerable losses, but there would be a chance he could ultimately take the pass and move on. Work hard and you can do it, right? "Not acceptable," says Zhuge Liang. Be smart. Surprise the enemy! March through the mountain where they don't expect you... but how?

Walk on walls! Zhuge Liang directed the construction of wood-plank patforms on the cliffsides of the mountains. Using these platforms, the troops could march right on through to the enemy's camps. Surprise!!! These platforms stand today as an ancient miracle of engineering prowess.

Zhuge Liang's cliffside wood-plank platforms

just one fruit in his imagination's orchard of ideas

Can you see the platform?

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In addition to visiting some Zhuge Liang places of interest, we also went to QiShan to visit the tomb of Zhou Gong. Zhou Gong is as famous to Chinese people as is Zhuge Liang, but I know very little about him. Zhou Gong is the "Duke of Zhou" that Confucius refers to in his writings. He is regarded as an able, honorable, and beneficent leader. Legend gives him credit for a fair share of mystical powers, including the ability to interpret the meanings of dreams as predictors of the future. It is not exactly certain, but we can estimate that he lived and died here about 3,000 years ago in the founding years of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

Statue of Zhou Gong at the Zhou Gong Temple

Golden Phoenix Sculpture of Zhou Gong Temple Complex

Practice Performance of Zhou Dynasty Culture Show

Tree of Longevity

This tree at Zhou Gong Temple is almost 2,000 years old. People who desire a long life will cut long red strings and tie them to this tree as a wishful act for long life

Scents for the Spirit of Zhou Gong

People burn incense in front of the burial mound of Zhou Gong as an act of reverence.

I hope you walk away from this entry with a respect for China's heroes of the past... I'm not going to single any one out here... *cough*cough*... Zhuge Liang. In looking at these pictures, reading the entries, and reflecting on their impressive accomplishments, you too have celebrated QingMing Festival. Well thanks for celebrating with me!

But you're not done yet... notice this is only part 1 ;-) It turns out there is another, equally important activity done on QingMing Festival. And this activity is closer to the translation of the word 'qingming.' Want to know what it is? You know you do! So won't you join me again in a few days. In the meantime, I leave you standing on the road to Zhuge Liang's imagination....

Crazy English

2009-03-31T21:44:00.007+08:00

The Great English Awakening:

Pupils in the Hands of a Crazy Demigod

One thing happened in March 2009: Li Yang came to HuaiYa Senior Middle School. This is the story.

Part 1: night of the living dead

It was a routine Sunday evening. I was just drifting into boredom when I got a text message from a student informing me that the famous Li Yang was coming to HuaiYa ZhongXue. Do you know who Li Yang is? Probably not. But in China he is a celebrity of fanatic popularity. He's not an actor. Not a singer. Not a basketball star. Not an Olympic gold medalist. Who is Li Yang? He is an English teacher!

Our minds are controlled by our environments. Must be. Since being in China, I have heard again and again of Li Yang, the guy who learned English so well and so quickly and who promises the same to all students if they just follow his "crazy" methods... I have heard of Li Yang from students... from people I meet on the train... from men on the street who ask if my English is better than Li Yang's. This guy must be an English-speaking, English-teaching superhero! Well, in 8 months all this fanfare has gotten to my head. And so at that moment reading the text message informing me of Li Yang's arrival, even I felt the wooziness of disbelieving excitement at the notion of seeing and potentially meeting the famous Li Yang.

At first, I truly didn't believe it. I thought the student had sent a joke text. Why was Li Yang coming to HuaiYa Senior Middle School? The school is in a small town. Why? Was he really coming? Come on...

But then the calls started. Students calling my cell phone. Students knocking at my door. Students who were normally zombies at this time of the night were ALIVE... and coming to eat my brain. They wanted me to give them ideas... ideas of how to get Li Yang's attention. They wanted me to tell them jokes, stories, words of wisdom, etc. with which they could charm Li Yang. They wanted to practice speaking with me.

Part II: a new dawn

I awoke to the excitement of thousands of students speaking English across campus. There was a sense of enthusiasm... and in some a sense of desperation. Must impress Li Yang.

I had numerous appointments, one after another. Practice speaking with this student. Help this student make a giant flag to hoist into Li Yang's line of sight. Then some teachers saw me and asked me to visit their classes and offer words of encouragement and advice. So there I was talking to class after class of students I had never met before. Busy morning!

If I wasn't excited before (but I was!), I was definitely excited now. Hype hung in the air, and I was breathing it in too. Mob mind: seeing 3,000 people going crazy, how could I not go crazy? Plus, I must say, it was very invigorating just to see the optimism... and hopeful to think how this optimism for English might make teaching it easier in the weeks to come. So, yeah, I was giddy too.

Part III: the Great Awakening

Li Yang came... late, as expected. He talked... 95% in Chinese... so I didn't understand what he said. The 1% of what he said in Chinese that I managed to understand just so happened to be the words of mockery he used to refer to me.... "old foreigner," "ghost/devil foreigner," "dog." But don't worry, he mocked others too. He told the headmaster/principal that he looked like an old woman. He told one of the English teachers that he looked like Deng Xiaoping (a dig at his short height). He made fun of Obama. He made fun of Hu Jintao. It was something of a roast. Nothing to get uptight about.... I suppose....

In general, his agenda was to inspire and encourage. He aimed to eradicate laziness, apathy, bad attitudes, defeatism, inferiority, shame, etc. Thumbs up! He also shared some of his methods of learning English. Li Yang, some of the other English teachers, and I each took turns leading the students in shouting English sentences. This is the crazy English method. It's also the part of the performance that I found most lacking in substance. Oh well, the encouragement was worth it. Here are some pics and captions.

my little 'tete-a-tete' with Li Yang

One of the marketing gimmicks of "Crazy English"... add a touch of nationalism, and you'll rope the patriot extremists into the market. You may also provoke global division, but hey!... at least you're selling books!

The above picture shows just one example of nationalism--a relatively harmless example at that. Unfortunatley, nationalism is written into the fabric of "Crazy English." It was everywhere. In fact, after greeting me and telling me how much Li Yang loves America (in English), he then proceeded to boast to the crowd (in Chinese) his love for the Americans who will soon be begging to learn Chinese. At that point, I guess he'll be a celebrity in America teaching us all "Crazy Chinese."

Cult of Personality

...and little red books

Shiny, Happy People Speaking English

Shiny Happy People Holding Hands

At some point, the Li Yang performance got personal. Suddenly students everywhere were crying uncontrolably. And they were being invited up to the stage not to practice speaking English but instead to share some moving story in Chinese and then to sob their eyes out. I'm not sure what was being said, but it seemed they were professing their love for their parents and their appreciation for all the hard work that their parents have done. Not a dry eye on the field...

After this, Li Yang turned up the stereo to the tune of some easy listening music. He then asked all the students to hold hands with other students and listen carefully to his words (spoken in Chinese). So then the hand holding began. Illustrated directly above. Also illustrated directly below.

unity conquers the world

Part IV: the feast

After the English Revival, the important people scampered off to an isolated location. As the resident foreigner who happens to speak English, I am in that circle of people, I guess. Fist, the photo opportunities. Then Li Yang sat down with the English department to recommend methods of instruction. Spoken all in Chinese, I have no idea what they said but I assume it was a suggestion for the students to practice speaking more in and out of class. Thumbs up! Li Yang was very thorough and careful in his suggestions. He gave alot of his time at this point. This shows a sense of his genuine interest and care in the mission.

Li Yang teaches teachers how to teach... and I just hear... it's called "tingbudong along with the conversation"

It is also worth noting that at this point, there were no more references to me being a "foreigner ghost" or a "dog" or anything like that. It was all professional from this point on. Who is the real Li Yang? Who should Li Yang be? It's something of a dilemma I think... sell mockery and nationalsim in order to sell books and sell the important mission? Or be professional... and boring... and accomplish much less? What would you do?

After this, ... er, I mean after yet another round of photo opportunities and autograph appeals... they formed an even smaller circle of VIP and yet I was still in the circle. So we enjoyed a big feast. Li Yang was again very kind, courteous, serious, and genuine to me. The food was over-the-top, and we just barely begun to satisfy our stomachs when Li Yang announced his need to end the night here. At this time it was about 9:00pm. He had been with us since about 3:00. That's quite generous!

In the final meetings, Li Yang had been very friendly to me. He praised me highly to the leaders of the school. And he offered me his name card and his business phone number and an invitation to work at his Crazy English Camp this summer.

Part V: after the fire, the fire still burns....

I'm writing now from the perspective of a few weeks removed from the event. I have teetered back and forth in my assessment of the event. Initially I was very excited, pleased, and grateful for what Li Yang had done. After stewing the night and morning, however, I let my sensitivity to the mockery sour my opinion considerably. I found it difficult to justify. And I became decidedly opposed to Li Yang when my students began to call me "guizi"... "foreigner ghost"... I also thought he didn't offer students enough good methods, particulary students with advanced vocabulary. What should they do?

After talking with students (who all assured me the mockery is harmless) and after watching how students continue to practice English, I have jumped back into the camp of appreciating what Li Yang has done. To this day, students still carry around their little red Li Yang books. They are reading Li Yang's other books. They recite his quotes with passion. And this very afternoon we are having an English Week Party where the students will sing songs, tell stories, tell jokes, act out plays, etc. in front of all their student body. I can imagine that their courage to do this was inspired in part by Li Yang's words.

I have also benefitted from the experience. I have found the Li Yang crazy speaking method to be energizing and fun. It is a new tool to use with students with less motivation, poor vocabulary, shyness, or laziness to participate. Also, I have noticed more students from classes that I don't teach approaching me with the confidence to speak. They say I appeared friendly and inviting when I was speaking at the Li Yang gig. So that's really cool. Finally, I have been asked by the school leaders to lead crazy English sessions in the evenings in front of ALL the students of grade 1 and grade 2. This keeps the spirit alive, makes me feel powerful, and endears me to the praise of the leaders. Win-win-win!

Clearly I have a mixed opinion of Li Yang and Crazy English. Overall, however, I approve and appreciate.

Classroom Management: A Case Study

2009-03-27T11:05:00.004+08:00

Yesterday, I was just 5 minutes into class and 2 seconds away from getting into the heart of the lesson when out of nowhere came the sound of glass breaking and a wave of gasps. A student had bumped his elbow into his ink well, sending his brimful bottle and its dark-staining contents all over the floor. There it was, an ink blot asking me the big question: what the heck should you do now? Stop the lesson and clean it, ignore it and go on, a little of both? What to do? What would YOU do in a situation like this?

I decided the mess had to be cleaned up immediately or it would stain. If one student cleaned, all the students would be watching him, so we might as well make it a class effort to clean it up as quickly as possible. But the questions continued. How do you clean that much ink all over the floor? How do you even clean ink? And where would we get the water? To my knowledge, the nearest place to get water was across campus? What would YOU do in a situation like this?

Life works in mysterious ways. We needed water. Well we got water. Not more than 10 seconds after the ink incident and the initial attempt to clean it all up began, I heard an explosion on the right side of the classroom and high-pitched screaming. At first it honestly looked like the kids were being electrocuted by some powerful white current coming from the wall. My heart nearly vaporized at the sight of them being struck by this thing and the sound of their shrill screams. Fortunately... oh thank God... it was just a high pressure stream of water. Somehow, the water surging through the radiator blew off a gasket and then came out spraying the students in its line of fire. What to do? Continue teaching? lol

The students rushed to plug the hole in the radiator, but it was a lot of water and the pressure was very high. The room was flooding quickly. Finally, some students managed to slow the force of the water coming out by stuffing their jackets and shirts into the hole. Still water was coming out and quickly spreading across the classroom. Yo, Jack and Rose, the Titanic is going down!

To understand this situation fully, you need to realize how cramped these classrooms are. 80 students and 80 desks in rooms no bigger than American classrooms. It's a sardine tin in there. Somehow, we had to get all the students to work together to either help mop up or just plain move out of the way. As if by magic, they found their niches. In five minutes the situation was at least stable. The water was no longer gushing out..merely seeping out through the shirts. Some students were managing the flow of water with buckets. Some students were mop/drying the floor. Some students were drying out the mops. Some students were trying to get the 'janitor.' Some students--the majority--just sat at their desks and did homework, studied, or chatted. A quarter of the students worked feverishly while the other 3/4ths sat back and let them. Should I have tried to teach half the classroom? What would YOU do in a situation like this? I figured, this period is surrendered!

By the way, some janitor this place has. The guy came after a long time, inspected, laughed a little giggle, left, and came back later to fix the problem later. I've told you before. There really is no such thing as a janitor of the American high school standard in China. Everything is on the students, and this situation was no different.

By the end of the class, the situation was much better. The water flow was under control by swift bucket action, and the floor was looking cleaner and cleaner. And remember that lake of black ink all over the floor? GONE! Absolutely a job well done!

So, what did I contribute? Not a whole heck of a lot honestly. I kinda felt guilty about it. I didn't know who, where, or how to speak to ask for help. The students were cleaning and wouldn't have dared let me help them. I couldn't teach. So I just stood there and watched. Oh yeah... I kept the kids semi-quiet and calm... but my efforts were essentially nullified by the classroom monitor who shushed the students with that famously loud, mock-angry, mock-fatherly shouting that all class monitors in China are famous for having and using whenever the chance presents itself. So yeah, I didn't make much of a difference. The situation was handled smoothly and effectively no thanks to me. These kids are great...

By the way, if this situation had happened in class 6, I fear we would all be at the bottom of the HuaiYa Sea. Seriously!

Oh yeah, and by the way, apparently these radiators explode like this all the time. Happened in the English office. Happened in Class 12 a couple months ago. And happened yesterday in Class 1. How's that for a little excitement in the day?

March Madness

2009-03-24T06:38:00.004+08:00

Where have I been for the last month?! No, it's not writer's block. It's called China block! For whatever reason, on March 1st I lost access to all Google-brand blogger blogs including my own. I was blocked. And my "internet behavior" was being monitored. Then today, March 24... for whatever reason... the forces that be decided I'm not a threat. So I'm back! And I pretty excited about it!!!

So I've been watched for a month, but I don't get a creepy feeling about having been spied on. Instead, I hope (if my internet behavior really was being monitored by humans) that:
-They have enjoyed my sense of humor... who else can lead them to hilarious Sarah Palin jokes, videos of puppets making prank phone calls, and video clips of Dan Quayle being an intellectual lightweight;
-They don't think I'm a lazy slob just because I have over 3,000 unopened emails in my inbox... I just have a 5 year running tradition of not opening spam... and not deleting it either!;
-They appreciate the level of random detail that I provide in my facebook status updates;
-They have acquired my fascination with 1980s nostalgia
-They didn't get irked by my internet habit of refreshing Yahoo! news to see if there is any new news
-They have updated themselves on important news items from the US, Asia, South America, Africa, and the bizarro world
-They share my interest in learning about economics, alternative energy, medical breakthroughs, chimpanzee social behavior,....
-They are excited by all the upcoming video game release dates that I have made them aware of -They have memorized the lyrics to all the 80s songs I looked up to sing along with on youtube

In the end, I think it must have been my mind-numbingly boring journeys through the streets of Belvidere, Rockford, Chicago, DeKalb, Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach, and New York City on Google Earth-Street View that must have driven them to the brink of exhaustion of watching my internet behavior... and to the conclusion that my internet behavior is any other adjective but dangerous! :-)

And so now I and my IP address are back in the world of blogging!

UPDATE (3/25): On the very same day I regained access to my blog, thegovernmentofthecountryinwhichIcurrentlylive (tGotCiwICL) blocked Youtube. At first I thought it was just a random Youtube problem. These little Youtube accessibility hiccups happen all the time, including in the U.S. But when minutes turned into hours turned into a day, I suspected Papa Panda might be responsible. Great, I traded access to my blog for access to Youtube. And to honest, Youtube is actually more important because I use it for lessons... yeah, yeah... and as the most entertaining time suck of my life.

Anyways, I just finished reading an article on Yahoo! News that confirms that Youtube has been blocked by tGotCiwICL. Why? Apparently some video of tGotCiwICL police forces beating to death a protester from a certain hotbed province of tGotCiwICL. The English name of this particular province begins with the letter T, ends with the letter T, and rhymes with "the bet." You do know the place I'm talking about, don't you? Well anyways, tGotCiwICL says the video is faked. And in light of the shoddy reporting and yellow journalism of CNN and BBC from last year, I say there's a darn good chance it is faked. Come on, it was posted by some random guy on Youtube!!! But Papa Panda doesn't want anyone to have a look to see for himself. Which means I can't say either way. And it also means I can't get videos to make good set inductions for my classes. And it also means I can't spend my weeknights reliving the 1980s.

... for now....

Snow brings Double Happiness

2009-02-26T07:45:00.018+08:00

SNOW DAY in HuaiYa!

These last few months have brought an intensifying drought of no snow. I listened with envy and longing to parents' and friends' tales of snow days and blizzards at home in Northern Illinois. Record snowfall there; drought here.

But forget about my sentimental attachment to snow. The drought is very real and very severe in fact. The grim truth is that it hadn't snowed, but it also hadn't rained. I think the last time I used my umbrella here in Shaanxi was probably September. In January I was beginning to wonder if something serious was going on in this region when one day 2 weeks ago I happened upon a news story informing me that in fact there was a genuine drought and that it was spread across a wide area of northern China, east and west. Some reports say the drought brings desperate conditions that haven't been seen in China since the late 1950s. Severe, eh?!

Side note. The late 1950s were Great Leap Forward times... what a double misfortune that such a disasterous policy initiative coincided with disasterous weather conditions, including drought. This 2008-2009 drought has also been a double misfortune.... regional drought and global economic crisis collide!.... unemployed migrants workers from Shenzhen returning to drought-struck land in their hometowns. It wasn't looking good...

But that began to change yesterday. Yesterday it rained. It caught almost everyone by surprise (but not me... because I watch the Weather Channel feeds like it's a hobby... ha! we Americans love our weather news!). There was a variety of responses from students. Some were annoyed because the rain caught them at a time when they didn't have appropriate clothing or an umbrella. Others were overjoyed. These were the farmers' children. They knew what came with the long-awaited rain. Cold, wet clothing? Yes, but also income, employment, and stable food prices. Everything.

And now today the precipitation came in the form of snow. And you know how I love snow. Usually in Chicagoland I would not get excited about this kind of snow. I need snow that rises above my waist to get me excited. I like snow that breaks the budget of the city snow removal department. I get a sick pleasure out of snow that terrifies me as I drive in it! But this! This is a paper-thin accumulation. And it will probably all melt within the hour. Usually I use the word "pathetic" to describe this kind of snow fall. But here and now, I am letting this snow lift my spirits quite high as it lifts Shaanxi out of drought. Plus, any amount of snow falling on Chinese rooftops is boss!

I spy only one student playing with the snow... taking time to appreciate Mother Nature's art... three other students don't know whether to work or play... so they stand around with brooms in hands (who told these kids to sweep the snow?!). And the rest of the school studies feverishly in classrooms. Snow day without the hope of 'no school.'

hmmm, I also spy... a SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!! Now this is what you do with snow!

And I take pictures of people's houses; I feel like a creepy Soviet spy!

UPDATE1: I just now received a text message from a student (yes, my students text me!). Here is what he wrote...

"It's snowy! The school yard is full of snow! How romantic it is!!!"

Indeed, indeed!

UPDATE2: At 10:35, the students get a 25 minute break to rest. First they do 5 minute eye exercises and then they get the remaining 20 minutes to stretch, walk around, jog, take potty time at the W.C., etc. They are free for 20 minutes! Well what do you think they did today? Pandemonium!

All I heard was the sound of 3,000 people playing. It was a massive, complicated snowball fight. As student A throws a snowball at student B, student X tucks a snowball down the back of student A's shirt. Everywhere snowballs were flying. Snow at people. Snow at trees. Some students even threw snowballs through the windows of their classrooms... devilish! Oh, and the big story on campus was about how the students in grade1, class 4 threw a snowball at their teacher (and she liked it!)... scandalous!

Some clever students came into the teacher's compound to get their ammunition.

a little action from the Snowball Riot right beneath my window

After the break, the school leaders put a stop to it. Would the students obey? Well they had no choice; by the time of their next break 40 minutes later the snow had melted beyond grasping potential. By the afternoon it was all water.

UPDATE3: At 11:00, the Snowball Riot was instantly squelched by the sound of circus music summoning the students back to the discipline of their textbooks. Safe from the thousand crosshairs of flying snow, I left my apartment to snap some photos of HuaiYa in snow.

HuaiYa Main Street

aint it quaint?

This one makes me feel 'Christmasy'

A Catch-up Effect Anomaly

2009-02-24T10:31:00.006+08:00

A 'Catch-Up Effect' Anomaly:

How Do Cassette Tapes Survive in China in 2009?

Rock Valley College. Fall 2004. Macroeconomics with Professor Youngblood. The lesson: the Catch-up Effect. A lesson grounded in economics, flowing with uplifting and optimistic predictions for the potential futures of the developing countries of the world.

Here's the lesson in summary. The lesser and least developing countries of the world have problems. Maybe the problems are health-related--malaria, AIDs, tuberculosis, etc. Maybe the problems are conflict related--war, terrorism, sanctions. Maybe the problems are money-related--deficits, government debt, inflation, etc. Maybe the problems are infrastructure-related--roads, plumbing, electricity, etc. Maybe the problems are resource-related--lack of freshwater, poor soil, uneducated labor force, etc. In most cases, such countries likely have a combination of all these problems. They are stuck in a poverty trap.

By that point in the semester, the professor had lectured how with sound government and economic policies, such countries could escape from the poverty trap. That's uplifting, right? But then there's the catch-up effect.

The professor explained that in it's initial stages of economic growth coming out of the poverty trap, the economic growth of developing countries is often steep and exponential. In other words, people's standards of living can increase rapidly... doubling in less than a decade... the developing countries catch-up with the developing countries like the hare spotting the tortoise in front of him.

How? Technology! They get all the most recent and productive technology all at once.

Imagine that one surving caveman forever unaware of the modern world around him lives somewhere on this planet. He lives by hunting animals with his club. Maybe he only manages a kill once every two days. One day some NRA activists find him and show him how to use an AK47. Takes a few hours to teach him, but he gets the hang of it after awhile. Now he can get a kill every hour. Look at the growth of his productivity!!!!

The cavemen-to-neocon line who developed separately from him developed more slowly and gradually. They innovated and adopted the arrowhead, then the arrow, then Zhuge Liang's rapid-fire crossbow, then the rifle, then the rifle that actually hits the target, then the sniper rifle, then the nuclear weapon, then the weaponized virus in Season Three of the tv show 24. These innovations happend over thousands of years... growth was slow... but this caveman instantly accessed them and his growth was NOW!

This is something like what happens to developing countries that break out of the poverty trap. Suddenly they get cellular phones, satellite TV, mp4 players, PS3s, George Forman Grills, the Magic Bullet with EZ smoothie accessories... oh, and sliced bread. Together, these things enhance productivity tremendously... the people in the countries can do more with less time... their economy runs like the Gingerbread Man.

Another advantage is that they eliminate a lot of waste. They have PS3s, so there are no Ataris, SNESs, Dreamcasts, or PS1s sitting around unused. They don't have to build landlines if they only need to build cell phone towers. It saves resources.

The catch-up effect is the invisible hand's little miracle. It makes people lives better faster, and it happens all the time. Sometimes the country merely catches up. Sometimes the country catches up and then takes the lead. I think it's fair to say that colonial and infant America 'caught up' using technology initially developed in Europe--particulary England--and then took the lead in the 20th Century. And China's economic growth in the last few decades is nothing if not a model of how well the catch-up effect works. Who knows if China will catch-up or take the lead? But that's not my question. I want to know...

Why are there cassette tapes in China in 2009?

My memory stretches back to the late 1980s, so I remember the retirement years of the cassette tape era. I remember buying them. I remember listening to them... having to flip them over to the other side. I remember the painful rewinding and fastforwarding process. I remember those unique sounds of an aging or damaged cassette. I remember the 'piracy' technique of recording from the radio onto the cassettes... and getting barely acceptable quality audio! Cassettes, may they be forever dead...

But they're not! China has them?! Not everywhere... in fact, in only one place that I've seen: textbooks. The Chinese textbooks come with cassette tapes. Textbooks published in 2005 and printed in 2008 come with cassette tapes! Why?!?!?!?!!??!!?

On the one hand, the fact that China has cassette tapes is consistent with the theory of the catch-up effect. China's development really took off in the 80s--the cassette tape heyday. So we can expect there to be some remnants of the technology. But CHina should have--like the U.S. phased them out more completely. And I must reinforce that in most ways China has. You'll never find Chinese people to listening to music on cassette. And you'll be hard-pressed to find them listening to music on CDs. They all listen to digital music. So again, China's experience is mostly what we expect. The textbook w/cassette anomaly is just one small, but puzzling variation from the trend.

So why do the textbooks come with cassettes? They were printed and released in 2008! CDs would have been cheaper, lighter, less bulky, and more convenient to transfer to digital format for increased used. Do the students even have cassette players?

I'm going to let my mind wander over some possible explanations:

(1) cassette tapes are less easy to pirate?... and the textbook companies are concerned about piracy of their intellectual property rights? (but who would pirate textbook audio?! most of the students would be happiest if they never had to listen to the robotic voice of that British woman... I estimate less than 1% listen to the audio outside of class... no market for piracy!)

(2) the textbook company is concerned that some poor students don't have CD or mp3 players? (but I'd be concerned about the rich and middle-income students who don't have cassette players)

(3) the textbook company is concerned about poor, rural classrooms that don't have and can't afford CD players? (but CD players can't be more expensive than cassette players... when the cassette player breaks, the school will likely have to pay even more money to find and purchase this defunct technology. CD players are cheap!)

(4) the textbook writers are a bunch of dinosaurs who still live in 1987? (but how then do these dinosaurs manage to have 'hip' topics like "Book 7, Unit 3: Safe Sex"... yeah, the students learned English words about how to have sex safely)

(5) textbooks have always come with cassette tapes, and so they always must?

(6) the textbook company wants to give me something to blog about

Seriously, I really want to know... why do the Shaanxi Senior High School English textbooks published in 2005 and printed in 2008 come with cassettes? Is there an explanation that I am missing?

China has no scientists

2009-02-19T10:27:00.012+08:00

CHINA HAS NO SCIENTISTS

I've heard it 100 times, so now I have to blog [rant] about it

man: "So, what do you think of China?"

me : "Oh, I like China very much."

man: "Oh no, China is not very good. China is 30 years behind the U.S."

me : "Ummm... I don't think so..."

man: "Oh yes it's true, in the U.S. people don't ride trains. In China we still do."

me : "Ummmm..."

man: "China has no famous scientists."

I've encountered variations of this conversation too many times to count. I'd love to debate these people and knock some sense into their skulls, but I don't speak Chinese well enough to do this. All I can do is say "no," "not true," "I don't agree" and "I'm leaving." So since I can't explain my responses to them, you get to listen to them.

'30 Years behind'

30 years. That's the magic number they've all settled on. China is 30 years behind the U.S., I guess. Where did this number come from? It's been 30 years since U.S. and China re-established relations and China began to reform, so China will always be 30 years behind? Who knows where 30 years comes from. There's absolutely no standard for it.

It's true; Americans don't take the train from Chicago to New York like Chinese people take the train from Chengdu to Shanghai. But the answer has as much to do with population, geography, economies of scale, and culture as it does with development (certainly development and standard of living does play some role).

There are millions of people between Chengdu and Shanghai... great opportunities to sell out all the seats and beds. And culturally, Chinese people don't seem to mind the cramped spaces that come with the effort of fitting them all in. This drives the cost of the fare down significantly. Also, China's population is clustered, which puts many cities within roughly 15 hours distance of each other. So China's rail system can afford to have night trips whereby people board in the evening, sleep on the train, and arrive at their destination in the morning. It's called 'free' hotel room with the price of transportation. In other words, it seems trains are more convenient and cheap comparatively speaking in China. And it's not uncommon to see well-to-do businessmen--people who could certainly afford airfare--travelling trains. This suggests they cannot ignore the low prices and covenience. And finally, the cultural associations with riding trains are bound to be different between China and the U.S. I'm not sure that we Americans look down on riding trains, but our tolerance of mass transportation versus private commute is certainly different. Chinese don't seem to mind being crammed up against millions of people... that's how they live their daily lives.

So because Chinese people ride trains and Americans don't reveals little about differences in development. It's a poor standard. By other standards, we could argue vastly different conclusions. China and the U.S. both have cell phones. So they are equal? In fact, China gets the newer, better cell phones earlier than the U.S. does. So China is more developed than the U.S.? Ridiculous!

What they don't know is that China and the U.S. are more comparable than they think. There are no famines in either culture. Both cultures have overwhelming access to cell phones (I even saw a Chinese beggar person on a cell phone one day, no lie!). Both cultures have ready access to computers and Internet, especially in the cities but even more and more in the countryside. Both countries can produce spectacular movies... the U.S makes 'I am Legend' and China makes 'ChiBi.' Both countries have news shows, sitcoms, documentaries, and sleazy reality TV. Living in my home in China and living in other Chinese homes, I never feel materially deprived of anything. I'm hard-pressed to note the differences. Certainly not 30 years behind like I'm living in America's 1970s!

Having said that, I know China and U.S. are not equal. No doubt. I want to tell these people that a much better way to judge differences in development is GDP and GDP per capita. Other standards... such as doctors per person or hospital beds per person are also revealing. But we certainly don't measure differences in standard of living in years! Anyways, I don't know how to say GDP or GDP per capita in Chinese.

I also want to tell them a more important lesson. Happiness is the purpose of life. If Chinese and Americans both have enough food, water, and shelter from extreme temperatures... if we both have opportunities to laugh and smile... if we both can live comfortably... what's the difference? Are people chatting up laughs via wireless Internet access in 2009 better off than Li Bai laughing over a cup of wine with Du Fu 1,000 years ago?

'China has no famous scientists'

Um... I don't know what to say... again, where do they get this? And I've heard it so many times. Is there a book out there somewhere with this 'fact' in it that the Chinese people all read? Or did they hear in a speech? "China has no famous scientists."

First, we can get rid of the word 'famous.' It's an irrelevant adjective, even if Chinese people think it's critically important. The truth is, the unfamous scientists are as important as the famous ones. Did Einstein work alone in a vaccuum? Come on now! Discoveries, inventions, and developments in standards of living come by the hard work of millions of scientists. And 99.9% of them are not famous.

In addition, MANY of them are Chinese! The U.S. has many Chinese scientists. China has many Chinese scientists. They produce results every year.

Finally, it's true. The U.S. does have a special claim to the advancements in science of the 20th and 21st century. Here's the lesson: education, culture, investment capital, and the protection of intellectual property rights produce more great scientists. If Chinese people really wants to have a 21st Century science revolution of their own, they will need to target these things. It's a simple recipe. The protection of intellecutal property rights might be a hurdle for a Chinese scientific revolution.

Why these conversations worry me:

NATIONALISM: Flowing from their 'woe is China' speeches are the dangerous currents of nationalism. They feel shame. (Why?!) And shame is just the dark shadow of pride. I think nationalism is stronger in China than in the U.S. The Chinese people take on China's successes, failures, accomplishments, and embarrassments as their own. "China has no scientists... China is bad... I am bad." I don't know, it's just the way it seems when they speak about it. Or a more telling example from 2008. "The French diss China... the French diss me... I'm going to go throw rocks through the storefront window of that French-owned department store."

I wish all people all over the world would remove their own personal identity from their national identity. Bush was a pretty bad president. But I'm still an okay guy! The U.S went to war with Iraq, but I didn't! I genuinely think China is a great country. The Olympics were wonderful. That doesn't mean all Chinese people are wonderful! Some work hard, some are lazy. Some are honest, some would steal from their mother. I am not the U.S., you are not China. But you can do your own personal best to make yourself, China, and the world better. Re-align yourself!

But, as I said, I worry that China has some issues with nationalism. And that's why it is imperative that Western loud-mouths be careful. When Nancy Pelosi and Lou Dobs flap thier gums about how bad the Chinese government is... you know who is really upset about it? Not the CCP (they already know Nancy Pelosi and Lou Dobs are a pair of dim wits). The ones who are really upset are the 1.3 billion Chinese whom these two dolts thought they were defending. That's nationalism, and it's a potent cocktail. Be careful.

DEVELOPMENT: Their concern about development is also troubling. Is it development for development's sake? Just to catch up? Just to be better or best? That is unhealthy and unsustainable.

These people are upset because Chinese people still ride trains and Americans don't. Or if they take my advice and track GDP, they'd be upset about the numbers. Yet neither of these things amount to a hill of beans against the 'happiness' measure that should be the primary concern. If there's anything to be upset about, it's pollution and environmental degradation. These things can seriously affect happiness, and unfortunately further development is only likely to intensify these problems. If they must find something to complain about, I suggest they stop worrying about how many Chinese people ride trains and worry about the purity of the air and water!

Finally, they should make efforts to appreciate what China does have already... what they and their family have gained and accomplished in their lifetimes. After all evelopment is worth nothing if you can't stop to smell the roses.

CONCLUSION

Okay, so this is rant is over, but I feel uneasy. The entry contains a strange mix of China praising and China bashing, so let me set the record straight and neutralize the rhetoric. I like China. I like Chinese people. I like living here. I think China has done amazing things, and prospects for the future only look brighter. Some Chinese people feel shame that I don't understand. Chinese people have nothing to feel ashamed about. I hope all people can abandon pride, shame, and nationalism in favor of individual identities based on individual lives. And I hope all people seek development that makes the lives of the individuals in society better.

Raise the Red Lanterns!

2009-02-07T08:45:00.010+08:00

PingYao: a Dream of Red Lanterns

I spent a week in the ancient city of PingYao (山西,平遥) during my winter vacation. I had only planned to stay 3 days there. I ended up staying 7 days. The city stole my heart at first sight. --Brick buildings and brick streets, curved rooftops of the traditional style, a towering wall to protect the city from the forces of cultural accommodation and modernization--
.

PingYao sang to my heart's passions: history, culture, economics, and art in every glance. By daylight, PingYao sings sweet songs. By nightlight, PingYao sings siren songs. The siren songs of a thousand red street lanterns lured me through biting cold winds to the precipice of frostbite each night. --temporary cold for permanent memories of the PingYao lantern dreamworld--
.

In honor of the upcoming Lantern Festival, I have decided to post this special photo gallery of PingYao's red lanterns. Let this get you into the 'lantern mood.' Let it also inform you of PingYao's magic. You haven't seen PingYao until you've spent a night wandering her streets.

元宵节快乐!

Happy Lantern Festival!

ChiBi Must See

2009-02-06T08:29:00.019+08:00

What is the pride of China? The Great Wall? Yeah, perhaps. Indeed there is saying that 'you haven't been to China unless you've trekked the Great Wall.' Chinese people love their Great Wall. But now there's a new contender: the 2008 Beijing Olympics. When Chinese people talk about it, their hearts bleed through their clothing. And you have to admit, the Opening Ceremony was spectacular, the Chinese athletes' performances were impressive, and China's safety and security obligations were met responsibly. China should be proud. But if I were Chinese, I would be most proud of John Woo's new epic film ChiBi. Since 1993, my favorite movie has been Jurassic Park. In 2009, now I've found a new #1. ChiBi!

History Background

Before I can talk about the movie, I must give a little history info. ChiBi is arguably the most famous and most dramatic battle in Chinese history. ChiBi was the stage-setting battle of the Three Kingdoms period.

You know, 2008 was a bad year for all of us, right? Well it was much worse in the year 208 (and the two decades preceding it). By 208, the long-reigning Han Dynasty had collapsed into the Hell of corruption, rebellion, puppet-leadership, famine, disease, and constant warfare. Instead of uniting, all the brightest minds of China had divided against and fought with each other to restore order and prosperity under their own leadership. Rebels, bandits, generals, and warlords had carved the vast empire into numerous tiny kingdoms.

An empire divided is an elimination game. Some leaders are better than others; the strong rise at the expense of the weak. In this game, one leader was particular competent. His name was Cao Cao. Cao Cao was intelligent in all things, including politics and warfare. And he was ruthless. By 208, he had eliminated most of the warlords and united northern China under his often tyranical control. By title, he had become the Prime Minister of the Han Emperor. In reality, he himself was the playmaking emperor of an incipient dynasty. With his political power and overwhelming military strength, in the year 208 Cao Cao began his campaign to wipe out the remaining warlords of the South.

In the autumn of 208, Cao Cao's campaign found successes that not only expanded his territory to the Yangzi River but also gifted him a sizeable navy. By the winter of 208, he stared down at ChiBi--the Red Cliff at the opposite side of the river. Cao Cao with his army of (supposedly) 800,000 was prepared to annihilate the two local warlords who between both of their kingdoms had 50,000. 800,000 versus 50,000! The evil Goliath versus two righteous but puny Davids! How could they possible withstand Cao Cao's onslaught? Well that is the story of ChiBi!

Movie Review

ChiBi is a war movie. So it has action. It has blood. It has death. Indeed it has all of these things on an epic scale. The cinematography here is incredible! And a brilliant soundtrack to peddle with your emotions. No wonder this is the most expensive movie ever produced in China. This is the kind of movie you must watch in the theatre before you buy the DVD.

But if ChiBi was only a war movie, there's no way I would unseat the sacred Jurassic Park to promote ChiBi as my favorite movie. ChiBi is so much more than a war movie. It is the art of war. This is about how to win a war with your mind. This is a movie about how to problem solve. And oh my are these people smart! Imagine, for example, that your army is desperately short on arrows. How would YOU solve the problem? Watch the movie to see how Zhuge Liang solves the problem, and you may revere him as much as I do!

Guess how long this movie is? Five hours. Five hours! (split into two parts; currently part 2 is playing in the theatre). In total, five hours! Not long enough!!!!!! Seriously, it's not long enough... they left some things out of the book! The history of the Battle of Red Cliffs (ChiBi) is recorded in the historical account of the Three Kingdoms. But it is also recorded in a Ming Dynasty epic novel called Romance of the Three Kingdoms. This novel is the source of all my knowledge and curiosity about the Three Kingdoms period. This novel and its stories are well known by nearly all Chinese people and in addition many people in the Koreas, Japan, Vietnam, and other parts of Southeast Asia. These stories of heroes from the Three Kingdoms period as recorded in this novel are famous in East Asian culture. Indeed I have heard that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the second most widely read book in world history after the Bible. And the popularity of this novel are even spreading to the West as video games series based on the Three Kingdoms like Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms (a strategy game) have become popular.

What does the above tangent have to do with my review of the movie? Well, it leads to an appreciation. The movie could have dropped major subplots on account of the fact that the Chinese audience already understands the progression of events. Yet the movie doesn't drop any major subplots! All are illustrated. The story is as I remember it from the novel. And that's definitely a good thing! THANK YOU!

The movie does, however, change and add to some of the subplots. I'm okay with this. Certainly we all know that the author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms changed the history when he wrote his novel, and yet we adore his novel. ChiBi also changed some of the history and some of the events from the novel. I still adore the movie. In fact, I think in some ways the movie improves on the novel in the department of character development. In fact, character development is where the movie really shine

ZHUGE LIANG

Zhuge Liang is my hero. Zhuge Liang is my favorite character in the novel and my favorite character in this movie. And let me repeat, Zhuge Liang is my own personal hero. In the movie, he is well acted. He is brilliant. He is humble. And he is humorous. Zhuge Liang makes the movie.

ZHOU YU

Some argue that Zhou Yu is the main character of the movie. I can see their point. He is a central person in the movie. And his place in Three Kingdom culture has shifted after this movie for this movie attempts to revolutionize the character of Zhou Yu. In the novel he is intelligent; but in the movie he is as brilliant as Zhuge Liang. In the novel, he is a petty, jealous 'friend' of Zhuge Liang; but in the movie, their friendship is genuine and deep. In the movie, he sets the standard for moral warfare. In short, Zhou Yu is a different person than the man you know from the novel. Where I despised the Zhou Yu in the novel, I respect and admire the Zhou Yu in this movie.

CHANGBAN ZHAO ZILONG!!!!

Zilong is another one of my heroes. My Chinese name is Zilong in fact! In the novel, he is a well-rounded hero with numerous virtues. In the video game Dynasty Warriors, he is the central hero. In 2008, there was another movie produced just focusing on the story of Zilong. So Zilong is very important. But in this movie he gets very little airtime. But he still gets his famous scene of rescuing Lord Liu Bei's son and fending off Cao Cao 800,000 strong army! He also plays again in the final battle scene.

CAO CAO

There is one word for Cao Cao in this movie. INTENSE! The actor portrays Cao Cao's brilliance, ambition, ruthlessness, and charisma as though he himself were Cao Cao. Bravo!

SUN SHANG XIANG

This is the tomboy princess Sun Shang Xiang. In the novel, she is a rather flat character. In this movie she is very dynamic. Sun Shang Xiang is another front on which the movie has revolutionized the impression of a historical figure. In ChiBi, Sun Shang Xiang is noble, brave, clever, fiesty, and funny. You will like Sun Shang Xiang. Well-acted and an important part of the emotion of the film, she is one of my favorite characters in the movie.

XIAO QIAO

"The most beautiful woman in all of China." Many men lust for her. Zhou Yu has won her heart, but Cao Cao plans to conquer it with his 800,000 strong army. In fact, some say she is the reason that Cao Cao launched his war. For most of the movie, her character plays the role of the stereotyped Asian beauty. But then--out of nowhere (this subplot is not even in the novel)--she has her moment of brilliance... brilliance! You will worship the tea poet Xiao Qiao too!

SUN QUAN

He is the 'boy' ruler of the Wu Kingdom. Significant character development time is allotted to Sun Quan's maturing into a leader.

GAN NING

Of the hundreds of heroic generals present at the battle of ChiBi, this movie focuses on General Gan Ning. His intensity and selflessness are admirable. He also has a classic funny scene. You'll know it when you see it.

What about the other heroes, you ask?

Liu Bei: minimal airtime but a few remarks of wisdom

Zhang Fei: featured in the beginning and end but mostly ignored except when used for comic relief

Guan Yu: same use as Zhang Fei

Huang Gai: his subplot is changed rather significantly in the movie

Let me return to where I began. I think ChiBi is a proud accomplishment woth even more than the Olympics and the Great Wall. Exactly 1,800 yeas ago this winter, two kingdoms allied against a powerful foe and used their wits to accomplish something incredible in a dramatic battle of great historical significance. Within a few centuries, subsequent generations of intelligent people transformed the battle and its consequences into a myriad of exciting tales ripe for poetry, plays, and literature. In the Ming Dynasty, the particular talent of one Luo Guanzhong wrote an epic novel of highest quality; his literature still marches on its campaign to win the hearts of the known world: Chinese, other Asians, and ultimately even Westerners (I am not the only Three Kingdom fanboy... we are an army like the Star Trek nerds). Then in 2008 Chinese artists used the history and culture to make a film that displays the very best of Chinese acting, directing, script writing, choreography, cinematography, and musical score. ChiBi is the culmination of nearly 2,000 years of rich human capital.

Okay, I have pictures of the Great Wall. I have memories of the Olympics. They're a little stale to be honest. But as I watched this movie, the excitement was so strong that I was shaking and almost going to cry! And I have been whistling the theme song of ChiBi for three days straight. I took over 100 pictures of me waving Zhuge Liang's goose-feather fan trying to capture an image of his brilliance. My mind plays with the stories of Romance of the Three Kingdoms as though they are dear friends. This is culture that captivates!

So, when can you be captivated? This movie will come to North American theatres, I'm quite sure. I just don't know when. It will be called by it's English translation--Red Cliff (not ChiBi). It will not be 5 hours long either. It will be 2 hours or 2 and a half hours. It will have English subtitles. I don't anticipate that it will have quite the same impact on you as it did me. Afterall, my heart has been steeped in Three Kingdoms culture for four or five years. But you will enjoy the action. You will appreciate the story. You will marvel at the wisdom. You will see a very good film. That's a promise.

Here is an unsubtitled Chinese preview to appetize your interest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DmuMZfZImg

[note: if you are in China as of this date 2/6/2009, go see ChiBi NOW in the theatre. This movie was the most anticipated movie of 2008 and 2009 and a major event in the history of Chinese cinema. Watching it in the theatre is every bit as 'significant' as watching the Olympics or taking your mug shot in front of the Great Wall. Plus, it's a damn good movie! And it will have English subtitles no matter where you see it. Choose to watch the previously released and by comparison more boring ChiBi part 1 first on DVD or not, but you must see ChiBi part 2. So go see it now in the theatre... and then tell me what you think!]

vacation updates

2009-01-21T13:39:00.024+08:00

As I mentioned in the last post, I am now on vacation. When I can find a chance to grab a half hour on the Internet, I will update here.

1/20: arrived in Xi'an and waited through INSANE crowds of people to get on a train to PingYao

mobbish 'lines' outside the train station lead you to this little mess inside!

1/21: arrived in PingYao of Shanxi Province. From what I have only just seen, this place is quite a m a z i n g , so I am going to be here longer than I expected. For those fellow teachers who are traveling around China and are in the area, let me give you this brief introduction. It is Asia's Wall Street from about 150 years ago. And it has been preserved as an ancient city since then. No cars (not entirely true) , no streetlights, etc. You can visit cool places like China's first draft bank and the old court/prison. Also many huge mansions because this was the wealthy merchants' province in the Ming and Qing Dynasties... and PingYao was the finance capital of it all. It's history that surrounds you. And the hostel says there will be authentic and elaborate street performances each of the 15 days of spring festival. I'm stoked! Come over if you're in the neighborhood!

traditional Han culture city preserved in time... for the most part

(can you spot a car?)

1/22: Happy Birthday, Nate!

Don't assume the bright sun in this picture means that it is warm here... no, no, no...

colder that Blago's chances for the presidency

1/23: suddenly it is very cold here (highs of -1x Celcius/roughly 0 F during the day... and winds take who knows what toll) (funny how Nathan's birthday always seems to fall in the worst of cold spells) Anyways, I've been to DeKalb in January, so it'll have to be a lot colder to make me stay indoors. And if that does happen, I'm now residing in a great hostel and would HAPPILY stay indoors all day if the sand in the cold air push me too far. Still having a great time!

If I had to stay home for a bit, it would be a sweet banishment. Look!, this is my hostel... it's quite like the bedroom of people living here 200 years ago... and this hostel is the former location of the PingYao magistrate's guesthouse. Important people slept here! Oh, and notice the elegance of my courtyard at night... and my wooden door completes the look! All hostels and hotels in Pingyao have an extra bit of charm compared to other cities, but this particular Pingyao hostel must rank as one of the best. It's called Yamen hostel. And not only was the atmosphere appealing but so was its central location, the amenities, the price of the room, and the genuine friendliness of the staff. Yamen hostel is tops.

1/24: Getting colder... temps dipped down to -20 C yesterday afternoon and plunged further overnight. Going to be colder today, but there are more places to see. I can sum up my experience with this simple sentence: I now own a scarf!

wool jacket with hood purchased in Xi'an

that hat was knitted and gifted me by one of my students

that scarf was purchased today at an inflated price... but no price is too high when your retainers begin to freeze to the roof of your mouth

and those glasses are dirty... just noticed that

1/25: New Year's Eve... what will happen today?

aaaah... fireworks of all kinds!

my favorite picture

1/26: Oh my! Fireworks are STILL blasting all over town 9 hours after the dawn of this Ox year. Last night we hostel guests and staff together watched the famous New Years gala until midnight. Then at midnight (actually ten minutes early), the entire city went outdoors to light 40,000 individuals' personal supplyof fireworks. There were skyworks, rockets, sparklers, sizzlers, flash bangs for 30 minutes of constant incendiary madness... after about an hour, the fireworks slowed to the pulse of a person at rest. Then this morning, they started up again. Oh, Did you hear that? Another pop just outside.... this is going to last a while I think.... hahaha, so much fun!

1/27: The weather has slightly improved... just as I'm leaving... oh well. One last place to visit and it's a WOW!er... the famous Wang Family courtyard castle (Wang Jia Da Yuan) in Jingsheng Town some 50 kilometers south of Pingyao. And then tonight I confront the train that will drag me from the 18th Century back to 2009....

1/28: Arrived in Xi'an this morning. Now what?

1/29: Many restaurants are closed, but there is more street food everywhere to offer the tourists (at inflated prices of course). I like street food very much and so I am more than willing to risk what it may do to my digestive system to try it again and again.

Also, woke up last night to the sound of what must have been a bar fight on the 1st floor of the hostel. I heard loud, masculine Chinese insults and the sound of many glass objects breaking. Must be a bar fight... either that or a Shaanxi opera performance.

1/30: shopping, shopping, shopping. Yesterday I went to Xi'an SaiGe 'Computer City'... it's like Best Buy only much bigger, much less organized, and much more exciting to stroll through (oh, and no boring things like washing machines or refridgerators on sale there). And don't expect any warranties... we all know a good lot of the ware is fake, illegal, or junk. As for me, I bought some pirated movies, TV shows, and video games. My Great Wall of Intellectual Property Rights Morality crumbles in the face of seasons 1-2 of CBS Jericho for $1.50 and seasons 1-18 of the Simpsons for $8 USD!!!! Oh, oh, I am so weak :-(

1/31: today's mission is to eat more local food... with a particular target on confectionary bakery stuffs... oh, and fish-n-mushroom kabobs

2/1: February feels like October. I have just witnessed a drastic twist of climate. Lionish Mongolian cold last week.. lamb breezes this week. Crazy weather!

My goal today is to go to the movie theatre to watch ChiBi Xia (Red Cliff Part 2). Hmmm...I wonder what Chinese movie theatres are like? And I wonder if I'll sit next to the bootlegger who made the illegal movies I bought the other day?

Watching ChiBi Part 2... best cinema experience of my life... no debate

2/2: I am on a mad hunt for my grade2 students' English textbook. Grade 2 classes begin tomorrow, but this book is nowhere to be found at any of the bookstores.... sold out? Not arrived at store? Not yet printed? Don't know. It's the art of procrastination taken to its limits.... and from one procrastinator to 1.3 billion procrastinators sometimes even I feel like saying, "Get the ball moving!"

2/3: Last minute things, then homeward bound. All vacations must come to an end.

Spring Festival

2009-01-18T14:03:00.007+08:00

Spring

Festival

春节

快乐

年年

有余

祝你

发财

Happy

New Year!

I wish you

fortune

comfort

& above all joy

in 2009

Not much to report. My grade 1 students were released to go home last week. My grade 2 students have finished their exam and departed today. Now only grade 3 students--whom I don't teach--remain. So I am officially on vacation!

There's been few posts recently because 1) for a while I was very, very busy helping my students prepare for their exams 2) the Internet has been a wretch and 3) in the last few days it's been boring.

My small town is coming more and more to life as we edge closer toward Spring Festival. Explosions assualt the ears from every corner at all hours of the day. Has the Israeli military opened a front in the streets of HuaiYa? No, it's only the children playing with explosives (without the civilian casualities). Speaking of civilians... where have all these people come from? For being a physically small town, HuaiYa has always had a lot of people in the streets. But now there are more... many, many more. At least three times as many people--possibly five times as many--now crowd the streets. The commerce use to happen at the junction of the only two major roads in HuaiYa. Now the commerce stretches down the road all the way to my school.

As the new year approaches, it is the time to buy new stuff. So that's what everyone is doing! Masses of people selling things... masses of people buying things... even in my small town. New shoes, new coats, noodles, candles, lanterns, and "wish you fortune in the new year" signs all on sale in the 100 different corners of tiny HuaiYa. And the people are buying... including old ladies who shove me out of the way to get to the next stall that has the same stuff as the one they just came from. Mad consumerism... I love it! Did anyone tell these people about the global financial 'crisis'? Or maybe if we buy all new things, the soot of economic recession can't touch us in the new year?

There have also been local performances recently. One night I caught a picture of an opera being performed on the hillside overlooking the town. The stunning lighting and the cantankerous clamor of the show certainly captured my attention... heaven only knows how the students can keep studying as the happy spirit of the approaching Spring Festival penetrates their classrooms throughout the day.

What a show!

But gradually they are being released. Soon enough even the grade 3 students will be granted a short respite from their studies to enjoy the company of their friends and family and to relax. And I soon will too.

In fact, I am leaving tomorrow for my Spring Festival vacation. Now what to do about the blog? I may post updates as my way of staying in contact... and also as my way of not having to write everything that happened all at once when I return. There probably won't be pictures, just words. Or who knows, maybe there will be nothing?! Or who knows, maybe I won't even be able to depart because the traffic is so conjested and the next three weeks will be one long blog entry... right now I'm eating... right now I'm brushing my teeth... right now I'm picking my nose... lol... Who knows?! The point is, expect me to be gone a while!

Wishing everyone a happy new year.... or if you're already 1/12th finished with the new year already, then happy MLK day... happy Obama inauguration day... happy February... happy everyday. Be happy. Smile. Enjoy life.

Tangyu (汤峪)

2009-01-06T06:15:00.007+08:00

It's freezing in Tangyu

Introduction: A Tsunami of Cold has arrived. Triggered somewhere in the remote icy hells of Siberia, the tidal wave of frigid air ripples across northern and central Asia until it comes crashing against the mountain range barriers that stand in its way. If only we were on the other side of the Qinling wall... instead we lie in its shadow... where it deposits the remnants of its frost--all cold and ice with no snow.

So it's chilly in HuaiYa. But it's freezing in the town of Tangyu (汤峪) just 15 minutes to the south of me.

In HuaiYa when it's cold, our noses run a marathon through ten thousand tissues. In HuaiYa when it's cold, we wear our entire wardrobe. In HuaiYa when it's cold, we snuggle up with boiling water at night. These are the minor adaptations of our daily life in response to the temperature change. In nearby Tangyu, the people do the same things. But it's colder there. It's colder in a way that does not involve temperature. In Tangyu when it's cold, it's colder. When it's cold, the people's lives change drastically. That's because Tangyu is a special place. Tangyu is a one-season tourist town.

Twenty years ago, Tangyu was the same as HuaiYa. It was another very small town where people made their living through a combination of farming and small-time commerce. Then in the late 80s one visionary man from another nearby town realized that Tangyu was something of a diamond in the rough. With a little polishing, Tangyu could become everyone's fortune.

Tangyu lies at the base of TaiBaiShan (太白山)--a mountain with fame for its height, beauty, and significance in the cultural history of China. Wouldn't people from China and perhaps one day even people from all over the world want to come to see TaiBaiShan? And wouldn't they have to go through the town of Tangyu?

This man--unfortunately I forgot his name--had faith in the promise of Tangyu... enough faith that he began to turn the wheels of investment. And soon others followed. Better roads were built. Hotels and restaurants appeared. Tourist goods (and tourist junk) swelled in the streets of Tangyu. Farmers switched from labor-intensive staple agriculture to time-freeing fruit agriculture... from full-time corn and wheat farmers to part-time apples N kiwis, part-time tourist trapper! Like blossoms in the desert, entrepreneurship emerged in Tangyu.

And the investments didn't stop there. The people realized that TaiBai Mountain was just one thing tourists would come to see. Why not give them an excuse to stay longer? So they built other attractions in Tangyu. Have a look:

Here is a temple dedicated to the God of TaiBai. According to lengend TaiBai God has been here for eons and people's respect and interest in him have been in Tangyu for hundreds of years, but how long has this temple been here? Less than twenty years! They built a temple in honor of TaiBai God only after the tourists starting coming! ... give them a place to go ;-)

Also in this picture is Miracle Stone. It's the large and oddly place boulder at the bottom center of the picture. It would seem the rules of gravity should claim this large stone for the creek below, but somehow it manages to stay. A miralce?

This is a temple that the esteemed Laozi once rested at. Another place to visit!

Nine Dragon Stone... there are 9 dragons in this rock. Can you find all 9? Of course you can't, some of them are on the other side.... but how many can you find? This attraction doesn't have an admission price.

And here is the "Great Wall of Tangyu." I'm not kidding, they built a replica of the Great Wall on one of the smaller mountains of Tangyu. So if you can't get enough of the Great Wall, come to Tangyu to get your fix! Or if you haven't the money or time to go to Beijing or any of the other Great Wall sites, you can come to Tangyu, snap a picture here, and tell everyone that you've been there.

In the background, you also see a waterslide as part of the small Tangyu waterpark.... another attraction. You board the slide at the top of the mountain and ride the slide all the way to the bottom. Money in the bank, right!... except I've been told that Chinese people think the slide is "too exciting" and can't stomach the thrill, so this attraction is a dud. Pity!

From the "Great Wall of Tangyu," you can see far and wide, high and low. It doesn't have to be the Great Wall to be a great wall!

"The great wall" rises into the heavens, where the December mist becomes icy shrapnel!

These picture are only a small fraction of what Tangyu offers... my glove-cloaked hands clung to the pits of my overcoat pockets and could only be persuaded to come out if 1) the picture was absolutely essential 2) the air-to-skin exposure time would be brief. A few good pictures for no frostbite; that was the bargain. Anyways, there's more in Tangyu that I can't show for lack of pictures. But take my word for it... in addition, Tangyu has many more temples and pavilions... more parks... It has also developed a hot spring spa industry. Tai Bai Mountain, in addition to being beautiful, is a center of intense geothermal activity that heats a seemingly limitless volume of underground water, which tourists can exploit for the luxury of a hot bath or shower. So Tangyu has all this.

Twenty years ago? There were mountains; there was TaiBai Mountain. And there was a small town. There were visitors, not tourists. There was one hotel. There was one hot spring spa joint. There were restaurants for locals. There was no junk merchandise peddled on the street. There was no fleet of taxis and busses. There were dirt roads. One idea... a little investment... Tangyu was on fire!

Truly, in twenty years, the lives of Tangyu people have changed considerably. It's worth noting that fortune has trickled to nearly everywhere in China in the last 30 years. Rising standards of living are the trend. But in Tangyu, the trend has been a little accelerated. One of my colleagues is a Tangyu native--born, raised, and still residing. He told me about how in 1996 he dreamed about one day owning a video machine of his own to play movies. In 1999 he bought his first DVD player (come to think of it, our family didn't even have a DVD player in 1999!). So he set a new objective--"I want my own personal computer." In 2006 he bought his own computer. Think of all the other standard of living changes that must have accompanied these benchmarks?!

Tangyu's East Street boom

But this is not a Disney story with an ending of perpetual bliss and happiness. For about 10 years, the growth was exponential and phenomenal. And then came the problems.

1) The first problem... environmental degradation in Tangyu. Environmental degradation is the yin to economic growth's yang. It happens every time, but somehow humans never expect it. When you build hotels, billboards, signs posts, and water slides on mountains, expect landslides! In twenty years, there have been a few... some large and costly. Here is a picture of a small, unthreatening one.

2) The second problem is a more serious one. The COLD. That is Tangyu's chief problem. People come to Tangyu to see TaiBai Mountain... in the summer.... because only in the summer when the June sun melts metal is it warm enough to survive at TaiBai's peak wearing your down feather jacket and thermal underwear...I guess it's that cold up there. And summer is a natural time to travel anyways. They have built a skiing park and advertise the spas as a perfect winter counterpart to TaiBai's summer fun, but the response has been minimal. In the summer, Tangyu is hopping mad with Chinese tourists. From October to April.. a silence colder than ice.

empty cable cars hang like dead spiders

Not a problem, right? Just wait for the summer, right? Well, I guess. But there's so much locked capital... and locked for so long. In addition, there are difficult decisions to make. Stay opened to compete for the small trickle of straggling tourists or close? People are employed to stay at the ticket window of TaiBai Park, for example, because someone has to be there in the event that someone does come. But no one ever does. When we climbed the great wall of Tangyu, there was a man sitting on that mountain side waiting for us... how long between his last customer? And restaurants--they all refuse to close--and so they all compete for the few visitors. When I walk the streets of Tangyu, a wave of women stretching all the way down the street rush outdoors beckoning me in to eat their noodles... desperate to sell something. This doesn't happen in HuaiYa. And they endure the desolation in the bitter cold... the bitter cold that chases their customers away also tries to chase them indoors.... the cold bites twice in Tangyu.

More seriously, the cold snap is transcending the season and barking into summer. Climate change of a different kind. You see, in the last few years, for some reason there have been fewer and fewer tourists coming to Tangyu even during the peak season of summer. No one is sure why. This worrisome trend began before the current global economic "crisis" and so is unlikely related, but almost certainly won't be assisted by it. One devastating policy--China's decision to cut the May "Golden Week" holiday short--can be blamed for a significant loss of numbers. But not everything. Why is this happening?

I don't know. But I can predict the outcome. The growth will slow and times will be hard. The pendulum of change may swing in the other direction. And for some it may be devastating. The man who just built a restaurant? The farmer who just cut down his apple trees?

In this picture, you can a ghostly complex of buildings in the center. The finest hotel in Tangyu... half financed by a wealthy operation from Guangdong. There are billboards all over town advertising it... from the pictures, it is incredibly beautiful and luxurious... and the billboards all advertise its grand opening in 2007. Well, it's 2009 and here it is. A skeleton of a building that was going to be. The financers ran out of capital, and ran out of a reason to find capital to finish it... so it is empty, unfinished, and sad. Even sadder is the impact on the investors, especially the small-scale investors.

The course of economic growth can be treacherous at times. Tangyu may be experiencing some of this. With TaiBai, their standards of living have risen as high as the mountain. But landslides have also brought pieces of their mountain raining down on them. And now forces known and unknown will stall the overall growth and may even cause economic disaster to certain individuals. Life is a cycle of give-n-take that will keep spinning. The same ingenuity and entrepreneurship that created this boom can revive it. I place heavy confidence in that.

the ice will thaw

End note and side story: I first went to Tangyu alone in November. I thought the place was boring and not worth returning. When I returned just recently, I did so in the company of a fellow teacher. He took me around and showed me things that I saw but had not seen.. told me things that I would have never known. Tangyu has become one of the most fascinating places I have yet seen. Thus coupled with the experience in Chengdu the week before, I have stumbled on a LIFE LESSON: being a good host makes all the difference in the world. I've learned this lesson from China where everyone seems to have mastered the art of being a good host. I aim to apply the lesson and return the favors when I return to the US.

Chengdu Rendezvous

2008-12-28T11:58:00.011+08:00

CHENGDU RENDEZVOUS

PART 3: the places

(I suggest you begin with part 1... now don't be lazy!... just scroll down to part 1, your fingers could use the exercise. Thanks!)

I took over 500 pictures in Chengdu. Do you really think I'm going to post all 500 pictures here? By the time they finished loading, I'd be back home in the U.S. again and you could just look at them on my camera. But I can't just show 5 pictures. What to show? Oh, bloggers face opportunity costs too!

I have selected roughly 30 pictures as a representative sample of the things that I have seen in Chengdu. The pictures are not in chronological order. In fact, in general, they are in reverse order. It doesn't matter... this isn't a history textbook and nor are there any cause-effect relationships. This is Chengdu.

SICHUAN OPERA:

Opera performance includes 1) the singing/dancing/performing beauties 2) the guy who tells Sichuan jokes 3) a comedy act about the stereotyped hen-pecked Sichuan husband 4) a shadow play 5) the awaited "changing-mask" performance. Even though I don't understand the language, the body language of Sichuan opera is rich in meaning, so you can understand so much. Without a doubt, Sichuan Opera blows Beijing Opera out of the water.

Shadow Play

Hen-pecked husband and his shrew of a wife

The Sichuan beauties

Mao Statue in TianFu Square:

This statue of Mao has an interesting story. The devastating 2008 Sichuan Earthquake shook places from its epicenter to Chengdu and beyond. At the peak of the earthquakes power, this statue of Mao was wobbling left and right and so people standing in TianFu Square were surprised at what they thought was Mao waving at them!

East and West marry well in Chengdu

Hangin' at Du Fu's Crib

Du Fu is arguably China's most esteemed poet (Li Bai is the other contender in my opinion). Well here I am at Du Fu's thatched cottage in Chengdu, where as a destitute refugee during the turmoil of the mid-Tang dynasty he lived a life of poverty, tragedy, and poetic reflection. His greatest poems were written in the shade of this beautiful scenic spot. Du Fu's poems touch on natural themes but they also delve into social commentary and critique in a forceful way. You really get a feeling for the social stratification and upheaval, elitism, and the destitution of the mid-Tang crisis... and you get a glimpse into Du Fu's compassion and empathy. After visiting this place, Du Fu has earned himself a special place in my heart. Now in modern times, this site as much a park as it is a historic site. And who knows, as a refugee of the global financial crisis, perhaps you can escape like I have to the tranquil shade of Du Fu's home and write your own poem about the greed of certain Wall Street bankers who feast on bonuses while bankrupt families lose their homes. Or by the time the mortage crisis is over, maybe you'll build your own thatched cottage from which to write your poems... but even then this place is worth a visit because it is soooooo beautiful and peaceful!

Didn't I tell you Du Fu's place was beautiful?!

The ghost of Du Fu! He's haunting me because I dishonestly entered the park at half price under the guise of a student (in China, you can get in to all attraction for HALF PRICE if you are a student... luckily I brought my NIU Huskies Card... and luckily my diploma isn't tattooed on my forehead!) Anyways, Du Fu knows about my shady deed and pays my conscience a visit in this picture... reminding me that I am in this way no better than the Tang nobility who robbed and pillaged their countrymen in tough times. But Du Fu, NIU says I am a life-long learner, so doesn't that still make me a student?

WuHou Ci

This place is the Mecca of every Sanguo enthusiast, especially for the Shu fanboys (like me). I'm going to make a special blog entry about this place and Sanguo culture in the future, so I won't say too much at this time other than that I loved it. If you don't like history and Sanguo history in particular, forget about this place. If you are a Sanguo maniac, just tell the taxi driver to take you to WuHou Ci and try to contain the excitement on the journey.

Getting 'wet' in Sichuan

Everyone who knows me knows that I don't drink. I don't like the flavor of alcohol and I resist any attempt to get drunk. But if there were any place on this planet that could rope me into alcoholism, it is Sichuan Chengdu. Now, Chengdu has something of a reputation for being a party city. According to wikipidia, Chengdu has more drinking joints (bars and clubs) than Shanghai, whose population is significantly larger. Chengdu could easily be the Cancun of China if only it had a white sand beach. Party city! But home boy here don't play that game.

One night, however, we went to this bar here with Bo and his family and I had an amazing time. The bar was in the Sichuan style... small, intimate, and cozy; dimly lit inside by red paper lanterns; an elevated view above the street overlooking the canal and the central business district. How could I say no to a drink? or two...? We played a drinking game that is simple but too complicated to explain here. It was incredibly fun and addicting.

And Bo was so funny with his "si ge san?.... SI GE SAN?...... SI GE SAN????... okay, wu ge san" routine!!! I was in fact LMAO! Best times! Like I said, if there was any place that could make me a drinker, it is Chengdu with good friends. (and the scary thing is that I drank a fair amount of alcohol and felt absolutely no effect... who knows, maybe I'm some kind of booze-holding superstar who will never know his talent?!)

JINSHA EXCAVATION SITE

In 2001, the remains of an ancient society were discovered in the suburbs of Chengdu. After excavations, archaeologists realized that they had found a treasure trove of unique cultural relics from a snapshot in the record of the lives of people living in Sichuan 3,000 years ago. Only very recently, the site has opened to the public with exhibitions of what has been discovered. The museum shows not only what was found but how the relics were uncovered, protected, analyzed, and interpreted. As such, this museum shows us not only what archaeologists have found but also how they work and think. When I teach social studies in the U.S., I'll wish I had a museum like this to take my students to on a field trip.

Jinsha was truly an amazing find. On the one hand, some of the artifacts confirm what archaeologists have found at other sites about the cultures of the people at this time and place in history. Yet in addition, Jinsha provides new, new-before-seen pieces of culture. For example, picture below are square, bronze bi. Bi are very common items from ancient China, but bi are typically round and made of jade. Let me repeat, these bi from the Jinsha site are SQUARE and made of BRONZE. According to the exhibit, archaeologists have never seen anything like this. And these square, bronze bi are not the only items for which there is nothing else like it in the world. It appears that the people of Jinsha from 3,000 years ago had certain pieces of culture unique to their society... unique even from the people living at the same time just 50 some kilometers away.

WenShuYuan

I don't know much about this place. I will research it when I have time. I can say, however, that it is a center of Buddhist learning, research, reflection, and piety from perhaps the late Ming or early Qing dynasty. It is famous, but I don't know much about it at the moment. Even today, people still go here to pray, to show respect/humility, and to learn. Many people lit incense. We saw some monks. And we saw some women in plain clothes sweeping one of the courts... they were pious volunteers. It's a neat place and worth a visit.

JUST FOR FUN

I learned an incredible lesson... did you know that when you go to a place steeped in culture you do not HAVE to only visit the history places... you can do the fun things too? Yes, it's true! Oh, you already knew that? Well, I didn't. In Chengdu, we did some purely fun things too.

Bumper cars... and I learned a new word... pengpengche

Actually, this was fun AND educational since it was in fact part of the Jinsha exhibition described above. This is a 4-D theatre show. You watch the movie in 3-D and then you also feel the effects of what you are watching in the movie (hence the fourth dimension). The coolest parts? 1) After the snakes attack you, they flee and you then feel the sensation of a snake slithering beneath your bottom 2) a guy shoots you with an arrow as you run and you feel the powerful thud of an arrow in your back

Li and Bo play basketball... Li is the real player though. 两分, 两分, 两分, 两分,两分, 两分,两分, 两分,两分, 两分.... a never-ending string of two-pointers kept Li's game going well after Bo had finished. Sorry Bo, more practice!

In the capital of my beloved Shu kingdom, why not practice shooting with the crossbow? And do you think I could be as good as my namesake Zilong?

So here are the results. Now my first two shots... do you see those two arrows on the wall above the target? Yeah, those are mine. lol And the last two shots... do you see those two arrows in the bullseye? Yeah, those are mine. I guess you could say the attendant's lesson about how to shoot the crossbow made a difference!

Shopping in Chengdu

This is the "Old Town Chengdu" shopping district. So you can use your bank card in ancient-looking buildings.

Jinli shopping district... neat stuff representing traditional Chinese culture

For example, you can buy Sichuan embroidery at Jinli Street

And Zhang Fei hangs out at Jinli Street too!!!!

And there is this modern shopping district. I think Bo and Li finally agreed it is the 4th largest shopping district in China after Wangfujing in Beijing and Nanjing Lu in Shanghai and some place in Hong Kong. If you want to buy something... anything.... it's probably here.

And with all these places we went, how did we get there?! Well, Bo drives! Bo DRIVES IN CHINA!!!!! The thought of me driving a car in China freaks the soul out of my spine! But Bo does it calmly and carefully (best driver in China so far is Mr. Wang Bo, no contest). Thanks Bo!

So that is Chengdu. [sheds tear]

Chengdu Rendezvous Part 2

2008-12-28T10:35:00.004+08:00

CHENGDU RENDEZVOUS:

Part 2: the food

Sichuan food is world-famous for its c o l o r f u l flavors. And isn't Chengdu the capital of Sichuan? So no surprises... Chengdu offers some of the best food on this planet.

A few notes:

Nothing that I tasted was terribly spicy. In fact, I have yet to eat something in China that is more spicy than the spicy rice noodles from LaoBan MiXian in my small town (LaoBan MiXian's mixian will numb your tongue and lips with the force of your dentist's best novocaine!) So I can declare definitively that Sichuan DEFINITELY has plenty of delicious options for people who can't tolerate spicy food.
Chengdu has cuisine from all over the world. If you want Western food, well my God they even have Papa Johns pizza. They have Japanese food, Cantonese food, Thai food, so on. You name it; Chengdu has it. I even saw a Tex-Mex restaurant!
Better ask a local to help you... you will get so much more out of Chengdu's buffet!
I am going to show you pictures of some of the food I ate. I will do a very poor job of labeling things because I have forgotten what most of it is called. Let's just say that I ate everything from noodles to pig's brain. And more dog meat... because it's really quite good when prepared and cooked right... sorry Fido, but you're delicious.

picture 1: Dim Sum = Cantonese food in Chengdu

Picture 2: rice noodles (?)

Picture 3: a special Sichuan noodle whose name I have forgotten but whose flavor I will always remember. These noodles are painted with a special blend of spices to make their flavor a combination of spicy and sweet. First spicy, then sweet... and the mouth is happy.

Picture 4: I forgot the name of every last one of these dishes. Dish A (upper left) and Dish B (upper center) are some kind of dumplings. I must say, Shaanxi dumplings are better than Sichuan dumplings. Dish C (upper right) ranks highly as one of my favorites. Dish D (lower right) is some kind of noodle, so you know I'm going to like it. Dish E (lower center) are some food stuffed in a pancake-like blanket. Not bad. And I don't even recognize Dish F. Looks like cucumbers but that cannot be right.

Picture 5: You don't even have to taste this to know it's going to be delicious!

Picture 6: Home-cooked meal with the entire extended family... more dishes added after this picture until the table had no room to put a single elbow. home-cooked meal = haochi jile! or as we say in Chengdu "basi! anyi!" or as we say in Shaanxi "liao za lie!" It seems every regional dialect in China is required to have its own unique way to say "Damn this food is good!"

Picture 7: Chengdu is famous for its teahouses. Here is a cup of simple tea at an elaborate teahouse where we are enjoying Sichuan Opera. Sip the night away!

Picture 8: A special kind of tea at another tea place... for the old foreigner the tea is a tad vexing, however, because some of the tea leaves float at the top like hopelessly dead fish. So when you get a mouthful a tea, you get a mouth fuller of tea leaves...yyyyuck... Naturally, there is a technique for drinking past the tea leaves, but I couldn't figure it out.

Picture 9: In my mind, Chengdu is MOST famous for its hotpot. Here is the table for Chengdu hotpot before all the magic begins.

Picture 10: And here is the table at a different hotpot restaurant featuring Chongqing hotpot. In this picture, the magic has begun. A thousand dishes of various items, oils, spices, sauces, a bubbling bath, and anxious chopstocks! I plan to write a special blog about hotpot in the future, so I'll hold off on writing the book about it here. Let it be concluded for now that the hotpot was BaSi... AnYi... Liao Za Lie... the bomb!

Chengdu Rendezvous part 1

2008-12-28T09:00:00.004+08:00

THE CHENGDU RENDEZVOUS

PART 1: the people

I love traveling and visiting new places, but I hate being a tourist...the feeling of being an unfamiliar outsider. It's just something you have to put up with if you want to visit new places.

But none of that in Chengdu! I just spent 5 days in Chengdu with friends who made me feel as though Chengdu was my old hometown. That's why entry #1 about Chengdu has to be about the people who made it happen. Although my tongue danced with the best of Sichuan food and my eyes feasted on a buffet of amazing sights, the single-best thing about this short trip was the people with whom I spent it.

WANG BO

This trip to Chengdu is 2 years in the making and requires a brief introduction... which I'm going to turn into a very long and detailed introduction (lol). It all began in Professor Ryder's Chinese class at Northern Illinois University. In the Fall of 2005 we band of China-loving brothers (and sisters) took FLCH 101 and began to gel almost instantly. In a month, everyone in that class knew each other's name and had each other's phone number and were doing things together outside of class. In the Spring of 2006, a person named Wang Bo entered the class. He was fluent in Chinese and just wanted to take the class because it was an easy A. A lot of Chinese students do that. And most of them just coast through the class never really doing anything or talking to anyone... just collecting their A at the end of the semester. But Bo was different. Even on the first day before the first class had even begun, he talked and laughed with us all out in the hallway. Throughout the years, he helped us with our Chinese with the same care and skill as our teacher. And he did things with us outside of class. At that moment, FLCH was complete... we had Professor Ryder... we had Andrew... we had Mei.... we had Alex... we had Phil... we had Jonathan... we had Nhu... and now we had Wang Bo!

As a group, we did many things together. We spent an afternoon at the DeKalb Walmart... we spent a week in New York City! Why not go to China together? Well, that is the dream. Our dream is for everyone from that FLCH cohort to enjoy a meal together (preferably hot pot) in China. The first slice of that dream was realized last weekend when Bo and I met in Chengdu.

All that I need to say about Wang Bo is expressed in this picture of him cracking a laughing smile as he devotes incense to the Gods. And even Buddha is probably laughing... because when Bo laughs everyone laughs! And that's why everyone loves Wang Bo!

Wang Bo

THE CHENGDU CREW

Bo introduced me to many of his friends from middle school. But most of our time was spent with two friends in particular: Li and LaMei (whom due to my poor control of tones I once pronounced incorrectly to effect of calling her a "spicy mama!"). They both have great senses of humor, deep kindness and generosity, and bottomless patience. Li was our expert guide. He planned all the attractions and had the tireless job of being the "you guai, zuo guai, you guai, zhi zou, you guai" guy. And LaMei tried again... and again... to help me speak in Chinese (oh how I suck!).

from left to right

LaMei, Aaron the Red-Faced LaoWai, Wang Bo, Li

THE FAM

In my stay in Chengdu, I really got to know Bo's family. I stayed at Bo's house and we ate dinner with his aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents each night. Now I have eaten dinner and stayed the night with many of my students' families before, but this experience with Bo's family was different. Despite the language barrier, I definitely felt a sense of bonding.

The best thing about Bo's family, I think, is their sense of humor. I love when people laugh and enjoy laughing. Bo's mom is especially funny.

from left to right

Uncle, Aunt, Mom, Bo, Zilong, LaMei, Li, Cousin

The only bad thing about spending the time in Chengdu with Bo, his friends, and his family is that I felt like such a burden. They all went to incredible lengths to host me!... Instead of feeling guilty, I will feel grateful.

a Christmas to Remember!

2008-12-26T00:18:00.004+08:00

I just want to quickly update the blog to tell you all about my very special Christmas. It's no longer Christmas here, but it's still Christmas over there in the U.S. as of the writing of this blog, so perhaps this entry will add a little more joy to your holiday.

Well, just like on Thanksgiving, I was especially busy today. I had all of my four regular classes. In addition, I had to teach 4 more classes to make up for some of the classes that I missed while I was in Chengdu (I will tell you about Chengdu in future blog entries). I ended up teaching only 2 extra classes, though, because the other 2 classes were taking an exam. So in total I taught 6 classes today...

Like any teachoholic, I prefer this. I like to be in the classroom. And on Christmas Day in a foreign country, when your alternative is spending the special holiday in the company of your apartment walls, the classroom is the right place to be.

So today was a day of numerous "Merry Christmas!"s, "Happy New Year!"s, and "Happy birthday, I mean, Happy Christmas Day!"

Some of the classroom had prepared special surprises for me. One class gave me a gift... an apple with the words "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" [both written in Chinese] STAPLED into the apple in the fashion of a piece of contemporary artwork fit for the Guggenheim. One class sang jingle bells as I entered... another class sang a "happy new years" song... another class had decorated the back chalkboard with a special Christmas mural and message. There's a photo of this below. I'm standing with the artist (in bright pink) and her deskmate:

And yes, that's a Santa hat on my head... I get goofy with it sometimes...

I also began to prepare for the evening Christmas party. I and 20 selected students would wile the night away... err, I mean, linger over a 40 minute slice of their self study time... eating,talking, and laughing together.

Here's all the food we had... apples, pears, cakes, cookies, crackers, muffins, candy, bananas, peanuts, oranges, some other weird nuts/fruits, Cola, strawberry yogurt milk, walnut yogurt milk, and a GIANT cake from the school that said "Merry Christmas" and had a funny looking Santa Claus perched on top... a LOT of food!

Group photo!

One of the students wore a Santa Claus outfit... I love these kids!

Throughout the day, students and teachers gave me gifts. Here is the collection. I love these people!

The best gifts of all, however, were the letters that students wrote to me. Let me share three of them:

(I have copied them exactly as they are written)

Mr. Peterson.

Uh.... I just know I'm happy with your teaching and I hope that somedays I can help people as much as you do.

A merry Christmas to you.

Class 4

Dear Mr. Peter Son,

Happy Christmas!

I'd like to thank you for teaching all of us Grrade 1 so much English knowledge. Thank you for giving our class 1 so much special care as well.

I am a common student from a poor village in China. When I was in primary school in Grade 5, I became interested in English and foreign countries' culture. I am so interested at it that I studied English hard in order to go aboard by myself. But the resources in our village is very poor. At that time, I only learned English by reading and listening. I had never talked! So my English grow up slowly. I have thought that my dream couldn't come true.

Since I met you, things have change a lot. You helped us on many ways. I have had a lot of chances to talk, my English improved rapidly.

Though you are from America while I am from China I never regard you as a foreigner as most people do. As I see, you are my friend. You help me in English whenever I want. Thank you!

America and China became friends in 1979. They have been friends for 29 years this year. People in two countries become familier with each other. They also built good friendship with each other. I am very pround of it. I hope our friendship between two countries will be forever so both of two countries can develop in a healthy way. Also I welcome more and more people like you come to China.

In a word, I hope you will be happy all your life.

Happy Christmas!

Yours Faithfully

[name]

Dear Mr. Peters<3n.

I know that the Christmas is equal to our New Year. So you can't enjoy it with your family members or your friends is a big pity. But you're not alone, our school mates and teachers all very love you. We think you are a nice person and you're very firendly to us, you're warm-hearted as well.

Every week, after take your lessons, we often can learn a lot. And I love your games very much, you're also a good friend to us. From your game, I think you're very intelligent.

I'm also thanksful to you because of you offer help me correct my compositions. With your help, my writing skills make a great progress now. You're also very humorous often make the class active. We really like to listen to you tell stories and take lessons for us.

To be honest, I was used to be very shy when talking to foreigners. But now I have already don't afraid to speak English in public. So I'm very thankful to you.

And I think you just come to China by yourself, the spirit is deserved to admire. And if I have a chance to go to foreign countries when I grow up, I may learn you to go there by myself, I think it may be very exciting.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year ! ! ! I hope you can enjoy this journey of came to China. And I wish you Happy F<3rever.

Best wish for y<3u.

[name]

Well, that was my Christmas, folks. Let me end by wishing joy to the world, to everyone everywhere... I have certainly had mine today... :-)

finding Christmas spirit in HuaiYa

2008-12-18T07:25:00.010+08:00

Dec' the Walls with Rolls of TP
fa la la la la la la la la

finding CHRISTMAS in 槐芽

We really go all out for our big holidays, don't we? We don't just celebrate Independence Day with a nod and a wink to our foundations... oh no... we come together as a community to eat and enjoy expensive but impressive displays of fireworks. It's special. For Thanksgiving, we give ourselves plenty of time off to travel great distances to be together with family(s) to watch football and movies together, to do the insane Black Friday shopping together, and of course to eat the most splendid meal of the year together. It's special. And we really jump off the deep end at Halloween. Our neighborhoods and our children are transformed into the imaginative pluckings of our fantasies and nightmares. It's special. And then there is Christmas, a holiday season that is an ocean of culture wider and deeper than the Pacific.

Christmas has....

Christmas music
Christmas cookies
Christmas cards
Christmas lights
Christmas decorations
the Christmas tree
Christmas gifts
Christmas food and drinks
Christmas dinner
Christmas games and activities (Gingerbread house, etc.)
Christmas movies
the sacred and treasured Christmas snow (the only time we enjoy snow)
the Christmas characters (Santa)
the Christmas spirituality
Christmas charity and volunteerism
Christmas shopping
Christmas greetings

So I'm in China, ya know. China has an emerging Christmas culture. Most people know about it. More and more people celebrate it (at least the Santa Claus part). How much of the above Christmas culture am I able to find here?

Christmas music: check. I have been listening to Christmas music via Youtube since about September. And now it's on regular rotation at that foreigner's flat.
Christmas cookies: no... no oven... no dough.... no knowledge of how to bake
Christmas cards: check... thanks to the Fam and FedEx ;-)
Christmas tree: check... thanks to the foreign teachers before me
Christmas food and drinks: no... but there is this walnut flavored milk that tastes enough like Egg Nog to give me the special feeling
Christmas movies: yes and no... no, I haven't found... but yes because this is China, the piracy capital of the world where even the rarest movies can be found and purchased for less than $1
snow: that's a no
Christmas characters: Santa is everywhere, but they don't know him by that name... he is called ChristmasMan in Chinese... or Old Man Christmas.
Christmas spirituality: no Christian church in HuaiYa, but it's okay. Mariah Carey sings O! Holy Night to remind me of the message.
Charity and volunteerism: No Salvation Army bells at any of the supermarkets... so this is a no
Christmas shopping: oh there is mad shopping of the kind you witness on Black Friday and Christmas Eve... but no one is shopping for Red-Ryder BB guns, hippopotamusses, or other random things. Just your day-to-day shopping.
Christmas greetings: no, not yet at least.... same old "hello? I'm fine thank you, and you?"
[skip 13 because it's unlucky]
And then, finally, there are the Christmas decorations. I have really gone to great lengths to make this happen, partly for myself and partly for the students who come to my flat each night for English Corner. Yes, there is TP... toilet paper "snow" and toilet paper snowmen. But then there are professional decorations too. Every other supermarket has a random assortment of Christmas decorations (minus Christmas lights... they never have Christmas lights... luckily Xi'an at long last delivered those). With what the other foreign teachers had left and what I have purchased since, the Christmas collection is now sufficient, I think, to say that my apartment is Dec'd for Christmas. Have a look see here:

The Christmas Tree

a TP snowman

Snowflakes hang from the ceiling to make it look like it is snowing in the living room... nice effect that the camera does not capture well

Christmas lights in the patio windows... but this particular string fizzled out after 2 days

remix: Santa Claus is coming to HuaiYa

that Christmas Glow warms the apartment

Silent Night... Holy Night... all is Calm...

So, have I found Christmas in HuaiYa?

You tell me!

A Chinese Christmas in America

2008-12-13T06:05:00.005+08:00

I'll be home for Christmas

if only in our tree

So here we have a strange blog entry... this is not my place... not my pictures... not my story. But there's an essential connection.

Back at home in America Illinois Boone Belvidere (this is how I name places now), my family is celebrating Christmas--our most cherished holiday together--without me. But don't cry. They have found a way to invite me to the celebration at least in spirit... they have decorated the Christmas tree with all things Chinese. A wide variety of Chinese culture is on display here. The ornaments and decorations symbolize China.... but in some cases they symbolize specific culture from Shaanxi and HuaiYa where I live. Have a look look...

The Christmas tree. In a glance, it looks very beautiful... very peaceful. Just like China!

The tree top.

Now those things... those twigs with red balls... whatever they are. What about China do they symbolize? By fateful coincidence, they look EXACTLY like a local Shaanxi food that is sold by nearly every other street vendor here. It's difficult to describe these things... it is a stick with 5 or 6 pieces of some kind of carmelized grape-like fruit on it. It's sweet and crunchy. So the top of the tree looks like the HuaiYa candy-man's wagon! Haha! So funny! Shaanxi people, you know what I'm talking about!

A combinations of ornaments and lights.

A panda ornament. Did you know there are wild pandas living in the Qinling Mountains directly to the South of me? I live in the reclusive company of these treasured, endangered creatures.

A bell ornament. Bells are a significant part of the traditional Chinese culture. But there are no more bells any more, unfortunately. Now we are summoned to class by circus music.

At the top of the bell ornament there is an enraged Buddha. What is He screaming about? Perhaps he doesn't want to be part of a Christian celebration? No... the Shakyamuni Buddha was a tolerant fellow. I'm sure he's only screaming because he can't meditate properly when dad listens to the Rory Gallagher music so loudly...

A Pagoda ornament. You know, I live near some of the most important pagodas in China. Pagodas where Buddhist sutras were translated from Indian Sanskrit to Chinese... pagodas that hold bone fragments from the original Buddha himself. As pagodas serve as a symbol of Shaanxi/Xi'an's influential role in the spread of Buddhism in China, these pagodas on the tree are a perfect symbol of the Chinese culture that is relevant in my part of China!

Okay... now this one could be Japanese... but it also looks like it might be a Tang Dynasty elite woman. In fact, the style of the clothing more distinctly resembles the latter. If so... again... perfect. The part of Shaanxi where I live has the elite culture of the Tang Dynasty written all over its landscape. And some very important women in Chinese history lived and died in my neck of the woods. Of all the women in Chinese history, two of the most famous are Yang Guifei and Wu Zetian. Both beautifies with treacherous histories (Yang Guifei is one of the 4 great beauties of China and Wu Zetian is the one and only female emperor of China). Yang Guifei was murdered not to far from me and her tomb is close as well. Wu Zetian's tomb is also not too far. So this woman here on the tree is spot-on not only as a symbol of China but as a symbol of where I live. I call her Yang Guifei.

A dragon... a comical dragon. And isn't my Chinese name ziLONG?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 祝你圣诞节快乐!

Turkey Talk

2008-12-11T20:37:00.002+08:00

short apology and excuse-making: I haven't updated the blog in a long time. Yeah, I know. Well, it's been about a month since I've had 5 consecutive days of continuous Internet action. I lose access constantly. Typically, I wake up in the wee hours of the morning to use the Internet. Then the Internet begins to putter out sometime after 8:00 am. Between 8-12, the connection has mood swings where sites alternate between various states of functionability. I assume the Internet continues its temper tantrums throughout the afternoon, but I can't be sure since these are the hours when I teach. The Internet works well enough for simple surfing after 7, but doesn't become solid enough to stand on until after midnight or 1am. Well, I am fast asleep by then... so very little gets done.now... and then there are those 1-2 days spurts when the Internet fails to work altogether. My apartment is lined with bubble wrap for those days. Ahem, well, let's get to the point. This blog is one of the casualties of my reliably unreliable Internet access.

TURKEY TALK

I have told you all about my students. I've ranted; I've praised. I have shown you pictures. But you don't know them.... let me bring you closer to their minds... let me show you a sample of their imaginations.

I teach oral English. My goal is to have the students producing and practicing natural English conversations each class. Dialogues provide an ideal vehicle to drive this objective home. To make dialogues work, I just have to assign interesting circumstances in which the dialogues can occur... then paper-n-pen become gold...

So the week of Thanksgiving, I explained the holiday... showed pictures... delivered the students into the mood as much as possible. Then I assigned them to work in groups to imagine and compose a dialogue for the following scenario:

"Imagine that your family celebrates Thanksgiving, and your mother is about to cook the turkey. She discovers, however, that the turkey is still alive. And even more surprising, she finds that the turkey can also speak! What does the turkey say to your mother? And what does your mother say to the turkey? What do they talk about?"

I gave them a few examples from my own imagination (a little W.C./bathroom humor... got major laughs... yes!). So they were ripe and inspired to write their own interesting, humorous dialogues. Speaking broadly, I got three kinds of dialogues:
(A) the duplicates: some dialogues merely copied my sample dialogues in theme and even in some cases in every detail... real creativity [end/sarcasm]
(B) the snoozers: some dialogues were in fact new and original--at least in terms of the fact that they didn't copy mine. But they were very uninspired.... "Hello." "Good afternoon. Nice to meet you." "Let's be friends." "Okay" "Goodbye." Yes, I'm sure this is exactly what the mother and the turkey would say. [end/sarcasm] Thankfully, this type of dialogue was rare.
(C) the gold: and then most dialogues were gold. They were original (+) They were clever (+) They used vocabulary from the book (+) And some were generally funny, especially when acted out in front of the class (+++++++++++++++++) I can't share all of these dialogues, so below I have replicated some of the most wildly fascinating dialogues of the collection. Enjoy!

All dialogues are recreated exactly as they appear on the paper... no editing... except that I have given them my own title... and except that I may, in my attempt to type this up quickly, have hit the keys wrong. Don't assume the mistakes are all my students'.

A TURKEY CAN BE FLY
Turkey: Yo, what's up
Mother: Yo, what's up
Turkey: Yo, homie boy, what are you doing now?
Mother: I want to kill you for my dinner.
Turkey: Oh: my god. I'm a Young turkey and only god can judge me, man!
Mother: Oh, You can speak English, crazy turkey, to me surprise, amazing man!
Turkey: No, no, You know what I'm say. I don't want to get to sky. I love earth, I love you and your parents, I love everyone.
Mother: Oh, I have no idea. Okay shut up man, I'll still kill you. Bye~
Turkey: No....

BIRD-BRAIN INSPIRATION

Turkey: Hello, nice to meet you.
Mother: Hello, nice to meet you, too. To my surprised that you can speak.
Turkey: No surprising. Don't you know, "Nothing is impossible"?
Mother: Oh, I know. But why are you talking to me?
Turkey: Today is Thanksgiving Day. So I have to meet you.
Mother: But you will be killed by me. Are you afraid?
Turkey: It doesn't matter. As a turkey, this is my duty.
Mother: You're too great.
Turkey: You took care of me, so I should thank you.
Mother: Is it fair?
Turkey: What's?
Mother: I eat you.
Turkey: I think that is fair, because all for one, one for all.
Mother: Oh. Everyone should be thankful.
Turkey: This is our time to rise above.

THE SPECIAL MARTIAN PRESIDENTIAL BODYGUARD TURKEY
Turkey: Hello
Mother: Oh---- My Goddess! You can speak? Oh... Oh. No... no... Maybe I am in my dream. It's so crazy!
Turkey: No---no, Listen! I can speak because I am from Mars. I'm a special turkey which belongs to Bush!
Mother: All right. You must tell a joke. Hey! Now, I must kill and cook you. I have no time to talk with you. the dinner is begaining.
Turkey: Oh. help me! My God. You can't eat me. Look. I am so small and thin the arms and legs. And before you kill me, can I call my mother. I want to tell her there is a bomb in Bush's room.

THE DAOIST ESCAPE ARTIST
Turkey: Hello, Mrs. Peterson.
Mother: Oh my god! You amazed me!
Turkey: Perhaps you should thanks to me!
Mother: Why?
Turkey: Because I will give you a big egg.
Mother: Let me offer you a bowl you can put the egg into it.
Turkey: You are foolish. In Chinese, if a turkey's ying and yang are belance, it will have a egg but my ying is too much but yang is little. So I think I should get on the top of house to collect much yang.
Mother: You are smart. Please come back right away. I will wait you.
Turkey: Bye Bye. See you in a minute. [then the turkey flies away]

PRACTICALLY BEGGING FOR THE KNIFE
Turkey: Hello, Beautiful lady.
Mother: Really? Yeah. I think I'm the most beautiful lady in the world.
Turkey: But you're a little fat!
Mother: Oh? Can you help me to be thinner?
Turkey: Let's me think.... Oh. You shouldn't eat meet such as me!
Mother: Thank you. I am grateful to you

LIGHT A FIRE UNDER YOUR ASS, GOD!
Turkey: May I speak to God?
Mother: Oh. You say what? Please say again.
Turkey: May I speak to god.... god.... god? Hurry up
Mother: Don't hurry.
Turkey: help... help?
Mother: It's no time ! ! !

MARINATED IN POP CULTURE
Turkey: Do you think I am cool?
Mother: oh my God. You can speak!?
Turkey: Yes, I can sing as well.
Mother: Really? Sing a song please.
Turkey: ok. How about "Tomorrow will be better."
Mother: bad. You have no tomorrow
Turkey: Why?
Mother: I will kill you and cook you.
Turkey: Okay. If you want to cook me, I have no idea. But I want to watch a NBA match.
Mother: You also love NBA? Do you know Kobe? He is a gereat basketball player in my heart.
Turkey: Yes, I love him as well.
Mother: oh you are my God. Let watch it!

TURKEYS TAKE EXAMS TOO, YA KNOW
Turkey: Hell beautiful lady!
Mother: Oh my dear! You can speak English.
Turkey: Because my English Grade is very good.
Mother: Stop! Stop I am hurry and I am killing you now.
Turkey: No No. Don't hurry, look there isa UFO in the sky
Mother: Oh, really. Where, where is UFO?
Turkey: Opening the window quickly and follow me.
Mother: Let's go, let's go
Turkey: Good-by

A TURKEY FROM THE KLAN (you can't make this kinda stuff up!)
Turkey: Hello~! I'm Miss Turkey. How are you?
Mother: Oh, shit! Are you a ghost? A turkey can speak?!!
Turkey: I'm not a ghost, just a Turkey. Also, I'm a girl turkey. I'm from Houston......
Mother: Shut up! Now, I'll cook you.
Turkey: No, no, no! Please wait a moment! Please! Now, I'll warn you that my boyfriend is strong. He's the leader of the "KKK". I think if you hurt me, you won't see tomorrow sun shine!
Mother: Now can you tell what should I do now? (cry..... scary....)
Turkey: Now, I'm hungry. I want to eat. Then please send me to my boy friend's house. I'll thankful for you. Happy thanks-giving day!
Mother: Oh, I see. Thanks, the same to you.

THE MODEL TURKEY
Turkey: Wait! Wait! Wait!
Mother: Oh, what you are you going to do?
Turkey: Would you mind my writing to my wife for the last time?
Mother: What? YOu have found your Mrs-right?
Turkey: Of course! We got married two years ago. We even have a child.
Mother: I'm very sad to hear that because you will never see them again.
Turkey: No! I have a mother who will have her 80th birthday tomorrow. ANd my second child was born yesterday. They need me.
Mother: You are really a model husband.
Turkey: Yes. So would you mind resting me?
Mother: Mmmmmm... I want to let you go but we will be hungry if I do that. So I come up with a good idea. that I will cook your family members, you will be together in front of the god.

EVEN TURKEYS WANT YOUR QQ NUMBER
Turkey: Hi, Beauty!
Mother: Oh, my God! What will you do?
Turkey: Don't be afraid. I want to surf the Internet. Do you have a computer?
Mother: Yes, but it was broken. If you want to do it, you can go to the Internet bar.
Turkey: But I have no money.
Mother: Don't worry! I have enough money.
Turkey: Mn--. Can you go with me and lend some money to me?
Mother: Of course. But I have to cook.
Turkey: Oh, that's terrible. I have to go alone. Please tell me your QQ number. If I earn some money, I'll return money to you.
Mother: Bye! Have a good trip!

(you kinda have to live in China to understand why a turkey asking for the QQ number is funny)

"UGLY" IS A CAPITAL CRIME

Turkey: Holle. Nice to meet you! Happy Thanksgiving.
Mother: Oh, my god! Why you have speak skill?
Turkey: Because I want to tell you that I don't want to die.
Mother: Sorry. I can't. Because you are too ugly.

Turkey: Oh. There is no wrong for me to be so ugly.

Mother: But it's wrong for you to go out and frigent people.

SARS FOR EVERYONE

Turkey: Hello. Mrs. Peterson. Do you want to kill me?

Mother: Who is asking me?
Turkey: I'm here.
Mother: Oh. You can speak!
Turkey: Yeah, just so-so. Can you answer my question?
Mother: Yes. I want to eat you.
Turkey: Oh no. I'm very thin and I'm not a good delicious food. You can eat the big big. This is delicious food.
Mother: That sounds good, but my sister want to eat you.
Turkey: Oh no. I have a SARS.
Mother: Really? That sound sad. But I also have a SARS.

TURKEY PRIDE
Mother: I want to eat you!
Turkey: I don't think you are right. I'm very kind. Please don't kill me.
Mother: What do you think. Lay eggs is very tired?
Turkey: I think lay eggs is very prond. I love laying eggs!!!

KARMA CATHES UP TO A SHADY PAST

Turkey: Are you very busy now?
Mother: Oh yes, because I'll eat you right away.
Turkey: Why aren't you surprised that I'm talking?

Mother: Not surprised enough. The fact thing is that you must be killed by me.
Turkey: Can you give me the life again. I will thank you forever. I know I was wrong ago. I couldn't thank for anyone, but I'm very sorry to do these things....... and can you give me a chance!
Mother: Why the people or the animals do something after and know it is wrong... but the chance is once. you can't get it again. The [illegible word] is fair for everyone. So you must be killed and don't say anything.

I hope you have enjoyed these dialogues as much as I have. We have only just peeked into the minds of these kids here, and as for me, I like what I see! Their English is pretty good. And their imagination and creativity is even better. It's easy mining... the gold is just below the surface!

A Haircut in China

2008-11-23T06:25:00.014+08:00

more than you ever wanted to know about

A Haircut in China

So I got a haircut last week. It could have been a really big story. Maybe they would use strange gadgets to cut the hair. Maybe they would butcher the hair. Maybe I would come out looking like a freshly-bald monk. Maybe they would slice off an ear! Maybe, at the very least, it would be uncomfortable and awkward trying to describe to the stylist how I wanted the hair to be cut.

It was none of these things. I went to the hair cutting place in HuaiYa just 1 minute from my school. Some of my students accompanied me. I told them what I wanted, and they told the hair stylist. We chatted a little in Chinese, but it was mostly silent. 10 minutes later I was a new man.

The cut was not as short--either on top or on the back and sides--as I prefer, but I purposely kept it long for two reasons: 1) risk factor... too short and my receding hairline becomes double tarmacs that Boeing 747s could land on! and 2) long hair = extra warmth for the approaching winter. Here are the before and after photos:

BEFORE:

AFTER

I like it!

So now I'm left with nothing to say! First haircut in China... this was going to be a big ordeal... I was going to ramble on and on about it. But what more can I say about something so mundane? Well, as usual, when I have nothing to say, I can always ramble on about economics...

The Exchange Rate by the Haircut Standard

When I first decided to come to China, I had to predict my standard of living in China. What would the money I brought with be worth? And what kind of lifestyle would my monthly salary afford me? What would be my purchasing power? These are not easy calculations. My Chinese friend Bo offered a simple equation... earning 1,000 yuan in China is like earning 1,000 USD in America... spending 1,000 yuan in China is like spending 1,000 USD in America. Plugging my monthly salary into this equation, I had a rough idea of the standard of living that I would enjoy in China. But was it accurate?

This rogue exchange rate has proved generally accurate. By Bo's model, I would be enjoying a standard of living that was more than twice that of a first year teacher. Although I am too thrifty to test the limits of my purchasing power, I do get the feeling each time I buy even the simple things that I am much richer in China than I could have ever been in America in the first 10-20 years as a teacher. My haircut will illustrate this shortly.

Economists use more sophisticated models to conduct these calculations. The currency exchange rate is one such tool. As of this moment (11/23/2008, 7:02am), one US dollar buys 6.8 Chinese renminbi yuan. But this number alone cannot tell someone what their money will be worth in a foreign economy. Economies are too complex.

Let's take a look at my haircut. How much does a haircut cost in America (in USD)? How much do you think this one cost (in USD)? Before subtracting the discounts that I receive from Kayleigh (wink wink), my haircuts in the US typically cost between 10-15 USD. Well this haircut cost 4 yuan. Let's consider how this haircut translates into USD by various exchange rates.

(A) If we use the Bo Model of exchange rate where one USD has the same purchasing power in America as the purchasing power of one RMB Yuan in China, a haircut in the US that costs 15 USD should cost 15 yuan in China. Well, this one cost 4 yuan. So here is an error in the model... but in this case the error overestimated the cost, which means that it underestimated the standard of living I would enjoy with my Chinese salary... US salary to Chinese salary, it means I am roughly 4 times as "rich" as a first year teacher in the US.

(B) If we plug the 4 yuan cost into the official exchange rate, we're looking at a 60 cent haircut. Can you imagine paying 60 cents for a haircut?!?!?! That's cheap!

But both exchange rates fail to capture the true complexity of the difference between the Chinese and the American economies. Case in point, let's take a look at Sprite. I like to drink Sprite. In the US, a bottle of Sprite from the vending machine costs about 1 USD. In China, there are bottles of Sprite sold at similar volumes. They cost roughly 3 yuan (bargaining down from the 3.5 yuan price that the clerk may initially ask).

(A) By the Bo Model, a roughly equivalent volume of Sprite costing 1 USD in America should cost 1 Yuan in China. Well, as you can see, it costs three times as much. My standard of living is only a little better than that of a first year teacher from this perspective.

(B) According to the official exchange rate, the bottle of Sprite costs about 45 cents. That's pretty cheap!

Which exchange rate is more reliable? The errors of the Bo Model are obvious. But if you average the two prices, they wash themselves out in balance. According to the Bo Model, a haircut is about 1/3 the predicted price and Sprite is about 3 times the predicted price. If I only consumed haircuts, then I would be a very very rich man! If I only consumed Sprite, then I would find living a bit more difficult. If I consume both, his 1 to 1 ratio is reliable. And indeed there are many things for which the Bo Model is directly reliable. A hearty bowl of noodles here costs about 5 yuan. Well, a hearty bowl of noodles in the US would cost about 5 USD. So, as I said, in general, the Bo Model is pretty accurate.

What about the official exchange rate? The problem with the official exchange rate is that it makes expensive things seem cheap. It is useful for tourists who will bring their valuable USD to China and then leave. But it is altogether misleading for people living in China earning RMB. If I think of Sprite as 45 cent Sprite, I might consume a lot of it... at 3 yuan, which is a much higher fraction of my salary than the 45 cents of an American salary. I could conceivably blow my entire month's salary on Sprite.

Thus I think it is useful to add a third exchange rate to put everything into perspective. Consider how the price of one good/service compares to the price of another good/services. In this way, you will most clearly see how different the economy of China is from the economy of America.

One haircut costs 4 yuan; one bottle of sprite costs 3 yuan... thus a haircut costs about the same as a bottle of Sprite in China. Can you imagine a bottle of Sprite costing the same as a haircut in America! And a two-liter bottle of Sprite costs 7.5 yuan. Can you imagine a two-liter bottle of Sprite being two times as expensive as a haircut?!

In the "after" picture of this entry, you see my brand-spankin' new sweater. This sweater cost me exactly 40 yuan. Can you imagine a sweater being 10 times as expensive as a haircut? Or a sweater being only 5 times as expensive as a two-liter bottle of Sprite (my God! that's a 6 dollar sweater!... or is it?) ????

I argue that this third exchange rate--comparing the price of one good to the price of other goods in the same economy with the same currency--is the most reliable and necessary for survival. The supply, demand, and utility of the resources of China are just too different from the supply, demand, and utility of the resources in America. The costs of labor, training, and rent for hair stylists is different from America, so the prices will be different. This sweater from China may seems cheaper but also may fall apart after one washing. It's different. Everything is different. I need to forget about the official exchange rate. I need to forget about American prices altogether. I need to think comparatively. And I need to think with a little perspective. If 5 bottles of Sprite buys one sweater, I need to buy less Sprite and more sweaters. And I can afford to have a haircut every month if I want one!

Learning the value of the money in your new home involves a learning curve that is a bit steeper than the grade of either the Bo Model or the official exchange rate.

The English Inquisition

2008-11-21T07:09:00.005+08:00

The English Inquisition

[lightbulb casting intense light, fierce heat, and menacing shadows across the room]

"Tell me your name..."

"And now, let's have a look at your English...."

[inquisition begins]

The Examination Culture: an Introduction to Inquisition

The Exam. It deserves its capital "E" in China. Exams are everything. If Beijing is the capital of China, then Exams are the capital of education in China. And the University Entrance Exam is the Forbidden City. All faces turn toward Exam.

In design, Exams are intended as a tool to measure learning outcomes. Here, this design has been warped into Frankenstein's monster--in the schools of China learning is a tool to achieve Exam outcomes (good grades). There's a significant difference between testing what I have learned and learning so that I can test. Although they both involve learning, is the quality of learning the same? Do these two different means reach the same end?

My guess is no, but in truth this is work better left for specialists in educational research. These questions warrant careful, disciplined study. I will share, however, a few observations:

1) The students do seem to be very knowledgeable. Their advanced knowledge of math and science have even been expressed and demonstrated through English conversations. Compared to American students, the knowledge (especially in math and science) seems to be better.
2) Some of the knowledge seems pointless though. They constantly cite random facts and numbers (Mount Everest is such-n-such kilometers in altitude... and they quote this number down to the precise single digit!). And these random facts are not so random--they seem to ALL know them. I don't know how many times various students have told me how high Mount Everest is!
3) Higher level learning seems to be lacking. The social studies in general and history in particular are particularly concerning. While some students can remember names, dates, and places, few can think analytically about the historical events that they have studied. I doubt they have had any exposure to anaylsis and evaluation in these courses. And if there is no higher level learning, what on earth do they do in economics and sociology (grade1 students have these classes once a week). I want to know how they study the social studies!!! (I already have a hint though... I drew a supply-and-demand diagram... the students had never seen anything like it... come on now, what are they studying in economics?!?!?!?!?!?!)
4) Some students use the Exam to decide not to even attempt certain learning outcomes. I encounter this everyday. Since oral English is nowhere on the exam, there are those who don't even try. They sit in the back... trying to sleep, trying to work on other homework, trying to play games on their phone... and now that I have taken all these options away, they just stare blankly like George Romero's zombies. The rest of the class is laughing and excited, and they just sit there sad, maybe a little angry, and dull. They tingbudong, and they're going to tingbudong for the rest of their lives with that attitude. Misguided by Exam.

My Own Inquisition

I told you in a previous post ("Sports Meeting") that students recently took mid-terms. Well the results are in, and they're not good. Students' English scores were particularly bad. This bad news is coupled with some other news (I discovered secretly), that last year this school underperformed on the University Entrance Exam. Whereas HuaiYa High School typically sends 4 to 6 students to Beida/Qinghua (the top universities of China) each year, last year not one student qualified for either of these plums. Apparently it was quite an embarrassment, and much pressure has been subsequently added (one administrator was demoted and teachers have been categorically blamed and pressed to work harder). So now, with these dismall mid-term exam scores, I wonder. Will there be an English Inquisition?

My nature is to immediately heap all the blame onto myself. I'm always ready to be my own judge, jury, and executioner. I also worry, though, what will the other teachers think of me. Will they blame me too? Will they think I'm not doing my job very well? 3 years from now when perhaps none of my students qualify to attend BeiDa, will they all look back and blame that "bad foreign English teacher!"

But then I snap out of it. Here at HuaiYa High School, I am the only one who inquires. None of the teachers or administrators even told me about the mid-term Exam results. I found out about the poor scores from asking my own students. I later asked one of the senior English teachers and he acknowledged the poor scores. And then when I asked if there was anything I could do to help the students improve, he laughed... said it had nothing to do with me. Do I have any responsibility at all?! (I guess he might be right though, when you consider that I teach oral English--which is not assessed--to students only one time a week, my responsibility is rather small). If the students do poorly, no one will fault me. If the students do well, no one will credit me. Makes my Inquisition quick, painless, and.... empty. So I continue to self-inquire... what can I do to improve the students' English?

What explains the students' poor English scores? After the teacher told me that I am not even in the equation, he then told me that the poor results were the fault of the test. "This time the questions were difficult, so the scores were poor. Next time the questions will be easier, so the scores will be better. It's nothing."

Now, it's time to revisit some of the content from my ETR 492 class. Here is my thought: in a culture with such a strong emphasis on Exams, wouldn't you think the exams should be meaningful? In ETR 492 language, these Exams should ideally be reliable and valid. We teachers need to know that the questions on the Exam produce consistent interpretations about what the students have learned.

I asked a student how he did on the mid-term. Like the others, he did poorly. His writing was really bad. Then I asked him how he did on the Shaanxi Provincial Exam (which grade1 and grade2 students took not more than a week later). On this exam he did really well. His writing was excellent. What in the Hell is going on here?!

Well, I guess if the questions vary as wildly between easy and difficult as the teacher mentioned above suggests, this might explain the discrepancy. But then there is the cheating. I had a hunch about his. My Spidey senses...activated by the quirky smile on the student's face... were buzzing. I asked the student,

me: "How many teachers monitored the Shaanxi Provincial Exam.
Student: "None,of course"
me: "But the mid-terms were monitored by 4 teachers."
Student: "Yes"
me: "So... then... some students might cheat during the Shaanxi Provincial Exam."
Student: " Oh yes, of course, we all cheat!"

Hmmmm, if this dim-witted foreigner from Boone County could suspect such an outcome, I am certain that every last teacher is aware what happens during the exam too. This is sanctioned cheating.

But the school is only cheating itself. Presumably the school doesn't want to risk the gamble that serious performance issues might be revealed from the exam. They might lose face. So they forfeit the Shaanxi Exam as an assessment tool that can reveal such issues... that can target areas for long-term improvement and face-building. A farce Exam.

The English Inquisition

Although I am living in a pressure-free universe, my other teachers are not. With each poor performance, they are given scoldings and more responsibilities. On that trend, last week the school held an "English Contest." The English teachers had to compose and deliver a free-topic speech and respond to one of an assortment of questions that I posed. I and two representatives from the Mei County Bureau of Education English Department were the judges. They called it a "contest" to make it sound fun.

There's not much to report here. The English teachers at HuaiYa High School have very good English. I understand them, and they understand me. They all did very well.

One interesting note: scoring. How do I score these teachers? What are the criteria by which I should evaluate them? I asked the organizer of the event, but he had initially had no suggestions. He said that because English is my mothertongue I can just give them scores! No sir, I need a rubric! So I made my own rubric. Initially my rubric consisted of three criteria: (1) fluency of speech evaluated on a scale of 0-4, (2) accuracy in grammar and word choice evaluated on a scale of 0-4, and (3) directness in answering the questions evaluated on a scale of 0-2. They would get a score from 0-10.

Minutes before the contest, he approached me to ask if I had decided how to evaluate the teachers. Informing him that I had, he then told me what he thought my rubric should be. He had two criteria: pronounciation and fluency. Interesting. I missed pronounciation, and he missed accuracy. Both are important! I changed my rubric.

Even more interesting, he told me that I had to evaluate the teachers on a scale from 9.0 to 10.0 out of 10. So if a teacher scores no points, her score would be 9. A person could speak not one word of English; I would have to give them a 9.0 out of 10. Think about it. It's really the same exact scale as 0-10. That zero hiding behind the decimal isn't really hiding if you confront its meaning! The interpretation is the same. But the guaranteed, meaningless 9 in front of the decimal and the number that truly matter helps save face. Very interesting!

In the end, even my revised rubric with 4 criteria was not detailed enough. I ended up giving everyone scores between 9.7 and 10.o. So many 9.9s! It doesn't reflect the range of proficiencies. But truly, their English was collectively very good. Now we know that. And the English Inquisition is over.

What we don't know are all the important things. Do they teach English well? Do I teach English well? What can we do to improve? Do we even know what needs improvement?!

Internet Winter

2008-11-20T07:17:00.005+08:00

INTERNET WINTER

How long has it been since I last posted? 10 days? not sure. Welcome to internet winter.

The blizzard began over a week ago. Yahoo! and Facebook began loading with extra delays, first in the afternoons and then even at night. And then just one morning--the fury of the storm consumed everything--whiteout. No internet.

When the internet is gone, you realize how much you rely on it. And you realize how much you take it for granted. For the last month and a half, the internet has been good. At nights, you could definitely call it high-speed internet. You could even surf the internet in the afternoons if you were prepared to wait a few extra seconds for everything to load. I had grown accustomed to the speed... and I was enjoying it...

Which makes the current storm all the more difficult to tolerate. The internet has returned, but it is as slow as if it is still gone. And it is wired with bugs and glitches--like patches of ice lurking on the highways intent on sending you into the ditch. With all the patience I can muster, I go through the ropes: waiting 10 minutes for the Yahoo! homepage to load just so I can click the link to go to my email... another ten minutes... sign in... another 10 minutes... click on a new message... another 10 minutes... and then I am almost there when the Internet tells me there is an error and shuts the whole operation down. Welcome to the ditch

Blogging is another exercise in patient futility. I can type, but I cannot post pictures. It's the same story... wait, wait, wait for the pictures to load only for the internet to putter out... burying everything in the deep snowdrifts of cyberspace.

So I have two options. I can wait for Internet Summer. Nah, who knows when that will happen. And already there is such a backlog of things I need to do... emails I have to write... emails I have to respond to... topics I want to post. Well, I'm going to burn the midnight oil to get some of this work done. Maybe winter madness is calmer then...

Side story 1: The Google Survivor

When the internet winter snowstorms are at their worst, nothing works. Except Google. If there is even the slightest connection between my computer and the network, Google will be there. And it still loads quickly even when nothing else loads at all. It is my beacon in the storm.

I always wondered, "Why does Google have such a simple homepage... shouldn't it be animated and detailed like Yahoo! ?" "How can Google even compete for scraps muchless be this net giant with such an empty homepage?" Now I know the answer. Simplicity sells! People just want to search. Who needs all that extra junk?! And in parts of the world where internet connections are unstable or overburdened, simplicity draws the line between accessible and inaccessible. Google wins.

Side story 2: The Real Winter
The real winter may not have officially arrived yet--as per the requirements of the calender--but it is here! It feels like it has been here since September. Cold, but I'm surviving. More on that in a future post.

Sports Meeting

2008-11-11T07:29:00.005+08:00

SPORTS MEETING

Last weekend was a four-day weekend (Saturday, Nov 1- Tuesday, Nov4). You all know how I spent the four day weekend (memories of MaijiShan still make me smile a week later). What you don't know is why I was able to enjoy this special weekend.

Exams. Last weekend began four days of mid-term examinations for all students. This is an exhausting exercise for all parties involved... even the teachers. During exams, each classroom is monitored by FOUR teachers, each of whom stands in one corner of the classroom scanning for the wandering eyes and hush whispers of cheaters. These exams usually last from about 6-8 hours each day... mentally and physically exhausting... oh thank you, thank you, Chinese schools tend to excuse foreign teachers from taking part in this duty!

How do these students and teachers survive? Well, there's always one glimmer of hope: on the other side of every major examination there is something incredibly exciting to anticipate. After final examinations, there is vacation--either Spring Festival or Summer Vacation. After mid-terms, there is SPORTS MEETING!!!

My students asked me the same question: "what is sports meeting like in America?" And they gasp when I inform them that American schools don't have sports meetings! Unfathomable. From primary school to high school, there is always sports meeting! It is essential. There is always that temporary--one to three days--escape from schoolwork. No classes, no homework, no studying, no exams. Just sports... all kinds of sports...

SPORTS MEETING!!!!

Our sports meeting began with a marching contest. Marching is a sport. Each class marches as a unit... they are in meticulous order from shortest in one corner of the block to tallest at the other corner of the block. To be perfect, they must march in perfect rhythm... 120 separate feet become one massive foot pounding the track in choreographed pulses. And they use their voices to further unite the group... 一二三四，一二三。。。四！（1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3... FOUR!) Their individual weaknesses are lost in the air-shaking power of one voice. It is quite neat to watch!

students march as other classes watch

video of "yi er san si, yi er san SI!"

at nights, the students perform in singing contests... I've been listening to Revolutionary songs all week in preparation for this... and although the students all sing very well, the performance is ruined by the very poor quality of the speakers. pity

And then there are the sports. Thursday and Friday, the classes of each grade level competed against each other in tournaments of two sports: basketball and volleyball. The most athletic boy students of each class played basketball. The most athletic girl students of each class played volleyball. The rest of the students crowded around and right up against the courts to cheer on their classmates. 加油，加油！（jiayou, jiayou!) (add oil, add oil!)

Sports Meeting

Male students play basketball... and their classmates sit literally right in front of the action--quite definitely the nosebleed section--to watch and cheer on...

basketball (and Qinling Mountains in the background)... what a gorgeous day

volleyball (and Qinling Mountains disappearing in the sunlight)

"jiayou!" and other conversations

badminton on the side

soccer in the small spaces between games

and fun... lots and lots of fun!

Silk Road Part IV: MaijiShan Retreat

2008-11-06T06:29:00.009+08:00

MaijiShan Retreat

All the wonderful things I have seen this weekend in Baoji and Tianshui were mere appetizers for the main course served at MaijiShan National Park. And like any proper feast, MaijiShan offers something for everyone--culture, history, scenery, and yes even shopping. Like deciding between the turkey and sweet potato caserole at Thanksgiving, it's difficult to say which is the bigger highlight of MaijiShan--the culture or the scenery? But it's really a moot question... devour them both!

What is MaijiShan? Well let's start with a translation and then move to the important info. "Shan" means mountain. MaijiShan is a "mountain"... er, mountainlike hill really. "Maiji" means wheatstack. So it's a hill that looks like a wheat haystack.... I'm taking you on a tour of a hill that looks like a haystack... stay with me though...

I've been calling this series "A Silk Road Adventure," or something like this. In truth, MaijiShan is the only bonefied Silk Road site of the weekend. It was my focal destination.

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes that connected the Far East (not just China) with the Far West and all points in between. These routes traversed some of the most unwelcoming and truly deadly terrain on the face of the planet. Those who embarked on the journey faced the mountains, deserts, extreme temperatures, and mile-after-mile of tread and isolation that separated the dispersed societies of the globe. For those who survived, trade was their cherished reward. And everything was traded... everything... material goods to spiritual enlightenment. Globalization before our time!

MaijiShan symbolizes all of this. Man has been carving reflections of Buddhist faith and spirituality into the steep cliffsides of MaijiShan for centuries. Buddhas, Boddhisatvas, and other figures are presented on the face of MaijiShan via massive carvings, elaborate frescoes, and hundreds of grottoes with clay sculptures. Where did all of this come from? The Silk Road.

First, the very presence of Buddhism in China owes to the Silk Road that brought it--its philosophies, its art, its texts, its stories--from their origins in South Asia to their destination on MaijiShan. But these carvings, grottoes, and frescoes plastered at great heights onto the steep side of a solid mountain must have been expensive. Who could afford them? We know that an assorted collection of rich and powerful notables from the Northern Dynasties of 1500 years ago up to the Qing Dynasty of the last century commissioned the creation and repair of this artwork. I surmise that their money and their power derived--to varying degrees across time and circumstance--from the resource wealth gained from Silk Road trade. Because of the trade, people could afford to construct MaijiShan art. MaijiShan's development flows from the Silk Road in a final, important way. MaijiShan served a purpose... travelers leaving Xi'an toward the frightening treacheries of Central Asia stopped at every oasis to recollect and reflect; MaijiShan and the forested hills that suround it gave such travelers their first significant oasis. They stopped at MaijiShan to gather themselves and pray--with gratitude for their survival so far but mostly with pleadings to survive the much greater hardships that lay beyond Tianshui.

MaijiShan would be an unremarkable, plain-faced, haystack-looking mountain without the Silk Road. Instead, it is a world treasure. Let's take a look...

Let me clarify one thing. MaijiShan is a mountain. MaijiShan National Park is a massive area with numerous natural and cultural attractions--of which MaijiShan itself is but one attraction. When you arrive at the park entrance (take a bus from the train station to the park for less than 10 kuai!) and after you have paid your 70 kuai to enter, you wonder, "now what?" There's just a road! It turns out there is a very long distance from the entrance of the park to the entrance of MaijiShan. Just follow the road--the paved road only--up and up until you see MaijiShan. You can take a mini-bus up the road, but even then it doesn't bring you all the way to MaijiShan. And I have no idea how much its costs, because I decided to walk the road. Either way, just keep walking up and up. The walk is looooooong... but if you come in the right season, it is well worth it.

In fact, the lonely walk on that road at the height of Autumn seriously competes with MaijiShan itself. Whereas Autumn has been bland in my town of HuaiYa, Autumn has painted itself all over MaijiShan National Park. And because you are at the foot of towering mountains, you get to enjoy panoramic views that stretch wherever you point your eyes. One week ago, I surrendered myself to the conclusion that I was going to have to survive a year without Autumn. And then this weekend came, and I encountered the most spectacular Autumn that I have ever witnessed in my entire life. It's my own twist on that Ray Bradbury story... we can call it "All Autumn in a Day."

At the entrance of MaijiShan National Park, I know I am in for a treat!

Walking up to MaijiShan, my soul soaks in the oranges and yellows and reds and browns... the blue skies... the freshly chilled air. What was an oasis of Buddhist spirituality for those before is an oasis of Autumn spirituality for me.

This is MaijiShan. When you see this "haystack-looking mountain," you will know that you have arrived at the right place... as opposed to the handful of other beautiful places you might accidentally land in if you take a detour from the paved road that brings you here.

The Buddhist artwork of MaijiShan is painted and carved onto the sides of the cliff. So take the stairs straight up!...How did you think you would were going to see it all?!

A complex network of stairs is part of the wonder of MaijiShan. They bring you face-to-face with the true wonders of MaijiShan... massive carvings into the walls as well as a honeycomb of grottoes each containing miniature (or in some cases life-sized) clay figures.

The grandness of the carvings are revealed by the smallness of the people admiring them at their feet.

The large Buddha and His Bodhisattvas... this is arguably the central attraction of MaijiShan.

the Enlightened One reflecting brilliance

the grand trio, up close and personal

You cannot take pictures of or within the grottoes, but I snapped this pic of my favorite grotto from the foot of the hill... this flashless picture from far away cannot do more damage to the grotto than the intensity of the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Each grotto is protected by a wooden door with a screen window. You cannot walk inside... you cannot reach inside... you can barely even look inside. I don't know how anyone could take a picture up close anyways. In any case, it is illegal and there are security devices on the prowl.

Although some of MaijiShan's carvings and grottoes are as lively and mint as if they had only just been crafted yesterday, others have been utterly devastated by vandalism, earthquakes, the elements, and time. In some grottoes, the figures are missing hands and heads; through large chest cavities you can see the internal wood framework; some grottoes are empty of all but the nearly-invisibly imprint of a former work of art. So when you walk... er climb... around MaijiShan, you will witness the park's efforts at repair. In some cases, entire sections of the hill are closed off for repair. I hope someday this place will be restored to fuller access... your 70 kuai entrance fee is going to a worthy cause!

This Buddha's right-side companion is almost entirely gone... are these wooden posts evidence that the park is planning to place a new Boddhisattva here? What an incredible project!

Visiting MaijiShan might not be so enjoyable for someone who is afraid of heights. Then again, I myself suffer a tad uneasiness with heights yet found the experience thrilling. Don't look down... just look at the Buddhas...

But if you can at all afford to look down and out, you will be rewarded... the view is amazing. Mountains, valleys, autumn colors, winding paths, and distant villages nestled in the niches of it all. Buddhas to one side and an awe-inspiring viewscape to the other... speechless serenity!

take me away!

I love MaijiShan in the Autumntime!

magic

The retreat is over. I lack the time to head further West along the Silk Road toward the "Go In and You'lll Never Come Out" Desert. So it's back along the Silk Road to HuaiYa... back to the Autumn Desert where water is plentiful but orange and red are in fatally scare supply.

Silk Road Part III: a Glimpse of Tianshui

2008-11-05T05:58:00.011+08:00

A Glimpse of Tianshui

I first read of the city of Tianshui in the epic novel San Guo Yan Yi. When the master strategist and my personal hero--Zhuge Liang--launched his northern campaigns nearly 2,000 years ago to advance on Wei territory, Tianshui figured prominently in his plans. And from Tianshui and the Shu army's siege of the city came Zhuge Liang's hand-picked protege Jiang Wei.

So when I first arrived in HuaiYa in early September and noticed that Tianshui was one of the cities within a weekend's grasp, I had decided I would one day make a trip of it... if for no other reason than just to bask in a city with history that stretches back to the soul-captivating history of the Three Kingdoms period. A Three Kingdoms pilgrimage to see the hometown of Jiang Wei!

When last week I discovered that I had a four-day weekend, I consulted the map of China to consider all places near and far. I was beginning to settle on Dunhuang in Gansu Province when one of my colleagues suggested that I visit MaijiShan... a "beautiful mountain." To be honest, I largely shrugged the idea off but decided to entertain the suggestion with a quick google search. When I read that MaijiShan is very near Tianshui, plans changed and quickly solidified... onward to Tianshui!

I don't know if Tianshui is mentioned in any of the travel guides to China. It certainly should be. The city center boasts a vibrant mix of modern and ancient culture--not quite on the scale and quality of Xi'an--but certainly approaching it. And like Xi'an, the attraction of the city is both within and without; there is in fact more to do outside the city than there is to do in the city. Tianshui is surrounded in all the cardinal directions by places of historical, cultural, and/or natural interest. To do the area justice, you should ideally plan to spend 3-7 days there. I gave myself less than 24 hours...

There are a few complaints, however, that I must lodge against Tianshui. Consider them as warnings.

1) The train station is quite far from the city. You must take a taxi or a bus to get to the city. It's a bit of a hassle and requires a minor expense of the wallet... be prepared for it. If you're in a hurry, take the taxi. If you have time to spare, wait for the bus (it's quite cheap).

2) The outskirts of Tianshui are a little forboding. They remind you that Gansu Province is in fact the second poorest province in China. Don't get off the bus or the taxi until you arrive in the part of the city that makes you feel a little bourgeoisie guilt!

Now, on to the city!

Temples abound

The bus let us off in Tianshui City center... right there... a temple. Temples everywhere. It seems many are free to enter. For the budget traveler, let Tianshui persuade you! The pictures below are from one of the temples. Notice how well-renovated it is. The woodwork is stunning. There are two 500+ year old trees in the courtyards of this temples... in China even the trees have a longer history than America!

FuXi Miao

Apparently FuXi Miao is a must-see place. Whereas I thought Jiang Wei was Tianshui's proudest hero, the people of Tianshui consider FuXi their most famous and favorite son. I arrived at FuXi Miao as the place was closing, so all I got was this picture.

Dream of Nan Zhai Zi Mansion

I also toured the household of a notable and wealthy family from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. I believe this place is called Nan Zhai Zi. It is truly a showcase of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous from 600 years ago!!! Yet although this place is a museum, it was still also the home of a real family. That is the vibe of Nanhaizi. It is surreal to walk around this place and imagine how many generations of people lived here... memories of the joys and hardships of so many lives are lost to all the world save the walls of the Nanhaizi... the labyrinth of walls...

In truth, I enjoyed this place much more than I enjoyed the Forbidden City in Beijing. It is MUCH less crowded... less "gimicky"... no pestering peddlers... equally intricate yet much more intimate... more accessable... surpassingly revealing... you encounter a pleasant blend of the realism and romanticism of imperial China at Nan Zhai Zi.

Here are some photos:

a bedroom's inner chamber and bed

The "living room"

the critical corner of the kitchen.

looks like this kitchen was equipped to prepare for a large family!... the box to the right is the bellow for blowing fresh oxygen at the roaring fires

the mill

this device has not yet outlived its usefulness; I see people using a mill like this in my own town

a complex labyrinth of courtyards and narrow passageways... choose your path

The XiangQi Courtyard

From one courtyard to the next... this is the courtyard for leisure activities like XiangQi (Chinese Chess). From one season to the next... each courtyard was designed to come alive at a particular season. This courtyard presented the beauty of winter to the family each year. Now it provides for all the world. Apparently, this tree in blossom is so beautiful that winter is the season when most Tianshui residents visit Nanzhaizi... they come to see this special tree.

the spirit of autumn captured in the next courtyard

I could lose myself for an afternoon in admiration of this tree... and I suddenly feel a deep connection with the family who once lived here in the reflection of its splendor

From other places in the house, my eye returns to the autumn tree

The Drama Hall

The family Shadow-Puppet stage and performances went down in this room... I suppose we could say this was the widescreenTV equivalent of the Ming-era elite.

A special, second-story complex for the virgin brides

Both to protect her chastity and to give her final glimpses of the world beyond the walls of the household that will soon imprison her, the bride enjoys a room above the world.

her balcony view

The celler maze below
for cold storage? or for air-conditioning in the summer? a spiral staircase descends deep into the ground toward permanent winter

Goodbye Tianshui!

Silk Road Part II: a Tourist's Guide to Baoji

2008-11-04T07:37:00.005+08:00

Baoji is a large city in Sha'anxi Province to the west of Xi'an and to the west of my town of HuaiYa. I have been told that it is the second most populous city in Sha'anxi. Although, like all places big and small in this part of China, Baoji has a long history, its history is not on the scale of Xi'an.

I spent less than 24 hours in Baoji. I didn't visit any major attractions. As is my style, I merely took a wanderer's tour of the city. This surely disqualifies me as any kind of expert on Baoji. But I can safely say that Baoji is a nice city to which I intend to return in the future.

Baoji awakes to November.

As I alluded to in the previous entry, Baoji's transportation system is pretty convenient. The long-distance bus station is right by the train station. So if you are arriving by bus, you can immediately board a train. Or if you arrive by train, you can immediately travel to all parts of the city. And since this area of Baoji is something of a hub, there are plenty of hotels and a sprawling shopping district centrally located to accommodate travelers.

Baoji at night. The neon sunlight of international hotels and banks drown out the moonlight.

I arrived in Baoji in the evening. After the ordeal of booking a hotel (described below), I was game for some exploration. Baoji has as much street food as Xi'an, so I sampled some of it. My favorite item was a large, warm, doughy pancake of freshly spicy goodness! One of the other people buying the item asked me if it was comparable to pizza as he imagined to be... "zhongguo de pizza" he called it. I politely acknowledged the similarities but inside I secretly gave his comparison the big thumbs down... without cheese and tomato sauce, you most certainly do not have pizza. But food doesn't have to be pizza to be delicious... this thing was absolutely "haochi ji le!" The street food in Baoji, at least in this area of the city, was rather expensive though. I paid 6 kuai for a small portion of fried rice. The beverage prices were standard (3 kuai for Sprite is the exchange rate by which I measure such things).

The stores were mostly closed and I wasn't at all interested in shopping anyways, so I cannot say anything specific about shopping opportunities. But there is indeed much to buy. Immediately to the west of the train station is a long plaza of uncountable stores that sell a variety of high and low quality items of all types. To the north of the plaza there is a street market district. Here you will find cheap goods and plenty of street food. With shopping this conveniently and efficiently located, I imagine it's easy to toss money about in Baoji!

Commerce aplenty in Baoji

The next morning I wandered through the streets of Baoji from park to park. I would say that Baoji is a park city. There are little parks everywhere. And then there is a big park in the center of the city that stretches as far as the eye can see both east and west. With a park this big, even the couple million inhabitants of Baoji can enjoy peace, nature, and solitude here. And to the north of Baoji is an equally massive park for hiking up the loess hills that that hem the city into the valley of the Qinling Mountains' shadow.

Welcome to Baoji's Central Park! This park as at least as long as NYC Central Park and perhaps longer, but not nearly as wide. There are open courtyards, forested areas, recreational areas, dance clubs, a riverside walkway. It's a nice park!

Poolsharks of the world may retire happily in Baoji. There are pool tables all over this city... blanketed in blue against the cold morning and longing for the heat of the next night's game

a 'chill' bike ride

From these stairs to the tippy top of the loess hill in the background. Purge those lungs of all the second-hand smoke they have consumed since arrival!

The fortune cookie told me: "Look not only up and forwarad. Pause now and then to enjoy the sights of the world behind and below." So I did, and this was my reward!

At the top of the stairs, there is yet another park and a gateway to a network of trails by which to hike through and up the loess hills even higher to their plateau. Let's keep going...

The path up and forward has been paved by those before you.

At the top of the loess plateau (actually this is not the top, but I like this picture and we can safely pretend it's the top), you can enjoy a nice view. A cliffside forest in the foreground... the Qinling mountains in the background rising into the mist and out of view... and urban society carpets the valley in between!

Silk Road Part 1: Can you REALLY speak Chinese?

2008-11-03T19:20:00.017+08:00

MY SILK ROAD JOURNEY

I have just returned from a brief weekend vacation, and what better way to unwind than to blog about it? Any excuse to postpone unpacking works for me, but blogging doubles as a kind of psycho-therapy to untangle the knotted memories of frustrations and pleasures that all vacations bring... well, Dr. Freud, get ready to listen because I have a lot to say. Indeed I have separated my vacation into distinct entries. And this is entry # 1...

Can you REALLY speak Chinese?
(this entry is dedicated to Professor Ryder and all of her current FLCH students at NIU!)
(-: Zhang Laoshi, xie xie! :-)

Introduction to Speaking Chinese in China
In China, all I have to say is "ni hao," and then the praising begins. They smile. They laugh. They bellow "HAO!" Or they lavish you with praises... "Oh! You speak Chinese! That is wonderful!" Chinese people are thrilled enough if you can just say hello to them in their language.

But they want to know if you can really speak Chinese. So then they begin to ask you simple questions in Chinese. "What country are you from?" "How old are you?" If you can comprehend these questions and give a correct response, they take their excitement to the next level. They make you feel like you've won 9 gold medals to Michael Phelps' 8.

But they want to know if you can really speak Chinese. So then they begin to talk to you like they would any of their friends. The speech accelerates. Out comes the regional dialects. Random questions and advanced vocabulary. "Aha," they realize, "he cannot speak Chinese at all." But to you they say, "oh your Chinese is so great!"

How good is my Chinese? I have no idea. They tell me it's great. I think it is functional but overall terrible... I must work harder.

This has been an immersion weekend... immersion into a Chinese-only world, but also immersion into autumn! Oh my, I finally encounter some genuine fall scenery and it is breathtaking! The vivid fall colors, the mountains, the quaint villages... a Thanksgiving feast for the eyes!

Mandarin Problem-Solving
With this murky understanding of my own proficiency, I departed for a "silk road vacation" this weekend. I knew that a signficant part of the vacation would be by myself... that I would be relying mostly on my Chinese to carry me. This "Mandarin immersion" experience was half the motivation for embarking on this vacation. As fate decided, however, the ENTIRE vacation was in fact by myself... and I encountered not a word of English (minus "hello"s and "baibai"s) for 48 hours. Immersion indeed!

Problem #1: A bus to Xi'an
On Friday, my last class dismissed at 4:30. I needed to head out to catch a bus immediately. But what did I do? I chatted with students and teachers. I handed out Halloween candy. I scoured the apartment four or five times to confirm again (and then four more times again) that I hadn't forgotten anything. Finally I got on a bus around 5:30. The trip from my small town to the Meixian bus transfer station is about 20 minutes. But we spent about 30-40 minutes just waiting for other passengers to hop on. My watch ticked to the rhythm of dusk marching across the autumn skyline... my eyes paced from the wrist to the window in tense observation of this race against time. In fact, however, the race was long over by the time we arrived at the bus station. The lights were out. The doors were closed. There was a small convoy of long-distance busses waiting behind the bus station to pick up any last passengers.... but there was no bus to Xi'an.... (and no busses back to HuaiYa)... just a bunch of bus drivers beckoning me in Chinese... Oh Shit, what now?!

Ready or not, it was time to bust out the Chinese. I managed to understand that there were in fact no more busses to Xi'an until the next morning. I also managed to understand what my one and only option was: a bus to Baoji. On the one hand, Baoji was a smart move. Baoji does have a railway station and is actually closer than Xi'an to my final destination. And Baoji was a city that I had never seen before, so going there would give me new places to visit. Yet I was not happy about it. I had planned to go to Xi'an to visit with friends from Sha'anxi. Also, whereas I knew Xi'an intimately; I knew nothing about Baoji. Where will the bus drop me off? Where is the train station? Where are and will there even be hotels and vacant rooms in Baoji? I knew NOTHING about Baoji and how I would survive the night. And now in the complete darkness of , I was on a bus to the Baoji unknown...

Problem #2: Finding hotels.
I am convinced that the Fates truly love me. Sure, they like to toy with me a little only every so often. But they end all their little pranks with great fortune that more than makes up for the small miseries they put me through. As it turned out, the Baoji bus dropped me off at an oasis of convenience... where I got off the bus there was a 30 second walk to the train station. And I was surrounded by hotels... expensive hotels... but hotels nevertheless.

Now before committing to this vacation, I had assumed that booking a hotel would be the easy part. Theoretically, you should be able to book a hotel without knowing a word of Chinese. Think about it... 1) just by walking through the door, they already know what you want... 2) you can use your fingers to show how many people will be staying there 3) the prices are posted, and 4) you just have to hand them your ID/passport & visa. Easy! Right?

Wrong. On this vacation I detected a pattern developing. In each case, an initial attempt to book a hotel fails; success follows. (You see, the Fates toy with me, then they deliver).

In Baoji, my first attempt to book a hotel was met with fast-talking rudeness. There were three accomplices... two hotel clerks and the token girl who stands opening the door all night. Despite the international appearance of the hotel (an English sign advertising the hotel to the city, a panel of clocks displaying times from cities around the world in the lobby, etc.), none of the three made any attempt to speak any English. It's okay, let me try Chinese! Hotel Clerk A had a permanent pattern of knitted and knotted wrinkles on her forehead as though a plastic surgeon had designed an expression of confusion on her face. She appeared confused even by my saying "ni hao." "Ni hao? What does 'ni hao' mean?" She spoke quickly and continued to look confused. Yet miraculously our dialogue was progressing... one person, I am booking one person... 100 Yuan per night... okay... but there were too many other long, quickly spoken sentences from her and too many "tingbudongs" (= I don't understand what you are talking about!) from me for the liking of Hotel Clerk B. Hotel Clerk B was going to save the day, but unlike Superman or Batman, she wasn't at all happy about having to make the rescue. And unlike Superman or Batman, she had no superpowers to speak of... at all. She spoke even faster... and her speech was slurred as it tried to escape the tiny spaces of her tight frown. My "tingbudongs" were on the rise. The door-opener--although irritated like the other two--was the most competent of all of them. She tried to insert simplified, clearly spoken translations of what the two hotel clerks were hissing about. Through her, I might have eventually booked a room. But Hotel Clerk B had reached her boiling point; I had interrupted her from staring at the walls and she was anxious to return to this leisure. She bluntly told me I had better find someone to translate before I return. Aha! Fate had presented a golden opportunity to practice my "angry Chinese." "Na SUAN le!" (just FORGET IT!), I snared. I had learned this golden phrase in Chinese 101 or 102 and had been itching to use it in a real-life situation ever since.... and there it was... "na SUAN le!" in Baoji, Oct31, 2008. :-)

A couple doors down I found another hotel and the conversation was simple and pleasant... it was as though they were waiting for me. See how easy it can be!

In Tianshui, I encounted a sequel to the hotel situation. The clerks at the first hotel I attempted were bothered by my request to stay there. They ultimately refused me because I did not have my actual passport (Buckland had wisely advised us never to bring the actual passport; photocopies of the paperwork are a safer and typically suitable alternative). I have booked all my hotels in all my travels this way, but this did not convince the clerk at Hotel #1 in Tianshui. So I went to a hotel across the street and was comfortably settled in my room in less time than it takes to boil a pot of water for green tea.

Conclusion? Booking a hotel is an incredibly easy task, but some places make it a chore. Give these places your best "Na SUAN le" on the way out ;-)

Problem #3: Ordering Food
I have never had a problem ordering food. I have committed to memory the names of all my favorite dishes. I know how to say them. I know how to recognize their characters. And I can even write many of them if it comes to that... but it never does. Ordering food is so easy!

The only problem is that I don't know how to order NEW food. I know well what I have already enjoyed, but the great unknown is all that is out there just waiting to be enjoyed! It's a pity, I am missing out on some classic dishes, I know it. I need to request that the places surprise me... "ni you shenme haochi de?" or "ni you shenme hao jianyi?"

Problem #4: Transportation
Ordering bus and train tickets seems to be pretty easy. You just need to be able to correctly pronounce the name of your destination (and be prepared to write it if necessary); then you are Charlie with the golden ticket! The transportation clerks may have the personality of a robot, but they tend to be pretty patient and effective at listening. Good robots!

My only problem is that the trains do not tell you what station at which they have arrived. So every stop you must whip out the Chinese again... "Are we here yet?" From all 360 degrees people look at you at once... a mixture of irritation and amusement at your frequent silly question and your awkward Chinese.

A weekend of golden opportunities!

Conversations
A foreigner with pale skin, reddish hair, and blue eyes is just conspicuous enough to stand out even from the crowds of 1.3 billion people. But although people notice and are interested in me, they rarely approach me to talk. Why? My first hypothesis was that they are hesistant to approach me because they believe their English is "too poor" and that I don't speak a word of Mandarin--that we couldn't possibly have a conversation. But this hypothesis has been challenged by the experiences I had this weekend.

In fact, there are brave people in China who occassionally speak with me, as there were this weekend. I talked with locals as well as Chinese tourists from as far away as Shanghai and Canada (even with the Canadian Chinese people I spoke Chinese!). I have observed three interesting phenomena in these many conversations:

Phenomena 1: The Chinese go-between
It happens again and again. I'll be waiting somewhere... people looking at me from all sides... some covertly glancing, others overtly staring. Then some brave person will come speak with me. When we finish our conversations, the other Chinese people rush to him or her for the answers to all their questions about me. "Where is he from?" "How old is he?" "How long has he been in China?" "What is he doing here?" "How much money does he make each month?" Why don't you just ask me like Mr. Bravery did?!

Phenomena 2: The Chinese speaker
In fact I have already begun to develop an answer to the question posed immediately above. The truth is that the person with whom I am speaking does matter rather significantly. If 10 people approached me and asked the same exact simple question (eg How old are you?), I would probably only understand 7 out of 10. There are some prerequisites for a successful Chinese speaker:
1) Must speak slowly and patiently
2) Must speak clearly
3) Must use putonghua (standard Mandarin... no dialects please!)
4) Must use high-frequency, simple words and expressions in their questions
5) Must be willing to repeat
6) Must be willing to re-word and simplify after 3 or 4 failed attempts

A careful observer of such things, I have noticed a trend. Females are measurably better than males at meeting these conditions. In addition, young people are significantly better than old people. I NEVER understand old men. The missing teeth, the smoke-stained lungs, and the stubborn insistence on using their local dialect conspire to form a special language that I call laonanrenhua (old man language). Elderly females do not usually have this problem; I often understand them clearly.

Phenomenon 3: The Chinese to Chinese to English translation
This weekend I met a very nice, very humorous, and very generous person on the train to Tianshui. What began with him helping me find my seat on the train turned into him becoming my personal tour guide to Tianshui for an afternoon and evening. But everything we said was in Chinese. He hadn't spoken any English since graduating from his university in 2005 and so had forgotten nearly everything. So we spoke Chinese.

The bizarre thing was when, on many occassions, other Chinese people joined the conversation; they might ask a few questions to me directly but, if not satisfied that I understood them, would turn to Wang Hao to translate what they said from their Chinese to his Chinese--from Chinese that I could not understand to Chinese that I could understand. Again and again and again, many people used him to translate their questions and expressions from Chinese to Chinese! He and I shared laughs about the strangeness of this phenomenon.

I and my Tianshui friend, Wang Hao. Wang Hao helped me catch a bus from the Tianshui train station to Tianshui City (which is actually quite far from the station), helped me book a hotel, guided me to and through three interesting local tourist sites, showed me to Tianshui's dining scene, and engaged me in flowing conversations. Unrepayable gratitude is owed to this decent person!... my life's goal is to return the favor to all visitors to America.

Illiteracy at what cost... and literacy at what cost?
"I just want to learn oral Chinese; I'm not interested in learning how to read or write the characters." I have heard this many times. I myself have also thought about the merits of this viewpoint. After this weekend, it's time to reconsider the arguments.

Reading and writing Chinese seems so daunting to foreigners that many understandably give up on it. They reason:
(A) I'm not interested in reading (muchless writing) Chinese books, newspapers, magazines, etc
(B) Everything I need or want I can communicate through speech
Conclusion: there are just too many characters to warrant studying them for these purposes; I'll just use the "widely-available" pinyin transliterations.

The PROS reconsidered:
Yet this weekend, being able to read even just a little Chinese helped me immensely (mind you, I am functionally illiterate, no doubt). First, in my experience, pinyin is NOT widely available. Frequently, there is nothing but hanzi (characters). Second, yes you CAN ask for things with spoken Chinese. But that becomes rather tiring and embarrassing. "Excuse me, is there a hotel nearby?" when there are a thousand neon signs advertising hotels right in front of you. "Excuse me, have I arrived at such-n-such street yet?"... no... next street... "Excuse me, have I arrived at such-n-such street yet?"... no... next street... "Excuse me..." And when you buy a train or bus ticket, it is so nice to be able to 1) confirm the correct destination and 2) read other useful information about departure and seating without having to bother other people.

And then there are situations when you are alone. I was indeed alone in the wilderness of rural China on one occasion and used my knowledge of Chinese (plus my knowledge of how to use a Chinese dictionary) to guide me correctly. In short, you cannot guarantee that there will always be a person available or willing to help you in every moment... security comes from learning to read Chinese.

The CONS reconsidered:
My vocabulary is minimal... it's sad really. And no matter how slowly, patiently, clearly, and correctly a person speaks--I cannot understand them if I don't have the vocabulary base to cover the conversation. I realized this weekend how my efforts to learn to read and write had limited my vocabulary and thus my oral Chinese.

You see, if you take the comprehensive approach to learning Chinese, with each new word you must slow down to learn not only how to say and listen for the word but also how to read and write the word. Time is a cost. If you take the "oral only" approach to learning Chinese, you could be using the time to learn even more words. Time is an expensive cost. The opportunity cost of learning how to speak, listen to, read, and write one new word is perhaps as many as 10 new "oral only" words. Expensive indeed! How do you want to spend your time?

Illiterate... to be or not to be?:
From this point, I argue a compromise. Skip learning how to write Chinese, but do learn how to read Chinese. Reading Chinese is useful and provides a sense of security. And the big little secret is that Chinese is not nearly as difficult to read as everyone assumes. Our memories are ripe for the challenge.

It is also worth noting an addendum to the above point about the opportunity cost of learning to read Chinese. Learning to read Chinese truthfully reinforces your ability to speak and listen to Chinese. Exposure and practice are two fundamental components of learning. If you learn to read Chinese, you enhance your exposure. If you learn to read Chinese, you multiply your opportunities to practice. In short, learning to read Chinese WILL improve your oral Chinese.

Why do I advocate against learning to write Chinese? Although learning to write does reinforce your ability to read, it is 1) minimally functional 2) the most time-consuming and 3) very easy to forget without constant and consistent practice. I used to be quite good at remembering how to write the characters; now it seems I have forgotten how to write even the simplest characters after only a semester without practice.

And finally--returning to the merits of learning how to read--modern technology makes it possible to write Chinese without actually being able to write it... IF ONLY YOU KNOW HOW TO READ IT. Modern technology in computers and cell phones uses a pinyin-based, sight-recognition system of writing. Because I know how to read just a little Chinese, I can easily type messages in Chinese on my computer. With my cell phone I can text faster in Chinese than I can in English (seriously!... although it is worth noting that my texting abilities in both are notoriously slow). I can use my cell phone to write quickly, clearly, and easily what I could otherwise painstakingly handwrite with paper and pencil (which I never carry anyways). It's very convenient!

Truly, "'Hooked on Phonics' worked for me!" (remember this ad from the 90s?!)

Conclusion:
This has been a "Chinese-only corner" of a weekend. My last English words were "Happy Halloween" on Friday evening. When I returned to Xi'an to get a bus back to HuaiYa, I stayed the night at the Xiangzimen Hostel where we always stay. The staff there has famously great English, but I found myself talking to them in Chinese!... not because I wanted to, but because my brain was still thinking in Chinese. After a couple seconds, the situation dawned on me, and I switched to English... a shameful but welcome break from the intensity of "Chinese only!"

I want to address all of my American friends here. In America, we have an attitude that people who come to America should learn to speak English. I agree with this attitude. But after this weekend, I must point out where we Americans fall short. Generally speaking, we have NO IDEA how stressful and humiliating it often is to learn and speak a new language in an immersion environment. It is physically exhausting! As caring human beings, we Americans should be willing to help newcomers learn English in their moments of difficulty. Like the kind person from Tianshui who spent half his day with me answering questions and making me feel comfortable in the city and confident in just trying to speak... NOT like the Americans who sneer, snicker, and snarl at people's whose English isn't quite yet perfect. Day after day, I am consistently humbled by the generous and merciful toleration that the Chinese people display toward my truly poor and pathetic Chinese in their country.. and I am with each day more and more disgusted about how intolerant Americans tend to be with "broken English" that is certainly much more solid than my ramshackle Chinese. Americans are friendly and wonderful people, but when it comes to our attitudes about foreign languages and English, we are in serious need of a conscience check.

Now, the weekend is over. I survived. I even had fun! Lots of it! There will be more to come about all the adventures in future entries...

Silk Road Part 2: Baoji layover

Silk Road Part 3: TianShui city

Silk Road Part 4: Maiji Shan retreat

(and if the internet allows, there will even be some pictures)