Haven't been able to update regularly for lack of good internet access. Here's the first week all in one piece.
First Day of School
After writing a whole bunch of fieldnotes, I’m definitely not in the mood to write more about how I feel about my first day of school.
I also feel sadness at not being able to participate in all the Orientation activities at school and the typical Stanford school life.
The students are bright eyed and attentive, disciplined and careful to listen to the teacher at all times. Their level is varied, but as far as I can tell, the young seventh graders' hands are definitely in the air as often as I ask questions. Their curiosity manifests in looking over my notes, bean bag, and folder. After class, many more students say ‘hello teacher’ to me than before. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine.
It also begs questions of how I’m affecting my subjects, perhaps more than I ought to. It’s difficult to find a line because any contact means changing them. On the other hand, all of them have had exposure to foreigners teaching them, so my additional teaching may not be as significant in changing their educational perceptions.
Walking amid the concrete corridors in the school does tend to give me an odd sense of peacefulness. It reminds me of NEHS, the way classrooms are structured, the schedule, the teachers, but mostly the students. Although the school bell here resembles a fire alarm, the students continue to exemplify two qualities that I particularly liked in the Taiwanese public school system: respect for teachers and a generous team spirit.
After the first few home visits, I am convinced that there is poverty in this place. While at school all students seem equal, the truth is many come from homes that are (in American standards) but shacks. Yet they continue to offer what little they have to others.
It’s 9:55 and time for bed.
23 Sept 2008 9:29am
It comes as a surprise that the students are laughing so much during their class time, speaking up so often, and having so much enthusiasm for their learning. Auditing math class this morning left me to nostalgic for my old days at NEHS, except we never had that same kind of enthusiasm. I’m not sure we ever shouted out the answers just because we couldn’t keep them in anymore. I was impressed by the teacher’s finesse in revealing the concept of symmetry step by step, starting from concrete images like folded paper that she had cut herself to discrete images in the textbook all the way to abstract ideas like squares, triangles, circles, and rhombi.
The chilly autumn weather brings warm memories of middle and high school, the morning sunrise leaving golden splotches in the sky that were uplifting if only because they are so rare in the smoky, smog-ridden Beijing suburb sky. The rains yesterday cleared out a good amount of gunk in the air, I think. What glory to one’s lungs it is to have clean air!
It leaves a huge smile on my face. I think I’m going to buy some fruit today as well. And audit another class in the next hour.
25 Sept 2008
One of the teachers was decorating the classroom and fell off a ladder, hurting his waist. I’m stepping in for this week to teach his two classes and lead his students as a homeroom teacher momentarily. The past few days have been extremely draining—the first year of teaching, I’m sure many will say, is not for the weak of heart. Especially when you’re trying to conduct research at the same time. Good thing I’ve done ESL activities in Anhui already!
A peaceful morning and knowing that British club volunteers will help me take some of the difficulty in teaching two classes, I’m feeling much more relaxed.
It’s difficult right trying to figure out where my project is headed. I’ll be giving an overview tonight, but I’m afraid of stepping on toes accidentally or passing ethical boundaries. Otherwise casual conversations being written down could mean that I’m invading privacy.
Otherwise, it’s a question of what approach to take at this crossroads. I have a wonderful break to do home visits, but that means I’ll need to coordinate with students first or at least before Sunday.
Here are some possible approaches:
1. Start doing a documentation scavenge
2. Continue with class observations
3. Work on collecting interviews and home visits
4. Analysis and Future Approaches
5. Keeping tabs on ethics and validity
The teachers in the 8th grade office are currently having an informal break trying to photograph a 馒头 with some 咸菜 in it. It’s quite amusing, because it looks like the 馒头 has a stuffed, brown mouth. The music teacher is getting nice and close and trying to photograph it, to the amusement of all the teachers in the room.
I’m thinking about getting a haircut and somehow we’ve moved over to talking about me and possible girlfriends here.
September 26, 2008
Getting a chance to say, in front of all the teachers, exactly what I want to do (understand the student’s perceptions of education and how they’ve come to hold them) leaves me with a feeling of relief. During the faculty meeting, I not only got a chance to meet all the teachers, I informed them that I might copy down what they say in casual conversations, obviously leaving their names out of it.
While I thought it would be a dangerous thing to say, a teacher later bought me seven beautiful (and enticingly aromatic) apples, rosy in color with the occasional speckle. It reminded me that being a human being comes before being a researcher. That lesson was soon repeated after hearing a long conversation with some of the teachers about the challenges of teaching migrant students.
In addition to poverty, the students come from a world of transience, shuttling from one school to the next without much chance to build relationships. The homeroom teachers have mentioned the importance of getting the students’ back stories… the divorces, moves, illness, poverty, and all sorts of bitter experiences that underlie the students’ present condition at school. Going on several home visits this week myself, this lesson rings true in my heart (maybe ‘wrings my heart’ is better).
These experiences ignite a passion within me for teaching as well as migrant students in China. While a researcher remains, in many ways, aloof from his or her subjects, I feel a calling for this population. Perhaps I may return in another capacity another year.
Bedtime at 10:21. Waking up at 5:50 tomorrow to go running with the students :).
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The First Day
It feels like I'm at a new college and working to move in. I don't know anyone right now, neither teachers nor students, and I've yet to start teaching (boy, will that be strange). Something in the back of my head tells me I ought to be preparing for teaching or preparing for interviews... or *something,* but I also realize the importance of taking things slowly... of getting to know people and just being around. I'm just about to go take a nap, given the fact that I woke up at 6:00am in the morning, but I'll be heading out soon to eat and meet with more students.
--James
--James
Friday, September 19, 2008
Migration
As this leg of the journey ends, I prepare my heart to welcome what constitutes the culmination of months of preparation. In less than an hour, I will be heading to the middle school that I will be living at, doing research and a little teaching simultaneously.
The past few weeks have centered around a project that we just finished about teacher incentives at migrant schools. Having a chance to work with Renmin University students has been an honor and pleasure on par with my experiences with Nanjing University students. In both cases, we've collaborated on projects or toward a common goal, and there is a camaraderie and warmth that affects me deeply. Although there are times of disagreement or frustration (as we discussed last night while shopping in Xidan district, Chinese and American minds often tick differently), I'm grateful for this opportunity to connect with local students.
As a nascent anthropologist, I find Beijing a city of conflicting themes. Beauty and ugliness, modern and ancient, the sublime mixed with the mundane, extravagance in dire contrast to the squalor that others live in. There is deep-seated pride in being Chinese; in having an Asian heritage, but the Western ways of life have an irresistible allure. My first club/bar experience two nights ago suggested one of the most troubling and interesting divides between the generations, with new expressions of Chinese 'youthfulness' developing within a fragmented system.
My work with migrant schools has shown me precisely the same themes, but in sharper relief, and the stakes are that much higher. Schools are a locus of social mobility; one doesn't climb a social ladder without a praxis/habits befitting of high class. And where does one find the habits and tastes that are socially recognized as 'classy?' School. At the same time, they've been placed in a situation where a high class education is not a viable option, and a second class education most often generates second class citizens (all these terms are subjective, but like 'race,' they have very real ramifications). Some of them go straight to work, others return home to test into high school. They are citizens but still treated as outsiders; they are legally allowed to go to high levels of education but cannot.
A discourse of ethical treatment of migrants is developing, but it has yet to permeate all levels of society. If anything, the people of China are conflicted about whether it is ethical to devote equal resources to the migrants. One isn't surprised that the Malthusian underpinnings of the One Child Policy (rightfully?) translates to fears that having swells of migrants come to the city will overwhelm its resources. For the migrants, many still inspired by socialist ideals of equality, this ethical reasoning generates further contradiction.
As such, migrants are lodged in limbo. One one hand, they are placed on a pedestal by liberal professors, reporters, foreign NGOs, etc. who provide the students with resources and the teachers with training. On the other, they are marginalized by public school principals who would rather wish the migrants return home to continue their schooling rather than sapping resources from the public school students. Legally, they are allowed to stay in the city and receive education, but decentralization has characterized the Chinese educational system since the 1980s. Local governments are supposed to pay for the education of migrants, but the central government really doesn't want to force them to take migrant students for free.
Personally, I am excited most about how these middle school students will respond. They are coming of age within a multiplicity of contradictory discourses, all framed by rapid economic prosperity. Where do ideas like 'right to education' or 'equality' come in? Most importantly, what does education mean to these students--an education meant to prepare them for a Brave New World that has few promises of certainty?
And even while I've been hard at work studying the migrants, I am faint from my attempts to deal with the dizzying discord in my own life. With less than 40 minutes to go, I'm both excited and terrified of what lies ahead. First and foremost, will I have peers to talk to freely? Will I be able to fit in? Will I be comfortable teaching and doing research? Will I be welcomed? I'm both deeply inspired and tired of this topic, having ready countless reports (oh, but with so many more unread!), conducted several interviews, and talked ad nauseum about certain topics in the field. I feel like the narrator in Season of Migration to the North, discovering in myself a contemporary Mustafa... full of conflict in my identities, only this time it's East and West.
This thought brings me some clarity: I am a migrant among migrants, both literally and figuratively. I am a transnational without much semblance of home, dealing with my own issues as I migrate across the Pacific. It is in this stream of consciousness that I recall the promises of my firm identity as a Christian... a permanent home awaiting my return independent of my performance here, a relationship that staves away lonliness independent of those around me.
One doesn't move without taking a step, I guess. The Nile keeps on moving =p.
The past few weeks have centered around a project that we just finished about teacher incentives at migrant schools. Having a chance to work with Renmin University students has been an honor and pleasure on par with my experiences with Nanjing University students. In both cases, we've collaborated on projects or toward a common goal, and there is a camaraderie and warmth that affects me deeply. Although there are times of disagreement or frustration (as we discussed last night while shopping in Xidan district, Chinese and American minds often tick differently), I'm grateful for this opportunity to connect with local students.
As a nascent anthropologist, I find Beijing a city of conflicting themes. Beauty and ugliness, modern and ancient, the sublime mixed with the mundane, extravagance in dire contrast to the squalor that others live in. There is deep-seated pride in being Chinese; in having an Asian heritage, but the Western ways of life have an irresistible allure. My first club/bar experience two nights ago suggested one of the most troubling and interesting divides between the generations, with new expressions of Chinese 'youthfulness' developing within a fragmented system.
My work with migrant schools has shown me precisely the same themes, but in sharper relief, and the stakes are that much higher. Schools are a locus of social mobility; one doesn't climb a social ladder without a praxis/habits befitting of high class. And where does one find the habits and tastes that are socially recognized as 'classy?' School. At the same time, they've been placed in a situation where a high class education is not a viable option, and a second class education most often generates second class citizens (all these terms are subjective, but like 'race,' they have very real ramifications). Some of them go straight to work, others return home to test into high school. They are citizens but still treated as outsiders; they are legally allowed to go to high levels of education but cannot.
A discourse of ethical treatment of migrants is developing, but it has yet to permeate all levels of society. If anything, the people of China are conflicted about whether it is ethical to devote equal resources to the migrants. One isn't surprised that the Malthusian underpinnings of the One Child Policy (rightfully?) translates to fears that having swells of migrants come to the city will overwhelm its resources. For the migrants, many still inspired by socialist ideals of equality, this ethical reasoning generates further contradiction.
As such, migrants are lodged in limbo. One one hand, they are placed on a pedestal by liberal professors, reporters, foreign NGOs, etc. who provide the students with resources and the teachers with training. On the other, they are marginalized by public school principals who would rather wish the migrants return home to continue their schooling rather than sapping resources from the public school students. Legally, they are allowed to stay in the city and receive education, but decentralization has characterized the Chinese educational system since the 1980s. Local governments are supposed to pay for the education of migrants, but the central government really doesn't want to force them to take migrant students for free.
Personally, I am excited most about how these middle school students will respond. They are coming of age within a multiplicity of contradictory discourses, all framed by rapid economic prosperity. Where do ideas like 'right to education' or 'equality' come in? Most importantly, what does education mean to these students--an education meant to prepare them for a Brave New World that has few promises of certainty?
And even while I've been hard at work studying the migrants, I am faint from my attempts to deal with the dizzying discord in my own life. With less than 40 minutes to go, I'm both excited and terrified of what lies ahead. First and foremost, will I have peers to talk to freely? Will I be able to fit in? Will I be comfortable teaching and doing research? Will I be welcomed? I'm both deeply inspired and tired of this topic, having ready countless reports (oh, but with so many more unread!), conducted several interviews, and talked ad nauseum about certain topics in the field. I feel like the narrator in Season of Migration to the North, discovering in myself a contemporary Mustafa... full of conflict in my identities, only this time it's East and West.
This thought brings me some clarity: I am a migrant among migrants, both literally and figuratively. I am a transnational without much semblance of home, dealing with my own issues as I migrate across the Pacific. It is in this stream of consciousness that I recall the promises of my firm identity as a Christian... a permanent home awaiting my return independent of my performance here, a relationship that staves away lonliness independent of those around me.
One doesn't move without taking a step, I guess. The Nile keeps on moving =p.
Monday, September 15, 2008
(Para)lympian Proportions
The day began quite uneventfully. After we grabbed some quick lunch fare from the Renmin dining hall, five of us rushed to the subway station to the north of campus. This leg of the trip felt fine enough, but as soon as we stepped off the subway at the Olympic Park transfer station, the crowds began to well up.
We made a few mistakes. First, we walked for a full ten minutes before being directed to a bus line that runs around the park. Second... we really should have just taken the subway, because there was a line about a hundred meters long waiting at the bus station. Third... we really should have just squeezed in the bus and gone face to face with strangers rather than waiting for the next one, because we were squeezed in the bus literally vis-a-vis strangers anyway. With exception to the Tokyo subway, I don't quite remember being sqashed so close to other people. Fourth, we shouldn't have been so polite at the security checkpoint. It's important to keep your place in line and blindly shuffle forward or you'll be waiting for a while. I kept thinking that human beings resemble water when they're moving in crowds.
After two hours of suffocating travel, we arrived at the tennis stadium a little ruffled. The place resembles a blooming flower, each of the six petals seating for spectators and the center a tennis court. A searing ray of sunlight sploshed across half the stadium, and those seats were almost always empty. Maybe the spectators all evaporated?
Two spectators behind me whispered to each other,
"What are they playing today?"
"Tennis, I think."
"How do you play tennis?"
I almost fell off the (not so comfortable) seat. But the other spectators in the crowd had begun a rhythmic clap, driven by the accouncement that the game was to begin in two minutes. A neat line of six people wearing gray nylon jackets and gray caps walked into the middle of the court and methodically split to seats on the side of the court. These were in charge of judging whether shots had landed within the court.
In a voice that reminds me of car commercials or movie trailers, the announcer began introducing the players and judge. The crowd really got riled up! Two players, one British and the other Sweedish, were set to play the first match. They rolled out onto the court and deftly heaved themselves onto special wheelchairs (five instead of two wheels). The weather had gotten quite dusty in the meantime, and an eerie sheen of dull gold fell on the eastern half of the stadium.
To be honest, I wasn't so impressed with the male's singles. One player was clearly better trained and won quickly and without any particularly memorable plays. The other player kept shifting to one side of the court, and the British player would simply play the ball on the other side. I can't say it was entirely pleasurable. I had a slight headache and was extremely thirsty. I had started flipping through the spectators guide looking through the map. A rather rotund woman took a seat next to mine with two bags of, well, food. She proceded to open little snacks and eat them audibly to my annoyment. Then she causally plopped her bags of food on my spectator's guide (which I had placed to the seat on my left). I also lost my ticket (I suspect it might have been taken, since I placed it on top of my spectator's guide).
Everything changed when the next match began, between two women of Dutch nationality. Vergeer and Homan, the former holding last year's champion title, and the latter entering the Paralympics for the first time. The two were so evenly matched that we were on the verge of our seats. I recall getting a bottle of water from Taylor, eating a few crackers from Elton, but otherwise, my eyes were entirely focused on the match.
They play as though the wheelchairs were a part of them; Homan had an amputated leg, and Vergeer was paralyzed from waist down. The first set went 6-2 in Vergeer's favor. She had a calmness to her playing style that lent her returns a fluid grace that Homan simply couldn't keep up with. Her serves were meticulous and always landed just before the boundary line, making it difficult for Homan to wheel over and make good returns. On the other hand, Homan's style was that of a warrior, bending over her wheelchair precariously and returning seemingly-impossible serves just over the net. She had an immediacy and vigor that inspired me (and I suppose the other spectators).
The second set was exactly the opposite: 6-4 in Homan's favor. Her serves were upward of 130 km/hour (and she's on a wheelchair) and, while often stopped by the net, had Vergeer totally on the guard at all times. It was a tense back and forth, with some fantastic plays. In one play that went for almost two minutes, there were about three or four saves that had the spectators gasping with amazement. Homan would wheel over furiously at a serve on the opposite corner, do a 180 and return the ball while in mid rotation, a perfect serve that would bounce off the opposite corner of Vergeer's side. The game was ridiculously tense.
The spectators also started doing a human wave. The Dutch supporters thought it would be fun to try to get something going, and the Chinese spectators sitting opposite to them began to catch on. Even the Olympic volunteers started helping by coordinating the wave. During the break, we would all see which side of the flower petal had the loudest and most coordinated wave.
But it got better. The last match reached 6-6, and the final match was one of intense emotion. Homan could be seen slapping her thighs and shouting encouragement to herself, while Vergeer was in no better shape, gripping her racquet until her knuckles were bright white. The judge tried to announce the scores nonchalantly, but her voice betrayed excitement in her raised pitch and over-compensated detachment. The crowd went completely silent when the score went to 6-6. In the faceoff, I felt like the entire crowd had fallen into a strange dimension, absorbed in the game as closely as the players.
Homan was furious when she missed the last return; her heroic save just wasn't enough to send the ball over the net. She screamed and threw her racquet on the ground with such force that it bounced and landed almost 30 meters away. She hugged Vergeer to be polite, but frustrated, she wheeled off the court and didn't even shake hands with the judge. Vergeer on the other hand wheeled around the stadium with such mirth. An impromptu human wave began again. Both players were completely exhausted after two hours of playing, but Vergeer's face had an incandescent glow (with a clear indication of relief!).
The award ceremony was a feat as well; over 30 volunteers were on the court unrolling carpets, moving flag poles, setting up platforms, and arranging positions for people to stand. In less than 10 minutes, the whole court was transformed. What a game.
We tried to tour the Olympic Park but accidentally walked out of the perimenter (you need to go through security, but I lost my ticket and couldn't). The others went back in, but Taylor and I decided to head back. I'll just say our return wasn't quite as fun as that game. Being squashed in the bus was not very fun at all.
Oh, last interesting tidbit, a 30ish year old man wearing a polo shirt and holding a Nikon camera asked Taylor to take a photo with his girlfriend in the Olympic Park. Go figure.
We made a few mistakes. First, we walked for a full ten minutes before being directed to a bus line that runs around the park. Second... we really should have just taken the subway, because there was a line about a hundred meters long waiting at the bus station. Third... we really should have just squeezed in the bus and gone face to face with strangers rather than waiting for the next one, because we were squeezed in the bus literally vis-a-vis strangers anyway. With exception to the Tokyo subway, I don't quite remember being sqashed so close to other people. Fourth, we shouldn't have been so polite at the security checkpoint. It's important to keep your place in line and blindly shuffle forward or you'll be waiting for a while. I kept thinking that human beings resemble water when they're moving in crowds.
After two hours of suffocating travel, we arrived at the tennis stadium a little ruffled. The place resembles a blooming flower, each of the six petals seating for spectators and the center a tennis court. A searing ray of sunlight sploshed across half the stadium, and those seats were almost always empty. Maybe the spectators all evaporated?
Two spectators behind me whispered to each other,
"What are they playing today?"
"Tennis, I think."
"How do you play tennis?"
I almost fell off the (not so comfortable) seat. But the other spectators in the crowd had begun a rhythmic clap, driven by the accouncement that the game was to begin in two minutes. A neat line of six people wearing gray nylon jackets and gray caps walked into the middle of the court and methodically split to seats on the side of the court. These were in charge of judging whether shots had landed within the court.
In a voice that reminds me of car commercials or movie trailers, the announcer began introducing the players and judge. The crowd really got riled up! Two players, one British and the other Sweedish, were set to play the first match. They rolled out onto the court and deftly heaved themselves onto special wheelchairs (five instead of two wheels). The weather had gotten quite dusty in the meantime, and an eerie sheen of dull gold fell on the eastern half of the stadium.
To be honest, I wasn't so impressed with the male's singles. One player was clearly better trained and won quickly and without any particularly memorable plays. The other player kept shifting to one side of the court, and the British player would simply play the ball on the other side. I can't say it was entirely pleasurable. I had a slight headache and was extremely thirsty. I had started flipping through the spectators guide looking through the map. A rather rotund woman took a seat next to mine with two bags of, well, food. She proceded to open little snacks and eat them audibly to my annoyment. Then she causally plopped her bags of food on my spectator's guide (which I had placed to the seat on my left). I also lost my ticket (I suspect it might have been taken, since I placed it on top of my spectator's guide).
Everything changed when the next match began, between two women of Dutch nationality. Vergeer and Homan, the former holding last year's champion title, and the latter entering the Paralympics for the first time. The two were so evenly matched that we were on the verge of our seats. I recall getting a bottle of water from Taylor, eating a few crackers from Elton, but otherwise, my eyes were entirely focused on the match.
They play as though the wheelchairs were a part of them; Homan had an amputated leg, and Vergeer was paralyzed from waist down. The first set went 6-2 in Vergeer's favor. She had a calmness to her playing style that lent her returns a fluid grace that Homan simply couldn't keep up with. Her serves were meticulous and always landed just before the boundary line, making it difficult for Homan to wheel over and make good returns. On the other hand, Homan's style was that of a warrior, bending over her wheelchair precariously and returning seemingly-impossible serves just over the net. She had an immediacy and vigor that inspired me (and I suppose the other spectators).
The second set was exactly the opposite: 6-4 in Homan's favor. Her serves were upward of 130 km/hour (and she's on a wheelchair) and, while often stopped by the net, had Vergeer totally on the guard at all times. It was a tense back and forth, with some fantastic plays. In one play that went for almost two minutes, there were about three or four saves that had the spectators gasping with amazement. Homan would wheel over furiously at a serve on the opposite corner, do a 180 and return the ball while in mid rotation, a perfect serve that would bounce off the opposite corner of Vergeer's side. The game was ridiculously tense.
The spectators also started doing a human wave. The Dutch supporters thought it would be fun to try to get something going, and the Chinese spectators sitting opposite to them began to catch on. Even the Olympic volunteers started helping by coordinating the wave. During the break, we would all see which side of the flower petal had the loudest and most coordinated wave.
But it got better. The last match reached 6-6, and the final match was one of intense emotion. Homan could be seen slapping her thighs and shouting encouragement to herself, while Vergeer was in no better shape, gripping her racquet until her knuckles were bright white. The judge tried to announce the scores nonchalantly, but her voice betrayed excitement in her raised pitch and over-compensated detachment. The crowd went completely silent when the score went to 6-6. In the faceoff, I felt like the entire crowd had fallen into a strange dimension, absorbed in the game as closely as the players.
Homan was furious when she missed the last return; her heroic save just wasn't enough to send the ball over the net. She screamed and threw her racquet on the ground with such force that it bounced and landed almost 30 meters away. She hugged Vergeer to be polite, but frustrated, she wheeled off the court and didn't even shake hands with the judge. Vergeer on the other hand wheeled around the stadium with such mirth. An impromptu human wave began again. Both players were completely exhausted after two hours of playing, but Vergeer's face had an incandescent glow (with a clear indication of relief!).
The award ceremony was a feat as well; over 30 volunteers were on the court unrolling carpets, moving flag poles, setting up platforms, and arranging positions for people to stand. In less than 10 minutes, the whole court was transformed. What a game.
We tried to tour the Olympic Park but accidentally walked out of the perimenter (you need to go through security, but I lost my ticket and couldn't). The others went back in, but Taylor and I decided to head back. I'll just say our return wasn't quite as fun as that game. Being squashed in the bus was not very fun at all.
Oh, last interesting tidbit, a 30ish year old man wearing a polo shirt and holding a Nikon camera asked Taylor to take a photo with his girlfriend in the Olympic Park. Go figure.
Friday, September 5, 2008
English?
I am enthralled by society and its workings. Really.
For the past few days, I've been living at Renmin University, but finally on this Friday night had a chance to go around campus. Walking with two of my seminar friends, they guided me through campus.
"That's the building of truth seeking," they mentioned, explaining that Renmin was one of the only 'true' CCP schools that was built after the CCP was in total power.
There are couples strolling leisurely down the asphalt paved road, dim with the golden light of streetlamps. A ring of friends gathers on the grass, their chatter barely audible and their faces masked by the twilight. Under a blinding white stadium lamp, a group of thirty or so women, some middle aged and graying gracefully, others young and dressed in T-shirts, dance to a completely inappropriate *yodel* in a small courtyard nearby. On the field are joggers. One of them is huffing in an exaggerated heave and passes a line on the track with a burst of extra speed as he loops around for yet another round. At the side of the field are ten or so (mainly women) practicing their kicks, one of them releases a rather humorous growl every time he mock-kicks a tree. Most of campus tonight is lively--the vivid dash of a bicycle beside me as I stroll along the street, a girl in a turquoise skirt sitting horizontally behind the bicycle of a college aged student, her feet crossed and just barely off the ground... the eerie green neon lights that illuminate a small sculpture and the miniature lake on campus... a flash of rollerblades and skateboards from a group of ten or so guys performing street tricks... the tapping of feet coming out of the library. Two parents, yet to leave campus after helping their freshman child settle in (this is the first week of school), sit on a wooden bench in the central gate courtyard, their furrowed faces lit by an ornate incandescent lamp. Several red posters exhort students to work hard and love their alma mater, or in other cases welcome new students.
I also had a chance to participate in English corner tonight, which is basically a gathering of plenty of people who want to learn English. My guides first introduced me to this group, meeting in the twilight of a small plaza on east campus. The darkness is bewildering and I keep questioning why they don't light up the place, now that the twlight has offically entered into evening. I decide to drop by and say hello to two other people on the outskirts of a dark mass of people speaking an unintelligible mess of English and Chinese.
"What's going on here?" I ask I hope in a friendly tone.
The two look at me in bewilderment, not sure if I'm a foreigner or a student. I notice the other one peering intently trying to figure out my skin color in the twilight, edging forward ever so slightly to try to get a better look. Too effortlessly do I commadeer the conversation, while I am only a newcomer. Suddenly I'm asking a slew of questions in English, and I forget to stop and ask myself why they are letting this upstart ask questions about 'why they are interested in learning English,' 'where their old hometown is...' I'm not a teacher here, and in hindsight, I implicitly felt that having an American accent to my English translated to superiority. A lady joins our conversation, now working in tourism management and having graduated from Hebei province last year. The student from Tsinghua who does communications management shifts to my right; another recent graduate, who now works 10 hours a day (overtime) at a company, shifts to my left. After some banter, the lady offers her ticket to the Paraolympics, explaining that her mother could not make it to the city. I politely decline but wonder why she never offered it to the other two standing next to me.
As I write this in a cafe, I'm realizing how many foreigners in this cafe. It's a strange understanding... that foreigners here are given so many more creature comforts. I couldn't figure out how to say ginger ale in Chinese, so I said "ginger ale" instead when they asked for my order. The waitress--trainee, rather--was quite embarrassed at her inability to comprehend the first time. If I asked in Chinese for 铁观音 tea in a cafe that sells "Iron Goddess Tea," would the waitress/waiter feel embarrassed at not understanding? Why, according to my friend from Renmin, are people building fortunes doing English education--whether providing study abroad programs, or resigning as the assistant dean of Tsinghua's English department to start a billion-dollar enterprise teaching English?
Walking out of the 五道口地铁站，I notice that a group of two white skinned and one black skinned men plow through the crowd with a subtle swagger. In the mass of people moving across the street, these three men seem to float through the crosswalk. I smell a tinge of colonge and notice the curls on one of the guy's head and his sweat stained dress shirt. Chinese tourists at Stanford or San Francisico surely do not walk down the street like this (they probably move in flocks... but that's another story xP).
Is English the language of elites? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that English speakers end up having higher wages or foreigners who visit are well-to-do. How do we explain the fact that in the morning, while we visited a traditional Chinese medicine clinic, a man slightly off his rocker bellowed: "老外怎么这么傻?" "Why are foreigners so stupid?" How do we explain the pride that befits a country rife with nationalism... the arrogance in our/their (what a tough question for me) culture, the ancient, the language, the food?
Surely, the vision of college life in China suggests that international norms are glocalized. Chinese college students aren't receiving 'Western' ideals like passive porecelain receptacles, but rather as people with agency and spirit, blending 'West' and 'East' in ways that may engender shocking incongruities from the outsider's perspective.
For the past few days, I've been living at Renmin University, but finally on this Friday night had a chance to go around campus. Walking with two of my seminar friends, they guided me through campus.
"That's the building of truth seeking," they mentioned, explaining that Renmin was one of the only 'true' CCP schools that was built after the CCP was in total power.
There are couples strolling leisurely down the asphalt paved road, dim with the golden light of streetlamps. A ring of friends gathers on the grass, their chatter barely audible and their faces masked by the twilight. Under a blinding white stadium lamp, a group of thirty or so women, some middle aged and graying gracefully, others young and dressed in T-shirts, dance to a completely inappropriate *yodel* in a small courtyard nearby. On the field are joggers. One of them is huffing in an exaggerated heave and passes a line on the track with a burst of extra speed as he loops around for yet another round. At the side of the field are ten or so (mainly women) practicing their kicks, one of them releases a rather humorous growl every time he mock-kicks a tree. Most of campus tonight is lively--the vivid dash of a bicycle beside me as I stroll along the street, a girl in a turquoise skirt sitting horizontally behind the bicycle of a college aged student, her feet crossed and just barely off the ground... the eerie green neon lights that illuminate a small sculpture and the miniature lake on campus... a flash of rollerblades and skateboards from a group of ten or so guys performing street tricks... the tapping of feet coming out of the library. Two parents, yet to leave campus after helping their freshman child settle in (this is the first week of school), sit on a wooden bench in the central gate courtyard, their furrowed faces lit by an ornate incandescent lamp. Several red posters exhort students to work hard and love their alma mater, or in other cases welcome new students.
I also had a chance to participate in English corner tonight, which is basically a gathering of plenty of people who want to learn English. My guides first introduced me to this group, meeting in the twilight of a small plaza on east campus. The darkness is bewildering and I keep questioning why they don't light up the place, now that the twlight has offically entered into evening. I decide to drop by and say hello to two other people on the outskirts of a dark mass of people speaking an unintelligible mess of English and Chinese.
"What's going on here?" I ask I hope in a friendly tone.
The two look at me in bewilderment, not sure if I'm a foreigner or a student. I notice the other one peering intently trying to figure out my skin color in the twilight, edging forward ever so slightly to try to get a better look. Too effortlessly do I commadeer the conversation, while I am only a newcomer. Suddenly I'm asking a slew of questions in English, and I forget to stop and ask myself why they are letting this upstart ask questions about 'why they are interested in learning English,' 'where their old hometown is...' I'm not a teacher here, and in hindsight, I implicitly felt that having an American accent to my English translated to superiority. A lady joins our conversation, now working in tourism management and having graduated from Hebei province last year. The student from Tsinghua who does communications management shifts to my right; another recent graduate, who now works 10 hours a day (overtime) at a company, shifts to my left. After some banter, the lady offers her ticket to the Paraolympics, explaining that her mother could not make it to the city. I politely decline but wonder why she never offered it to the other two standing next to me.
As I write this in a cafe, I'm realizing how many foreigners in this cafe. It's a strange understanding... that foreigners here are given so many more creature comforts. I couldn't figure out how to say ginger ale in Chinese, so I said "ginger ale" instead when they asked for my order. The waitress--trainee, rather--was quite embarrassed at her inability to comprehend the first time. If I asked in Chinese for 铁观音 tea in a cafe that sells "Iron Goddess Tea," would the waitress/waiter feel embarrassed at not understanding? Why, according to my friend from Renmin, are people building fortunes doing English education--whether providing study abroad programs, or resigning as the assistant dean of Tsinghua's English department to start a billion-dollar enterprise teaching English?
Walking out of the 五道口地铁站，I notice that a group of two white skinned and one black skinned men plow through the crowd with a subtle swagger. In the mass of people moving across the street, these three men seem to float through the crosswalk. I smell a tinge of colonge and notice the curls on one of the guy's head and his sweat stained dress shirt. Chinese tourists at Stanford or San Francisico surely do not walk down the street like this (they probably move in flocks... but that's another story xP).
Is English the language of elites? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that English speakers end up having higher wages or foreigners who visit are well-to-do. How do we explain the fact that in the morning, while we visited a traditional Chinese medicine clinic, a man slightly off his rocker bellowed: "老外怎么这么傻?" "Why are foreigners so stupid?" How do we explain the pride that befits a country rife with nationalism... the arrogance in our/their (what a tough question for me) culture, the ancient, the language, the food?
Surely, the vision of college life in China suggests that international norms are glocalized. Chinese college students aren't receiving 'Western' ideals like passive porecelain receptacles, but rather as people with agency and spirit, blending 'West' and 'East' in ways that may engender shocking incongruities from the outsider's perspective.
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