How I Learned to Love Grammar

Two of my students slicing and dicing during their “cooking presentation,” which consisted of a lot of chopping and very little speaking. (See below)

One of the unintended consequences of coming to China has been to realize just how much I love my job teaching history at CBC. Not that I don't love the experience of being here and teaching, and not that I don't really appreciate my students here--I do. It's just that teaching introductory language courses is very different from teaching college-level history courses, and now, by way of comparison, I can see just how well teaching history suits me (not that I ever took it for granted before), and perhaps, just how ill-suited I am for teaching language (especially grammar!). I feel lucky because most people don't get the rare opportunity to step out of their career for a moment and gain this kind of perspective. I would teach English again in a foreign country (including China), but it is clearly not my calling in life.

I probably knew this somewhere deep-down, but now it's been made explicit. Me and grammar, for example, just don't get along. They should conduct comprehensive personality checks on grammar teachers before hiring, and if you are comfortable arguing both sides of an issue or exploring things from multiple perspectives, then you should not be allowed near a grammar classroom. You should be quarantined because you are like the black plague to the grammar body, which remains healthy on a study diet of blind acceptance of strict rules. I'm the kind of person who can always find exceptions to basic rules and who questions the "correct" answers given, wondering if there are alternatives. This is the wrong approach with introductory students who just need to learn the basic rules that they will be tested on. Critical thinking, or second guessing the book's prescriptions, is just not constructive to my students. There is a right and wrong answer and little room for discussion.

This is not to say that I don't do a good job in the classroom and that I'm not enthusiastic or funny or even, maybe, sometimes, inspiring. I try to be all those things, but deep down I'm not thrilled to be in a language classroom like I am in a history classroom. It would be like teaching at an elementary school: I really could do it but I wouldn't be excited about it for much the same reasons that I'm not excited about teaching language: I don’t wake up in the mornings eager to explicate the difference between "infinitives and gerunds for uses and purposes," which is what I covered today.

Using humor is probably the most important way that I connect with my students at CBC. But it is very hard to translate my unique sense of humor (which many of my CBC students claim is marginal) to early language-learners. For one, my favorite types of humor in the classroom are dry--in fact, so dry that some would claim them to be a barren wasteland of humor. But nonetheless, I like to mix dry humor with a good deal of sarcasm and irony (oh, aren't I sophisticated). This mix of humor, which is so thrilling to about 5 out of every 45 of my CBC students, usually just falls flat here. This means that I am pushed to extremes, peddling ever more gaudy slapstick routines just to get a laugh (probably of embarrassment), while most of my students sit and stare with wrinkled foreheads wondering just exactly what the foreign teacher is up to now.

Today, for example, we were learning the names of various machines and then using those lovely infinitives and gerunds to describe the uses of these machines: "Robots are sometimes used to perform [infinitive] dangerous tasks." After defining robot, I claimed that I was indeed a robot, manufactured in Beijing, rather than a foreign teacher sent all the way from America. I showed them how well my skin had been manufactured and how realistic my features were, but complained that I needed maintenance for a squeaky shoulder and some crossed wires in my back. The squeaky elbow, with sound affects, actually got some good laughs. Also successful today was a joke that followed the sentence, "DNA fingerprinting is used for catching [gerund] thieves." Since the "th" sound is very hard for Chinese students, I had them repeat "thief" a number of times, and then, in animated mock protest, I exclaimed, "Hey, I'm not a thief, are you calling me a thief? I saw you! You were looking at me and hollering thief, etc..." This really got quite a few laughs. I ended the class with a deadpan, "Now I've got some really bad news for you. Class is over. I apologize. You cannot stay here and continue learning English. You have to go now." [The joke should work because my nineteen year-old Chinese students, like my nineteen year-old CBC students, are really eager to leave after 1 1/2 hours of class.] Once my students figured out I was joking, many of them laughed, but many of them were just perplexed, and I could see them wondering, "What is the bad news?"

I really knew I wasn't cut out to be a language teacher when the "fun" days were the most excruciating. Example: Making the students prepare food while narrating--a lesson which my colleague, a former fourth-grade teacher from Wisconsin (and God Bless both fourth grade teachers and Wisconsin) raved about--was just sheer, unbridled torture for me. Watching students who mostly cannot either cook or speak try to do both at the same time while making a mess in the classroom just did not seem like effective pedagogy. The worst part was that most of my students made fruit or vegetable salads, which required knives (it’s not wise to arm your students with sharp objects) and a great deal of chopping, meaning that students would say something like, "Now I will cut the carrot," followed by one minute or more of silent chopping, and then "Now I will cut the cucumber," followed by another silent period of chopping, etc... After two carrots and a cucumber, most students had used up their allotted time and had said three sentences. After having hauled bags of fresh produce to class, I couldn't bear to cut them off at three minutes (as my colleague told me to do), so all my classes went over time and I had students standing in the hallway waiting for their next class while other students used plastic grocery bags to wipe yogurt off the floor. It was a mess. And it was my fault. I can imagine many things that would have made the experience better, like preventing students from eating while others were performing. A rookie mistake, and one which I'll never benefit from having made because I'll never have students cook in class again. I guess when it comes right down to it, I'm kind of a traditionalist. I would rather have the students speak about abstract things than do "hands-on" learning. (Ironic, because Chinese teachers are supposed to be traditionalists and American teachers are supposed to be innovators...)

But my students had a lot of fun (I think). And I learned a lot. What did I learn?

I learned that most of my Chinese students have grown up eating more fresh fruit and vegetables than my American students. If I gave a similar assignment in the States, it is doubtful that so many students would have carted bags of vegetables to class. Instead they would have been squirting processed cheese on Ritz crackers. Clearly, my Chinese students do not eat as many packaged foods as my students in America, although, judging by the large Chinese grocery stores, that time is coming soon. Shortly, Chinese students will be making "smores" instead of fruit salads for their cooking presentations. Isn't "modernization" great!

I also learned that most of my students--even girls—never learned to cook (similar to American students), a fact that sort of surprised me. I naively thought that most Chinese children probably did a lot of helping out in the kitchen. I don't know whether it is because they are little "emperors" and "empresses" (offspring of China's "one-child policy" which encourages already doting Chinese parents to spoil their children), or because they are "rich-kids" whose parents can afford to pay for their education at the IEC, but these guys were mostly not trained in the culinary arts.

Even so, they managed to put together some foods that, although simple, tasted great, and sounded even better. "The Volcano is Snowing," for instance, consists of a pile of diced tomatoes with sugar on top. "The Heroes Gather" is a bunch of cut up root vegetables (including one called "The Heart is Beautiful") with some vinegar and salt.

Others were not as poetic: "Edible Fungus," "Edible Seaweed Soup," and "Bitter Scallion and Bland Noodles."

Ok, so in the end, it was actually pretty fun. I'm glad we did it.

Language lessons aside, interacting with my students is really a pleasure. They all come to class. They are all attentive (most the time). And they are really nice people. I'm told that our students in the International Exchange College are not very studious, making me think that Chinese students at elite universities must be pretty remarkable.

Straining to see the chopping presentations over banks of computer monitors. This is my only class that meets in a computer lab, which is not the best environment for anything but a computer class. These guys are actually “Network” majors, meaning that their English proficiency is even lower than my HR (Human Resources) and Travel majors. But they are one of the nicest groups of students you could have.

By the way, I’m also teaching seminars to faculty on American history and education, and those classes are more intellectually stimulating. More on that later.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Fall at Shi Da (IMNU)

On the main campus (not to be confused with the “new campus,” forty-five minutes south of Hohhot) looking north along one of the main walkways. You see a track to the left and one of the larger classroom buildings in the center (and you can just barely see the mountains if your eyes follow the walkway north). I took this photo two days ago during the noontime lull when most people are at lunch. Usually this walkway is filled with students.

This fall has been absolutely beautiful in Hohhot. The weather has been mild and the skies have often been clear and blue. We've had crisp autumn days that remind me of home in eastern Washington. It is comforting to know that crisp autumn days are crisp autumn days whether you are in the eastern or western hemisphere.

Autumn is a great time to be a teacher, whether in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, or Pasco, Washington. Fall has always been my favorite season: it is still warm, but now the sun is a friend rather than a hostile overlord; on campus there is energy in the air as students flow into and out of classrooms, dormitories and gymnasiums. These days, Shi Da (IMNU) is alive with constant activity.

I no longer worry about the heat in my fifth floor classroom in the International Exchange College building. I happily don one of my coveted new sweater vests and march from my apartment to meet my eager students, who always arrive en masse five to ten minutes early. They greet me with a a cheery, "Hello, Teacher," in unison, and then we begin our lessons.

This is my HR3 class (Human Relations 3). They are always attentive and respectful, as are all my classes, but these guys are especially motivated. In the front row, from left, you see Kristen, Catherine, and Rose.

I love the view from my classroom, which looks out on apartments that surround the University. On clear days, I can look north and see the mountains beyond the city.

I can see a pigeon coop on top of one of the apartments that is at eye level with my fifth floor classroom.

I've lived on campuses in Pullman, Istanbul (only for ten days), New Haven and Paris (with Arienne), Los Angeles, and now Hohhot, and I think that wherever you are, universities are universities (like crisp autumn days). They have their familiar features: students, teachers, administrators, classrooms, auditoriums, laboratories, dormitories, tracks, basketball courts.

But they also have their differences. Here, for example, freshmen generally do not choose the classes they will take (or the majors they will pursue), but rather are told what classes they will take and when those classes will meet. Instead of navigating through their student lives as individuals, they immediately become part of a "class." For the next four years, each class (composed of around thirty students) will live in the same dorm, attend the same classes, and participate in the same mandatory events (such as talent shows and sporting events). Each class has a student monitor and a faculty advisor. They have almost daily meetings. Unlike in the American system, no one will fall through the cracks unnoticed. In fact, rarely does anyone even miss a class. Everyone is present and accounted for daily, and this communal approach fosters a retention rate that American universities would find enviable--nearly everyone will graduate. Just as important, the close-knit nature of each class will foster deep friendships and relationships that will last a lifetime. In a country where connections (guanxi) are so meaningful, the bonds forged by university classmates will not diminish after graduation.

My Chinese colleagues tell me that it is easy to get into American Universities but hard to get out, as evidenced by the high drop-out rates. They say that here it is the opposite: it is hard to get into university because of competition, exam requirements, and high costs. But once inside, students will be stewarded through carefully. In fact, they will not even be given the chance to fail.

Leaving aside the pros and cons of this communal approach for Chinese students (something I'm still pondering), the unique organization of student life here at Shi Da makes my life more interesting. Whenever there is an event (so far we've had TWO sports days and one talent show in just over a month of classes), all the students and all the faculty and administrators are required to attend. If classes are cancelled, which is not uncommon, you have to arrange a time to make them up. Call up the class monitor and tell him (all of my monitors are male, even though I have more female students) that you want to have class at 9:00 pm and the entire class will be there.

Today, for instance, my morning classes were cancelled because of an international college fair, where universities from England, Holland, and New Zealand set up booths in the art building and met with interested students. At an American university, students would have visited the college fair (if they were interested) on their own between classes. Here, all classes were cancelled, all students were required to attend, and all faculty members and administrators turned out for the necessary pomp and circumstance that accompanies all of these events. The pictures below show both students and administrators at the opening ceremonies of the international college fair.

Dean Chen welcomes VIPs as IEC (International Exchange College) students look on. The two tall students immediately to the right of Chen Yao’s right arm are Cole and Andrew, both in my “Network 1” class.
VIPs at the International Education Fair. Familiar faces include Vice Dean Wong, front row left; Dean Chen, front row third from left; Party Secretary Zhou, first row far right; Vice Dean Wu, second row far left. My American colleagues and I are in the back row, Karen, far left, and Tyler, far right.

Since I had my morning classes cancelled, I rescheduled them for 4:10pm and 6:30pm tonight and expected to spend the morning catching up on reading or writing journals. Then WuYunna, the Vice Dean, informed me (at 8:00am) that I would be expected to attend the opening ceremonies of the college fair that began at 9:00am. So there went the morning of solitude (as if solitude is possible in our small apartment with two kids).

It is great to part of a campus community, even if you are usually the last one to find out what is going on (I didn't know about the college fair until the day before--and the same was true for the sports days, although both events are probably listed on my school calendar in Chinese.) If I were to take a pampered American-centric professorial view of things, I would complain that I have no obligation to make-up classes that are cancelled for reasons beyond my control. I would also argue that college fairs and sports days and student talent shows (the latter I haven't told you about yet) are not part of my teaching contract. But, of course, such arguments would not get me very far here and certainly wouldn't endear me to my Chinese colleagues, who sweep the floors and empty the garbage of their classrooms and run the "sixty-meter dash with balls" with no complaints about professional indignities. In fact, no one here suffers "indignities," but teachers here at the university certainly don’t enjoy the same broad freedoms and privileges that we enjoy in the states (and I teach at a community college!). On the other hand, they enjoy a far greater sense of "community" than we do.

More on teaching to come!

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Correction: Hu Yaobang not Mao!

Dear Readers,

My CBC colleague Yu Ying points out that the book pictured above is not a biography of Chairman Mao, but rather of Hu Yaobang. Ying writes, “I want to point out that that book in your photo was not a biography of Chairman Mao, but of Hu Yaobang. It looks like it is the first (focusing on his life from 1915-1976) of a series.”

I apologize. Since I don’t read Chinese characters, I am rendered essentially stupid in this culture. I naively looked at the Mao suit (which everyone wore) and the dates, which are about right for Mao, and just assumed it was the Great Chairman. I guess my stunning powers of observation are not always so insightful.

By the way: the picture of the mall in that same blog posting—it’s not Beijing. It is Bellevue Square in the Seattle suburbs. Actually, we’re not even in China. We’ve been living in a small apartment in Glendora, just outside of Los Angeles.

So who is Hu Yaobang? Since I have an internet connection, I can tell you a few things about him.

According to http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0018945.html,

“Hu, born into a peasant family in Hunan province, was a political commissar during the 1934–35 Long March. In 1941 he served under Deng and later worked under him in provincial and central government. Hu was purged as a ‘capitalist roader’ during the 1966–69 Cultural Revolution and sent into the countryside for ‘re-education’. He was rehabilitated in 1975 but disgraced again when Deng fell from prominence in 1976. In December 1978, with Deng established in power, Hu was inducted into the CCP Politburo and became head of the revived secretariat in 1980 and CCP chair in 1981. He attempted to quicken reaction against Mao. He was dismissed in January 1987 for his relaxed handling of a wave of student unrest in December 1986.”

From me:

Perhaps most importantly, it was Hu Yaobang’s death in April of 1989 that sparked the student protests leading to Tiananmen. There is a great discussion of this in Jan Wong’s Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, which Arienne and I have both read since arriving here. It’s a good read if you’re looking for something engaging on the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen (she was there), and the rise of modern China.

Wong was surprised when student demonstrators began to mourn Hu’s death: “He was a political has-been….He was a buffoonish character who once advocated that Chinese, for sanitary reasons, use knives and forks instead of chopsticks. The joke went that Deng had chosen him because at four feed eight inches, Hu Yaobang was the only person on the ruling Politburo who looked up to Deng.”

So why, Wong asks, were the students rushing to memorialize Hu upon his death? She finds out that mourning Hu was the only way that the protesters could criticize Deng, who had purged Hu just two years earlier for being too permissive with student activists. “Within hours of his death,” Wong writes, “the students had adopted him as their fallen hero and were calling for a city-wide boycott of classes. A few days later, a million Beijingers joined in the biggest spontaneous anti-government demonstration in Communist Chinese history.” (Wong, 225-226)

So Hu Yaobang may have made a greater contribution to modern Chinese history after his death than during his life. What strikes me as odd is that the biography pictured above ends in 1976 before Hu became the Chair of the Communist Party during the 1980s.

Well, the contrast between Dale Carnegie and Mao would have been priceless, but don’t you still think it’s strange that Dale Carnegie and Hu Yaobang rest side by side in a gift shop at the Buddhist Temple?

Thanks, Ying, for the correction.

Dave

Becoming a Bourgeois Materialist in Buddhist Communist China

Here I am with my latest things, all of which have made me a more happy and confident person, at least as far as you know.

If you've been reading Arienne's blog--www.arnoldsinchina.blogspot.com--you've probably figured out by now that Buddhism plays a large role in the history and life of Inner Mongolia, northern China, and China generally. Hohhot was--and still is--influenced greatly by Buddhism, which became prominent in China nearly 2000 years ago. Most of the tourist sites we've visited here in Inner Mongolia (and in Datong) have been Buddhist Temples and Lamasaries. Since 1949, of course, China has also been a communist nation.

Given that communism, at least during the Mao years, was bent on destroying bourgeois elitism and keeping China from going down the "capitalist road;" given that Buddhism is predicated upon the fundamental premise that materialism is the source of all suffering and that happiness and enlightenment can only be achieved by liberating ourselves from material attachments; and given that I am by nature drawn to the monastic ideal (I drink only one beer a night, except on weekends; I rise early [7am] and deprive myself of food in-between meals and snacks), it is ironic, perplexing, and deeply disturbing that I'm becoming a bourgeois materialist in Buddhist Communist China.

In the interest of full disclosure and complete self-criticism--a common practice within the communist legal system--the following is a list of extraneous items that I have purchased since arriving in China:

--mountain bike (awesome aluminum-framed Merida, far-exceeding anything needed for basic transportation)

--bike computer (gives kilometers--not miles--average speed, distance, max speed; totally superfluous)

--front shocks (upgraded my front forks; totally unnecessary; but the new ones totally rock!)

--bike helmet (paid the outrageous amount of 350 RMB--or about $50--for a colorful, imported bike helmet that is like a big status symbol affixed to my big head; the ultimate in bourgeois extravagance)

--three sport jackets (purchased one and had two tailor-made; total price: 700 RMB or just under $100, just so that I can parade around the university acting like a big-shot foreign-expert professor; I learned long ago that if you don't have much substance, style can go a long way.)

--four sweater vests (at a cost of 200 RMB total, or $26, just to enhance the professorial image)

--French-press for tea making (when just a common strainer would be adequate, I have to have an elite French-press apparatus)

--portable DVD player (I might have locked my children outside or sent them to a Chinese school, but instead I bought them a DVD player)

In one sense, China has become, for me, just one great big shopping spree, with the "experience" of life here taking a back-seat to the things I can buy. I vainly imagine myself, upon my return to the States, striking a cosmopolitan pose in my tailor-made sport coats; impressing fellow cyclists with my exotic Chinese-made gear (can you get that in the States?); dazzling other history instructors with my sweater-vests. I lie awake at night figuring out how I'll transport all my cool stuff back to the States.

Fearful of the long-term effects this materialist binge might be having on my soul, I visited some Buddhist Temples as a means of self-purification. What did I find there? You guessed it: gift shops. Buddhist Temples here have the BEST gift shops around, and they don't restrict their merchandise to Buddhist-themed items. You can get all sorts of sundry souvenirs, jewelry, masks, clothing, and other Inner-Mongoliacana, and you can even bargain, which really stirs the juices of hard-core shoppers like myself. I mean, spending money is a thrill, but if you can get a bracelet for 15 RMB as opposed to 20 RMB (saving yourself 70 cents in the bargain), shopping itself becomes Nirvana.

Above: Haunted by demons as I try to transcend material attachment amidst the awe-inspiring Buddhist carvings at the Yungang Caves in Datong (notice the “mindful” Buddhist half-smile and the harmonious hand-gesture [right hand], while my left hand is clutching our killer extra slim Casio digital camera, purchased at Costco last spring for about $250). Oh, and that’s one of my new sweater vests.

As for communism, I am inclined to agree with the US government, which now considers the Chinese economy as capitalist. They should classify it as "hyper-capitalist," because it seems that everyone in China is either selling or buying something. It seems that every street becomes a market at some point during the week. It seems that stores and banks never close on weekends. It seems that everyone has a cell-phone. It seems that everyone wants a car. It seems that shopping and bargaining are the Chinese national pastimes.

It is really hard to look at mall in Beijing (like this one) or even Hohhot and see a "communist economy."

Globalization and hyper-capitalism also make for some pretty crazy juxtapositions, not just of wealth and poverty, which is ever-present, but just absurd contrasts, such as these books lying side by side in one of the gift shops at Da Zhao, the largest Buddhist Temple in Hohhot.

Yep—Dale Carnegie’s “The Complete Book of Succeed Law” right next to a biography of Chairman Mao.

You may have already seen this (below) from Arienne's blog, but I just think this is awesome: Washington apple growers might not know that their produce is lying on the altar of Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, at the Five Pagoda Temple in Hohhot, P.R. China.

So globalism and capitalism are creating some pretty crazy convergences between traditional culture and pop culture. They are also making me into a rank materialist. I'm looking forward to returning to my home in the most capitalist and materialist nation on earth so that I can once again take up my ascetic lifestyle of renouncing materialism. For now, I'm looking forward to going to Muslim Market later today and shopping for a leather jacket!

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Bike Incident No. 6

Samuel on a ride with “Lucky Lánsè” (Lánsè is the Chinese word for “blue”) and his new GIANT bike lock the day after Bike Incident No. 6. This is actually our street, about two miles due east of our apartment in the midst of vast stretches of new construction.

I'm sure that all (four) of you must be worried about my recent lack of postings. Many of you (okay--just one of you) have written wondering what's up. The truth is that the last couple weeks have been really crazy. My mom arrived, we went to Datong for Golden Week (more later), my mom got sick, Grace got sick to the extent that I spent one night considering ways to get her home quickly (see Arienne's blog), and I also resumed teaching faculty seminars this week, along with my English classes. In short, we've been in survival mode for about a week now, and travel-mode before that. There has been little time to write and reflect.

Things are just beginning to settle down. My Mom left on Wednesday, Grace is still not feeling well but we think she's on the mend (still having stomach problems though). We are now trying to recapture our boring old routine. Our experiences over the last couple weeks--touristing in Datong, my Mom getting sick on a hard sleeper train, our visit to the hospital with Grace (an experience I would have preferred not to have), have given me ample fodder for the broad, unsubstantiated generalizations that I so love to make (see below!), but I just haven't had time to write them down lately. As I told my friend in an email this week, it would be perfect to have a one-hour “experience” everyday, leaving time to reflect, write, as well as teach, exercise, eat, sleep, socialize, etc…. But I guess it doesn’t work that way. The experiences come in exhausting marathon-length episodes, following by stretches of mundane life. Frankly, we relish our mundane lives (all but Samuel, who will have to return to "school" on Monday after a two-week hiatus).

So what about the bike incident?

Two nights ago Samuel and I went on a bike ride. It was already 7:30 pm. By then we usually have the kids bedded down for the night and listening to stories. But with Grace’s sickness our normal routine is broken, so that night Samuel and I jumped on our bikes to ride up to a Chinese bakery that sells European style breads and pastries so that I could get sliced-bread for my classes because, against my better judgment, I was giving a narrated cooking demonstration for my students the next day (making peanut-butter and banana sandwiches, in fact, and singing Elvis—high-powered intellectual stuff).

It was exciting to be riding at night. Bikers were pouring through the streets towards home or more exciting destinations, women sitting sideways on the rear racks of their boyfriends' bikes. Samuel has never ridden at night and he was thrilled. "I like Hohhot better at night, Dad," he said as we turned onto a well-lit bike lane and passed cars that were piled bumper to bumper in a tangled mess.

I was telling him about how my buddies and I used to ride bikes at night in Los Angeles during graduate school. It was great fun to ride in Los Angeles, a city that most people suppose is downright hostile towards anything but automobiles. Although there were no bike lanes, we cut bike routes through the urban wilderness. But this was just as fun, with bike lanes, crazy traffic, street vendors, neon lights, and thousands of two-wheeling compatriots with whom to share the road.

While we were riding, Samuel asked me if I rode the same mountain bike in Los Angeles that I ride now in Richland. I explained that my first mountain bike had been stolen while I was at a movie theatre in LA. It was a prescient question. Minutes later, as we were exiting the bakery, Samuel pointed and hollered, "Dad, someone's stealing my bike!" Sure enough, a thug in a black leather jacket had just finished breaking Samuel's bike lock and was about to make off with his bike, but we arrived just in time, and the would-be larcenist blended back into the crowd.

Samuel was absolutely shocked and completely undone. And so was I--to the point of losing it right there on the crowded street. What bothered me most was the fact that a bunch of people had stood and watched as the thief busted the lock, and they would have kept watching quietly as he rode away on Samuel's bike if we hadn't arrived in time. Someone might have simply hollered something to us in the bakery (everyone had seen us pull up with our fancy bikes and colorful helmets). But no one did anything.

It was a cultural moment. The American lost it. Knowing that no one would understand, I screamed at the bystanders and vented my frustration with their apathy. "Were you just going to watch as he stole our bikes?!!!" I yelled, along with some other things that can't be recorded here. People just stood and stared, most smiling and laughing at the foreigner who had lost his temper.

"Come on Samuel, let's get out of here." As we were about to leave, one of the acquiescent bystanders, part of a group of leather-jacketed young men who had front row seats for the lock-breaking show, walked over and handed me the broken carcass of Samuel's lock, which I viciously (and stupidly) flung onto the sidewalk. We jumped on our bikes and rode home.

On the way, I tried to explain to Samuel, who was holding back tears and wails (which he finally released when we got back to our apartment) that thieves reside everywhere in the world, including the good ole USA. "Remember the story about my mountain bike in Los Angeles?" I reminded him. "We're lucky that we have your bike back, and your Dad shouldn't have yelled like that back there--it never helps to lose your temper in situations like that." Stung by the hot-glowing injustice of witnessing someone trying to steal his beloved bike, Samuel would have none of this "all's well that ends well" appeasement. "You should have gone after him, Dad. HE WAS TRYING TO STEAL MY BIKE!"

In fact, two weeks earlier, I had gone after two guys who heisted Arienne and Grace's helmets from Arienne's bike, which was locked up in a crowded city square next to a Buddhist Temple. Our high-tech import helmets (the only decent ones we could find) actually cost about half as much as our bikes. I was blinded by dollar bills, not justice, when I jumped on Arienne's bike and managed to sweep in quickly and surprise the culprits enough to simply grab the two helmets from their hands and pedal off.

That time, there were no bothersome "cultural issues." If anything, it made me think that Chinese criminals were not very hardened if they allowed history teachers--even foreign ones--to grab the stolen goods right from their hands. But this time I felt a burning animosity towards the crowd (not the criminal) that quickly flourished into a sweeping nationalist critique of Chinese culture. "In America," I kept thinking, "people wouldn't just sit and watch as someone stole a bike in plain view on a crowded city street!" "In America, people would intervene, stand-up against injustice!" Even as I was having them, I realized such thoughts were highly suspect.

And yet I couldn't shake the feeling that the inaction of this particular crowd was not simply "human," but distinctively Chinese (brilliant deduction, you say, since they were all in fact Chinese people on a Chinese street corner). The Chinese are extremely hospitable to their guests and absolutely devoted to their families and friends, but they do not have a civic culture that encourages participation in matters that do not directly involve them. It is ironic that in a society professedly devoted to collectivism, the collective thread (beyond friends and family) is rather thin. People just don't get involved outside their own private networks and kin groups. Why? Part of the reason is that the notion of "collectivism" has been rendered nearly meaningless by a government that preserves the rights and privileges of an elite few at the expense of the many. Part of the reason is that the legal system discourages entangling oneself in any kind of affair that may leave one vulnerable to arbitrary authority. Finally, action in Chinese society usually comes with responsibilities, financial or otherwise, and many people just don't act for fear that they will become responsible for a situation that was not of their own making (especially if that responsibility comes with a financial obligation or penalty, which most Chinese can't afford to pay). For all these reasons, it is easier to simply stay out of other people's business and stay out of harm’s way. (I guess I could have just said: remember Tiananmen Square?)

*{Note: I realize the above paragraph is packed with over-broad generalizations. My only defense is that they are mostly not my own: they come from books (like Peter Hessler's "River Town," among others) and from conversations with friends and students here.}

I understand Chinese reticence about getting involved, but the brash American in me values individual action against injustice. The righteous American in me sees the world with perfect moral clarity--there is only right and wrong, good and evil, black and white, with no shades or colors in between. (I'm sure that George Bush would agree with me that those bystanders who silently watched the criminal break Samuel's lock were aiding and abetting "Evil Doers”!). And yet, most of the rest of the world does not have the privilege of seeing the world in such certain terms. Although Americans might prefer moral certitude, the real world operates in many shades of grey, with far more subtlety and complexity.

I have more to say on this, but I guess I'll end there for now.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

Biking Hohhot, Air Quality, the Hiearchy of the Streets

One of the great joys of living in Hohhot for the last two months has been biking around the city. At the beginning of our second week here, I went with my American colleague Tyler--an avid cyclist who is also fluent in Mandarin--to purchase three bikes at the "Merida" bike shop, a small and crowded storefront in an alleyway only accessible to those in the know.

Tyler (right) and the owner of the Merida Bike Shop in Hohhot. Yeah, Tyler is a buffed dude. He can ride me into the ground. Of course, he’s also 25, and a former baseball player at Oklahoma State University.

I couldn't resist. While I could have purchased heavy, steel-framed Chinese bicycles for about $25 each, at the Merida store I was able to buy sleek, light-weight, aluminum-framed Taiwanese-made bikes that are a pleasure to ride. In a city filled with bikes, ours stand out like double-humped camels at the mall--not that we didn't stand out before. (I apologize for the bad metaphor, but have you ever seen double-humped camels at the mall?) It is a sight to behold, four waigoren on mountain bikes, clad in colorful helmets (we are the ONLY people I've seen besides Tyler and his road-biking buddies to wear helmets), weaving through the throngs of old bikes and makeshift bicycle wagons, not to mention the trucks, taxis, and donkey-carts.

One of the shadier and prettier bike lanes in Hohhot. ALL the main streets have bike lanes, making Hohhot a biker’s dream.

Biking is really the only way to go in Hohhot. Hohhot, in fact, is a biker's paradise. Every street has a bike lane, including very large boulevards that slice through the central business district. If streets do not have a special biking lane, then the far right-hand lane is generally given over to bikes, if only because bikers here have the power of numbers, unlike the U.S. where they are an embattled minority. I can ride my bike anywhere in the entire city, joined by tens of thousands of other bikers, from school kids to grandmothers.

Biking has allowed me--and the rest of the family--to get around Hohhot without paying taxi fare, suffering over-crowded buses, or battling traffic congestion. It has also allowed me to the see the city in unique ways and gain perspectives that would have eluded me from the rear-seat of a taxi cab.

The Air Quality

Before coming to China, I didn't picture that I would be exercising so much outdoors. If anything, I figured that air pollution from vehicles, coal-burning furnaces, and smog-belching factories would resign me to doing calisthenics in my apartment building.

A reporter for the New York Times has written that air pollution levels in China “now point to disaster.” According to Chinese statistics, 400,000 people “die prematurely every year in China from diseases linked to air pollution,” which “is so thick,” the author says, “that on the worst days doctors advise…against going outside.” [Jim Yardley, “China’s Next Big Boom Could Be the Foul Air, 30 October 2005].

Expecting the worst, I was pleased to see that the air quality was not so terrible here in Hohhot. The first week, in fact, was pretty good, with thunder showers clearing the air almost every day. During our second week it began thickening up, but we didn't have our first really bad air day until mid-August, when I wrote this in my journal:

"The air was thick and hot today and smog hung thick over the city. Tonight everyone is complaining of sore throats, even Arienne. I've been riding my bike in the mornings, but I'm feeling a little poisoned right now. The air doesn't seem any heavier or darker than LA, but there are elements in it that seem less refined, more acidic. Don't know if it’s from those huge tractors and trucks with absolutely NO pollution controls, or from nearby factories."

It was during that week that we visited Helin, one hour south of the city where the air is fresh, that we became acutely aware of the poor air-quality in Hohhot. Upon our return, we drove smack into a palpable smog bank. When you're in it, you don't notice it, but when you leave it, you can see it on reentry, similar to descending out of the clear blue ether into Los Angeles on a summer afternoon.

Having lived in LA for close to ten years, I'm used to smog. But there's a deeper, riper, fuller quality to the air here. It's like the contrast between Kraft cheese and stinky French brie. Or, to use a wine metaphor, we might say that the air here has a full-bodied depth, a rich bouquet. There is a heavy, diesel-laden aftertaste to the smog, accompanied by a superior thickness that I never experienced in Los Angeles.

And yet, Tyler has been here for three years. He rides through the city all the time and claims that he's had no breathing problems. He thinks the air here is probably much better than LA (which, according the U.S. EPA, can trace nearly 25 percent of its air pollution to China!). And he's right: the air is not so bad, or at least not worse than most large cities in the world (1.5 million). As summer has given way to fall, we've had some stunning days with clear-blue skies that remind me of the clearest days in Seattle or the Tri-Cities.

That’s me mountain biking on the bluest, clearest day of the fall so far, with mountains clearly etched in the background.

On June 6, the China Daily reported that the "pollution picture in China" is beginning to "brighten," with sulfur dioxide emissions falling and other indexes following. "With the country installing more pollution control facilities and stepping up economic restructuring and policy enforcement, there will be a further drop" in pollution, says Zhang Lijun, the vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration. China, he contends, has reached a "turning point." So, who do you believe: the New York Times, the China Daily, or Dave Arnold?

The Hierarchy of the Streets

Beyond experiencing the air quality first hand and with both lungs, biking has allowed me to become an urban sociologist on wheels. From my apartment, you can ride in five minutes to the Beijing Hualian, a large modern supermarket adjacent to a KFC. Five more minutes down the street and you are in squalid conditions: small shops and noodle stands line dirt streets, the stench of the sewer permeates everything and stagnant mud puddles look like they could kill.

This shop and KFC are 1/2 mile and a world apart.

Beyond simply the difference in wealth from one neighborhood to the next (no different from any other city in the world), one of the most palpable expressions of inequality in Hohhot, especially noticeable from the vantage point of a bicycle, is the hierarchy of the streets. The streets here are not democratic--every car, every person, every bike, is NOT created equal. The laws of the roadway do not apply equally to all vehicles and the persons they contain. Example: If you are a high government official or a rich capitalist in a black luxury sedan, you can go wherever the hell you want to go (meaning through red-lights or the wrong way down streets or sidewalks), and everyone else be damned. Seriously. No joke. If you have a donkey cart or a bicycle you better get out of their way, even if you have the green light and they have the red. They have the right to go anywhere. The same is true with official vehicles of any kind. I have come to the conclusion that police cars are primarily used to navigate Hohhot traffic in privileged ways. Example: need to get your kid to school on time during rush hour? Hop in your police car, flip on the lights, drive the wrong-way down the sidewalk and deliver your child to school. I've seen this happen many a time at the school beside our apartment.

So biking has been a rich experience that we've all enjoyed daily--and not just because it lets me practice my amateur street sociology with a degree of mobility (always good when spying on the natives). I'm also training so that I can keep up with my CBC colleague Paul Meier (aka Ironman Paul) upon my return, and absolutely crush my old pals Phil Minehan and Tom Mertes.

Going to Datong this week during the National Day holiday. Should be interesting. Report forthcoming (although Arienne's blog is probably better on the day to day stuff!)

Thanks for reading.

Dave