Culture Corner: China - Student Behavior

After spitting and sputtering a couple of times, Culture Corner faded into oblivion several months ago.  Having just finished another semester here, I figured it was time I wrote a real culture corner, one about China and not the problems in my own country. Are you ready?

In the past four months I've done a little bit of traveling, continued to meet interesting people, and heightened my belief that Chinese food is the most delicious in the world. But in the classroom, the past semester has tried my patience in a way no previous year in China has yet.  I'm glad to say I passed the test (barely), but I'm afraid my skin is all the thicker for it.  It begins and ends with my students.

To help you appreciate my teaching situation, I should first start with explaining the university application process in China.  I’ve not checked these stats, but I’ve been told there are 11 million high school students each year taking the infamous ‘gao kao,’ a university entrance exam that seeks to separate the wheat from the chaff.  (Retake is only an option if you repeat your last year of high school.)  Along with answering questions, students must also include their top three choices for university in the exam.  Like gambling, if one gets a final mark that is lower than the expectations of the unis they chose, it’s possible they will not even be allowed to attend uni at all even though their mark was better than many other students.  It’s only students who ace the exam and have the guts to write in the top unis that have a chance of going to Bei Da, China’s equivalent of Oxford or Harvard.  If the task of balancing expectation with reality wasn’t difficult enough, each student knows that of the 11 million taking the exam, there are only 2 million available positions!  So, what happens to all of the students who gambled poorly or simply didn’t do well on the exam?  The answer: private university.

I teach at Lambton College, which is a private Canadian school affiliated with and located on the campus of Jiangnan University in Wuxi. As Jiangnan is a somewhat reputable university, the academic standards are relatively high, which serves to keep the riff-raff out.  However, should a student be rejected upon application to Jiangnan University, they are given the opportunity to apply to Lambton College, whose only standard is whether the parents can afford the extraordinarily high tuition fees.  (I’m sure some of those fees are merrily exchanging hands with the president of Jiangnan U.)  Ultimately this equates to the following situation: I teach a bunch of dumb, rich kids.  This is a terrible combination, and to make matters worse, this past semester I taught first year students, which means I was part of their first attempts at independent living. 

By the time Westerners are 18 or 19, most have had a part time job, a girl/boyfriend or two, and have a vague notion of what is expected of them upon leaving the nest.  Not my students. Like apple blossoms floating gaily on a summer’s stream (terrible simile :), so too have my students had a blissful youth wherein nothing evil was ever allowed near them, their every whim and need cared for by doting parents. Such is the culture of China as whole, not only the aristocracy.  But what happens when they are taken from this mold?  Free from the watchful eyes of parents, an unlimited supply of money in hand, and amongst a large group of peers with similar backgrounds, my students find themselves without a hand to guide them and truly become like children in a candy store, indulging in every unproductive vice they see.

Though I teach Lambton College students, as we share the same campus I'm constantly coming in contact with the Jiangnan University students, which gives me a point of comparison.  Jiangnan U. students are what I would call normal, well adjusted youth who like to have a little fun, but are aware of their position in life and realize the importance of their studies just like the American university students we label "good". My Lambton students are the opposite.  They are clueless - not all of them, but most of them, particularly the boys who were doted upon especially hard by Granny Yu and her everything goes policy.  Extremely similar to middle school students, they have little understanding of what will happen to them after they graduate, let alone reality in general. Nothing is taken seriously. They often "forget" to bring a pen or their books to class – a language class! They laugh and giggle when I say "girlfriend" or "boyfriend." And most everything I say goes whistling in one ear and out the other, their attention span about as long as it takes me to eat a Chinese dumpling. In class I've had a bit of fun with their short attention spans.  (Please ignore that this is the student’s sixth year or more of studying English.)


Me: "A noun is: a person, place, or thing. Mosquito, what’s a noun?"  (Mosquito, like Smile, is actually not an uncommon English names my students adopt.)
Mosquito: "Uhh, uhh, uhhh."
Me: "Mosquito, you're my best student, you know that?"

Mosquito: (finger probably scratching the edge of a nostril) "Uhh, uhh, uhh."

Part of one of my exams this semester asked the students to write a paragraph describing what they did the previous day, the objective being for them to use verbs in the simple past. Correcting the exams, I read paragraph after paragraph describing how they'd stayed awake all night playing computer games, chatting with friends, and writing text messages to their girlfriends, essentially admitting they hadn't studied one iota for the exam. Needless to say, not many passed the exam. And when I pointed out to them their indirect admittance, they just laughed as if to say: "No worries, mate." 

A huge part of this immaturity is that, while American college students are off getting drunk and smoking pot, Chinese students are off playing computer games, something just as addictive to them. Just outside my campus are humungous internet bars where for one Chinese dollar an hour, a person can get online and play computer games to their heart's content. Most mornings around 7:00 or so there is a straggling line of students wandering into the campus for a day's classes, having just spent the entire night wrangling their pals in World War Galactica.  No, not partying the night - playing the night away. At various places in China young boys have been found dead in internet bars.  So addicted to the games, they ignore hunger and sleep for days, and die where they sit. How interesting  is that!?!? It truly shows how innocent they are; they throw their lives away intoxicated by imaginative characters and storylines rather than alcohol and drugs. That's culture!!

Another funny thing is my student's attendance. Unless approaching death's door, one of the stranger aspects of the American work ethic is that most American students will still show up to school despite a slight sniffle or mild cough.  But not at my school.   Never before have you heard of so many students being "sick". This their top excuse for missing class, it is followed closely by 'headache', 'was sleeping', and finally, "Had to bring girl/boyfriend to hospital." You might think having to go to the hospital is a serious thing, but such is not the case for my students. One day one of my students told me he had to bring his friend (another of my students) to the hospital because he broke his leg playing basketball. I thought this was pretty serious and didn't expect the injured student in class the remainder of the week. But the next day, there was the student with the “broken leg," smiling as though he could dance the tango blindfolded, all limbs in good repair.

In general I can forgive my student’s clownishness and immaturity, but it's their classroom behavior that’s made my job lack enjoyment. Rather than paying attention, taking notes, and asking questions, their favorite activities in class are the following:

1. playing games/writing messages on their mobile phones
2. sleeping
3. chatting with their friends
4. picking their nose

At first I tried to put a stop all of this, thinking it was my duty as a "good teacher" to make them learn. But I quickly came to the conclusion that no matter what I did, take away their phones, wake them up, prepare the world’s most interesting lesson plan, whatever - I could put them in stocks facing the blackboard - but I couldn't make them want to learn, and so I gave up. I decided I would teach indifferently, and the students who wanted to learn something would, and those didn't, wouldn't. You might think such a strategy would solve the problem for the teacher.  It did - except for those students who were still talking in class.

Sleeping and playing on your phone is noiseless and doesn't disturb anyone. But talking (especially a large number) annoys a teacher terribly because they have to raise their voice so what few students who do care, can hear. I tried many ways to get them to be quiet, but ultimately had to rely on a combination of all of them. I hated this because I didn't want to be the parent of 18, 19, and 20 year olds, even though that is what they needed. I might say "shhhh", upon which they would be quiet for two seconds. I might say "shhhh" again, upon which they would be quiet for one more second. Then I would loose a deep growl from the bottom of my throat like my father does when his dogs won't shut up. This would make all of them jump out of their seats in complete fear and be quiet for… one minute. A couple of times I couldn't get them to be quiet at all and completely walked out of the classroom. Their reaction was to become immediately distraught as though they'd collectively just killed someone, a few chasing me down in the hallway, apologizing profusely, and begging me to come back. I asked "Why?" but the irony was lost on them. And of course the next day when I returned to class they were just as talkative as the day before.

I also had a problem with my students arriving to class late. If one or two come late, it's no problem.  But if twelve or fifteen of them are late (more than half), wandering in at five or ten minute intervals, it can be quite annoying to have the lesson interrupted so often.  So, one day after all the students had petered in, I told them: "Tomorrow when the bell rings I'm locking the door." The following day all of them were on time except for two of the usual culprits. Ten minutes later when they knocked on the door, I politely told them to go home and come back the next day on time. One of these students started yelling and began violently kicking the wall. And after I closed the door, he kicked a hole in it. Well aware of his normal dormant (aka "sleeping everyday") classroom behavior, this puzzled me greatly, and though I wanted to pick him up by the neck and throw him down the stairs for his destructive behavior, I opened my now broken door and asked him to calm down, which he did. I said: "Zhou Xing, everyday in class you literally sleep from the time you arrive until the bell rings, so why are you so eager to enter today?" He of course had no answer, so I told him to go home and think about it (just like a parent!).  Nothing ever became of the situation, and in true Chinese style, my door has remained in disrepair since.  This undoubtedly will continue to be the situation when the nuclear apocalypse destroys the world. 

Despite all of the trouble the students cause in the classroom, I am extremely kind when grading their work.  Not wishing to overturn the boat of Chinese culture, most passed my class, though their ability to tie their shoes remains in doubt. My positive outlook is that they are an investment in future entertainment; I will continue finding signs like "Minding the head smash" above particularly low hung doors.  Also, please don't take my students as stereotypical; I have taught at other places which have students who care about their education.  The competition of China's job market forces them to respect the realities of life a little more than the minority who are my pampered children – I mean, students.

Ok, I'm off for summer holiday.

Culture Corner: China - Leadership Ideals

Long before the Greeks ever promoted democracy, in fact while humans still needed their appendixes, wore animal skins, and grunted their pronouns, the Chinese were a refined society.  They had universal money, a comprehensive written language, and a system of government that to me seems to have been the most objective ever created (ignoring that whole blood reign thing for a moment). As it juxtaposes itself quite nicely beside the present system, let me tell you about it.

First and foremost, Chinese governments of old were a monarchy. But everyone knows one person cannot control millions; they needs aides, advisors, and administrators just as our present leaders do.

But contrary to our current system, the important political figures of ancient China did not demean themselves by selling their souls to the common man all for a trivial vote, rather there was a discriminatory system to determine who ascended through government, instead.  Was it based on the money a candidate had, property they owned, or businesses bribing—ahem, lobbying—them ?  Was it who seemed to have the populace foremost on their mind when plying for office?  (“No new taxes. I repeat, no new taxes.”)  No, it was having something far better: wisdom.

In looking at the strata of exams which determined who rose higher or lower in Chinese government, it’s obvious to me they were aware one facet measuring a good leader is their brains, not his wallet or ability to appeal to NASCAR watching, professional wrestling loving, pizza gluttons.  “I know, I’ll oppose gay marriage and then they’ll vote for me...”  Something not unlike Plato and Socrates’ philosopher kings, it was thought that only the truly intelligent would rise through this strata of exams, and therefore best be able to look after the well being of the people.  This is obviously in direct opposition to the Western democratic system.  (Imagine if any of our senators or representatives had to get a get a certain score on something so common as an IQ exam.  Would they pass?  (Not the greatest piece of journalism, there are still some very humorous moments of Bill Maher’s Religulous as he interviews an American senator and receives whole new additions to the English language in the process.) Doesn’t this beg the question: are not the intelligent better able to lead people?  Wouldn’t it be better to ensure the wise lead, rather any Joe (or George) with naught but connections and money for a campaign?

It goes without saying that the situation in China was ripe with culture during these times. The eternally subjective provokers of thought: art and philosophy, were held in similar esteem to material pursuits.  Among the emperor’s closest friends were some of the best poets of the respective era, and artisans flourished, including music, pottery, embroidery, theater, at all levels of society. A Liu Fan painting could be identified at fifty feet by the common man and the words of Confucius were quoted by schoolchildren. A person was judged by their calligraphy, ability to play Chinese chess, the er-hu or zither, and write poetry.  The brand of car you own, size of your… high-definition television, or the health of your lawn were not the only key indicators measuring success in the world. What a truly interesting country America would be if the majority held the arts in such esteem!!

Unfortunately, America and now China have given up on intellectual pursuits and are focusing their attention on strictly material gains. (Isn’t it always easier to take the low road...)  Acquiring not just wealth, but as much wealth as possible, are what we reach for now. Philosophy and the arts are practiced by a dwindling few, and our leaders are not setting the bar for intelligence. Certainly we are experiencing a degeneration.

I would offer that buying the latest mobile phone provides temporary satisfaction until a more advanced model comes out and you are left needing again.  But painting a picture or writing a poem are pieces of permanent gratification that can be looked upon over a lifetime without need of an update. This is the same juxtaposition that exists within the situation of our leaders being elected into office by a tribe that floats with the flavor of the month.  Not the blind leading the blind, an intelligent leadership sieved like gold seems better able to make informed decisions - not just knee jerk reactions - that have a better chance of truly benefiting society in the long run. Think about it.

Culture Corner: China - Physical Changes

Having a few days off prior to my departure for America, I have time to write one more culture corner.

Some of you may be curious about any physical changes that may have occurred to me in the past ten months due to the different environment and diet.  (The stereotype being: the Asians are always thin and fit.)  Yes, I have lost weight, or at least so the scales say, and to back this up I’m down to the last notch on my belt.  But for reasons I’ve yet been able to discover, I can grab a good fistful of fat on my belly, one that I don’t remember having prior to coming here. Fat increases, but belt gets tighter. The following is the only explanation I can come up with.

Being of the male gender, I’m uncontrollably inclined to looking at women (I blame Darwin), ok, sometimes ogling.  So it was not long after arriving in China, I noticed that Chinese women have little in the way of mass in the bum department.  I looked and looked, searched and searched, but could only find a scant few who had some semblance of meat on their bones.  There was a lot of spare denim and empty cotton filling the space instead.  Curious if it was a gender disparity, I checked out the men, and lo and behold, they too were lacking said vitals!  This caused the investigation to go a little further, to dig a little deeper into this most mysterious of mysteries.  Where is the Chinese bum? 

Some time, closer observation, and, thankfully, no violence directed my way later, it was revealed that Chinese people have a thin layer of baby fat covering their bodies but very little muscle.  In fact, the reason Chinese people are so skinny is not because they’re fit, but because they don’t little musculature.  Because if they had muscles, they would come in the same variety of sizes, as say, the Canadians.

When seeking the source for this discrepancy, I could only surmise that the lack of muscle comes from the lack of exercise, sort of a one-to-one, you know, combined with an evolutionary lack of meat in their diet.  It’s only recently that dead fleash has appeared in such abundance that any Joe or Wang can afford to put duck neck on the table for his family.  The Chinese are an incredibly relaxed bunch (including me this past ten months) and lack the regular exercise necessary for building muscles, doesn’t help either. I won’t call them lazy, as they do indeed work.  All I will say is that they know how to relax while working.  As such, I’m inclined to believe this lack of exercise is now why I too have more belly and tighter belt.

Another physical change that has happened to me since arriving gin China is the growth of extra heads.  But it’s a temporal thing.  Only when I go out into public does the extra head appear.  The root cause of this, however, is much more obvious.  I’m a ‘laowai’, a foreigner, a pasty white man in the yellow man’s land. Though the Chinese have seen thousands of ‘laowai’ on television and hundreds - if not thousands - walking the streets of this city, one out of four  people still cannot get over the novelty, and stare at me like I have three heads when I walk past.  They often wear a goofy look on their face when performing their visual exam of me, finger sometimes up their nose. (Picking your nose in public here is not considered offensive. I have seen the most beautiful, well dressed women delicately rooting about a nostril with a pinky nail.)

Preferring anonymity, I am a bit unnerved by their staring, and to make it worse, many of them cannot control the urge to nudge their companion, point a finger, and say: “Look, a laowai!” upon sight of me.  (Side note: I’ve been witness to two minor bicycle accidents due to riders staring at me and not watching where they were going.)  I’ve talked to other Chinese people about this staring and pointing and received confirmation that it is also consider rude in China.  But oh, the novelty of the laowai… Sometimes with my Chinese friends I will point and say excitedly: “Look there!”, and when my friend examines the paper white or all shades of brown person I’m indicating, I add “Laowai!”

Able to ignore their stares and shouts most of the time, there are other times when my temper gets the better of me, particularly after hearing “Laowai!” for the hundredth time that minute.  The moment too much, I sometimes stop and stare back at them until they look away, or mumble rude things in English under my breath as I hang my head and continue on.  My patience runneth over.  Yes, I know this is childish, but, but…  no excuse really.

Gradually, I’m becoming accustomed to being a point of attention. I say “becoming” because I’m still not wholly comfortable with it.  Just imagine yourself walking in a crowd where many, many eyes are watching every one of your movements, some pointing and laughing, never sure if your fly is unzipped or they’re ignorant.  Deep down I know that it’s an innocent childish curiosity on their part, something I cannot wholly blame them for.  Because if you make a goofy face back at them or wedge your finger up your nose, they will break into a huge grin and say hello. They’re just curious, that’s all.  It’s the same as when we were children and tugged on our mother’s s sleeve, saying “Mommy, mommy, look at the size of that man’s beard! It’s so big and bushy, and it goes all the way down to his belly! Daddy doesn’t have a beard like that.”  And mom would say: “Oh, just leave him alone. He’s not bothering you.”  But you would continue to stare - just out of curiosity.

Culture Corner: China - A Couple of Crimes

Just when I’d gone and bragged the Chinese up to be a peaceful, happy folk, I had to go and participate in a crime.

Walking home the other night after teaching, passing those out trying to catch what little hint of a breeze moves through this city these hot days of summer.  I was minding my own thoughts when a man went bolting past me. As I watched him tear away, I thought to myself: “The only reason a man runs that fast is if he’s stolen something.” A split second later a girl’s voice cut the air, shouting what I interpreted as “thief” without knowing the Chinese word for thief. For reasons I’m still trying to figure out, I took off after the man, dress clothes, and backpack bouncing on my back, all on an adventure.

Hot on the man’s heels, I was unable to make up any ground.  Merely keeping pace, we ran through side streets, gravel parking lots and small lanes, all the while – though she was doing a good job of keeping up - the shouts of the girl faded behind us. Passing gaping onlookers, we probably ran for a 1/2 a mile.  While running, I wasn’t really paying too much attention to the thief, other than that he was still in front of me and that I “needed” to catch him (for some reason).  But looking up one time, I saw him turn around, do a cartoon-style, disbelieving double take, and then throw the purse he had stolen to the ground. I stopped running, picked it up, and brought it back to the girl, who, in her own rush of adrenaline, had forgotten: “My English is very poor.” and exclaimed: “Thank you very much. This is very important.” in breathless tones of perfect English. (Adrenaline does wonders.)  I then continued home - walking. That’s the story of crime #1 I was participant to.

The second is, in my opinion, an even funnier story about the nature of crime in China and shows just how cutthroat the business of teaching English is.

One of the English schools where I teach is fairly well to do, and rightfully so, as they are well organized, professional, and offer the “latest” technology to the students. They have lesson plans worked out for every grade of student, from Beginner to Advanced, which alleviates a great  deal of lesson planning for the teachers and provides something that can be used systematically without reinventing the wheel.  The other day, someone hacked into the school’s computer system and stole all of these lesson plans.

Am I the only one who finds this funny? American hackers try to find ways to bypass Hotmail’s firewalls to grace your screen with ads for herbal Viagra (“Get a stiffy in a jiffy!”) while Chinese hackers find ways to steal English lessons. Priorities, priorities, priorities…

Culture Corner: China - The Sounds from My Window

Though I live in the middle of a densely packed city of 4 million, there is no early morning traffic or engines firing to wake me up. My apartment is on the second floor, and  located amongst many other buildings, everything is accessed by narrow lanes and alleys.  There is not a single truly noisy street.  It is the human sounds of waking that instead greet my ears every morning. I hear neighbors’ birds out for an early morning stroll, dangling in a delicate wooden cage from an elderly man’s hand and singing to each other.  Amongst the matin, there is also the shuffle of footsteps of people going to work, the putter of a moped coming to life, and the voices of women greeting each other, their walk to the market interrupted for a quick chat.

 
As the morning lengthens, the low rumble of men rolling the lanes’ garbage bins away to be emptied in a distant truck can be heard over the chatter of women, now sorting and cleaning the fruits and vegetables together in the small “park” beside my building.  (I say “park” because the only thing that distinguishes this area from the surrounding sea of pavement is a couple trees and benches.) There is also the occasional conversation between two men, which actually sounds more like an argument.  (Chinese people are very passionate when they are trying to make a point, and as a consequence, I constantly misinterpret friendly conversation for anger.) 

Towards noon, the day quiets as the children are away studying and the adults are at work.  The only people alive are the elderly, who carry wicker chairs outside to bask in the sun to chat if they feel like it. Occasionally through the quiet, one can hear the monotonous nasal drone of the man who rides a three-wheeled bicycle through the neighborhood, calling to open windows for recyclables.  There is also the occasional shout of a man selling, something.  (Someone is always trying to sell some small tidbit of life, his voice advertising the service, his bicycle the shop.)

Just after noon, the streets come back to life and are filled with people coming and going to lunch.  Notable amongst the shouts is the play of Scrappy Doo Nation – the fashionable youth with their Rocky the Raccoon hairstyles, who are much noisier than the reserved older generation. But like a switch, when two o’clock rolls around, the entirety of China quiets to a whisper level.  In the warm afternoon sun, I see the hawkers sleeping in the back of their three-wheeled bicycles, random feet poking at leisure from car windows, and men curled up on newspapers on the street, entirely oblivious to the world in the enjoyment of their afternoon’s siesta.

Imperceptibly, the streets gradually come back to life in the middle of the afternoon.  Around four, I begin to hear the Chinese equivalent of ‘Fore!’ being shouted, followed by a tremendous explosion that rattles my windows. The blast comes from a man who has a contraption that I cannot even begin to describe. Suffice to say it makes delicious popcorn and the Chinese equivalent of rice crispies by exploding hot air inside an old tire tube.  (Though you can taste a little of the rubber, the popcorn is not that bad.)  As the explosions have no rhythm or discernable patterns, they scare me every time, bringing a little variety to the day. (There are days he wheels his contraption to other neighborhoods to ply his trade, so I’m not constantly living in a war zone.)

At the end of the work day, the lanes outside my apartment become noisy, people returning home to their families and delicious food.  There are many voices, dogs barking as they have just returned from a walk with a parent to pick up a child at school.  There is also perhaps the most unnerving sound I’ve ever heard.  Worse than fingernails on a chalkboard, the sound is dry bicycle brakes.  The street outside my windows is at ever so slight of an incline, so it is necessary to use your brakes when returning home.  It is a squeal that stabs like a needle into your eardrum, tearing a ragged hole and driving itself deeper as the bicycle moves closer.  Multiply this by the many-many bicycles returning home and you’re ready for the funny farm.  (The crinkle lines on my forehead have certainly developed apace the past year.)

As darkness falls, the noise subsides only a little; there is still a fair amount of activity in the nearby park. Children, free from school, run about and play as their parents gossip about the day and bicycle restaurants peddle their foods.  But, by ten o’clock all is quiet until the next morning, everyone relaxing in their homes, readying for another day. 

Not so bad for a city of 4 million.

Culture Corner: China - Saving Face

All of you have heard the expression ‘saving face’ in some reference to Japan or China.  I’m here to tell you it exists, though ‘saving’ seems a relative term.  It is not as mysterious a cultural concept as the quotations indicate.  It’s something we have in our culture too, only the specific term lacking.  In our culture, saving face manifests itself in the form of forced smiles, checked anger, and a polite ‘thank you’ when none is in order: i.e. you don’t lose control of yourself in situations you want to.  In China, the same can be observed. 

But like the Force, both eastern and western versions of ‘face’ also have a dark side, one where pride and honor have your name written all over them, standing on your shoulder, egging you on, pushing you to new heights of ego.  In our culture we normally see this in color coordinated ghetto wear, condescension, and drunken bar play. (“You’re so weak, Bob, I bet you can’t ram your head through this concrete wall!” “Oh yeah!” ….minutes later the wail of sirens sound Bob’s death knoll, Darwinism claiming another…)   In China, however, the dark side of ‘saving face’ is not so overt.  Patience playing a far greater role than immediate action, allow me to tell a story.

A couple of weeks ago I gave in to a hankering for some mooncake (a Chinese sweetbread) and headed to my friendly, local Suguo market.  Upon exiting the store, I noticed two cars at a 90 degree angle, nose-to-nose at a narrow intersection.  It was nighttime, their lights were on, and their engines were running, but nobody was moving. Thinking a fender-bender had happened, I stopped to have a look.  But it was quickly apparent what was really happening. There was no accident.  It was male chest bumping, just like you see anywhere else in the world, jungle, city, space, wherever.

The first car was an Audi, and the man driving wanted to turn right, as his monotonous blinker indicated, blink-blink, blink-blink. The second car, a Jeep Cherokee wanted to turn left, as his blinker indicated. But in the narrow intersection, each was blocking the other from continuing on with their journey, and neither was backing up to allow the other to go first. My curiosity was piqued: how will the Chinese handle this?

In my life, I had seen two solutions to this situation. The first, the most common around the world, including China, is for one of the two vehicles to politely back up and allow the other to go. The second, less common though certainly not strange, especially in America, is a shouting match, sometimes followed by a good fist fight, and maybe some property damage – all over very quickly, the loser being carted away by the police or to the morgue.  After this night, I had to add a third resolution to my experiences.

Thinking the situation was ripe, I ate my mooncake, munch-munch, blink-blink, engines quietly running.  I waited for action, but nothing was forthcoming.  After about five minutes of tension, the Audi driver turned off his car, prompting the other car to do the same. Ok, I thought, now they will emerge from their vehicles and the scuffle to determine supreme ruler of the universe will begin. But none came. Instead, a third car entered the picture, and, oblivious to what was happening, began to beep his horn. It was to no avail, however.  The combatants so focused on each other, they remained oblivious to innocent bystanders.  Much sooner than I had, the third vehicle realized what was happening and backed out.  Watching this display of pride, glad to have some high class entertainment to go with my mooncake, I was wearing a big smile and completely enjoying this display of stupidity by now. What will happen next? Nothing, they continued to sit in their vehicles.

Ten minutes, yes, ten minutes later, mooncake nothing but crumbs on my fingers, something did happen. The man in the Audi got out of his car and so did his wife, who silently took a spot beside me. (I wanted to offer her some of my mooncake – some form of condolence for being involved with foolishness of the male sex - but she didn’t look very happy.) The driver of the Jeep then got out of his vehicle, leaving me to think, ok, really, now the Showdown In Gu Lou (my neighborhood) will begin.  Maybe first some harsh words, followed by some pushing and shoving, then a punch or two... But nothing. In fact, what they did do was even stranger. Both men locked their doors and walked away from the scene like they were going to get a cup of coffee, completely abandoning their cars in the intersection, the man’s wife still standing beside me. 

I waited another five minutes, but they didn’t return, so I gave up and went home. I don’t know how the situation finally resolved itself, but the following morning on my walk to school I saw that both cars were gone and there were no chalk outlines on the road.

So, I ask you friendly reader, do you prefer the American or Chinese ‘dark side’ way of saving face: a quick, often bloody resolution where the entertainment value lies on the surface, or long drawn out displays where one must look a little deeper to appreciate the subtleties of pride?  Both having their merits, I’m undecided. 

Culture Corner: China - Goose Parman

The Chinese government has told the people that learning English is the way for China to “open its doors to the world”.  Following what the Chinese government advises like lemmings off a cliff, there are millions upon millions of Chinese people learning English. (This is not wholly unlike millions of Americans believing the US went to war with Iraq to protect human rights.)  All other major languages, Spanish, Hindi, German, Japanese, Russian, etc., are literally called secondary languages, inferior to English.  Though this madness of English learning is one more step towards the destruction of Chinese culture and the emplacement of homogenous, McDonald-sized culture (better see the world now before the Eskimos are wearing Nikes, drinking Coke, and saying ‘What’s up?’), it serves to pad the wallets of the “socialist” leaders here by way of international business earnings.  It also provides me a job.

And I am but one compared to the incredible number of English teachers needed to meet the demands of the millions of Chinese learning English. I say “learning” because, with or without a native teacher, the students are being taught the language, most often by a person who has never set foot off China or been in an English-only environment. Without a system of checks and balances, it goes without saying the English produced is often bastardized, and very often in a form that is humorous beyond belief.  As they take English so literally, they cannot share in the comedy with me, therefore, I must share with you. 

 
English is everywhere, I mean everywhere in China. From ‘Happy Time Restaurant’ to ‘Please Vomiting Here’ at the local amusement park, they use English because it’s the thing to do, even though no native English speaker has ever stepped through the entrance of their rural village eatery.  The funniest usage of English is certainly what I see written on clothing, commercial products, and in advertisements.  It’s appears like a code; usually you can decipher the intent, but not before you say to yourself: “Huh? ‘Grass is green, respect it like your life?’”. (Chinese way of saying ‘keep off the grass’.)  They love the words ‘healthy’ and ‘happy’ and you see them in the strangest places.  The “Happy-Time Cotton Shop” (a clothing store) and “The Healthy Charming Center” (a women’s cosmetics shop) are two good examples.  I recently bought some candy and the following was written (verbatim) on the wrapper: “While closing your eyes, let ice cream slips with water-mouthing moment. Feeling of silky touch as some cozy jazz.”  Jazz candy? Printed on the cover of a notebook I bought is: “The best quality and design is just for you. This is the most comfortable notebook you ever run into.” I want to reply: “Good, I often complain of the intense pain ordinary notebooks cause.”

Almost as if someone opened blindly chose words from a dictionary, here are some things I have seen written on clothing:
 
“Fighting boys long short medium dynamic”

“Danny Mindset Longer Life”

“Goose Parman”

“Janet 8 &d”

“Under the boogie lights I believe I’ll drop”

I have considered adopting the last as a personal slogan.

Culture Corner: China - The Language

From the lowest of lows I fathomed in Chinese infomercials, I will now attempt to redeem myself by giving you a taste of real culture: the Chinese language.  Although it won't be as funny as shoes that make short men feel tall, mini-trampoline exercise equipment, or libido enhancing underwear - “Can you feel the tingle, Hu Jin?" – I hope it will nonetheless be enlightening to some degree.

The Chinese language, where to start... Yes, it's VERY different than English.  Not opposing, but definitely different, especially verbal aspects.  Most of the sounds in Chinese are sounds we use, too.  But, it's in the specifics of these sounds Westerners find big problems.  Most English speakers can spit out a 'Bonjour' that is close enough for a French person to warrant a sniff.  But in Chinese, spitting something out is not good enough. You must also coordinate head movement – at least this is how I started using tones. Otherwise, "May I look at the menu?" becomes "Your goat has wings." all too easily. The reason for this is that verbal Chinese consists of individual syllables spoken in one of four specific tones: flat, rising, rising-falling, or falling.  For example, the Chinese word 'ma': when we say 'ma', no matter how we say it - shouting, whispering, exasperated, or happy - everyone knows we are attempting to 'mother'.  But in Chinese, depending on which tone you use, flat, rising, etc., 'ma' takes on a different meaning each time.  'Ma' with a falling-rising tone might mean ‘horse,’ whereas 'ma' with only a rising tone means ‘hemp.’  Coincidentally, 'ma' spoken with a flat tone means 'mother' in Chinese.

Speaking Chinese using correct tones is difficult, but trying to discern them is even more difficult.  For me this is because all Chinese words are one syllable.  In other words, when spoken in English, 'responsibility' is one word with one basic meaning: a smaller part of a larger context.  But in Chinese, 'responsibility' (looking at syllable count only) would actually be six words, creating the possibility that someone has just asked you a full question regarding your marital status or pointed out your fly is unzipped.  Combining this idea with the speed with which a native speaker uses their language, meaning must be extracted quickly from this compact nature of the Chinese language.  Deciphering the syllables, let alone the tones used, is not easy.  I often get lost after the first syllable, asking myself: "Was that a rising ‘hong’ or a falling ‘hong’?”, and by the time I decide to give up and move on to the next word, the person has told me the details of how to set up my own internet trading company, of which I’m only half-certain about the first word – which may not even have been a word, perhaps something like ‘umm’ or ‘huh.’ Not good.

The Chinese written language?  Well, as crazy as it seems, this may actually be easier to learn despite how completely alien it looks. If you memorize a pictograph's appearance, it's in essence the same as memorizing the way a word is spelled in English. Both are composed of individual pieces which must be put in the correct order to represent an idea.  The ease with which ‘lice’ becomes ‘like’ is very important.  And as for writing those characters, while at first awkward, I have found it to be not so strange and can scratch out a few of them as comparatively speaking, a Chinese character requires the same number of pen strokes as does a word in English.  Each character (or pictograph, or sinograph, or sonogram, or blah-blah….)  has a reason for looking the way it does.  And usually there is some hint as to its real meaning located in the pieces which comprise the overall character.  More often than not, this meaning is something based in reality.  For example, the pictograph for tree, lo and behold, looks like a tree. And pictographs for things that are wooden, likewise will contain the root character for tree.  And so on...  (Their word for love is not a heart.)

Structure wise, the Chinese language is extremely efficient.  There is a paucity of vocabulary and grammar, so a person usually expresses themselves in a few short syllables rather than lengthy dialogues.  For example, a Chinese translation of a Western book is significantly thinner, something in the area 75% thinner. 

However, there are some similarities between English and Chinese that other Western languages cannot state with the same finality, one of which is that both languages exist in two forms: the verbal and written.  In other words, the connection between what we write and what we say is based on the memorization of the appearance of symbols.  This is in direct contrast to languages such as Polish or German wherein have phonetic logic: you can correctly pronounce a word without knowing its meaning.  And so what most native English speakers are unaware of is that they are somewhat pre-programmed to divide usage when learning Chinese.  (For those who still don’t understand, ask yourselves why we write ‘bear’ and ‘bare’ if they sound exactly the same.  You simply must memorize which is which and is an aspect that most other European languages don’t have.) 

There, how's that for real culture? Next time, it's on to the horrendous: human-being-torture-noises the fighting tomcats near my apartment make in the middle of the night.

Culture Corner: China - The Infomercial

Though they eat healthier here and tend to do a little more exercise than Americans, the Chinese are not without health problems. Heart disease and cancer, avian flu and AIDS are some of the things they worry about. And as in America, China also suffers from worse things, diseases such as inadequate breast size, teeth that just aren't white enough, ab muscles that refuse to come out of hiding, and the bane of geriatric men everywhere and constant source of junk mail with subject lines reading "get a stiffy in a jiffy", the dreaded acronym: E.D.  (Yes, erectile dysfunction has made its way to the Chinese market.  Some say birds carried it here via the tradewinds.) There are, however, some interesting twists in the way the Chinese go about infomercialling these health problems - some that even defy translation, but I will do my best.  (Though my tone may be… light, the information nevertheless comes from real examples I’ve seen on television.)

First up is that plague of plagues, disappointer of many a high school freshman, and
scourge of beauty queens: tiny breasts, which based on what I’ve heard, seems to be an epidemic here in China.  The line on tv goes a little like this:

“Having feelings of inadequacy seeing other women walk around with bosoms heaving to the moon? And as a result, do you want larger breasts? Sure, who doesn't? (In fact, I'll take an extra one just to show those hussies!) Well, all you need to do is drink this specially formulated tea - one recommended by the specialist Huan Liang who is just now slipping into his white labcoat so you'll think he's a real doctor.  Within three days, the tea will magically bolster your bust by inches! Look how it works so well in this amazing series of diagrams!  You can actually see the breasts growing!  Look at Jin Mei jiggling her tea-enhanced bosoms, can’t you imagine yourself with such mountains of chai deliciousness?”

 
Tea to make breasts grow, go figure. But it gets better.

“Are you feeling fat, overweight, and want to lose those four to five pounds you've been dying to get rid of? Well, wait till you see what we have for you.  Is it a pill? No. Is it an ab-flexer, or something like Tony Sith’s Gazelle?  No - but we have those if you want.  Is it a tea? (Good question.) No.  It's actually a pad that you stick to the bottom of your foot. Yes, we realize that it looks suspiciously like a Band-Aid brand band aid, but wearing it for two hours not only makes you lose a few pounds, it also leaves a stain on the pad that looks suspiciously like foot dirt.  Don’t believe this!  It’s de-molecularized fat!  Just look at the proof in this glamorous video representation of the patch at work.  Zhang Hao has just….”

Somebody is making a killing on this one. 

And as for bad breath, instead of offering highly attractive twins wearing bikinis, the Wrigley's Doublemint Gum people in China offer a depressed young man in his office's elevator.  But upon popping a piece of that juicy sweet, tongue-tingling winterfresh gum into his mouth, he is swept away to the grasslands of Tibet, the biggest of smiles is plastered across his face as he spiritedly rides a yak. (There is no other way to ride a running yak.)

I'm not making this up. It's true.

As for E.D., well, Chinese tv has yet to inform me how to cure this disease of civilization -thankfully. (Think of that diagramming…).  I've only seen Viagra on signs.  But based on the high level of biological detail advertisers use when selling a product on tv, I don't know if I want to know which levers are being pulled or buttons pushed inside the male… area to induce... happiness - relatively speaking.  In a more general, global sense, what I really want to know is, where does an 80 year old man find an 80 year old woman who wants to put this wonder drug, this marvel of modern science, to use? Any ideas?

My last example of an infomercial I’ve been witness to is something that could only come from China.  It goes a little something like this:

“Are you feeling down and out because Meiling is half-a-meter taller than you?  Are you tired of your friends looking down to speak with you?  Do you dream of looking the cupboards not the countertop in the eye?  (Cue black and white photos of Wang Ming looking sad standing next to his girlfriend who is significantly taller.)  Well, don’t fret any longer!  We have the solution for your height challenged desires!!  Just take a look at our amazing, stupendous, fantaba-babulous Ele-boot! (Cue color photo of Wang Ming standing a few centimeters above his girlfriend, smiling brightly.)  Yes, folks, without any chemicals or stretching, bone-breaking, or hypnosis (or tea!!), these amazing shoes, with their built in lifts, will give you those added few centimeters you need to be over the top!!  Just imagine walking the streets in confidence beside your love… standing in the office amongst colleagues during business meetings… and of course, having friends beg you to play basketball with them.  (As these lines are read, Wang Ming is pictured in the relative situation, his pearly whites blinding the camera on every occasion.)  And they come in a wide variety of styles and colors!  Just look at this Italian leather… and the black suede… and here, the sport model, suitable for any athletic activity!  (Words appear at bottom of screen: Ele-boot not responsible for twisted or broken ankles.) What’s our secret?  It’s in the patented design which cleverly disguises the lifts built into the heel of the shoe.  No one will ever know!  Call now and get a second pair free…”

You can imagine the rest.  That my friends, is globalization.