I'm in a dark and smoky room. It is weakly air conditioned. Rows of computers fill the center of the room and line the walls. Rows of people sit intently in red armchairs staring at the glowing screens in front of them. To my right, an older guy chain smokes and plays on line mah-jong. To my left a young woman is using e-mail and instant messaging on a site featuring a pink background and kewpie dolls.
My internet access on my laptop has been blocked for more than 24 hours, and I am having a fit because I'm out of touch with my office. After all, for an attorney, a mere 7000 miles of distance should not impede my ability to have contact with work. Of course, without my secure software on my laptop, I cannot log on to the office, but I can send pathetic, longing messages from my personal e-mail from this internet cafe.
Conditions are less than ideal. Someone has left a half-eaten sandwich next to the monitor. The bottoms of my sandals are sticking to the floor. Smoke from the chain-smoker to my right is making my eyes water. But I will say that the connection is zooming fast, which is the most important thing. There are people in here watching movies and playing very advanced war games, so you know these are very fast connections.
The proprietress is 50-something, and is watching some sort of Chinese soap opera on-line when she's not waiting on customers. To get in, you give them your national identity card (or in my case, my driver's licence) and 10 yuan as a deposit. They register you in, and give you back your card, but keep your money until you check out. 10 yuan is about $1.25, I think it costs 3 yuan an hour to use the computer.
We are buying a computer for my mother's birthday next month. It will cost $499 for the laptop that she wants. It would be cheaper just to make her go to the Internet Cafe, but it would be a long commute from Canada.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Seal Making
Our teacher for Seal Making was Professor Jim, the same person who taught us about Calligraphy. He told us, though an interpreter, that there are four traditional Chinese arts: poetry, calligraphy, painting and seal cutting. All Chinese artists are expected to be well versed in all four.
This made me smile because I couldn't imagine Andy Warhol engaged in poetry writing. Perhaps I underestimate his scope.
The original purpose of seals was to identify the sender of a message. Seals were to be as unique as a thumprint. In ancient China, before the invention of paper, messages were written on bamboo scrolls, then tied with string, the string sealed with mud, and the mud imprinted with the sender's seal. If the message was opened, the seal could not be made by anyone other than the sender, so the tampering would be evident.
With use, over time the edge of the seal wears down. Sometimes moderns seal makers with break down the seal edges to make them look old. Even today, some Chinese use their seals for their signature at the bank.
Inexpensive seals are made of soapstone, but there is a kind of stone the same color as chicken blood (what color is chicken blood?) that is used for expensive seals. In our class we used soapstone, which is very soft, and we were glad, because even with very soft stone, it took a long time to etch a seal.
First those of us without Chinese names were assigned a name. My son is named James, which has no Chinese equivalent, so they assigned him the same name as James Bond, 007, which he found rather thrilling. Then the simplified characters for the name are translated to ancient or more formal letters, which always require more strokes. Then we reversed the image, and copied it in ink onto the bottom of the soapstone.
James and I worked on his seal for over an hour, etching tiny strokes in a small block of soapstone requires patience. Somehow, in the same time, Sarah did two, one in English and one in Chinese. The teacher made sure our etching was deep enough to show up on imprint. Seals always use red ink, and James and I were quite pleased with the red mark on our notebooks. He has the seal to take home, I will probably take it to class with me Monday to talk about it with the class.
I hadn't expected to enjoy calligraphy or seal cutting so much, but the pleasure the instructor took in his craft crossed the language barrier as though it did not exist. It is always wonderful to meet someone who loves something, and is happy to share it with others.
This made me smile because I couldn't imagine Andy Warhol engaged in poetry writing. Perhaps I underestimate his scope.
The original purpose of seals was to identify the sender of a message. Seals were to be as unique as a thumprint. In ancient China, before the invention of paper, messages were written on bamboo scrolls, then tied with string, the string sealed with mud, and the mud imprinted with the sender's seal. If the message was opened, the seal could not be made by anyone other than the sender, so the tampering would be evident.
With use, over time the edge of the seal wears down. Sometimes moderns seal makers with break down the seal edges to make them look old. Even today, some Chinese use their seals for their signature at the bank.
Inexpensive seals are made of soapstone, but there is a kind of stone the same color as chicken blood (what color is chicken blood?) that is used for expensive seals. In our class we used soapstone, which is very soft, and we were glad, because even with very soft stone, it took a long time to etch a seal.
First those of us without Chinese names were assigned a name. My son is named James, which has no Chinese equivalent, so they assigned him the same name as James Bond, 007, which he found rather thrilling. Then the simplified characters for the name are translated to ancient or more formal letters, which always require more strokes. Then we reversed the image, and copied it in ink onto the bottom of the soapstone.
James and I worked on his seal for over an hour, etching tiny strokes in a small block of soapstone requires patience. Somehow, in the same time, Sarah did two, one in English and one in Chinese. The teacher made sure our etching was deep enough to show up on imprint. Seals always use red ink, and James and I were quite pleased with the red mark on our notebooks. He has the seal to take home, I will probably take it to class with me Monday to talk about it with the class.
I hadn't expected to enjoy calligraphy or seal cutting so much, but the pleasure the instructor took in his craft crossed the language barrier as though it did not exist. It is always wonderful to meet someone who loves something, and is happy to share it with others.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Caligraphy
The teacher's name is Lin Xu Lan. He is a professor of chemical engineering here at the Nanjing University of Science and Technology, but caligraphy has been his hobby all his adult life. He says that, "Sometimes the hobby is the teacher." Speaking through an interpreter, he told us that caligraphy consists of four things:
1. The concept for the caligraphy;
2. The writing of the caligraphy;
3. The artist's signature and dating of the caligraphy; and
4. The placing of a seal on the caligraphy.
He says that only China has a history of using writing as an art form itself. Similarly, Chinese landscapes differ from Western oil painting. Chinese landscapes have multiple points of view, instead of a single one. Chinese landscapes are always painted on paper, instead of canvas. The best caligraphy paper comes from Xuanzhou. Caligraphy brushes are made from wolf hair or sheep hair (wool?). Historically, caligraphy was done with a block of ink made from pine smoke (not sure of the translation here, possibly pine resin mixed with charcoal?) and an ink stone ground down the block of ink, then the resultant powder was mixed with water to make ink.
Our teacher uses black ink from a bottle. He says that using different thicknesses of ink creates five colors from a single ink. He shows us how it is done, then lets us try, using two simple charachters, one for "river" and one for "mountain". Ours look childlike.
Then he shows us how he draws a landscape. The paper looks like tissue papers, but feels heavier. The landscape does have a number of focal points, then he signs and dates it, and puts several red seal prints on it. All seals are red. He uses four. One has his name on it, another the name of the style of caligraphy he uses, another the name of the school where he studied caligraphy and a fourth with the name of his caligraphy teacher.
I was most impressed in the personal pleasure the teacher seemed to have in caligraphy, and his willingness to share that pleasure with us. One of the American teachers is a long time amateur landscape artist, and she was extremely happy watching him and asking questions. The teacher had written a book about the subject, and I was pleased to see that it was small but had beautiful reproductions in it. Assuming he has the same pressure to produce academic work that professors do in the United States, the fact that he took time away from his professional life to write a book about his art is a remarkable thing.
1. The concept for the caligraphy;
2. The writing of the caligraphy;
3. The artist's signature and dating of the caligraphy; and
4. The placing of a seal on the caligraphy.
He says that only China has a history of using writing as an art form itself. Similarly, Chinese landscapes differ from Western oil painting. Chinese landscapes have multiple points of view, instead of a single one. Chinese landscapes are always painted on paper, instead of canvas. The best caligraphy paper comes from Xuanzhou. Caligraphy brushes are made from wolf hair or sheep hair (wool?). Historically, caligraphy was done with a block of ink made from pine smoke (not sure of the translation here, possibly pine resin mixed with charcoal?) and an ink stone ground down the block of ink, then the resultant powder was mixed with water to make ink.
Our teacher uses black ink from a bottle. He says that using different thicknesses of ink creates five colors from a single ink. He shows us how it is done, then lets us try, using two simple charachters, one for "river" and one for "mountain". Ours look childlike.
Then he shows us how he draws a landscape. The paper looks like tissue papers, but feels heavier. The landscape does have a number of focal points, then he signs and dates it, and puts several red seal prints on it. All seals are red. He uses four. One has his name on it, another the name of the style of caligraphy he uses, another the name of the school where he studied caligraphy and a fourth with the name of his caligraphy teacher.
I was most impressed in the personal pleasure the teacher seemed to have in caligraphy, and his willingness to share that pleasure with us. One of the American teachers is a long time amateur landscape artist, and she was extremely happy watching him and asking questions. The teacher had written a book about the subject, and I was pleased to see that it was small but had beautiful reproductions in it. Assuming he has the same pressure to produce academic work that professors do in the United States, the fact that he took time away from his professional life to write a book about his art is a remarkable thing.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Four furnaces of China
We are staying in Nanjing, which is one of the "four furnaces of China." It was about 95 degrees today and the humidity was about the same. What, you say? It's just like home? Well, actually it is. The people from Denver complain bitterly, but I have very little to say about the heat, since it really is this hot in July and August in Tallahassee. Since both my accomodations and my classroom have air conditioning, I can't complain.
People are sensible about the heat here. There are few people out mid-day, and the streets team in the evening. In the early morning, old people people exercise and people take their babies out for air in the square near our hotel. Even many of the street vendors close in the middle of the day. One of my colleagues borrowed a bicycle, which promptly got a flat, and she couldn't fix it until this evening.
The young women here wear summer dresses, knee length or a tiny bit higher, but they don't show stomachs or chests. The dresses often have very classic styles, and they often wear high heeled sandals. They are very pretty. Of course, most of the university students wear blue jeans. I am beginning to think that all university students around the world wear blue jeans.
The campus is well shaded because nearly every street is lined with mature trees. An urban campus, it has an extraordinary amount of green space, including little forested areas with concrete paths through them, and a lovely man made lake.
But there are also deep stormwater run off canals, that smell a trifle too much like open sewers for my taste. Everything has a downside, I suppose.
People are sensible about the heat here. There are few people out mid-day, and the streets team in the evening. In the early morning, old people people exercise and people take their babies out for air in the square near our hotel. Even many of the street vendors close in the middle of the day. One of my colleagues borrowed a bicycle, which promptly got a flat, and she couldn't fix it until this evening.
The young women here wear summer dresses, knee length or a tiny bit higher, but they don't show stomachs or chests. The dresses often have very classic styles, and they often wear high heeled sandals. They are very pretty. Of course, most of the university students wear blue jeans. I am beginning to think that all university students around the world wear blue jeans.
The campus is well shaded because nearly every street is lined with mature trees. An urban campus, it has an extraordinary amount of green space, including little forested areas with concrete paths through them, and a lovely man made lake.
But there are also deep stormwater run off canals, that smell a trifle too much like open sewers for my taste. Everything has a downside, I suppose.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Harry Potter
One of my students is an English major and owns every Harry Potter book, which she bought for list price at the Foreign Language Book Store downtown. Sarah refused to leave the United State until her mother promised to send her the latest book as soon as it was issued by Federal Express. But it turns out that it would have cost over $150 US to send the book to Nanjing, so we bought it here, even though we had to pay list price.
If Sarah could have waited, we could have bought it in the US for $18, but she says that since she’s going to school the day after we get home she simply had to read it now, because everyone else will have read it. Generally, I would have been willing to let her suffer through this trauma, but today she has a bad cold and a little bit of “traveler’s stomach” and I felt sorry for her.
So James and I took a taxi and paid the huge sum of 218 RMB for the brand new hardcover Harry Potter. We tried to make up for this insane spending by shopping at Carrefour (sort of a French version of Wal-mart). But I was very pleased with myself for managing this foray without assistance, except for someone writing down the name of the Foreign Language Book Store, an English speaking clerk explaining the price and giving us directions to the supermarket, and the extremely polite and honest taxi drivers, which are all I have encountered here.
Now the kids want me to start taking the bus. Maybe next week.
If Sarah could have waited, we could have bought it in the US for $18, but she says that since she’s going to school the day after we get home she simply had to read it now, because everyone else will have read it. Generally, I would have been willing to let her suffer through this trauma, but today she has a bad cold and a little bit of “traveler’s stomach” and I felt sorry for her.
So James and I took a taxi and paid the huge sum of 218 RMB for the brand new hardcover Harry Potter. We tried to make up for this insane spending by shopping at Carrefour (sort of a French version of Wal-mart). But I was very pleased with myself for managing this foray without assistance, except for someone writing down the name of the Foreign Language Book Store, an English speaking clerk explaining the price and giving us directions to the supermarket, and the extremely polite and honest taxi drivers, which are all I have encountered here.
Now the kids want me to start taking the bus. Maybe next week.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
20 Questions
Today I told my students that they had to ask me a question, and before I answered, tell me what my answer would be. I also told them they couldn't ask the same question twice. I had questions about religion in America, about boyfriends in high school (actually Sarah handled all high school and popular culture questions), about Condileeza Rice, about the current popularity of George Bush, and about what sort of car I drive, and how many cars there are in the United States.
Like all young people, they struggle with stereotypes. They are appalled that some Americans know little about China, but know little about Latin America themselves. I repeat to them like a mantra that most English speakers in the world are not Americans, and themselves speak English as a second language, but they still want to learn American idioms. I indulge them to a limited extent, particularly when something is raised in the textbook, but mostly I try to focus them on their real use for English: in graduate school, and in the business world.
All of my students read and write more comprehensively than they speak, and their errors are the grammatical errors of people who think in Chinese. We used to have a Haitian immigrant in my section at the Attorney General's Office, and all of her grammatical errors resulted from direct translation from French. But as I remind myself practically hourly, my failure to speak good Chinese is not reflective of my overall intelligence, and their inability to express themselves in English is not reflective of their intelligence.
Even though they are young, it is aggravating to me that I know that no matter how hard they try, these young people will always have a significant Chinese accent. It seems unfair, they are in many ways quite fluent, yet I know they will suffer prejudice because of their accents.
Like all young people, they struggle with stereotypes. They are appalled that some Americans know little about China, but know little about Latin America themselves. I repeat to them like a mantra that most English speakers in the world are not Americans, and themselves speak English as a second language, but they still want to learn American idioms. I indulge them to a limited extent, particularly when something is raised in the textbook, but mostly I try to focus them on their real use for English: in graduate school, and in the business world.
All of my students read and write more comprehensively than they speak, and their errors are the grammatical errors of people who think in Chinese. We used to have a Haitian immigrant in my section at the Attorney General's Office, and all of her grammatical errors resulted from direct translation from French. But as I remind myself practically hourly, my failure to speak good Chinese is not reflective of my overall intelligence, and their inability to express themselves in English is not reflective of their intelligence.
Even though they are young, it is aggravating to me that I know that no matter how hard they try, these young people will always have a significant Chinese accent. It seems unfair, they are in many ways quite fluent, yet I know they will suffer prejudice because of their accents.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Learning to Teach
I have made a seating chart so I can keep people straight. I have butchered the names of some of my students so badly that one took an English name today in self-defence. She's named herself, "Apple." I find the long reach of California astonishing.
This morning the students all had to get up and give a short chat about their major. The University of Nanjing is a highly competitive engineering and technology school. None of my students is from Nanjing.
When they take entrance tests, they designate 6 possible major fields, and order their preference. Then, depending on their grades, (and, I suspect, the class needs of the school) they are placed in one of the six fields. One young woman's sixth choice was environmental engineering, she is studying water quality. I told her that she has extremely important work and by the time she retires, it will be her first choice.
There is another young woman studying weapons technology, several young men studying power engineering, one industrial engineer, one human resourses management student, and one lone English major, who hopes to be a translator. I was sort of interested to hear that in power engineering, the men outnumber the women by almost the same percentage as in the United States.
Our textbook is very focused on working on the cultural translation problems people have in a new country. I'm supposed to keep them focused on the issues one must consider when approaching any new culture, but they (and Sarah) have a tendency to focus only on the differences between American and Chinese culture. This is fun, but I'm trying to get through to them that the majority of English speakers speak English as a second language, so they will have significant barriers to communication.
After seven or eight years of English study, these students are strong readers and writers, but relatively weak speakers of English. We'll see how far we can get in the next three weeks.
Classroom conversation are far ranging. Today we touched on American views of weapons ownership, standardized testing in China and America, and China's one child policy. The students are highly intelligent and have insightful ideas, but feel frustrated in their attempts to express themselves in English. I'm pleased when they try, and try to make them slow down so that they are easier to understand. Pity that teaching pays so poorly, I can see the attraction.
This morning the students all had to get up and give a short chat about their major. The University of Nanjing is a highly competitive engineering and technology school. None of my students is from Nanjing.
When they take entrance tests, they designate 6 possible major fields, and order their preference. Then, depending on their grades, (and, I suspect, the class needs of the school) they are placed in one of the six fields. One young woman's sixth choice was environmental engineering, she is studying water quality. I told her that she has extremely important work and by the time she retires, it will be her first choice.
There is another young woman studying weapons technology, several young men studying power engineering, one industrial engineer, one human resourses management student, and one lone English major, who hopes to be a translator. I was sort of interested to hear that in power engineering, the men outnumber the women by almost the same percentage as in the United States.
Our textbook is very focused on working on the cultural translation problems people have in a new country. I'm supposed to keep them focused on the issues one must consider when approaching any new culture, but they (and Sarah) have a tendency to focus only on the differences between American and Chinese culture. This is fun, but I'm trying to get through to them that the majority of English speakers speak English as a second language, so they will have significant barriers to communication.
After seven or eight years of English study, these students are strong readers and writers, but relatively weak speakers of English. We'll see how far we can get in the next three weeks.
Classroom conversation are far ranging. Today we touched on American views of weapons ownership, standardized testing in China and America, and China's one child policy. The students are highly intelligent and have insightful ideas, but feel frustrated in their attempts to express themselves in English. I'm pleased when they try, and try to make them slow down so that they are easier to understand. Pity that teaching pays so poorly, I can see the attraction.
Living with a Celebrity
When we are sitting in a restaurant, people come up to us and want to take my son's picture. They stare at him, practice saying "hello" to him, and are otherwise completely fascinated. A waitress at a local restaurant is demanding that he bring her a picture of himself. James is eight, and his hair is light brown, and he has very blue eyes. There is another little boy with fair hair and blue eyes who is a son of one of the other teachers, and he gets the same sort of attention.
My sixteen year old daughter gets some stares, but I, at 43, am essentially invisible. Of course, from the back, I could pass for a Chinese woman who's had a bad permanent wave. That's one of the things I like about being here, I'm not noticeably thin, I'm average.
Nanjing has enough foreigners living here so that we are not complete freaks, but we are sort of novelties. As I am least affected by it, I don't mind it. Sarah says she doesn't care because they don't stare at her much. James says, "it's sort of creepy and it's sort of fun and it's sort of weird."
My sixteen year old daughter gets some stares, but I, at 43, am essentially invisible. Of course, from the back, I could pass for a Chinese woman who's had a bad permanent wave. That's one of the things I like about being here, I'm not noticeably thin, I'm average.
Nanjing has enough foreigners living here so that we are not complete freaks, but we are sort of novelties. As I am least affected by it, I don't mind it. Sarah says she doesn't care because they don't stare at her much. James says, "it's sort of creepy and it's sort of fun and it's sort of weird."
Monday, July 23, 2007
First Day of School
After much trepidation and preparation, today was the first day of school. Class started at 8:00 am, but the doors of the school don't open until 7:50 am. I blew in at about 7:55 am (Sarah and I took a slightly wrong turn en route) and wrote on the board, "Good morning, welcome to English class." I also wrote my name and Sarah's name.
I have 21 students, all undergraduates. With a couple of exceptions, all are engineering students, including explosives, civil, industrial, and electronic. There is one accounting major and one English major. Each class has a monitor, which is sort of vaguely like a head boy in the English private school system. Sometimes they are elected by the students and sometimes appointed by the teacher.
We had an election for the monitor. Seven people applied, we had a vote, and then the top two vote recipients had a run off. The English major won, 41-7. Sarah was the Supervisor of Elections. Unfortunately, we did the election last in the day, and I ran over about 7 minutes, which I think is unforgivable, particularly considering that the class is 3.5 hours long. I'll let them go early tomorrow, I swear.
We had lunch with a number of other teachers, who had received a number of questions from their students, including invitations to lunch, and offers to teach them to cook. So I now feel inferior, because my students have not offered to adopt me. As a group, they have good reading and writing skills, and more limited oral skills, which are, after all, about practice, practice, practice.
I feel fortunate to have this opportunity, but I am working very hard. I'm trying to hear what the students have to say, trying to keep focused on the lesson plan, trying to execute on the lesson plan. It was like a 3.5 hour legal hearing. Well, maybe not that bad. But it was tough.
I have 21 students, all undergraduates. With a couple of exceptions, all are engineering students, including explosives, civil, industrial, and electronic. There is one accounting major and one English major. Each class has a monitor, which is sort of vaguely like a head boy in the English private school system. Sometimes they are elected by the students and sometimes appointed by the teacher.
We had an election for the monitor. Seven people applied, we had a vote, and then the top two vote recipients had a run off. The English major won, 41-7. Sarah was the Supervisor of Elections. Unfortunately, we did the election last in the day, and I ran over about 7 minutes, which I think is unforgivable, particularly considering that the class is 3.5 hours long. I'll let them go early tomorrow, I swear.
We had lunch with a number of other teachers, who had received a number of questions from their students, including invitations to lunch, and offers to teach them to cook. So I now feel inferior, because my students have not offered to adopt me. As a group, they have good reading and writing skills, and more limited oral skills, which are, after all, about practice, practice, practice.
I feel fortunate to have this opportunity, but I am working very hard. I'm trying to hear what the students have to say, trying to keep focused on the lesson plan, trying to execute on the lesson plan. It was like a 3.5 hour legal hearing. Well, maybe not that bad. But it was tough.
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