Merry Christmas Lovefest

Merry Christmas! It is the day after Christmas here in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, P.R. China. We miss our friends and family back home but we enjoyed a cozy Christmas day here in Inner Mongolia. There was a dusting of snow outside--and snow continues today. The normal Christmas activities took place here just as they do at home: cooking, eating, playing with toys.

This last week has been something of a love-fest between Hohhot and me. All my previous anxieties about being trapped behind a cultural barrier seemed to disappear in a flurry of everyday activity that made me feel connected to life here in a way that I haven't felt before. It could be just a function of time--of finally being here for long enough so that life feels "normal"--or of having finally built up a foundation of trust with the Chinese friends and students with whom I share my time, but Hohhot is starting to feel more and more like "home."

My students have been really effusive and enthusiastic as of late: the semester is coming to an end and rumors have spread that I will be leaving in March. My students have responded by looking at me with kind, sad, and sympathetic expressions (the kind that 18 year-old Chinese girls especially have mastered) and begging me to stay. When I tell them I can't, their expressions turn even more sorrowful and they say things like, "Oh, it's such a pity" and "We will miss you" and "We will never forget you." I can't imagine American college students expressing such feelings to an American college professor--certainly not to me. At home I don't really invite such sentiment. Even if people like my classes, I don't become their "friend" per se--I've learned to keep a professional distance between myself and my students. But there is a connection between student and teacher here that can't be duplicated in America, and perhaps this connection is even stronger between a foreign teacher and Chinese students. The students here, as I've said in the past, are so untainted by cynicism and self-absorption. They are earnest and respectful. I nostalgically (and naively) imagine nineteenth-century American school children treating their favorite teacher similarly, the way that the poor kids in the one-room school-house treated Laura Ingalls Wilder, whom they respected and admired. They felt that a piece of Laura was theirs. She left them at the end of the term but you got the feeling that Laura and those students wouldn't forget each other (can you tell I've been reading children's books again?). That's how it feels to me here lately. My students have been giving me Christmas presents and flooding my email and cell phone with Christmas messages like this one from my student Catherine: "David, Today is Christmas Eve. I wish you and your family Merry Christmas! Best wishes ! Your son and daughter are very lovely. I like them very much! I hope them happy everyday!"

Samuel holding one of the gifts that my students gave me.

The good feelings were also flowing last Thursday night, when the International Exchange College hosted its annual Christmas banquet for the foreign teachers and students. The dinner was held at the four-star Bin Yue Hotel.

Fancy-schmancy banquet. You can see our table in foreground. That’s Oliver in the scarf, Madoka (sp?—the Japanese instructor) to his left, and then Malicha to her left.

The food was excellent. The singing performances by Mongolian and Korean students were generally pretty bad, but no one cared: there were two bottles of Chinese liquor at every table. The big wigs from the foreign affairs office in Hohhot were there. Dean Chen Yao and Party Secretary Mr. Zhou jumped up as soon as they arrived and immediately began plying them with food and drink and toasts. Our table--one designated for foreign teachers--was conspicuously absent of liquor because all the Americans here, except Arienne and I, are teetotalers. I was sitting by Oliver, the Hungarian scholar, and we were able to get one of the waitresses to bring us a bottle of liquor. So we were happy. The Americans (us!) danced, the Russians drank, the Mongolians drank, the Korean students--all girls--performed a Christmas song decked out in Santa hats. The administrators thanked us for our service. The pleasantries and platitudes rolled from everyone's tongues like so much sweet perfume. It all worked its magic on me. My stomach was full of mutton and wine and I sat there with a feeling of great contentedness and good cheer. I know these banquets are all about formality: they happen every year no matter who the players. My replacement next year will be serenaded just as warmly no matter his/her merits in the classroom. But I took it all personally and I felt a great warmth towards the IMNU “family.” Afterwards, we strolled out in front of the hotel where they have a huge Christmas trees and some Santas and took pictures.

In front of the Bin Yue Hotel.

We've been amazed at how much Christmas cheer exists in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, and China generally. Christmas decorations are everywhere. Last Thursday, Samuel, Grace, and I took a taxi to the Muslim market to buy wrapping paper for Christmas, as well as various other sundry items for Christmas, including pants for both the kids. Samuel is getting to be a big boy and he wanted some nice khakis for the Christmas banquet. I found him a pair at a men's clothing stall. The waist was perfect but we had to go to the tailor and get them hemmed--for 4 RMB, or a little more than 50 cents.

Getting Samuel’s pants hemmed. Alterations are very cheap here and tailors abound.

Friday was also a big day of errands. After my morning classes I had lunch with Tyler at the Korean restaurant (my favorite) and then I rode my bike to the video store to indulge myself in some extraneous shopping followed by the Merida store where I (Santa Claus, actually) bought Samuel a bike light and then to the foreign import market for some Christmas and dinner-party shopping. I made it home just in time to rest a moment before I went with He Qing to her class at Nong Da (Inner Mongolia Agricultural University). She wanted me to talk about Christmas. It was one of those performances that I'm becoming so good at--talking about American holidays, the NBA, American movies, American family-life, and whatever else comes to mind. Her students had some good questions for me. One stood in the back row and said that her family "believes in Jesus Christ" and they go to church on Christmas Eve: "Is it customary for American families to go to church on Christmas Eve"? “Some do and some don't,” I answered. I told her we didn't go because we're not church-going people. It was one of those funny upside moments: a Chinese Christian asking a secular American about church. This happens to me all the time since people here assume that all Americans are devoutly religious (and yet also believe, a la Hollywood, that we all shoot each other and have illicit sex). The fact is: most of the Americans here are practicing Christians. In fact, ALL of the Americans that we’ve met here are devoted Christians (more on that later…).

It was nice to go to He Qing's class. The students were eager and energetic (I'm realizing that my IEC students are pretty low-level....). It was also nice to help out He Qing because she has done so much for us. But, alas, she insisted on taking us out to dinner this week to pay me back for my efforts. That is the way things go here.

When we arrived back at our apartment, I found a large package waiting for me from the "English Department." In fact, Ms. Na, the department chair, had called me while I was in He Qing's class and invited me to English department's Christmas banquet this week. Then she had left me a present with our door-keeper. It was a beautiful box with a beautiful silver tea pot. I was feeling the love, I'm telling you.

A Mongolian tea set just for teaching a few seminars! I was overwhelmed.

The love-fest continued the next day: I went out with Athena (Guo Yin Ping) who helped me to get our DVD player fixed and to buy a beautiful necklace for Arienne. Athena is a shopper extraordinaire and without her help I could never have done it. First we took the DVD player to the mall where the lady unsuccessfully tried to fix it by cleaning the parts with a cigarette filter (it worked last time!) and then we took a taxi to a repair shop in a different part of town where, remarkably, the man fixed it for us as we waited.

Athena asking these guys where to find the Malata repair shop. Easy: go down the alley, turn left, and cut through the apartment complex.

Found it! How could we have missed it?

Then it was a taxi ride back to the mall (me trying to hand the cab driver money before Athena who would pay the fare every time if she had the chance) and to the jewelry shops where Athena deftly questioned and bargained until we had a lovely white gold necklace with a phoenix on it for a price that I could afford.

Then it was back to our apartment for dinner-party planning, cooking, and watching the Simpsons (the DVD player is working!). Helen, her husband (Lao Li--or Old Li--we called him), her daughter Alice, and Pegaleg came for a "typical" American dinner: spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, and pie. We drank wine and beer and orange drink; the kids actually played!; we talked about taboo subjects like religion (Helen's Aunt is a "believer in Jesus" who admonishes Helen and weeps in spiritual rapture...) and the differences between American and Chinese cuisine, culture, and education. It was a great evening--including watching all of them try to choke down a black olive, which they made no pretension about liking. That culture barrier seemed to dissipate even further during an evening spent with good friends. They invited us to our house at a future time and Lao Li invited us to visit the "peasant village" where he was raised so that we could "see how Chinese peasants really live."

The day before Christmas we went skating at Shi Da. The snow was falling--like today--and with all the Christmas decorations about there was a holiday spirit, even though I had to "teach" three classes on the 24th and two on the 25^th (and two more today). I say "teach" because all I did was show a movie--the "Polar Express"--and on Christmas morning He Qing actually showed the movie to my first class, allowing me to open Christmas presents with the family, eat breakfast, and enjoy Christmas morning.

The rest of week will be filled with more activities: dinner with He Qing tonight; the English Department banquet tomorrow night; dinner with students from my software class on Friday (the same class that gave me the big red thing, above), dinner with students from my tourism class on Saturday.

It's been strange to be teaching during the holidays, but classes finally come to an end on Friday followed by a study week and then final exams. By mid-January I'll be done with my professional obligations here and we'll go on a short trip to Xi'an, Shanghai, and Hangzhou followed by some more Inner Mongolia travel in February. And then home on March 1. We have just over two months left there, and I'm starting to feel like time is too short!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Real Life Real Blog

The China Post a block from our apartment. If you want to learn about the compelling saga of my trip to the post office, then read on! The theme this week: my quotidian life.

In response to criticisms from 25% of my readership (my good friend Phil Minehan) that I'm writing about too much "academic" stuff and not enough about what I'm doing every day, I've decided to devote this week's posting to events that have happened in the last week, no matter how mundane. I've sort of been leaving the "mundane" to Arienne, whose blog (www.arnoldsinchina.blogspot.com) does a great job of cataloguing our daily lives, but I think Phil is right: less pontification and more daily description is in order, especially since this last week has been pretty eventful in a mundane sort of way.

The DVD Player is Not Working!

About two weeks after we arrived here, we bought one of those small DVD players for the kids--it was necessary for the survival and health of the family unit. We needed to "plug the kids in" for a couple hours a day and we couldn't have them watch DVDs on the computer, which is our all-purpose work machine. I bought the player at the fanciest mall in town, thinking that I'd pay more but have better service and perhaps better quality. I did pay more: 900 RMB or about $125.00, more than I'd pay at home. The service has been good, but the quality of the player (a Chinese "Malata") does not seem very good (most of the good stuff gets exported and, if not, it is very expensive). We've had continuous problems with skipping and stopping. We thought at first that it was the DVDs we were buying. We went to the DVD store where our friend Malicha works and bought a bunch of DVD-9s (the latest technology, apparently) and many of them refused to load, skipped or stopped mid-way. We were having more luck with the videos from another store where we were buying American classics for about 80 cents per DVD (God Bless copyright infringement), but when those started to falter, I had to take the DVD player back to the mall. Armed with nothing more than a few phrases (and not wanting to bother Chinese friends), I hoped to get the player fixed or replaced. I had the receipt showing that we had purchased the DVD on August 22, about three months previous. As it happened, I didn't even need the receipt. As I walked into the electronics department, the DVD lady immediately recognized me. (By the way, this happens to us all the time, and it can be a really good thing. If we go to a store or restaurant just once, they will remember us the next time, no matter how long it's been since our first visit. Once we were at a shop in the Muslim market and Arienne didn't buy a beautiful scarf she was admiring but regretted it later. When I went back a week later to see if the scarf was still there, the lady pulled it down as soon as I walked in the shop.) Without much dictionary fumbling, the DVD lady realized what was going on: she took the player away for about five minutes and when she returned it worked. Fine. Problem solved. Except that within two weeks we were having skipping and stopping problems again. The problem reached a climax on Saturday night. Determined to watch a movie after the kids had gone to bed, I sat in bed for over an hour and, as Arienne read Dicken's "Bleak House," I obsessively loaded DVD after DVD until one finally worked--the "Spirit of St. Louis" with Jimmy Stewart playing Charles Lindbergh (yes, I know he was a Nazi-admirer). By this time, of course, Arienne was asleep and I had to watch Lindy cross the Atlantic all alone all alone. It was a pretty pathetic and lonely evening. Him flying all alone. Me watching all alone. I fell asleep somewhere over the North Atlantic, after St. John's (the last compass check before 1900 miles of trackless ocean) but before landfall in Ireland.

One unintended consequence of being rich Americans in China is that we can buy hoards of cheap movies that have undoubtedly been pirated. Chinese communists, as I mentioned, do not seem believe much in copyrights. Let the people watch DVDs! This has been great. I've been watching old movies that I never would have watched in the states. A couple weeks ago we watched the "Guns of Navaronne" and it just underscored for me how much of the high ground we've lost in world affairs. Back then (WWII) we were such good guys, at least in relative terms. I mean, we didn't make a policy out of torture--a stark contrast to the inhumane Nazi war machine. At the end of that war it was the US who insisted on fair trials for Nazi War criminals, most of whom were convicted in fair and transparent legal proceedings, unlike what is happening today with the prisoners at Guantanamo. There is a great line in the movie where Gregory Peck wonders if he and his fellows would one day wake up worse than the enemy. Even in the "good fight" against the Nazis, in other words, the Gregory Peck character fears that his own humanity will be compromised by his involvement in the killing. We don't seem to vocalize such humble fears today. Our power is now arrogant, righteous, and self-assured. We know we are better than our enemies. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't see it that way and--fairly or not--they use our mistakes and hypocrisies to criticize the entire American project. You become painfully aware of these things living overseas.

So back to the DVD player saga. We now have a DVD player that will play, no kidding, one movie: "The Spirit of St. Louis," and unless I want to push the limitations of our sanity, I must make the (ad)venture downtown and try to get this player fixed. Maybe this time I'll impose upon a Chinese friend because I'm going to need someone who can drive the issue home more forcefully than can one of my 18 year old students. As you can see, getting simple things done can sometimes be a big deal for us. Thankfully we have friends to help. I'll miss many things here, but I will not miss the necessity of getting help to do basic things.

Going to China Post to Send a Package Home

One of the other mundane tasks of the previous week was mailing a package home, for which I drafted one of my students who, coincidentally, had just sent me an email message asking if I needed help with anything:

"David,if you need help or you need a translator when you do something such as visit interests,buy something etc.I'm glad to help you.I think that is the best way to improve my oral English,I need talk talk talk.Best wishes.Cinder"

This is pretty common--all of my students would help me with anything if I asked, but I generally try not to. I guess I like being independent, but I also feel kind of strange about having students assist me. Karen, one of my colleagues here, is constantly stewarded around by students and former students, with whom she eats and invites to her house for parties and meals. It's nice, I guess, but it also seems like she grooms little helpers so she never has to do anything for herself. Fine for her, but not for me. In this case, however, I called on Cinder to help. She met me at the IEC (International Exchange College) and we walked down the block to the China post. After we packaged up a few books in a rather small box, I was absolutely shocked when I heard the price for express service: 700 RMB or about $100. If I chose the cheapest and slowest option--literally the slow-boat [from] China--it would take three months and coast 200 RMB or about $28. I opted for the intermediate choice: 370 RMB for 2-3 weeks, realizing then that I would never send another box home via China Post.

On the way out of China Post I asked the lady at the newsstand if they carried the "China Daily," the English paper that I read online. They didn't. It took nothing more than that innocent inquiry to motivate Cinder to find me some newspapers. She met me the next morning (Saturday) with two crisp China Dailies. And she came by the next afternoon with "traditional food"--some sweet rice balls--for the family. She also invited me to a concert on Sunday night, to which I had to decline because I was practicing waltzing (another story). But you get the idea: these students will do anything for you and opening up to them just a little bit can be pretty intense. They are so incredibly nice and considerate that it sort of makes me feel uncomfortable. And yet, I will miss my students a lot. They are unbelievably earnest and kind.

Last Faculty Seminar: Last Thursday

It seemed foolish at the time, or at least a little brazen, but I brought up Marx in my final faculty seminar last Thursday. We were talking about laissez-faire capitalism and so I discussed some of Marx's descriptions of nineteenth century capitalism: its cycles of boom and bust; its amazing ability to generate growth and wealth and at the same time spread exploitation and alienation, etc... I figured it was pretty stupid to discuss Marx with people who have been raised in a Marxist-Leninist society. After all, they've cut their teeth on Marx, right? They've probably all read "Capital" while I've just read bits and chunks over the years.

They were pretty surprised--"Do Americans read Marx?" they asked. I told them that I was assigned parts of Marx in graduate school (and that sociologists probably read him much more than historians); that I assign my students some abbreviated essays by Marx and Engels in my World Civilization classes, and that, so I had heard, even some Wall Street types read Marx because he understood the capitalist system better than anyone and many of his analyses of how capitalism works (not how socialism works!) are still valid today. In fact, I took the small risk of saying that perhaps Marx himself might be more thoroughly studied in the West than in communist societies because those societies, like Russia and China, filtered Marx's ideas through Lenin, who redefined (and some would say ruined) socialism with concepts like the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," where a powerful Party elite would guide the masses towards true socialism. (What I didn't say: Marx believed that "everything must be challenged" but Marxist societies did not take that approach, instead creating all-powerful and unchallenged Party structures that held entire populations captive in oppressive totalitarian regimes...)

I have been avoiding controversial topics for months so it felt pretty good. I wasn't sure how they would react. However, the risk really was small because in this last faculty seminar only three stalwarts were in attendance: one English department teacher (Jenny) and two teacher/graduate students (Helen and Pegaleg--no kidding). Helen is a true free-thinker (more on her later) and the other two are pretty open-minded. All three of them had been consistent participants in the seminars--so there is a good deal of trust there. They all, in fact, agreed that Marx is probably studied more sincerely in the West than in China. "Although Marxist-Leninism is our official state ideology," said Helen, "It is not part of our everyday thinking." She noted that students are forced to study ideology in order to pass state exams and that the government "advertises" Marxist-Leninist "slogans," but "No one pays any attention to it." It was a really frank admission of cynicism towards "ideology" with which both other teachers agreed. It liberated me to open up the conversation, which ended up focusing on the future of both socialism and capitalism. I won't bore you with the details, but it was pretty fun stuff, to be sitting in a university classroom in China with three Chinese teachers discussing the future of China and the world.

After the seminar, Helen and Peg-a-Leg took me out to dinner at my favorite local restaurant (blue sign with red letters), just strides away from our apartment.

On Saturday they both came over to our apartment for snacks and Helen's eight-year-old daughter played with the kids. Fun stuff. In fact, both are coming over again next weekend for dinner. The seminars are over, but we're continuing on.

ERRANDS!

On Mondays I teach from 8:00am to 11:00am and then again from 4:10-5:40pm, leaving me the heart of the day for running errands, my favorite thing to do in China because it entails puttering around Hohhot on my bike which is a great way to see the world and get exercise. Here are the errands I did today: After lunch, I went with Tyler to the Merida bike store to see about buying myself some biking glasses that Santa might get me for Christmas. They are selling for 150 RMB, or about $21, and they seem like great glasses, complete with five different lenses for diverse conditions, but I was worried about the UV protection. I had Tyler, who is fluent in Chinese, read the manual and he said they protected against UV 400 (?) but not glare from artificial surfaces (? again). Satisfied that Tyler has been wearing this same pair for a year and is not yet blind, I had Santa buy them, to be opened with surprise on Christmas day. Before the bike store, however, Tyler showed me a beef jerky shop because I had tried some really good dried meat at David's house (a Spanish guy who teaches at a private school in Hohhot) and I wanted to score me some. Amazing shop. Amazing jerky. The spicy stuff is the bomb. What else can I say?

On my way back from the Merida store I stopped at the new import food store for some spaghetti sauce (no, we don't make everything from scratch), some cheese, and some muesli (Euro food for breakfast). As I was riding home I tried to call Arienne but accidentally called my student Amber, whom I've never called before, and whose number I have in my address book only because she handed it to me on a piece of paper one day insisting I call her if I ever need help shopping or doing errands, etc... I apologized to Amber, explaining that before I put her number in my phone Arienne's was the first one and thus my mistake. After we hung up she sent me this text message: "David, I'm glad to answer your telephone. That's so unexpected. Best wishes for you. See you!" Again, those nice, polite, helpful students.

Arienne’s bicycle (which I ride a lot because it has a basket) parked in front of the import food store.

After I got back to the apartment, Samuel was ready for me to ride with him to the army-surplus street: an entire block of army-supply stores where most of the street vendors buy their warm coats for winter. This is Samuel's favorite place to shop. You can get fur-lined leather hats with airplanes on them, old army knives, various kinds of buttons and pins with official-looking seals (yes--my son is becoming a militarist, but aren't all eight-year olds?). Actually Samuel was shopping for a tie to wear to the Christmas banquet and he had previously seen a pretty neat clip-on variety in one of the shops. We found the tie and bought it for 7 RMB, or a little less than $1. Then we found a toy store and he purchased a pretty bracelet for Grace's Christmas present. Without prompting, the lady wrapped the bracelet in pretty pink paper with lots and lots of ribbons and bows (how did she know?). On the way out, I noticed that that the cute plastic bag she gave us had a red heart with these words running across it: "I F*cking Love You." I kid you not. We see this kind of "crazy English" all over (maybe a future post in that).

The army-surplus street.

By the time we rode home (It's about 2.5 miles to the army surplus street) I had just enough time for a cup of tea before I had to dash off to class.

Dinner with Oliver and the Staff of Boson Magazine

After I got back from class (I'm still telling you about this Monday) we had spaghetti for dinner. I was just beginning to wash the dishes when Oliver knocked on my door with a Mongolian-speaking journalist. Oliver is from Budapest, Hungary, and he is here studying Mongolian and doing research on an ancient Mongolian script that is carved in stone on the "Five Pagoda Temple" here in Hohhot (see Arienne's blog for pictures). He's a really interesting guy and we are friendly but our interaction is limited because he speaks just a little English which has been getting worse over the last three months since he has been only speaking Mongolian (he doesn't speak Chinese). The journalist, who I thought was a friend of his but later learned he had just met that same day, works for a new publication in Hohhot. He invited us to dinner to take some pictures of "foreigners" for the magazine. I decided to go (no, not just because I would get out of doing the dishes) because Oliver is a nice guy. I thought we would just walk across the street to a nearby restaurant. Instead, they had two cars waiting to take Oliver, Kenneth (an American student who also teaches English) and me to a fancy restaurant a few miles away. I was disappointed I had already eaten dinner. The food was excellent even if the dinner conversation was somewhat strained by the fact that we couldn't speak Chinese and they couldn't speak English. The only people who could communicate were Oliver and the Mongolian journalist, Dalai. It turns out they all worked for Boson, a magazine that had just started up in Hohhot. They wanted to do a story on foreigners. They also wanted our suggestions as to how to make their magazine better. I looked at their first edition and it was, no kidding, ALL advertisements. There was not one single item in the entire publication that was not an advertisement. And, of course, it was all in Chinese. What suggestions could I make? Kenneth thought that coupons would be a good idea and we spent about ten minutes explaining the coupon concept. All I could do was drink my beer, smile, and nibble on the excellent food. They invited us for a Christmas party, took pictures, made toasts, and welcomed us to the "Boson family." Then they took us home.

Group Photo with Oliver holding up the newspaper and Kenneth on the left.

Ice Skating and My Daily Exercise

Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) we went skating at Shi Da--there is a great rink right on campus made from a flooded dirt field. It is a luxury to walk across campus anytime to skate (no driving; no excessive entry fees). It may be cold out, but the sun reflects off the ice and contributes to the warmth you generate from skating (it's sunny here nearly everyday). I've never skated much in my life, but I'm better now than I've ever been. If not for coming to Hohhot, in fact, I might never have skated again--who wants to drive across town to an indoor rink and pay a bunch of money to skate? But it's really a joy to glide across the ice and I do occasionally glide between my usual fits and stammers. We finished skating at 4pm and on our walk home I stopped to do pull-ups (my normal routine) at an outdoor exercise area near the track. Between the track and the north gate to the campus (about 1/4 mile) I ran into six of my students--Philip; DJ; Ricky; Jordan; Christina; and Sophia.

Sam and Grace skating at Shi Da.

After getting back to the apartment I walked down to the vegetable lady for green beans (a huge bag for 4 RMB, or about 60 cents), the grocery store for a bottle of red wine (28 RMB or just shy of four dollars), and a roasted sweet potato (from street vendors who cook them on big barrels on the street; 4 RMB again). I was pondering how much I'm going to miss my daily errands to get food and other miscellanea--I love the walking; the biking; the climbing. My legs are getting strong from my daily hikes up and down our four flights of stairs, from biking around the city, from skating at Shi Da. I've long since quit trying to "work out"--as in getting in sweats and going for a ride or a jog. Life itself here is a work-out and I'm thoroughly enjoying the daily rigors that allow me to keep my weight down and eat as much as I want. Can I duplicate this kind of activity in the Tri-Cities where I'll find myself sitting in my office all day long and taking cars to and fro? I understand why nearly everyone here is slim. I only hope that increasing prosperity and modernization (including more cars and more fast food) will not wreak the same terrible transformation here that it did in the US in the postwar period. (Have you ever noticed how slim everyone is in US newsreels and movies prior to the 1950s--and I don't just mean actors and actresses?)

Well, other things happened this last week, such as learning to waltz in preparation for the IEC Christmas Party program where the foreign teachers will be performing a dance routine. But I'm burned out. Are you? Did you make it? Hope you enjoyed it Phil.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

The "RC"

Everyday life has been pleasantly mundane lately: teaching; eating; ice-skating; reading; watching movies. No new adventures to report. So what follows is an essay on the "real China" by a person who has visited only three Chinese cities--Hohhot, Datong, and Beijing; who speaks only "restaurant Chinese;" and who has been "in country" for just 4 1/2 months. I apologize in advance. Now, let the pontifications begin....

Is this the “real China”? No way—we have these at home!

Is this the “real China”? Must be—I haven’t seen curbside butchers in Richland, Washington.

There is "Tourist China," with its lovely pagodas, temples, carvings, and ancient architecture. There is "Modern China," with its glittering skyscrapers and flashy malls. And then there is the "Real China," or as I facetiously call it, the "RC," with everything else: 737 million peasants, squat brick villages, dirt alley-ways, the smell of night-soil, ox-driven plows, donkey-carts, make-shift bicycle carts, coal-burning stoves, crowded train stations, street vendors, ancient peasant women pushing hand-carts full of garbage.

The "RC," in other words, is code word for the chaotic, complex, unsanitary, and largely backwards China. The RC is the "authentic" China that travelers long to experience (and take pictures of). It is the China that is completely unlike the West--an "alien" and exotic world that must be witnessed by Westerners if they are to have an "authentic" travel experience.

Exploring the RC on my bike.

The peasant shacks, donkey-carts, and dirt alleyways really do exist. I have seen them right here outside of Hohhot on bike rides that have taken me down dirt roads into small villages. But does the "RC" really exist, or is it largely the invention of western travelers and tourists who seek out "alien" and "authentic" landscapes, but, in doing so, become blind to the hybrid nature of their environment, where developing China and modern China meet and intermingle? Example: In my first days here, I would watch hundreds of taxis and luxury sedans race down our street as I waited to take a picture of a donkey-cart or some other odd and antiquated contrivance. When I got my picture, I had captured a piece of the RC to send to friends and relatives, but what about the hundred taxis that raced by as I waited for my snapshot of the RC? Were they any less "authentic" than the donkey-carts? In Hohhot, taxis are probably the most authentic thing around. With the photos we take (and post on our blogs), tourists and travelers (like ourselves) are continually designating what they believe is the "real" and "authentic" China. Clearly, McDonalds and KFC, no matter how crowded, are not the RC, whereas squat, crowded noodle shops are. Broad, clean, modern boulevards are not the RC, whereas dirt labyrinthine alleyways are. Everywhere, Western travelers eschew the New China as they seek the RC.

You want pictures of donkey-carts? Let me know, I’ve got dozens of them. This one is right in front of our apartment building when they were cutting the grass back in September. Must be the RC—we don’t cut grass like that at home.

There is a huge literature that describes how Westerners have for generations been defining China--and the "Orient" generally--in self-serving ways that ultimately say more about Western notions of cultural superiority than they do about the "reality" of the Orient. Edward Said's classic book, "Orientalism," is a good starting point. In "Americans and Chinese: Passage to Differences," Francis L.K. Hsu describes the photos of China that appear in the fourteenth edition (1959) of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There are twenty-seven images cataloguing, in Hsu's words, the following things: "a street scene with barefoot carriers, hawkers, and slum-like buildings; a junk with sails; meal time for about ten coolies (all squatting around a table); a pagoda; a camel caravan in Inner Mongolia; a barber giving a haircut to a boy on the street; interior of a Chinese fishing vessel used as a home; street fortuneteller and letter writer; three barefoot boys playing dominoes on the waterfront; an opium smoker in action; a worker adjusting a modern generator; wood water wheels on the Yellow River; construction worker applying plaster bamboo latticework on a house wall; six males outside a guard rail watching coke-oven batteries; bamboo rafts on a river; coolies carrying cargo on a water front; a harbor scene; a nearly nude coolie carrying loads with a pole; a soldier with bayoneted rifle but bare head and upper body; a street scene with three buses and many tri-rickshas; mother and baby in front of a village shop; a laborer dining at a sidewalk restaurant; two tribal women in rags grinding rice with primitive tools; farm women carrying produce to market; farmer transplanting rice; women grading coal by hand at a mine; a tri-ricksha man taking a nap in his vehicle."

Certainly a photographer visiting China in 1959 had more opportunities to witness primitive and exotic scenes than I do today, and yet, it does seem like Hsu makes a compelling point: the encyclopedia reinforces the view that "China is a land where coolies, fortunetellers, opium smokers, and primitive water wheels predominate--a picture in substantial agreement with America's popular notion of that Asian land." Is the popular perception of China really that much different today? In American minds, China is still largely a place of peasant farmers, exploited industrial workers, bird flu and other exotic diseases, unsanitary and unsafe conditions, and environmental catastrophe.

A dirt street! Must be the RC. Do we have dirt streets in America? By the way, the big guy in the yellow and black jacket is Jed, also an American teacher. This was on a bike ride a couple months ago.

In an interview with Diane Rehm, Rob Gifford says that “Shanghai is not China.” Shanghai, in other words, is not the "real China." I understand what he means. The economic miracle and modernization of China epitomized by cities like Shanghai does not begin to capture the reality of China for the majority of the Chinese who still live in rural villages or gritty industrial areas. It is similar to saying that "New York City is not the real America," meaning that New York City--urban, hip, artsy, liberal, and cosmopolitan--does not capture the reality of "America" for most Americans. These things are true. But, at the same time, I am highly skeptical of the search for "authenticity," whether in nature or culture. I mean--isn't everything authentic? Yes, there are quantifiable differences between old-growth forests and city parks, but both contain "nature." There are differences between growing up on the "rez" and growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but Native Americans from both places are still Indian. There are differences between Shanghai (one of the richest areas of mainland China) and Gansu province (one of the poorest), but both are China. And yet, people are always seeking out "real nature," "real Indians," and the "real China." In doing so, they are also suggesting that other things, other people, other places, are not authentic. And I guess I just think that everything has a legitimate claim on authenticity. Even fake things--like politicians--are authentically fake, right?

A motor-cart with coal. Must be the RC!

I apologize if this post is getting a little bit too post-modern. I'm really not a post-modern guy. I do think that you can make distinctions between things. I do believe that objective reality exists beyond our subjective interpretations of it. I guess I'm just trying to rein in my own Western impulse (a la Encyclopedia Britannica) to seek out the "RC," and, in doing so, to exoticize and objectify China and Chinese people. (I have not yet used the phrases "the other" or "othering." There is an inside joke in our department at CBC about such despised academic jargon. However, in this case, I guess "othering"--as in defining oneself in opposition to exotic "others"--is precisely what I'm talking about.)

I coined the phrase, "the RC," as a kind of self-deprecating joke about my own questionable inclinations to seek out the "real" China. When we were in Datong, which was, in our frank opinion, quite dirty, gritty, and crowded, I would often say (in a deep pretentious voice with a British accent), "We're seeing the RC." I began to use the phrase for anything unsavory that could be reveled in instead of dreaded because it was the RC: the stench of the sewer, chaotic traffic, crowded trains, etc....

Deep down, I guess I'm still a sucker for the RC. We'll have to look especially hard for it when we visit Xian, Shanghai, and Hangzhou in January. Will we find the RC in the swimming pool at our four-star hotel? Will we be able see it from the window of our speeding bullet-train? I'll keep you posted.

A Hummer? No, can’t be the RC.

Crazy English!

These students study “Crazy English” and they are a pretty fun group.

On Sunday I went with Carol, a Korean-American student here at Shi-Da, to give a three hour talk on American culture to about fifty Hohhot university students. Carol is from Los Angeles and she's been here since September, studying Chinese. She was asked by a Chinese friend of hers to find a foreign teacher willing to talk about American culture to university students who are taking classes at the "Beijing Successful English School." I had never heard of the school but agreed to do the gig for Carol, who is not only really nice but also has been generous enough to come to my English classes (my students were absolutely befuddled because they just couldn't believe that Carol was American--until they heard her talk).

Carol came over on Saturday morning for an American pancake breakfast so we could plan our talk. We expected to give the presentation together. We decided to hit all usual topics--holidays, family life, sports, entertainment--while avoiding all the controversial ones--politics and religion. Carol agreed to put together a powerpoint presentation with pictures that would stimulate class discussion.

I have to admit: I wasn't thrilled about taking a large chunk of my Sunday to talk to college students about Halloween and the NBA. I've been feeling a little down lately. Maybe its the winter blues, or perhaps just a little weariness from living in very small quarters with an 8 and 6 year old who happen to be experiencing a lot of interesting neuroses as of late ('Papa, I'm afraid that a robber will scale the building and come in through our window!"), but I also think I've been despairing recently about the possibility (or impossibility?) of breaking through the cultural barrier that keeps me trapped in my own ignorance and prevents me from having more meaningful interactions with students and colleagues. So the idea of more meaningless discussions about the most superficial aspects of "American culture" was not appealing.

On Sunday, Carol's Chinese friend Jerry met me in front of the Education Hotel and took me to Gong Da (Inner Mongolia University of Technology) where the lecture would take place. It was nice to see Gong Da, which I had not yet visited. It is the university where Sharon, the wife of Yongsheng, my CBC colleague, had received her engineering degree.

It ended up that Carol and I were separated into two different classrooms, each with about fifty students. So the powerpoint presentation went with Carol and I walked in to face fifty Chinese university students for a three-hour presentation with nothing more than a piece of chalk and an empty mind (perfect condition for Buddhist enlightenment but not necessarily good for teaching). I expected to be greeted with the usual classroom full of attentive but shy students who would be extremely reticent about asking questions and engaging in classroom discussion. I was surprised. These students, who were drawn from all of Hohhot's universities, including Gong Da, Shi Da, and Nei Da (Inner Mongolia University), were extremely lively. They jumped at the chance to ask me questions, including "What do you think of opportunity"-- ("I'm all for it"); "What is your goal in life?"; "What is more important to you--your career or your family?"; "How do Americans make friends?"; and "What is your academic specialty?"

Sure, they also asked me some really silly questions, like “Can you tell us about the NBA” and “How do you pronounce Shaquille O'Neal." But they were very animated. They laughed at my jokes (which have become evermore animated and buffoonish since I've come to China), they expressed their own opinions, and they answered questions which I posed to them.

Part of my board, including the phonetic pronunciation of Shaquille O’Neal, a method of ascertaining to which Asian populations Native Americans are most closely related, and a popular adversarial teaching approach in America.

I came away really impressed and energized. I was especially taken by their questions for me. My own students at Shi Da are hesitant to ask me any questions during class, often nodding their heads "No" when I ask them if there are "Any questions," and then coming to see me after class to ask questions in private. These students were not at all like that. They were outgoing like my American students, but they were attentive and respectful like my Chinese students--the best of both worlds, really.

This was a different kind of school, I was to learn. These students are studying "Crazy English," invented by Li Yang in the 1990s. Crazy English is more than just a teaching methodology. It is intended to help Chinese students break through what might be their greatest impediment to learning English--their modesty; their self-restraint; their fear of making a mistake; their fear of "losing face." In a style that mimics charismatic American self-help gurus, Li Yang helps Chinese students peel back the layers of their social training, encouraging them to stand up in front of their peers and gesticulate as they shout English catch-phrases as loudly as they can.

He tells Chinese audiences to "Enjoy losing face." He admonishes them not to be afraid of failure, saying that "Embarrassment is a motivation to become better." He inspires audiences with a full repertoire of self-help slogans, like "If you are strong enough, you are your own God," and "Get up every morning believing it's going to be a nice day," and "The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today."

It is not surprising that when Li Yang began his evangelical lectures about ten years ago, traditionalists were shocked. An article in China Today explains how Li Yang's methods "ran counter to all traditional modes and concepts of teaching....Crazy English was initially despised and detested by the many traditional Chinese people who have long cherished the oriental virtues of restraint, modesty and moderation."

And yet, Li's popularity has soared. He gives talks to millions of people. He fills auditoriums around the country. And he inspires students, like the ones who were sitting in front of me at Gong Da, to spout out myriad slogans and reach for their dreams.

The man himself. Li Yang is charismatic and controversial.

After learning more about Li Yang, I cannot help feeling ambivalent about Crazy English, not only because Li Yang seems a bit corny and cultish, but also because he is not just teaching English but trying to transform Chinese culture, pushing students to embrace a more extroverted and individualistic approach to life (is this really what China needs?).

There is also a strongly nationalistic element to Li Yang's program. This is ironic: how can Li Yang be both an apostle of English teaching in China and a proponent of spreading Chinese language and culture throughout the world? He apparently does not see any contradiction in these goals, telling Chinese people that "We have to grasp English before we can spread Chinese to more countries and regions of the world."

Oddly, Li Yang claims that his English program will "teach Chinese children to be proud of their country, proud of their mother tongue and proud of themselves." I am all for China's self-strengthening, but it seems a little disingenuous to promote English as a form of Chinese cultural nationalism. One blogger argues that Li Yang has to cloak his methodology in nationalism in order to have the freedom to travel throughout China, and the world, teaching English. This may be true. If so, his cultural nationalism is nothing more than extremely cynical. If not, his cultural nationalism, and his advocacy of Chinese cultural imperialism, is extremely troubling. As someone who has always been critical of American cultural imperialism, I cannot help but have misgivings about Li Yang's zeal to export Chinese culture to the rest of the world, however quixotic that goal may be.

And yet, I could not help but be touched by the enthusiasm of these students at Gong Da. They had an amazing energy. Maybe, I thought to myself, these students were a rare hybrid, anchored in their Chinese worlds of family and tradition but fueled by a little dose of American-style go-get-em-ness.

Talking with them brought out all the self-helpy inspirational sappiness in me. I talked about "Choosing a job that you love so that you'll never work another day in your life"--a paraphrase of a Confucius quotation that I gave in response to a student who asked me "What is an important saying that you think is vital to your life?" I talked about how life is "What you make with what you are given" and other equally hackneyed inspirational sound bites. I was transformed into what they wanted: an American self-help speaker hired to inspire and dispense life-advice to aspiring Chinese students. The weirdest part about it: It was really enjoyable.

Inspirational self-help guru David Arnold delivers his message to students in Hohhot, China. (Note: Although inspirational, Arnold apparently cannot spell. The word on the lower left is, embarrassingly, “Confucius,” spelled Confuscious.)

After my talk I spent a good forty-five minutes signing autographs (no kidding!) and taking pictures with students.

Afterwards, Carol and I were taken to dinner by some teachers at the school who treated us to an excellent Mongolian meal which was not much diminished by the fact that we both had to endure a full-court press to get us to become teachers at their school. I was offered 1000 RMB per month more than they pay me at Shi Da (which, I didn't tell them, is absolutely zero--my salary comes solely from CBC).

So I should at least ask: does anyone out there need a job? (No kidding!)

I've been reading this book from the 1950s which compares Chinese and Americans. You can guess the thesis: Americans are individualistic and the Chinese are "situation-centered." The author drives me crazy--in fact, I almost hate the book, mostly because he argues that the web of culture in which we reside is almost inescapable. And yet, on this night I felt like the cultural divide was not so great after all. Whether that is good or bad, I'm not sure.

Thanks for reading.

Dave