Snowed in...

This is the view from our balcony this morning. There are all of two inches of snow on the ground here and that means that the airport is closed down. No flights in or out. We were supposed to leave for Xi'an at 10:25am and now we don't know when we'll get out. It is also snowing in Xi'an. Fun stuff!

Find out how our vacation turns out....in February.

Dave

Worse than Pulling Teeth

Indexing my book was worse than getting teeth pulled. But this picture is not metaphorical. I actually did go to the dentist last week—but fortunately didn’t have any teeth pulled. See below. Photo Credit: Samuel

Hi everyone. I haven't even considered blogging this past week because I've been up to my ears (actually over my head) indexing my book. Indexing, by the way, is way harder than I ever imagined, but it is also fun, in a perverse sort of way, especially when you write a book where you have index entries like "Christianity" just above "chum salmon," or "Locke, John" just above log jams. Talk about mixing the sacred and the profane (I almost got carried away, but stopped short of indexing "God" above "gooseberries"). Anyway, it's done now--just sent off to my editor (I love saying that) today.

Next up: leaving this morning for Xi'an where we are supposed to be meeting my friend Howard, who teaches history at Shaanxi Normal University, for dinner tonight in the Muslim quarter. The only catch: there was a snow-storm here yesterday and flurries still continue this morning. Clyde is almost certain that our flight will be delayed and he's probably right. For being Inner Mongolia, Hohhot is not very prepared for snow--I've never seen a snow-plow or gravel-spreading truck. Without a doubt, we'll have to wait, who knows how long, for our flight. People here are prepared to wait (for everything), and we're trying to adopt that attitude and just relax. We'll let you know how it turns out.

Besides indexing, there are few recent events to report on, but I wanted to mention one. Last week, Tyler told me that Malicha was going to get her teeth cleaned. The kids and I went along because I wanted to get my teeth cleaned--I used some tooth paste that I bought here and within a week I had a dark tea stain on my front tooth (this happened to me once at home when I brushed with Listerine...weird).

Anyway, going to a dentist here in China is not really that much different from home, but there are a few exceptions. First of all, after I had my teeth cleaned I wanted to get the kids' teeth cleaned. Grace lay down on the table (for some reason, she WANTED her teeth cleaned), the dentist examined her mouth and said, "Good, she doesn't need her teeth cleaned." Samuel lay down and the same thing happened. Now, have you ever been to your dentist and they decided NOT to clean your teeth? Crazy. Part of the reason for this, I think, is because kids here do not, as a rule, get regular cleanings. They visit the dentist only when something happens (see my previous posting). Our kids, who thankfully have had regular check-ups their entire lives, probably have great teeth by comparison. You can learn a lot about class and society throughout the world by looking people's teeth. Next book?

Secondly, when I tried to pay for my own teeth cleaning, the dentist waved me off--"Don't worry about it." Has this ever happened to you in the good ole USA? Will it ever happen to you in the USA? Never. (By the way, if I had paid for my teeth-cleaning, it would have been 40 RMB, or under $6.)

Well, need to get going to the airport so that we can wait for our flight--hopefully not for too long.

Will be posting after our return on February 1.

Take care,

Dave

Air-Gun Diplomacy

The apartments behind our building where the “air-gun incident” occurred.

Last Wednesday afternoon, we literally had to force Samuel and Grace to go outside and play: "Get your clothes on NOW and go out and play for at least one hour or no allowance!"

It has been a constant strain on the family to be living in our tiny apartment. We are tripping over each other. I am working in what is essentially the kids bedroom, which is essentially the main room of our apartment. In order to keep everyone from killing each other, we have to force the kids to go outside and play. But this in itself has been problem. It's cold out. There is "nothing to do outside," etc... On this day, I told them they can go wander around the apartment complexes behind the Education Hotel. "Explore. Be kids. Just watch for cars."

As usual, we expected them to be banging down the door within minutes inquiring how much long they had to stay out, but, surprisingly, this time there was no sign of them and the clock kept ticking...45 minutes, 1 hour...."Where are the kids?" We were starting to get worried and I was pulling my coat on to go find them when they blasted through the door laughing, faces flushed with excitement.

They were stumbling over each other trying to tell us that they met some boys who invited them to play with air-pellet guns. Apparently they had a great time and they wanted to do it again. "Can I get an air gun, Dad?" It sounded great to me. Anything to get them out of the apartment. And what a great thing--they actually made Chinese friends on their own and had a good time playing! (Their shyness towards Chinese kids has been a source of frustration for us.) Not even knowing what these "air guns" were, I was ready to declare that I'd buy one for each of them when we got a phone call from Clyde, our waiban, who told me that he had an upset mother in his office. "Did Samuel break a boy's tooth with a gun?" he asked.

I was shocked. "Did you break some kid's tooth, Samuel?" Samuel was surprised and immediately on the defensive. "Everyone was shooting at each other," he explained. It turns out that near the beginning of the game, Samuel had accidentally shot one boy in the mouth, although he had no idea at the time that the boy's tooth had cracked. Samuel apologized in Chinese and the game went on for another hour. The boy who was hit had kept playing, apparently un-phased. Samuel and Grace were also hit in the face with pellets, as was everyone else. Everyone was taking shots at each other. No one had protective gear. Now the mother and grandfather of the boy who had gotten hit in the mouth were downstairs and they wanted to see us.

I already knew what was coming. In this rhetorically "communist" society, few people have medical insurance and no one wants to involve the authorities in civil disputes. In China, these kinds of situations are usually resolved with the guilty party--in this case us--paying the medical bills and often a lot more. I was prepared for that--although a little bit upset (as was Samuel) about him taking the blame when he was handed a pellet gun and invited to play a game with other boys. He didn't use good sense, but none of the boys had used good sense. It was an accident--and one less clear-cut than, say, hitting a bicycle with your SUV, when blame is easier to assign. I mean, if you're playing a game of basketball and someone elbows you in the mouth, do you ask that person to pay your medical bills? On the other hand, he did shoot the boy in the mouth. It was his fault. But did that mean we should be entirely responsible for the medical expenses? In China, the answer is yes. (What would happen in America? I'm not really sure--although medical insurance, police officers, and even the courts might factor into the outcome, for better or worse.)

We went downstairs and apologized to the mother and the grandfather. We examined the boys mouth. I felt kind of callous doing this, as if I was checking damaged property I was about to purchase. Indeed, he had chipped one of his front teeth. We decided that she would take him to the medical clinic at Shi Da and go from there, although she was already talking as if there might be some major medical expenses in the offing.

I wasn't too worried about the medical expenses themselves, since medical services are unbelievably cheap here, at least from an American perspective (no predatory insurance companies or HMOs!). But the tone of the negotiations was worrisome. The mother was already talking figures upwards of 1000 RMB (about $140), a sizeable chunk of money that equals Clyde's monthly salary at Shi Da. It is not uncommon here for people to take advantage of situations like this to line their pockets. I've seen it happen before. But Clyde reassured us that the woman and the grandfather were "kind and honest." I was concerned that the boy get treatment--and I was willing to pay. But I have to admit, I was feeling a bit vulnerable, exacerbated by my inability to communicate directly with the woman.

That evening my emotions were swinging back and forth like a pendulum, from anger at having Samuel take the sole blame for an injury incurred when all the kids were playing equally, to vulnerability at having no way to defend Samuel and little knowledge of customary procedures, and, finally, to guilt for my own lack of compassion, my callous worries about financial costs, and my knee-jerk inclination to make the situation into a negative metaphor for Chinese society generally. In the heat of the moment, I began issuing blanket condemnations about the lack of social insurance as well as individual responsibility in China (forgetting that I wasn't owning up to my own individual responsibility for the accident: "Go play on the freeway with guns, kids, as long as you're out of the house!")

Samuel was feeling even worse. First of all, he was really upset at having hurt the boy--he had no idea that his errant shot had done so much damage. He was also feeling anger and resentment at having suddenly been thrust full center into the middle of an international drama involving negotiations, medical procedures, and cash pay-offs. And it stung that he was getting blamed. We told him that everyone knew it was just an accident. But there was no getting around that he was the responsible party and that his parents would be paying for his mistake. "It's just how things are done here," we explained. To which he replied, "I hate Chinese culture!" Great. A positive cross-cultural encounter--our kids finally playing with Chinese kids on their own--was transformed into xenophobia with one pellet shot. Maybe the yellow plastic beebee bouncing off the boy's tooth was really "the pong heard round the world"--a small echo of our cultural misunderstanding reverberating through the night.

Before I went to sleep, I received this alarming email from Clyde:

Dear Dave,

I am really sorry to tell you the latest information below.

The mother just called me, cried sadly, and said that the doctor had said the situation is really bad, even beyond her imagination. The kid’s endodontium (dental pulp) was badly hurt. Now he is undertaking a surgery to take the nerve of out from the tooth, which means the tooth is dead. Only after he is 18, can he receive anther surgery to get an artificial one. That may cost you some hardship financially, I think. Sorry to see that only a playing causes so much trouble. I know that Samuel was not intentionally doing that. Don’t blame him. I will see what I can help.

Good luck with you and the kid.

Yours,

Clyde

All this from a yellow plastic bullet? At dinner that evening, just after the initial incident, one of our Chinese friends, Emi, just shook his head and said, "As long as nothing happens, the system works great. But if you get in an accident in China, it is a really big headache." No kidding. This was really a mess. (And yet, in what country are accidents not headaches?)

Overnight the guilt really went to work on me. I woke up ready to pay (almost) any amount, to think about the little boy and his tooth first, to meet our responsibilities head-on, to be compassionate.

We heard from Clyde around lunchtime. A meeting had been arranged at 2:30pm with the family in Vice Dean Wong's office. I didn't really want to involve the school, but there was no getting around it: it happened on the grounds here at Shi Da and Clyde was pulled in from the beginning.

At the meeting, I was told that the boy was fine but that more treatment would be required. In fact, the initial medical expenses had totaled no more than 100 RMB (about $14), but later procedures might bring the total to as much as 1000 RMB--with another 500 RMB more some years after. We agreed that I would pay all the necessary medical expenses to take care of the boy's tooth in the short term--the 1000 RMB. But I wouldn't pay for anything beyond that. She was happy. I was relieved. And, as a signal that she wasn't "out for money," she would bring the medical receipts to Clyde and I would pay them as they came due.

Great. Deal settled. But not quite. The next morning she called Clyde and said that she wanted the 1000 RMB up front. Tyler and others familiar with the medical system here thought it was way too much for a chipped tooth. Tyler offered to talk to a lawyer for me. But I was ready to be done with the situation. I told Clyde that if the family agreed to not ask for any more money, I would be happy to pay them 1000 RMB up front. They agreed. That night I met the grandfather in Clyde's office. Clyde was sitting at his desk, running 100 RMB notes through a counterfeit scanner machine as a line of students spilled out into the hallway. They were paying their tuition for next semester in cold hard cash. Clyde stood up, shoved a wad of pink 100 RMB notes into his pocket, told the students to wait a moment, and walked with me five feet away, where we concluded the deal in full view of the students, many of whom had been in my classes. I handed grandpa 1000 RMB, he counted it, smiled warmly, and shook my hand. And thus our air-gun diplomacy was concluded. We had crossed another small cultural divide, experiencing, to a certain extent, what Chinese people experience when accidents happen. At the same time, the incident underscored the different systems, rules, and customs that exist on opposite sides of the Pacific.

In the end, it was a small matter for me--a filthy rich community-college history instructor--to pay $140.00 to wash my hands of the situation. But what if it had been another boy who had fired the gun, one whose father made only 500 RMB a month? Lacking health insurance, these matters can create real financial hardships for Chinese families.

It's easy to criticize China as a "communist" nation that denies most of its citizens health and dental insurance and lacks an equitable legal system, leaving them vulnerable to the discretion of corrupt and powerful local authorities. And yet, if it had been America, I might have been sued by angry parents. Police and lawyers might have been enjoined to settle the matter, at great expense to everyone. And certainly the medical costs, if insurance did not cover them, would have been severe. Which is worse?

We're moving to Sweden.

Ping-Pong Diplomacy

Because of politics, football, and the internet, I've been spending a lot of real time in virtual America lately. Fortunately, bikes with chickens and ping-pong lessons have reminded me that I'm still living in China.

This last week has been kind of strange. Except for the October Holiday when my Mom was here and we traveled to Datong, it was the first time since I've been here that I haven't had to teach. I spent my time doing all sorts of miscellaneous errands: buying our plane tickets from Hohhot to Beijing for our return date of March 1; getting my torn jacket mended; getting my swollen hand x-rayed (not broken!); having lunch dates with friends; exchanging emails with editors and designers at the UW press about my book (which is supposed to finally be published this spring if I am able to index the final galley proofs from China.)

The weirdest--and most surreal--part of the past week has been the "flat-earth" syndrome I've been experiencing. I don't always agree with Thomas Friedman, who seems to be an uncritical cheerleader for American-style globalization, but he does make catchy phrases, and the earth really is "flat" for some people. It certainly has been flat for me this last week. Since August, my teaching duties and travels have kept me place-bound and rooted in the present moment. Yes, I was emailing and Skyping (which itself is kind of dis-orienting, excuse the pun), but I was largely isolated from the American news cycle. I was living in China, teaching in China, reading the China Daily, talking to Chinese people.

All that seemed to change last week for a couple primary (excuse the pun again) reasons: first the caucuses and then the playoffs. I am both a political junkie and a football junkie. Iowa pulled me in like crazy. I found myself parked in front of the computer reading political blogs and watching "YouTube" coverage of debates, press conferences, stump speeches. (We've been told, by the way, that YouTube will no longer be available in China after January 31--we'll let you know if this is true.) Then came Sunday morning when I got up at 5:30 a.m. to listen to a live audio feed of the Seahawks game followed by video highlights for most of the day. Without my teaching duties, I was pulled into the abyss. Media saturation makes me feel weird at home, but it is especially disorienting here. A flat-earth may be great for multinational corporations and global assembly lines, but it messes with your head: China outside my door; America on my computer screen. I felt kind of stretched and disembodied, as if I was straddling the Pacific, a foot on either side, with my brain floating somewhere in between.

It was thus comforting to be pulled back into the here and now by taking ping-pong lessons this past week. I was invited to play ping-pong by Jong Shu Hui (Nancy), one of the teachers in the English department here at IMNU. Nancy is a serious player. She has a coach. She practices in three hour sessions at least four times a week. I told her that I was not a good ping-pong player, but she insisted on inviting me to her lessons and introducing me to her coach. Frankly, I jumped at the chance. My opportunities for cultural exchange are running out. And I also wanted to be able to impress people back home (one of my driving motivations in life, generally) by being able to say things like, "When I was in Inner Mongolia, my ping-pong teacher always told me that...."

Nancy is a serious player.

It's been pretty fun so far, although rigorous. Not at all like having a couple beers and playing ping-pong with your buddies. Most of it has entailed a thorough de-programming of all my previous ping-pong experience, which consisted primarily of playing ping-pong in the basement with my sisters as a child. Sweeping away all my bad habits has been really hard. The back-hand (the only stroke I've been allowed to use so far) taught to me by Ping-Pong Teacher Li is so dramatically different from what I've done before. If I do it correctly (which happens about one out of every 10 strokes), I'm hitting the ball on the bottom of the paddle when my paddle is parallel to the table. My brain keeps insisting that it is impossible to get the ball over the net doing this, so it's been struggle to overcome this mental conditioning.

Ping-Pong Teacher Li tells me to keep my center of gravity low; to crouch, knees bent, on the balls of my feet, ready to spring like a caged lion; to hold the paddle loosely with all my fingers except my index finger and thumb; to pivot at the waist as my arm comes forward; to extend my arm forward and flick my wrist to finish the stroke; and to keep my mind clear and my muscles relaxed.

There are so many things to think about--my stance, my grip, my posture, the mechanics of each stroke--that "relaxation" and mental clarity are nearly impossible.

If I really work on mechanics and don't worry about hitting the ball over the net, I sometimes take a really good stroke. I can feel it. On those strokes, Ping Pong Teacher Li gives me the thumbs up. The rest of the time, he quietly demonstrates where I should be holding the paddle and how I should be flicking my wrist.

Ping-Pong Teacher Li with his meiguoren (American) student. This guy has a tremendous amount of patience. He plays a lot of ping-pong, drinks a lot of tea, and smokes a lot of cigarettes.

Ping-Pong Teacher Li is in his early sixties. He grew up in Hohhot, the third of five children. He has been giving ping-pong lessons for 25 years. He never finished his own education because of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, where Mao sent students and teachers into the countryside to work in the fields and reform their thinking. Teacher Li spent the years he should have been in the classroom laboring in the fields outside the city. Even though he lost out on his chances at an education during those turbulent years, he says he has "no hard feelings towards Mao" or the Chinese government generally.

During one of the many tea breaks we take while playing, I asked Nancy if Chinese people now feel comfortable criticizing the Cultural Revolution. "Is it generally acknowledged as a failure now?"

Truth is, Chinese people don't like speaking openly to foreigners about such issues. And yet, I have heard others openly criticize the Cultural Revolution, so I figured it was a fair question. A common refrain is that Mao was "70 percent right and 30 percent wrong," and it's pretty clear that the Cultural Revolution falls into the latter category. Nancy is a pretty open and outspoken person and we've previously had a lot of conversations about controversial topics, especially in my faculty seminars.

"People still respect Mao," she answered. "Teacher Li still respects Mao."

"I know people respect Mao," I said. "He built the country and liberated China from foreign intrusion. But because of Mao, Teacher Li didn't get his education. Because of Mao, he had to work in the countryside."

She admitted that Teacher Li's generation was China's lost generation: "They were not able to get their degrees. There were no economic opportunities. Even when Reform and Opening came, they could not get good jobs," she said. "But his generation did not complain. They did not need much to be happy. They were happy with what they had. They had a different attitude towards wealth than the young generation in China today, who are more like Americans."

She went on to explain that Teacher Li and his wife will continue working for a few more years but hope to retire soon and begin receiving benefits from the state.

I hazarded another controversial question. "Isn't the social safety net declining? Isn't the pension system inadequate?" I asked. I have read that China's social safety net is largely eroded--that China, a "communist" country, cannot (or does not) provide its people with as much social insurance (pensions, healthcare, unemployment insurance, free education) as Western countries, even including the United States.

Nancy didn't agree. "The system is getting better in the last couple years," she said. "The government now realizes that it needs to improve social programs for the poor, especially in the countryside." She explained that the Party's policies since Reform and Opening have created more wealth but also more inequality. "The Party has begun to address the problems of the poor peasants." (I do know that the Party has begun to direct programs towards the countryside in an effort to quell popular unrest, which has been brewing throughout rural China. There has been a lot of rhetoric directed towards new programs, including an attempt to offer free education to rural residents. To the extent that these new programs have actually been implemented I do not know.)

"You know half of our country lives in the countryside," she said. "And they live in horrible conditions." She told me that Chinese people like herself feel for the poor peasants and hope their situation will improve.

"We have the resources to help the peasants" she said. "But the government wastes an incredible amount of money." She went on to tell me about huge banquets where government officials waste food and luxury cars driven by corrupt party operatives. "The government helps build the country but it also wastes our resources."

This launched us into a conversation about the Communist Party and the one-party state generally. "Government corruption is a problem in all nations," I said. "Without opposition parties, a free press, and the right for citizens to protest and organize then it is really hard to hold governments accountable."

She agreed. "There are other parties. There is not just one party." she explained. "But all the other parties are still controlled by the Communist Party."

"The Chinese people don't always like the Communist Party, but it is impossible for us to have a government like yours. Even people in the government know it is corrupt, but it is too hard to change it because no one can oppose the party. If you want to live comfortably you have to play by the rules. We all participate in corruption because it is the only way to get ahead."

The room was cool. We were starting to get cold. Ping Pong Teacher Li was finished with his tea and cigarette. It was time to play ping-pong again.

It is hard to believe that much will change in a country where most people--in spite of the disasters of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward--still do not openly criticize the legacy of Mao. It does feel like most people in China are resigned to single-party rule, and frankly, who is to say that multiple parties would be better for the majority of Chinese. Who is to say that a single-party is not desirable for holding together the speeding juggernaut of modern China, with all of its tensions and competing forces? (I mean, in the U.S. we've got two corrupt parties--they only have one.)

As we were leaving on our bicycles, Nancy asked me "If someone steals something, whose fault is it?" I offered quickly and simplistically--"Maybe it's the thief's fault."

"But society has made him a thief," she said. "His environment is responsible for his behavior." Our answers reflected the stereotypical ideologies of our respective nations--my knee-jerk individualism and her default environmental determinism.

"Maybe it is both environment and personal choice," I offered. We left it at that.

Yesterday at lunch I told the story of the famous 1971 Ping-Pong Diplomacy to Samuel and Grace . I became unexpectedly emotional and my voice started to crack as I tried to explain the significance of "the ping heard round the world," as Time magazine called it. An innocent exchange of good will and gifts between American and Chinese athletes (whose dreams were much more modest) sparked the most important moment in modern US-Sino relations--and one of the most important moments for modern world history. I especially got choked up describing how the US Ping-Pong team passed from Hong Kong to mainland China and thereby became the first group of Americans to visit China since 1949. It must have been amazing for them to be greeted in the Great Hall of the People by Zhou Enlai, who told them "You have opened a new chapter in the relations of the American and Chinese people....I am confident that this beginning again of our friendship will certainly meet with majority support of our two peoples."

I'm looking forward to more ping-pong and more conversations this week--to continuing my own modest and less consequential brand of ping-pong diplomacy. I'm also looking forward to finally getting that back-hand stroke down and perhaps, if Ping-Pong Teacher Li allows it, trying out my forehand.

At the end of the week--after New Hampshire and before Green Bay--I'll be giving my final examination. After grading I'll be working on my index for the final version of my book, which is supposed to be arriving as a pdf file sometime early next week. Then it is off to Xi’an and Shanghai for a ten-day trip.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

End of the Year Festivities

Our friends Emi (left) and Malicha making jioa zi (dumplings) on New Years Eve.

Happy New Year everyone! We spent New Year’s Eve with Chinese and American friends making dumplings and singing. I think Arienne is going to post something about that (www.arnoldsinchina.blogspot.com) so I’ll tell you about some of the events of the past week as I finished teaching and went to a number of dinners and banquets.

I was invited to the Foreign Language Institute (FLI) banquet on Thursday. I do not teach for the FLI, but my history seminars were attended in large part by faculty from the English department and I became friends with many of them. There was a nice greyhound-style bus waiting for faculty members at the North Gate of campus. They handed us candy as we climbed aboard. Everyone was in a festive mood--some of the lead teachers were being paid in hard cash for extra duties performed during the semester. Many of the teachers in the English department are hesitant to start conversations with me because they are self-conscious about their spoken English (which is silly, because their English is generally very good), so I expected that the bus ride would be pretty quiet on my end. There are a few teachers, however, who feel fairly uninhibited, like Ruby and Grace, who talked to me on the bus. Grace is applying to graduate school at Columbia University for an M.A. program in education. Ruby's degree is in English literature.

The banquet was held at the Hua Tian Hotel--one of the many nice, luxury hotels in Hohhot. We went to the "Dance Room" which was decorated with strobe lights and mirrored disco balls. The teachers sat in chairs surrounding a dark wood dance floor and consumed green tea, candy and oranges while playing mahjong and singing karaoke. There was a huge karaoke screen streaming pop songs as lush images of beautiful people, luxury cars, scenic beaches, and opulent urban life flashed across the screen. As the disco balls cast their twirling light across the floor, grim communist society was nowhere to be seen.

English department instructors sitting and singing karaoke. That’s Ruby in the middle and Tiffany with the microphone.

Karaoke is the same here as in the West. You don't have to speak the language to hear that pop music is also the same: bouncy, bland, romantic, racy, and shallow songs of love and longing. China is a singing culture. Everyone here loves karaoke. In his book "China Road," Rob Gifford says that "In China, wherever there are people, there are karaoke parlors." Certainly this is true in Hohhot. Karaoke bars like the popular KTV chain can be found throughout the city. All the teachers sang and they had great voices. They could carry the tune even in difficult songs that required a great deal of vocal range.

It struck me how different Chinese "faculty" parties are from those back home. In the States, most university professors would not be caught dead singing karaoke, which is seen as more low-brow business-party style. Academics like to think of themselves as cultured (pronounce in smarmy baritone with hint of English accent). They prefer a more subdued ambience: wine, cheese, jazz music, and mingling. I was also struck by how these supposedly quiet, retreating Chinese teachers could perform karaoke with such ease. On the way to the party, Ruby had told me that Chinese students are too afraid of failure and embarrassment to perform well in spoken English classes. They fear losing face. And yet, these same students (and their teachers) apparently feel no fear of losing face at a karaoke party or a banquet where everyone belts out songs a cappella. What's up with that? Whatever the reasons, I really like the way that banquets and parties here usually involve singing. Watch out Columbia Basin College--I'm going to introduce some new traditions to the faculty Christmas party. (CBC is a community college, by the way. We're not as pretentious as the stereotypical "university professors" mentioned above, so karaoke might have a chance there. But I doubt the tradition will spread to the Ivy League.)

During the pre-banquet activities I was asked to dance, play ping-pong, and sing karaoke.

Dancing with Tiffany. I was wearing my coat because it was really cold in the dance room.

English teachers playing ping pong in the room across from the dance hall. They were really good. I played some, but they just toyed with me.

The banquet was pretty standard: about twenty dishes or so per table, including yang rou (mutton) cooked in different ways, fish, chicken, pork, dumplings, vegetables, steamed buns--all of it amazing. If you've ever been to an American "banquet" held at an academic conference or business meeting, you're familiar with standard banquet fare: a tough piece of chicken breast with bland sauce, frozen mixed vegetables, a scoop of mashed potatoes, a tasteless roll with butter, and a piece of dry cake. Chinese banquets, seemingly no matter how large, are not like that at all. They've somehow mastered the art of gourmet cooking on a mass scale.

Our table. Yum. The food here is really outrageously good. I’m really going to miss it.

Besides the food, there were some speeches, some musical performances, such as the one pictured below by the English department female faculty (including Dean Wu Haiyan), who sang a popular song written to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

And, of course, there was more karaoke, this time performed in the large banquet hall rather than the dark intimate environs of the dance room. I had absolutely no plan to perform anything beyond “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer”, which I sang with the other American instructors. But towards the end of the evening, Grace (pictured below) told me she had signed me up. "You're up next!" she said, smiling.

Thanks to Grace, I found myself performing the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" for the faculty, staff, administrators, and invited guests of the Foreign Language Institute.

I hadn't taken a sip of alcohol the entire evening because there was no beer or wine, only the strong, clear Chinese liquor (maotai) that is the ubiquitous social lubricant of Chinese banquets (also the liquid of choice for the numerous rounds of toasting that are mandatory while banqueting). The maotai is too strong for me so I had been toasting all evening long with green tea. Now I found myself, cowboy-style, slamming down a shot of maotai to "steady my nerves." It didn't work, by the way. It only served to bathe the knot in my stomach with a lather of stinging acid. But I managed to perform--and even garnered a few tributes from the exceedingly generous crowd.

Like a bull-fighter, receiving tributes from the adoring crowd.

The next evening my student Leon invited me to dinner. Leon is from my worst class. They are all computer majors and their English is very bad. But Leon is especially eager to talk and listen. He's been one of my favorite students all quarter long: a nice guy who likes to learn and laugh.

Leon is an only child (I guess I don't need to say that since China's one-child policy determines that nearly everyone in his generation is an only child) from Wuhai, a polluted city of about a half-million, eight hours west of here on the Yellow River. Leon is from the emerging middle class that is beginning to reap the harvest of China's amazing economic boom. His father is a train engineer making daily runs between Yinchuan and Baotou. But the money that sent Leon to university was made by Leon's mom who turned the family's small savings into a small fortune by investing it on the Shanghai stock market.

Leon took me to an excellent hot pot restaurant at the Bin Yue hotel. As we ate mutton, beef, tofu, greens, mushrooms, and noodles cooked in a spicy broth and then dipped in a spicy peanut sauce, we talked about Chinese and American customs. In China, for instance, it is a sign of respect to pour drinks for your guests. Guests don't just "help themselves" as they often do in the US. This particular conversation began when I tried to pour myself some beer. Leon grabbed the bottle, upbraided me, and insisted on pouring my drink. But since we were having an interesting conversation (and one that required a lot of concentration from both of us), I had to ask Leon to fill up my glass a couple times (they were very small glasses). Not wanting to bother him every time I needed a little more tea or beer, I finally just said that "In America, sometimes guests just help themselves" as I poured myself some tea. As long as it was a cross-cultural lesson, Leon let me help myself.

Leon also insisted on paying for dinner but the bill was over 100 yuan and I knew from previous conversations that Leon lives on 500 yuan a month (about 70 dollars). Leon passed the waitress the money and while she was away getting change I explained that "In America it is customary for the older person to pay for the younger person." He wavered but did not entirely bite. "There is also a custom called 'going Dutch'" I explained. "We should perform some American customs tonight as well as Chinese." He finally relented enough to split the cost of the dinner and I thought I saw some relief on his face. We were both in good spirits so I was pretty certain I didn't offend him--although insisting on paying when you've been invited to dinner is a nearly surefire way to offend your hosts. (That's why I didn't even offer to help He Qing when she took us to a very expensive dinner earlier in the week, even knowing that her monthly salary is only about 1000 RMB...)

As we walked back towards my apartment, Leon stopped at a sweet potato vendor and bought me a roasted sweet potato. Before dinner, I had told Leon how much I liked sweet potatoes but he was unable to find them on the menu. "I told you I would feed you sweet potatoes tonight," he said as he handed me the steaming bag. I was really touched. How many American freshmen do you know who are that considerate? Leon is just a special kid. His dream is to become a successful businessman, move to the south and make enough money so that his parents don't have to work anymore. Ok, so maybe we've all had this dream at one time or another, although few of us except Elvis ever do it. But Leon really is special. His dreams are tempered by humility and warmth towards his family. His eyes shine when talks about growing up and catching fish in the Yellow River and roasting them over the fire in their home. In fact, Leon's family has had electricity for only two years and he waxes nostalgically about sitting around the coal burning stove with his mother and father. His childhood sounds like a Chinese version of "Little House on the Prairie"--Ma, Pa and Leon sitting around the fire in the cabin, Pa singing, Ma knitting, and Leon roasting fish over the fire. He told me he doesn't like electricity because no one sits around the fire anymore. The fire was like a magnet pulling the family together. Now the magnetic force is gone, allowing the pieces of family to disperse from the center of household gravity.

Last week was my final week of teaching classes before a reading week and then final exams. That should have meant that when my Friday classes were over I was done teaching. However, on Thursday I was told that I would be teaching my Monday schedule on Saturday. "Why?" I asked Clyde, who relayed this dismal news to me. "Because Tuesday is a holiday so they will have Monday's classes on Saturday and let the students have three days off--Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday." "But we weren't teaching any classes on Monday," I explained to Clyde. "Why are we making up classes on Saturday that we would not have taught on Monday?" Clyde could not provide a sufficient explanation and I was left to ponder this bizarre directive.

So on Saturday I taught six sections to three different classes of students (my normal Monday class load). I was not in the mood to teach even one more class, especially on a Saturday when I had been eagerly awaiting Friday's liberation. I adore my students, but I’m also ready for a rest after a long semester. The lack of rational explanation and the late notification was also a bit annoying. And yet, what could I do? In America, professors are basically pampered, self-important blowhards who are quick to protest against the slightest infringement upon their professional autonomy (although generally slow to react to real injustices that happen in the larger world outside academia). The thought of something like this happening in America is laughable. Professors--even at community colleges like my own--have so many rights that it is inconceivable that an administration could ever force them to teach a full load of classes on a Saturday with only two days notification. It underscored the dramatically different academic cultures that exist on either side of the Pacific.

In America, full-time professors (although unfortunately not adjuncts) have an incredible amount of academic freedom and they are largely protected from arbitrary bureaucracy. Sure, administrations try to get tough from time to time, but professors have many weapons with which to fight--union contracts, tenure agreements, and numerous legal protections. You would not guess it from their withering behavior, but professors in America are super-empowered individuals who are largely responsible for determining their own schedules, office hours, curriculum, and teaching methods. That is not the case here. Teachers do not have tenure or "rights" of any kind. They do not choose their own readings or curriculum or teaching methods. They do what they are told without complaint. They are employees, pure and simple, ready to jump when administrators tell them. At Shi Da, teachers are the last to know when they will have final exams or when their courses will begin and end. There would have been a riot at CBC had we been told on Thursday to teach on Saturday. Here, however, no one even questioned the logic of the official explanation for the last-minute schedule change: to make up Monday classes that were not supposed to meet in the first place.

So what could I really do besides bloviate (which American professors are really good at)? I taught my classes, which was really no big deal. I guess what most upset me about the situation was that because of some arbitrary bureaucratic decision my teaching semester ended on an off-key note. I had "ended" these same classes on a good positive note on Wednesday. I had finished the course. We reviewed. We talked. We had a good time. I thanked them. They thanked me. Students took pictures. It was a good farewell. Then we were all dragged back for one more day. They didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be there. Our semester was finished. It was hard for them to be positive. It was hard for me to be positive. We had been forced back into the classroom for reasons that had nothing to do with teaching and learning. The "love" that we were all feeling earlier in the week went a little sour, all to satisfy some bureaucratic calendar.

The next day were invited to lunch at a really nice Mongolian restaurant with Vice-Dean WuYunna (who incidentally was not responsible for the Saturday teaching) and her husband, Hasbagana, who is head of the Mongolia Language and Literature Research Institute here at IMNU. The food was great. The company was great. I will miss WuYunna and my colleagues here.

The next day was New Year’s Eve. I’m too tired to tell you anything more except Happy New Years!

Thanks for reading.

Dave