Expectations

In China, you expect everything to be different, and when it isn't, you're surprised.

I feel quite strongly about the issue of fair wages in America, and specifically, I support the growing living wage movement. With the recent debate in Chicago over an ordinance requiring "big-box retailers" such as Wal-Mart, who make billions each year but pay their employees poverty wages and put an added burden on already-stretched tax payers, to offer their employees a living wage, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have my students write about fairness in the workplace. This issue is also of great importance to China, as many of the goods produced cheaply here are sold directly to American consumers in stores such as Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart raised its employees' wages, and if they didn't import goods made for next to nothing in China, then perhaps the living standards of both countries could be raised.

After giving the students a bit of background history about business in America and about current issues, such as minimum and living wages, I gave them a topic for an essay: Should companies as wealthy as Wal-Mart be allowed to pay their employees minimum wages, even if this means the government must shoulder the extra burden required to supplement their meager incomes (i.e. provide Medicaid, food stamps, etc.)? You may be thinking that the question was a little tilted, but framing a question this way is necessary in China in order to get the students to think about alternatives and other points of view. Otherwise, my students probably would have approached the topic more from strictly from a purely objective, legal perspective, and not thought about the real effects of such a law, whatever they may be.

Living in China, with its emphasis on social support, at least informally if not mandated by the government, I expected my students to declare that of course, all companies should pay their employees enough to survive on more than bread and porridge each day! I was surprised when about half of my essays came back with the same arguments that I would have heard in America: the uneducated would lose their jobs due to increased competition from people more highly-educated; the overall unemployment rate would rise; business growth would slow down; productivity would decline; and inflation would skyrocket. I don't want to get into the argument of living wages here, but rest assured that these feared consequences have not been observed in places that have implemented living wages; rather, in most cases they have actually spurred business growth. Anyhow, I point this out only to show that China is changing, and changing quite rapidly. Who knows what China will look like in a few decades.


OK, that's all for now. I'm off to Beijing tomorrow for the National Holiday. Be back in about five days, with stories I'm sure.

Snack Time

The campus is littered with small food stands and stalls, and some of my favorite food so far has been found in these nondescript places.

Below, a steamed bread pocket/dumpling called "baozi". These are filled with vegetables, pork, beef, etc. Eight of them can be had for 25 cents.



The beef version:



Perhaps my favorite cheap find so far is this concoction. Also coming in at 25 cents, is consists of a tortilla, egg, lettuce, peanut sauce (I believe), onions, noodles, and sketchy meat. First, the dough is rolled out on the grill and allowed to bubble up a bit. Then, a hole is poked into the tortilla, and a whisked egg is poured in. After the egg has finished cooking inside the tortilla, the unidentified meat (sort of like what I imagine a bologna/spam/ham amalgamation would be like) is grilled and then placed on the tortilla with a leaf of lettuce, noodles, and few pinches of chopped onions. The tortilla is then rolled up and eaten like a burrito. Simply delicious!

A Short Treatise on Food

I'm not by any means a champion of America or American cuisine, but sometimes you just need a break. From Chinese food, that is. That could be one of the best features of living in America: you can get pretty much any kind of food you want, any time you want it. No so here. The most international the food gets is Japanese or Korean, save for the two "western" restaurants in town, which require a relatively expensive taxi ride ($1.50) to reach. The first is one I have previously mentioned
and features a mediocre pizza buffet and even more mediocre Chinese buffet. The seond is KFC, but its name is about all it has in common with its American stepfather. The menu has been altered for the Asian taste buds, and any pleasure that normally would have been derived from eating at such a restaurant has in the process been squashed.



The pictures below were taken from a traditional tea house a couple of nights ago. The xiaojie, or young ladies that serve the tea, train and study for two years in a special school before they take a one-year apprenticeship in a tea house. With all of that education, they could almost have a bachelor's degree. Instead, they learn how to serve tea in a very inefficient yet delicate manner.



A woman playing a traditional Chinese instrument at the same tea house:



At the tea house we visited, one can also take time to practice calligraphy. Or, draw a picture of bamboo, as my friend from New Zealand is doing.



The picture below was taken at a Korean restaurant. It's sort of a mix between a hibachi experience and a home fondu pot. Much of the food is grilled as desired on the table skillet and then wrapped in lettuce leaves or other leafy vegetables. All in all it's pretty delicious.

Around the University

Below, the bane of my existence. By far the worst thing about day-to-day life in China is the smell; these garbage cans are simply putrid. Other times, one walks over "rivers" running through the city, or moving bodies of sewage.



On the other hand, there is this lovely little meditation garden on campus, featuring perectly planted pine trees, winding paths, benches for sitting and necking, and large stones carved with famous Chinese proverbs and events in history.



Coca Cola has swept across China, though it is pronounced a bit differently (Kekoukele = kuh koh kuh luh):



Another funny sign I recently came across:

Weihai

Downtown Weihai is about a 20 minute cab ride away, and as a result I have only been into town a few times. The other day I went to visit a friend's workplace, which is located on the 14th floor of a building on the seaside, and took these pictures:





Below is a picture of the sailing club owned by a Kiwi friend. The weather here is still quite warm, usually reaching the 80's during the day and falling to the 60's at night. I try to spend a couple of afternoons each week at the beach, as well as much of the day on Saturdays.



Two men fishing on a sandbar at sunset:

Basic Education, Basic Training

One of the most frustrating things of being a teacher here is trying to encourage my students to be imaginative. Class discussions can be quite painful, and usually one must call on specific students to get any sort of response. As we all know from experience, this makes the students only more nervous about speaking and generally results in them using only the safest grammatical structures and ideas that they can quickly produce. Even playing charades is a challenge. Of my five classes, only one embraced the idea; the others fought it tooth and nail. Most of the words I assigned were words I thought they might know but had not used recently, such as "astronaut" and "firefighter". To start off, however, I wanted to do a few easy words, so that they could get an idea of how the game worked (to my surprise, they had never even played the game in Chinese). One of these easy words was "tree". Of my four resistant classes, only one interpreted the actor's gestures correctly. This was because the rest of the actors for this particular word just stood with their hands on their hips and said they didn't know what to do. Come on!! It's a tree!! Stick your arms out and stand up straight, and ninety percent of people will guess "tree". This idea either never entered their minds, or they were too embarrassed to act in front of their peers. Whatever the case, it was highly frustrating, and I had to hold back by impatience when the last class of the week reacted this way. It shouldn't be too much of a surprise, though, when considering the context. There are 1.3 billion people in China. Keeping people in check is one of the primary aims of the government. Standing out, in opinion or in class, can bring one great trouble, so the goal becomes to fade as quietly into the background as possible. While I can't openly criticize policies here, I do see a primary component of my job as encouraging my students to think independently, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

Below, required military training for the 3,000 first-year university students. Students spend 8 hours a day for two weeks standing and marching in the hot sun. I have not checked my facts, but I was told that this practice was implemented after the Tianenmen Square incident.







Below, a juxtaposition of young and old, experience and naivety. The officer does not want me to take his picture, but the young students and soldiers wave and offer peace symbols. They represent a new generation, one not fully unaware of its coutnry's intricacies; the officer is a bit more seasoned.

Camping Pictures: Part Two

One of the Chinese men drying his shirt out the window of our sleeping quarters:



This is a view from near the top of the mountain, Kun yu shan.



Another view from near the top:



The tallest mountain in the picture is the one we climbed:

Camping Pictures: Part One

Our sleeping quarters; notice the lack of windows:




Our tents inside the abandoned building:




Allyssa (another American teacher), Xu Dong Qian (the man who invited us hiking), and I:



The impressive spread of food, before the soup and whole chicken are brought out. Luckily, the other American had the honor of eating the chicken claw; I escaped with a more unrecognizable part of the animal:

Bushwhacked: Part Deux

I was a little nervous when the sun started going down and we still had a long path to clear, but luckily we met up with the trail again in time to arrive at our quarters before dusk. The quarters I mention were actually just an abandoned building in which we pitched our tents. The building had obviously been vacant for sometime, though an old (and drunk) Chinese man still found his way in to harass us for a while.

Anyhow, I realized that Chinese people seem to have a different concept of hiking than do Americans. The thinking basically seems to be, "Let's do what we normally would have done today/tonight, but let's do it on top of that mountain!" We stopped at least every thirty minutes for a break, and each stop featured more food than I would have taken for the entire trip and food that I would have never thought would be good for hiking, eggs and yogurt included. Several people's backpacks must have been devoted solely to carrying food, as our dinner feast consisted of more food than any other group would have brought along for a week of hiking. Wine bottles, several large pots and pans (for cooking egg drop soup and whole chickens, of course), bottles of baijiu: none of them were too heavy or cumbersome for this group of Chinese people. Had it not been for the mold and mounds of garbage and cigarette butts in the abandoned building, it would have been just like eating in the warmth of a Chinese home or restaurant.

After several of the Chinese became thoroughly under the influence, we retired for the night, into a tent that was obviously made for Chinese people (it wasn't for children, either). I'm about 6'1", and I believe the tent was no longer than 5'10". This made for quite an awkward and uncomfortable night of "sleep". I was relieved when I heard some rustling in the morning, and just as I had suspected, enough breakfast food had been brought to feed an army. This was definitely the first time I've ever had hazelnut coffee on a hiking trip.

After finally getting going in the morning, we walked down the easy way (why we didn't just walk up this road instead of creating a new path in the first place, I do not know). Stopping every thirty minutes, again, we made it down to the bottom in about four hours, whereas someone hiking with non-Chinese people may have done it in two hours, max.
I am thankful to be back in my room and showered again, but this definitely stands out as my first real integration into Chinese culture. Because none of the Chinese people spoke more English than the words "OK" and "Hello", I was forced to use my Chinese whenever I wanted to communicate. In the process, I feel like I doubled my Chinese vocabulary. As long as a trail is already present, I welcome the opportunity to do it again.


I will post pictures as soon as the website allows me to do so.

Bushwhacked: Part 1

This weekend I did something very Tyler Harlan-esque. While there weren't any blizzards, I did basically bushwhack my way to the top of Weihai's highest mountain with some Chinese strangers.

It all started last Thursday when I was at a large barbecue attended by lots of unfamiliar Chinese people. I was using as much of my limited Chinese as I could, and somehow I found myself invited to climb Weihai's highest peak this weekend with a Chinese guy I had never met. Now, being from China and having had at least two beers already, he was pretty drunk, so I thought it was fairly likely that he wouldn't even remember me by the next morning. But on Saturday morning, just as promised, I received a call saying that he was waiting for me outside of the main university gate. After a long ride in his car and after meeting up with ten other Chinese people (it turned out to be a little less sketchy than I was hoping for, but just barely), we found our way to base camp, which I think we decided on when we couldn't drive any further. For the first part of the trek we were on a "trail" that looked as though it gets maybe five hikers a month, i.e., it was pretty rough and we hiked most of the time through bush/foliage that was at least chest-high but was usually higher than our heads. Luckily I had grabbed a pair of wind-pants at the last minute (again, I was under-prepared), which are at this point virtually unwearable in public, thanks to all of the rips and stains acquired while hiking. Though I made it through with only a few bug bites, I was reminded that perhaps all those shots I got before coming here were perhaps useful. I did consume quite a lot of spiderwebs, however, and I constantly found myself staring straight at huge bugs and spiders.

For the second half of the hike or so, we seemed to be forging our own trail. Because the trail reappeared again near the top, I'm guessing we were just lost for about half of the hike. Anyhow, this half basically consisted of the people in front of the group bushwhacking a path for those behind them; no machetes were involved, but any loose, long, skinny objects were subject to being employed: sticks, hiking poles, small babies, etc.


Base Camp:



Bushwhacking:



One of many huge spiders:



Dinner:

 

Glory

Ahhhh!! Tonight was the most glorious night ever. For the equivalent of $12, I spent four hours in a Chinese bath house (don't worry, not the sketchy kind), where I enjoyed a spa, sauna, full body scrub, and more than an hour's worth of foot and hand massages. I think I may become addicted to this, especially as it's the precise amount of my day's pay, and much cheaper if I throw out the massages.

A Way With Words

Funny translations on public signs and private property bring me great joy. Often the translations are provided for no reason, as most of the time, no one working for the government or private agency for whom the signs are employed speaks Eglish. In some instances they simply provide the agency with a more international appearance; other times they simply end in complete confusion over the nature of what the agency does or is responsible for.

Here is one recently discovered sign on the way to the beach. I will post more of my favorites in the future.

 

Living Arrangements

My Living Room:



Bedroom:



Kitchen:



My picture on a poster for the English department. This past weekend was Freshman Weekend (here, freshmen arrive during the second week of classes, not before classes, as in America). I have been given my last name on the poster, while some colleagues have their first name or even a Sino version of their last name instead. I guess they just wanted to mix things up a bit, as we had no choice in the matter.

 

What's In a Name?

Despite having a relatively weak grasp on the language, non-native speakers of a language often write and speak quite poetically; often this comes from using words that native speakers don't traditionally use, whereas in other instances it simply reflects a different way of viewing the world endemic to a particular culture. I have already noticed this in the writing of my students, particularly in an assignment in which I asked them to explain why their parents had given them their Chinese names, and why they had chosen their English names. While many American parents, especially today, tend to name their children according to the fads and popular monikers of the day, in China the process is much more significant and meaningful.

Here are some of my favorite passages from students about their Chinese names:

"'Lei'" means 'bud', and so my parents hoped to see me grow up gradually just lie the flowers unfolding. Just so simple. My English name, 'Schmily', is an acronym for 'See how much I love you."

"'Yang' in Chinese means the 'vast ocean', so I guess they may want my life to be like the ocean, vast, and with a lot of hope."

"Because 'Zhen' means 'a treasure' or 'something valuable', you can see from that how deeply my mother loves me. I love my Chinese name, because it is [sic] my parents gave me. Each time I write it, I can feel the deepest love from my parents."

"'Xing stands for the star, they hope me to be as bright as the stars above the sky and they hope me to be a very great person just like a star among people. 'Bo" means 'waves' in English. My parents want me to be active, not to be very quiet or shy. In addition, 'Bo' stands for power. My parents gave me the name in the hope that I can have a great effect among people in the future."

"'Xiao Mi' is a kind of crop, with another name 'Gu Zi', which was eaten in ancient China. Maybe my grandmother, who gave me my Chinese name, hoped that I won't suffer from starving."

"'Xuelian' is a kind of beautiful flower in snow mountain. He hoped me that I would be a beautiful and persevering, hard-working person."

"'Qian' is given by my grandmother. Because when I was born, my health was not very good. So she wanted to give me a name that can predicate the good health I would get. After that, she gave me my name, 'Qian', that means 'grass', because grass is full of vital energies."

"My Chinese name sounds like a boy's name. I think that my parents wish that I were a boy."


On choosing an English name:

"In my opinion, Crystal is very beautiful and pure. I do not want to live a very complicated life, so I hope I can be just as transparent as crystal."

"My English name is 'Eleven'. It means the number '11' in English, and the two '1' always appear together. Just like two close, good friends. In modern times, it is hard to find a real friend, but this number can give us confidence."

"I began to learn about success, so I did what I could do to achieve my goal step by step. 'Mark': this word has the meaning of 'milestone', so I gave it as my English name."


Occasionally, the translation from Chinese to English produces some odd utterances:

When asked what she hoped to do after completion of university, one girl responded, "I hope I can go to the prairie with my lover." I believe a better translation would have sounded more like, "I hope to travel to the countryside with my boyfriend."

More Pictures

Here are a few more pictures.

This is the main building/library at the university.



This is the main building again, with lots of Chinese males playing on the 50+ basketball courts.



Here's a picture of the beach yesterday.



And at sunset...

Pictures

As promised, here are a few pictures from Weihai.

This is the building where I live, The Foreign Experts Building.



This is the main gate to the university. The "W" may stand for "Weihai". I'm not sure.

This is the view from one of my classrooms. The statue down below is of Confucius.

These were fireworks on the beach last Friday. I'm not sure of the occasion, but I heard they were in celebration of Weihai's five years of being a clean city. I'm not sure exactly what that means or if the translation was correct.