What is she doing this time?
So, I am updating my blog in the first time for almost a year. Much has happened of course, but most of it has been on that mundane everyday level that is of interest to mainly me, and doesn't always make the most fascinating blog material. However, if the cards are right, I will be back in China next year teaching English, and perhaps I will take up blogging on a regular basis then. Until now, I guess I'll update sporadically, just to make sure I don't forget how.
Tomorrow I am running in the conference track meet. This Thursday night, my coach called me and told me that I was not going to run the 1500 meter, as expected, but the mile run in the distance medley relay. This may sound like not a big difference, but the problem is, the people who run the DMR (as it's called) are fast. Like, top in conference fast. Needless to say, I am not one of those people. Our DMR team let's just say, will not be out for a gold. More than that, there is a potential for humiliation, because as the last leg of the relay (1200-400-800-1600, respectively) I may very possibly be running all by myself, and not because we're ahead. On the other hand, I am excited to actually run a mile. I haven't run a (timed) mile since freshman year in highschool, when I ran a 6:48 (which to a college runner, is extremely slow). To get my current time, I always have to take my 1500 time and add about 20 seconds, which is accurate but feels slightly like cheating. But after tomorrow, no more.
Speaking of humiliation though, I have already put myself through the ringer this semester. I suggested that for Chinese New Year, we should reserve the Swarthmore karaoke machine. In the meantime, my friends were in charge of writing up our class skit, and unbeknownst to me, decided, since I was so big on karaoke, to make me sing a solo. The skit was a variety show, where celebraties go on the show and perform things they aren't that good at. I dressed very goofily and sang a cheesy popsong. After me however, this girl played an amazing violin solo, and then another girl performed a Chinese flag dance. I felt like the person who makes that inappropriate toast at a wedding. Since then, these people I don't know have been coming up to me and asking me if I was the girl who sang at Chinese New Year.
So, after a long hiatus, I am starting up again, with no guarantees that this will even be remotely as interesting as my life in China.
I am working as a Writing Mentor this semester, which means that I work one-on-one over the course of the semester with a student who wants to improve his/her writing. My student turns out to have graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1995, gone to grad school in Japan and joined the Japanese foreign service, who sent him to, among all other places, Swarthmore to improve his English. He is a senior poli sci major, and next year will be stationed as a diplomat in possibly Vietnam, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, or Israel. It's amazing all the people in my school who I hadn't met before.
We had a really long and interesting conversation at lunch, and among other things, he told me that Japan was facing a huge population shortage, that couldn't be remedied by immigration, because, as he said, it would lead to a rise in gangsters, and not like Japanese gangsters, who hold to their own code of chivalry, but more like Chinese gangsters, who are utterly ruthless. It was a viewpoint I had never heard articulated before.
Mea culpa: I met with my Palestinian anthropology teacher. She asked me how I was, and I said: "good" she said, "are you good or are you fine?" and this from a non-native English speaker. Though I guess adverbs are pretty much extinct among native English speakers, and only those who speak hyper perfect English (like my teacher) still use them.
I haven't written in a very long time. Getting home, and Christmas combined with various birthdays and get togethers with aging relatives and funerals has taken up much energy and time. Now I have been home from China for almost three weeks, but in some ways it feels like much much longer. After I got back from Chengdu, I was caught up in a whirlwind of packing, which was basically trying to get all of the odd shaped things I had acquired (read: 2 erhus) into my two small suitcases, see more of Beijing--I ended up going to this very odd national minorities amusement park, it was about 20 degrees and my roommate and I were practically the only people there, it was odd to see a fake Lhasa built in the suburban wastes of Beijing, but only dubiously worth the 1 1/2 bus ride to get there, and grapple with a goodbye case of food poisoning (of course, two nights before I left, I would have to spend it at the toilet), as well as deal with a new, temporary, and completely shocked Korean roommate. When I unlocked the door to my room, she was in the bathroom, and I don't know who was more surprised, I suppose the Chinese desk attendents were laughing over their little prank. Luckily, she was extremely gracious about it.
Now that I am back, and people have been asking me all about my stay, some things really strike me. Perhaps the biggest is, almost 30 years after his death, the role that Mao plays in Chinese life. His policies are moribund and no one would deny the follies of the great leap forward or the cultural revolution (party line is now that Mao was 30% wrong and 70% right, whatever that means). Instead, from the very small and superficial observations I made, he seems to live on as a cross between grandfather and minor deity. On the train, I was awakened at 7 am with lights on and "thoughts from Chairman Mao" broadcast over the speakers. In an upscale bookstore, for 1,000 kuai (120 dollars) I could buy the anniversary commemorative set of Chairman Mao's poetry, or if that was unaffordable, there was always the "Grandpa Mao" book for only about 30 kuai (3.50). I don't know what it means, or even if my observations carry any weight whatsoever, but to me, I wonder how Mao, or Marxism for that matter, will fare in a country that is striving to make itself into the next economic and global superpower.
Today is our final day in Chengdu. Tonight I am taking a 32 hour train ride back to Beijing, and my friends are going to Lijiang, which is a part of Yunan province on the Tibetan plateau (I am a little jealous). When the Chinese government took over the Tibetan region, they divided it up for political reasons, so many Tibetan people live in what is now Western Sichuan and Yunan. In fact, some people say that if you want to see real Tibetan culture, just go to Sichan or Yunan and avoid the hassle of trying to get to Lhasa. Even in Chengdu, one can see the Tibetan influence. There are lots of monks and tibetans in traditional dress walking around the street, and even some monks staying at our hotel. There are lots of thriving Buddhist temples, and lots and lots of small stores selling Tibetan or Tibetan Buddhist trinkets.
Speaking of Buddha, yesterday we went to Le SHan, which is now home to the world's largest Buddha statue (after the ones in Afghanistan were destroyed). It was pretty amazing, he was carved into a cliff facing a large misty river, and he was so large that about five people could easily sit on his big toenail. He was built around 800 AD, and was original covered in gold and jade. Now all that has worn off and besides the face, which is still painted, the Buddha is natural stone colored.
It's interesting. In Europe, I saw lots of Japanese tourists going to Cathedrals and museums full of medieval and renaissance religious iconography. I always wondered what sort of meaning it would hold to some one not raised in a western judeo-christian framework. Even as a non religious person, going into a large cathedral or seeing something like the pieta fills me a sense of awe, and I wondered if it wasn't part of my cultural history, or if I didn't really understand really what Christianity was (e.g., saints, the madonna, the trinity, etc) what would going to a cathedral be like. Now after going to numerous temples, I think I have an idea. They are incredible and beautiful, but they don't evoke in me the same reverence that they seem to do in most Chinese people. They also really make me realize how little I know about Buddhism. Every temple I go to is full of statues of different buddhas and gods and bodhisattvas, all of which make me more and more confused. Here even more than in Beijing, the hindu and tibetan traditional religious influences seem to come through in Buddhism.
Another interesting thing is that everywhere in Chengdu is plastered with Christmas decorations, from chic department stores and western chains (not too surprising) to mom and pop tea houses and little restaurants. It's kind of interesting to see a city decked out for a holiday no one celebrates but I have to say it is very festive.
I am currently at an internet cafe in Chengdu, surrounded by dozens of young people all playing computer games. In Chengdu it is a misty 50 degrees, which isn't too bad except there isn't any heat in the city, meaning that inside is often colder than outside, especially in our hotel room. Our hotel room, besides being freezing, is about 25 kuai (3 dollars) a night, which is incredibly reasonable, however, also means that it doesn't come with some things we Americans tend to take for granted, like toilet paper or hot water. Today my friends and I (I am travelling with three other girls on the program) went around Chengdu and saw, among other things, the largest statue of Mao in Sichuan (and maybe in all of China, we're not really sure). We also went to several parks and temples (including the largest Taoist temple in Chengdu). In one park they had a choir of middle aged and elderly people singing traditional songs accompanied by a small orchestra made up of several erhus, a violin, and an accordian. At school, ,y friend Bai Xin and I took a folk song class, so we recognized some of the songs. The choir director some how found out and then made us come up and sing with the choir, and then handed me a microphone and made Bai Xin and I sing a duet. It was fun and embarassing at the same time.
Tomorrow on my 21st birthday, we have decided to go out to the Sichuan Panda research center and see the pandas. I'm kind of excited, it sounds like a unique way to spend a birthday, and sure beats my usual birthday routine (study like crazy for finals and watch everyone stress out).
I am now completely done for the semester. Today was our final exam, and unlike Swarthmore, our teachers have already graded, processed, and given us our grades for the entire semester. Of course, it is easier when the class has 8 students and 4 teachers. It's funny, but now that the semester has ended, I finally feel like my Chinese has made a lot of progress. I don't know if it's just that I'm beginning to notice it, or if it is just now that my Chinese has gotten better. On the one hand, I'm very thrilled that at last that simple conversation doesn't require all my concentration, and I can express myself reasonably clearly, but on the other hand, I feel like I am just finally getting adjusted, and now I am finally prepared to deal with living in China.
Today I also bought my train ticket to Chengdu (the capital of Sichuan province, pop 9 million and home to the Panda reserve), so I am definitely going. It's a 30 hour train ride from Beijing to Chengdu, and I plan to spend a week there and then come back a little early to Beijing so I can have time to relax and see more of Beijing before going home (it's embarrassing--I haven't even been to the imperial palace. It's one of the first questions people ask me, and when I tell them I haven't, they get this horrified incredulous look on their face as though what could be more worth my time than going to the imperial palace).
While it's kind of nice to be finished, it's also so strange. After spending everyday together for a semester, I will probably never see my teachers or most of my classmates ever again, kind of a somber thought.
I don't know if I'll be able to check e-mail in Chengdu, so if not, then hope everyone has a good week, and good luck to all of you studying for and taking finals!!! Don't get too stressed out.
