Learning Chinese

Sometimes when I am here and studying for Chinese tests I wonder how i have made it this far in school. I am a PhD candidate and sometimes I really do not like school. I've spent a lot of time in school and have always passed as a good student and just kept going. But being in a Chinese classroom (albeit a very good Chinese classroom) that reminds me of why I do not like school. I think the teachers in this program are amazing and are the best Chinese teachers I've had. We have small classes of 1-5 students and each have an equal chance to practice in class and outside of class, but learning a language still requires a very rigid style of learning.

I spent the weekend working on homework. I stayed in my room and studied all the Chinese I've learned this summer to prepare for my final exams. And I had fun! But the thing is that I don't do well on exams. OK, I admit a bit of exaggeration and truth be told, I do just fine, but I don't pass with flying colors. When I study I do not study to regurgitate exactly what the teacher wants on the exam. I study to learn. I want my Chinese to improve so I want to know what I have learned, regardless of whether I can do well on the exam. So I think the reason I have continued in school is because I love learning. In a Chinese language program, the emphasis is on doing homework and taking exams to show you have prepared. But I prepare my Chinese as I see necessary to survive as a researcher in the field, not as the teacher sees in mastering the language. Both are important but I just want to jump ahead to the end goal and skip the rigid grammar in between.

I think my strategy in school has been to take classes which emphasize learning through thinking; at my liberal arts college I chose the classes with final papers, not final exams. Was it a cop-out, an excuse to not have to take exams? Or another way to show that I can still learn, even if what I learn is not quantitatively measured through an exam? Or am I just selfish, wanting to learn what is relevant to what I think about and not what the teacher wants?

Following my college education and 2 years in the Peace Corps, I went to an amazing college for my master's degree where grades were all but irrelevant and classroom emphasis was on fulfilling the needs of the student. It was perfect for me, in both course content and in personal growth. And, I have nothing but excellent praise for my current PhD program at the U of Colorado. I think the freedom I found in my higher education career has catered to an excellent learning environment. But when it comes to learning foreign languages or taking statistics or anything that requires finding the 'right answer' and being tested through exams, I feel like a terrible student. But then I read a book or write a paper where I am free from the structures of a rigid education system and I want to learn more.

One of our final assignments for the summer, in addition to final exams, is to write an essay in Chinese characters covering the topic of our independent study course. Mine, of course, is about rice. I spent the weekend working on this essay. I went back over my readings and notes and summaries I have written all summer and I composed a long-very long-essay. I need to shorten this essay, even though I could keep writing for as long as I have things to say. I am using the grammar I have studied in my classes. When I apply what I have learned to a topic that interests me, I know how important all of my classes have been.

And, as a future college professor, I realize an ultimate goal in education is to find the balance between what the teacher wants students to know and what students want to show the teacher what they know. I hope I can find that balance when I get there. But for now, I am still a student and need to study for my exams.

a reminder

I went for a walk today. My main goal was to find grocery stores, but really I wanted to walk through the city during the day, and escape the gates of the university. I had the afternoon off from classes and I did not want to study; I wanted to see where people bought rice. Not really having a direction in mind, I walked toward the part of town where I knew there was a Carrefour (a large French supermarket chain). After passing Carrefour, I stepped into a few stores. It turned out most sold clothes and not food. But it was interesting nonetheless. I went into a place that was definitely high class, filled with high-end stores (including a BMW accessory store). It was air-conditioned and quiet, with light music playing in the background. I felt underdressed in my sporty sandals and skirt. So I left and found an underground market through which I walked to cross the street. Five minutes later, I found myself in an alley, littered with raw garbage, rats, and beggars. I felt overdressed in my sporty sandals and skirt.

Overwhelmed with the drastic differences in the streets of Harbin, I made my way back to Carrefour to check out the rice displays. I think I got there at a good time because there were 2 employees re-filling the rice bins. I was able to see what kind of rice they used from the bags they were using to dump the rice. I lingered around and took pictures of the bins and of the bags of rice. I’m still trying to figure out how to incorporate the market end of consumption into my research, so I was just getting ideas. Most of the customers came up and stuck their hands in the rice, scooping it up and letting it fall through their fingers, I guess as a way to tell if it was good rice (a future research question). I basically decided that I have a lot of questions I can ask in a survey form to rice consumers, and left Carrefour to walk back to my university campus.

I decided to take the back way home and walk through alleys. Again, I walked across the street and was struck the drastic difference between poor (people living in the alleys) and rich (Carrefour customers). I turned my i-pod on for the walk home and found some deep, depressing music to listen to as I contemplated the have and have-nots existing side-by-side in this city. In my Chinese classes, the teachers always talk about gaigekaifa (opening up and reform which started in China in 1978). It is unquestionably seen as the policy that has improved everyone’s lives through economic development. Sure, especially in Harbin they recognize that the xiagang (laid off workers) are a by-product of reform, but finding them jobs is just another problem. In other words its an accepted social issue to be dealt with. I am not here to judge whether China is better off after reform. It is impossible to make that judgment call, but I am here to look at the complications that have arisen from the process of reform.

I contemplated all of these ideas as I walked. Sure many American cities are exactly the same as Chinese cities, but there is at least infrastructure (such as sewage) in many American cities to prevent the poor from being as destitute (though Chinese cities lack the crime many find in American cities). As I turned a corner, a familiar (good) smell struck me and I looked below. An entire portion of the street corner was covered in freshly picked garlic. There was a truck behind the garlic and people working on cutting the garlic from its stalks. In my mind, I immediately flashed back to Maine where I spent a summer on a farm, harvesting and drying out garlic (among other things). Although I was deep in thought and listening to depressing music (in a good, contemplative way), I just had to stop. I took out my headphones, reached for my camera, and smiled at the people scattered among the garlic.

The questions began from both ends. They were eager to hear where I was from, why I could speak Chinese, how long I have been here, if we have garlic in my country, etc. I was eager to understand how they could just dump a truck full of garlic on the street and start cutting the heads from the stalks. As I was listened and watched, I realized this was their stall and they had just brought a new load of garlic. Customers and the garlic hawkers alike gathered around me as I tried to figure out what was going on. It turned out two of the women I had been talking to were customers there to buy garlic. They walked away with bags filled with fresh garlic. One walked into the alleys from which I had emerged; the other walked over to her accessory-decorated car and popped the trunk.

And as I turned to walk home, I remembered that this is precisely why I study food. Food brings people together. The customers and the hawkers alike told me about this garlic was good, it was fresh and picked early in the season. It had just been picked that morning. And people from all classes know it is good and come to buy it. They wanted to know about garlic in the US and I wanted to know about garlic in China. Food is a common thread that keeps us alive. And in the US where people are increasingly paying more and going out of their way for the opportunity to consume local food, it is dumped on the street corners in China.

I got back to my dorm and was enjoying the deep thoughts I was having as I continued to listen to my music. I sat on the stoop in front of the dorm, not yet ready to re-enter the life of a student. I must have looked really depressed (but really if I look depressed I’m probably just thinking hard and enjoying myself) because another foreign student from Yemen who I had never met before walked over to the marigolds growing in front of the dorm and picked one for me. And thus I re-entered the life of being a foreign student in China.

Ready to focus on rice

Five weeks of Chinese classes are done. With an average of about three tests a week, plus tons of homework, I am beginning to see the results and am feeling really good about my ability to conduct interviews and read reports on rice. Over the last week or two, I've been feeling torn between being anxious to start my research and wishing that classes could last longer and prolong the inevitable where I am completely on my own and have to be self-motivated to structures my days around talking to people and reading about rice. I think I've come to the content realization that this program is going to come to an end and my research is going to have to happen. Part of the comfort I feel comes from just talking to people about rice and hearing their ideas about it. The more conversations I have about rice, the more I see that people are responsive and excited to talk about rice. This week I've had great spontaneous conversations with my language teachers, the foreign affairs director of my school, random restaurant owners, and a Harbin history professor. It is their responsiveness that is getting me excited to turn my attention completely to rice in just about a month.

So I started this week getting ready to live here after everyone else in my program departs to go back to the US. I am working on securing a year-long research visa and I have begun asking about apartments in Harbin. THese projects are time-consuming and I am hoping that once my program ends and the Olympics begin (i.e. everyone will be glued to the television), I will have the time to focus full-time on getting the details of living in China taken care of.

In the meantime, I am enjoying spending time with my classmates and teachers. This morning all of the students in my group went out with our teachers to the countryside. We went to a "Russian Park" but it was still being built, so there was not that much to do there. Except I thoroughly enjoyed it because the sun was shining, there was green grass and trees everywhere, and we had a picnic. It felt good to be out of the city for a day. On the way, we passed some rice fields, adding to my enthusiasm to get out and check out the rice. I just have to be patient and realize that I have a whole year ahead of me of being around rice. For now, I have to prepare a report about what I did this morning at the park for class tomorrow, not to mention study for a test in another class.

Rice fields from a moving bus...

Walking through Harbin

I first came to Harbin in January of 2002. It was about 6 months after I arrived in China and the first destination I traveled outside of Beijing and Sichuan I visited. As soon as we completed our first semster of teaching in Luzhou, my friend Brian and I took the train to China's famous northeastern city. We stayed in an old hotel in 'lao Harbin' (or old Harbin) on a pedestrian street of cobblestones. Aside from being outside in the cold, Harbin in winter was a great place to visit. We spent about 4 or 5 days walking around the cold streets, exploring Russian and Korean food, visiting Siberian tigers, and anti- Japanese museums. In the middle of winter, Harbin has a big ice and snow festival where we could climb on and through large sculptures of ice with colored lights inside. Although I did quite a lot in those few days I was here, most of my memories of being here in the winter are limited to walking through the cobblestone streets of lao Harbin.

Being in Harbin during the summer at a university is quite a different experience. My daily life consists of studying, going to class, running, eating, and more studying. I've gotten into a routine here that pretty much remains limited to the university campus. Friday night I broke that routine when, at 9:30 at night, some friends and I decided to take a walk in the cool night air to lao Harbin. From the campus, its about an hour walk to this area of town. Walking through Chinese cities is a must I do in all cities I visit, but the distraction of classes has kept me from exploring much since I got here.

Once we survived walking through the terrible Harbin traffic (traffic is much worse here than other Chinese cities) to the pedestrian friendly lao Harbin, we wandered through these streets and to the river. Maybe because its cool, clean, and free of cars, its a popular destination for many to stroll during the evening. As I was walking, I had a hard time believing that this was the same city I had visited years before. It was warm, people were enjoying being outside, there was a lot of laughing, there were street vendors selling ice cream and cold drinks on every block, and, of course, the clashing sounds of karaoke were abundant.

I think the seasonal differences are the most obvious explanation for the differences. But I now have a different relationship with the city. I can think of Harbin as much more of a city where people live and I am not secluding myself to the touristed cobblestone streets and ice festival. Like many others out on Friday night, my friends and I were grateful for the cool air and the peaceful, car-free environment as an escape from the routines that guide our days. I hope that by next summer, I can write about Harbin from a much different perspective than I have now after being here for a month.

An Inner Mongolian Fourth of July

I've spent a total of four 4th of Julys in China. In the Peace Corps, they were nothing special, but maybe some red, white and blue cupcakes (which were actually a great treat). The consulate in Chengdu had parties but the volunteers were never invited. Last summer, I along with all of the NSF fellows I was in Beijing with, were invited to the US Embassy's party in a big hotel. It was quite an event with an American football theme and lots of American food. Each of these holidays have been an excuse for Americans to get together. Surprisingly, in the land of fireworks, I have never celebrated a Fourth of July in China with fireworks.

This year, my language program arranged a trip to Inner Mongolia for us. We took an overnight train on Thursday and arrived in Hailaer on Friday morning. We then got on a bus and drove through amazing green scenery tainted with hills, horses, and sheep, just as one would expect to find in Mongolia. We went to a park where we could climb one of the hills (maybe a mountain if you're not used to living in Colorado). It was amazing scenery.

I love wildflowers. I especially love wildflowers in China, where they are rare.
What I really love is wildflowers on top of mountains in China I get to climb myself.



By the time we got back to the bottom, we found a whole picnic waiting for us. Eating outside on tables is certainly not uncommon in China but eating outside picnic-style certainly is. When they began to cut up the watermelon, I realized they had done this for the Fourth of July.

Setting up for the picnic.


That afternoon we drove further until we got to a 'traditional' Mongolian village set up for tourists. They village had yurts where we slept, horses to ride, traditional musicians and singers. Although we were warned against horseback-riding here, my classmate Candice and I just had to do it. We both felt we've ridden enough horses to feel comfortable and assure people we were not scared. t turns out Mongolian horses are much more li hai (hard core) than American horses. When we first started galloping off down the hill towards the lake, it was scary. But we told the guides to take us off to the grasslands and be slower, and enjoyed the rest of the ride.

That evening we had a bonfire and were scheduled to watch a performance. Turned out that the performance was interactive and we were all encouraged to dance around the bonfire with the dancers. It rained but no one cared. Afterwords, someone in our group set off a couple small fireworks. A Mongolian version of the fourth of July, minus the red, white, and blue.

The next day we took the bus to Manzhouli, near the Russian border. As foreigners, we could not go anywhere near the border, but we got to go to a Russian restaurant for lunch (does that count for something?). I walked around the town for the rest of the afternoon. It was fun because for once, people would not speak to me in English, but in Russian and I could honestly tell them I could not understand them.

That night we got on a train back to Harbin. Now I have lots of studying to do.

Copying Keys

Over the weekend, I managed to lose one of the keys to my room. In a dorm in the US, this would cost money to replace the locks, but it China, the solution is cheap. I just needed to copy the key. Copying Chinese keys is a rather easy process-I've done this several times before. I once lived in a Beijing apartment that had plenty of lock and key issues (if Meg and Joey are reading this, they will remember-now its funny but at the time was rather frustrating). So, with my roommate's key in hand, I set out to pei yaoshi (copy key). I didn't know where to go exactly, but I know there are plenty of tiny little stalls every few blocks in China that can pei yaoshi for a really cheap price. I had plenty of time and wasn't worried about not finding a place.

Well, I only wish I had set out with a map of the campus and marked off each new direction that someone had sent me in. I probably asked about 10 different people, and the first 3 sent me in completely opposite directions, all on the university campus. By the time I got to the fourth person, he told me it was in the Ha Gong Da (this university) store. So I went to the store, which actually is a big lot of a series of several specialty stores. None of them little, dirty, and dark enough to pei yaoshi. But I asked and they sent me to the other side, then they send me back to the first side. Eventually, I walked out of the building and asked a man outside in a stall. He sent me to the other side of the building. Just as I was about to ask the next guy, I saw a bike tire pump. Ah-hah! Many of the places in China which can pei yaoshi are also the same ones which can fix bikes. Sure enough I turned the corner and asked if they could pei yaoshi. Two minutes later, for two yuan, I was holding a shiny key. The nice man held it up with the old key to show me they look alike. At last. And the good news is that I brought it home and it actually worked!