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