Clouds that Move

by Ruth

I just finished my first section of our comprehensive exams. As I was madly writing (probably the first time I’ve written 9 pages in 3 hours), I kept looking out the window and getting distracted by the clouds because they were moving. I had honestly forgotten that they do that. It seems like such a simple, fundamental thing to forget about, but we don’t have too much experience with the cumulous variety of clouds in China, at least where I have been.

I talk most often about all the food I miss, and it really has been wonderful to drink milk every day and casually browse the cereal aisle. But what I miss even more is the aesthetic beauty I see all around me here. I am amazed by the nature and color and cleanliness all around. In Georgia, I loved being able to see a dozen trees from every window. I woke up to the sound of birds and fell asleep to a chorus of crickets (with a few tree frogs thrown in). I saw deer wandering through the backyard. I got to hear the magnificent sound of rain hammering on the roof and watch it turn the trees to a shimmery gray.

At Wheaton, I can’t believe how blue the sky can be. It’s no wonder that my first summer back from China I thought everything looked so nice it seemed almost fake. The clear blue sky with a few puffy white clouds (which move, by the way), the neatly trimmed green grass, a part of well manicured lawns surrounding beautiful, crisp looking houses – it’s almost too idyllic to be believable. I realize not everywhere is like this, but to remember these places exist!

In California, I know I will see spectacular sunsets that fill up the whole, huge sky, fading into night skies crowded with stars. Maybe we will have one of those violent storms when the rain that so rarely comes is torn from the sky.

These are the things I miss even more than Multi-bran Chex. My first year in China, I remember discussing with my teammates our feelings of homesickness. For them it came gradually and quietly, lingering vaguely, casting a shadow in the background. I experienced it more in sharp, unexpected pictures. The prism in the living room window throwing rainbows around the room. The sound of a wind chime clanging on the porch. The smell of the perfume my mother used to wear every week to church. The softness of carpet on bare feet.

I guess these will be the things I’ll always miss and marvel at rediscovering.

(This is all so whimsical and sentimental it kind of makes me laugh, but then I have been reading the Anne of Green Gables series, and my mind is always affected by what I’m reading. It’s hard not to like enjoying a book that’s entirely pleasant once in a while.)

Fake Graduation

by Ruth
Even though we have better internet access and blogger isn't blocked, this summer has been incredibly busy overall, thus the lack of blog posts. We are still back in the states, though now we have moved from GA on to Wheaton, where we just graduated from our master's program.

Well, kind of. We had a little graduation type ceremony with the other people in our summer program, but we aren't actually finished with the work yet. This week Kevin and I have been meeting with a professor to finish an independent study class. Next week Kevin will have one more class on Cross-Cultural Conflict. This weekend and next weekend we will be doing our comprehensive exams, so we are preparing for those. So even though we had the little ceremony, we've still got lots of work to do.

In a little over a week, however, I will be completely finished! I'm really looking forward to that. Kevin still has two last distance learning classes to complete this fall. Both of our families (or at least, parts of them) came up to visit and see us fake-graduate. I will post a few pictures to keep you happy until there is time to do a real blog again.

Back to America

We're back. Enjoying a day with friends, family, A/C, Mexican food, root beer, fast internet, a Braves game on TV :-) ... all the kinds of things we don't get much of in China.

Our journey home began after a restless night in which our air conditioning in China decided to stop spewing out cold air and instead simply regurgitate warm, stuffy air. Not too restful. Thankfully the school brought us to the Xi'an airport (1 hour away) in an air conditioned van.

When we got to the air port two hours before our flight, they still hadn't begun checking anyone in for international flights, so we began waiting. By the time they opened the check-in line, we'd admired some Chinglish. At the front of the line was where the problems began. during the 10-15 minutes she spent trying to check us in, the rest of the passengers had been sent through security checks and were waiting to board the plane. She frantically began making phone calls, finally getting approval from a supervisor to let us on. My guess was that someone made a mistake when applying my passport number to the ticket, but since she spoke very little English, it's all a guess.

Our Korean Air flight to Seoul left about 15 minutes late, but not too bad. Then in Korea, we encountered another problem when we handed our tickets to the ticket-takers just before boarding - "go over there," please, they told us, pointing to the service desk. There, we were handed new boarding passes with an ominous note about baggage, which gave us the impression that it might not make it to the plane. Unfortunately the Seoul to Atlanta leg wasn't on Korean Air as we'd hoped. Instead it was on Delta (Korean is well-regarded for it's service, Delta isn't).

We were seated in seats 40 B and H. I don't know why they didn't seat us together, but we figured, surely someone will want to change seats. I asked my two neighbors, but neither wanted to trade a window or aisle for a middle seat (I don't blame them). Thankfully Ruth's seatmates were a couple who wanted to sit together, so finally, I got one of my seatmates to move. This was the first time I've ever flown on a long internationl flight that has the cool in-seat entertainment centers in them. Every other time, I've been forced to crane my neck to watch overhead displays show whatever lame movies the airline had picked out for us. This time we had more than 100 movies, music, and even games to choose from on our cool touch screen. "Maybe Delta is OK," we thought. Since I couldn't sleep, I managed to watch no less than FIVE movies during the flight, in addition to getting some grad school reading done. I watched Best in Show (grade: A-, lots of laughter) simultaneously with Ruth, then we diverged, Ruth watched several chick flicks and I opted for a variety of films: The Flash of Genius (B+, surprisingly good story about inventor of intermentant windshield wipers), Bedtime Stories (C+ funny, but silly & predictable Adam Sandler movie), Gran Torino (A, excellent, very deep, movie about much more than the title implies), Burn After Reading (B-, Cohen Bros - odd but interesting characters, like most Cohen movies, I'll probably like it more on a second viewing). Only managed about an hour of sleep in our 17 hours of flying (almost 3 hrs from Xi'an to Seoul & 14 hours from Seoul-Atlanta).

When we touched down in Atlanta, there was no gate for our airplane, so we got to spend another hour sitting on the runway, waiting. Wish I would have gone for the sixth movie. We were amazed at the diversity of people. I kept finding myself staring at people. Surprised cuz the security people even made small talk with us about friends living in China. I can't imagine guards in Los Angeles, let alone China, doing that.

After waiting and waiting and waiting for our bags to finally arrive, we grabbed them and started heading for the exit, then realized we weren't done just yet: at the Atlanta airport, some genious decided that customs should be next to the international gate. Unfortunately, that gate is miles from the exit, so we had to now re-check our luggage and go through security AFTER going through customs. Since when is there security to LEAVE an airport? We hopped on the train, which brought us to the other terminal and met Ruth's family, then we had to wait again, while our luggage came to us.

We finally got out of the airport a good 2 hours after we'd touched down - about 24 hours after leaving Weinan, I think (though my math is a little fuzzy with all the time changes). We swung by the Varsity and enjoyed the best onion rings and fried apple pies around (along with a chili dog), then made our way toward beds. I slept like a baby for 10 hours. Ruth wasn't so lucky, only 6 hours or so for her before jetlag strangeness kicked in. Hopefully tonight works out a little better.

Finally Done with Finals

By Ruth

It's my "supposed to be writing homework" time again, so naturally I am seeking distraction. One week from today we will be on an airplane headed back to America. I'm looking forward to it. Granted, the more homework I get done now the less I will have to do when I get out of here, but that's not proving strong enough motivation at the moment.

For now, I am just really-really happy to be done giving my oral final examinations. Since I teach Oral English, all of my students come in to talk with me. I had them come in in groups of two to do a dialogue and then answer a question. Not so bad, except when you have to see 330 students over the course of 825 minutes. Actually, it was probably a couple of hours longer than 825 minutes, and I felt every moment of it. I have given oral finals every semester in the past but for some reason, this semester was definitely the most painful of all. It was about as bad as having to take a bunch of final exams.

After an hour or two, my mind stops registering words. I'm sure my students must notice the dazed look on my face. The timer beeps and I realize I have no idea what they were just saying. So much for objective grading. I did hear a few interesting things, in those times I remembered to listen. Like my student who said the best gift he'd ever received was a toothbrush. That's either really sad or really weird, but I'm leaning toward the really weird. It was electric, I'll give him that, but he was really excited about it. It's like my sister or something.

Sometimes the lack of understanding wasn't my fault, though. The times when I would ask a question and the students started talking about something totally unrelated. The times when it would take students a minute to get out half a dozen words. The times when I couldn't quite tell if the words they were speaking were indeed English. Painful.

The first few days were also incredibly hot, and they don't really do A/C here. So I sat in a hard classroom desk craning my neck up to look at students, swatting away flies, my clothes sticking to me from sweat, grabbing at papers that keep being pushed away by the fan (which seems to have very little cooling power).
Yesterday, my last day of finals, wasn't so hot; instead it was incredibly windy. So examinations were punctuated by doors slamming every minute or so. At one point, the classroom door got stuck closed...a combination of strong winds and bad door knobs. It took me, two students inside, and a whole cluster of students outside pushing and pulling to finally get it open.

Fortunately, the pain is over. I just have a bunch of exam grade sheets to add up, a task unto itself, as I never underestimate the difficulty of addition. Next week I just have my last classes, "fun" classes. We're going to listen to a song, play some games, and probably get out early. Which will give me more time to work on the homework I'm not doing right now.

That Aisle

You may have wondered about the sudden burst of blogging activity in these past few weeks. It isn’t because we were inwardly convicted or our lives suddenly became more fascinating. It is, in fact, the old standby…Procrastination. We have a lot of masters’ work to finish in the next few weeks. And somehow, when I sit down to write something for a class, a whole bunch of other more interesting ideas come to mind. You may not think they are so amusing, but consider this: would you rather read random blog musings or my class paper? That’s what I would rather write as well.

So today when I went to the supermarket I was thinking about a funny China phenomenon: The Feminine Product aisle. (Capitalizing makes it seem more significant, doesn’t it?) For starters, it is indeed a whole entire aisle. There are a lot of things that China doesn’t have, but it’s certainly not lacking in feminine products. If you are a guy, it’s entirely possible you’ve never even been in said aisle in America, since its mere proximity makes you sweat. So I will enlighten you: in America it is maybe half an aisle of 3-4 brands. Chinese supermarkets, however, boast dozens of brands, and within each brand dozens of varieties of size, shape, scent, packaging picture, and other yet-to-be discovered variations. It’s capitalism at its height. Even our campus store, which is smaller than a gas station mini-mart, has an entire aisle dedicated to Feminine Products.

One thing I find to be especially funny is that you will usually see one or two guys in this aisle, browsing with their girlfriends. And they aren’t even doing the awkward “how did I get into this” stance or the shifty “I’m pretending I’m not here” eyes. They are actively involved in the selection process. They will pick up and examine packages to compare with their girlfriends. They seem about as natural as when they are holding a woman’s purse or wearing pink shoes. In other words, completely natural.

While we are on the subject (a subject that probably won't come up very often, so I'd better take advantage of it), I am reminded of a funny story (not my own). Students sometimes bring gifts when they come to visit our homes - usually something like fruit or strange little knick-knacks. But a past teacher in Yangzhou was once given a gift of sanitary napkins. Her student (a girl, thankfully) said, “This is my favorite brand, and I think you will like them.” I wish that would happen to me. It would be a priceless experience.

Anyway, I thought I would share this interesting bit of Chinese culture with you. You can’t read about these things in the travel books. Some things just have to be experienced.

The Gow-Cow

by Kevin

Today is the biggest day in the lives of many Chinese students: the beginning of the Gaokao - the College Entrance Exam. Or, as Xinhua called it a three-day "battle to determine their fate."

As we went to lunch today, parents were lined up outside of the area's high schools, praying, nervously pacing, waiting for their future meal-ticket, er, child to emerge victoriously.

Many will emerge disappointed, since the admission rate is around 62 percent (according to Xinhua).

Generally, this is the ONLY criteria colleges in China use for admissions. Nobody looks at high school grades or extracurricular activities. After all, most high school students in China have no time for extracurricular activities because they spend every spare moment trying to prepare for this exam. Even if the high school had service clubs, basketball or ping-pong teams, students probably wouldn't have time for them.

We've heard stories about students who get up every morning at 5 a.m. to begin studying before school, go to class from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., then continue studying until 11:30 p.m., with only a half-hour nap in the middle. No wonder their social skills resemble that of junior high schoolers by the time they get to college.

Students here have told of the elaborate, high-tech, ways that students cheat on the high-stakes exam. One said that she has friends who placed a tiny radio devise in her ear. Then when the exam began, a distant voice relayed the correct answers for many questions. Others said that they've heard stories about teachers allowed their students to cheat (the pressure is also extremely high on the teachers to show that they can prepare their students well).

Just last week, in the office, my student Jane was telling me about the Sichuan earthquake last year. She said that she and her classmates were studying for the college entrance exam when it hit -- just a month before their big day. Nobody was hurt, except for a boy who jumped from the third floor and broke his legs. They all slept under the stars at school because they weren't allowed to go home afterwards. Then, finally, she said the school told them to go home and prepare on their own for the exam.

They spent a month on their own cramming. Then, they showed up on the days of the exam. "I haven't seen most of my classmates since then. We didn't even get to take photos together."

No photos. No graduation. No ritual. No rite-of-passage. It was just over.

This is how she wound up at this college. It's generally a disappointing prospect for students to be here at a not-so-prestigious teacher's college, even more so to be part of the "three-year" program, which earns a certificate a little lower than a bachelor's degree. Jane is a three-year student. Jane didn't mention this, but three-year students didn't do well enough on the gaokao to gain full-fledged status in college. If you need 60% to get in, maybe they got 50%.


Unfortunately, since bloggger is blocked here, I can't add these links to the body of the text, so I'll add them here:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-06/06/content_888098.htm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/07/content_11502991.htm

Staking a Claim

We were a little slow getting started with our Chinese lesson. Generally before we delve into Chinese, we begin with a little small talk. Lily, our tutor from the Chinese department, usually has some interesting stories to share. This week she was talking about the studying she did over last weekend’s holiday and suddenly we stumbled upon an interesting topic: the study rooms at the library.

Apparently there are four large study rooms in the library. Overall, they possibly accommodate a thousand students…and there are over 15,000 students at our university. The library officials try to discourage students from “claiming” seats in the study rooms, but that’s what happens anyway.

The first day of each semester, students will get up early and head to the library at 6am. It doesn’t open that early, so a crowd will wait outside. Once the doors open, the students will run up the stairs to the fourth and fifth floor study rooms, racing for a good seat.

On this first day, the students need to stay at their claimed desk for at least several hours to affirm their rightful ownership. They will leave a few books behind to mark their space, “useless” books, so there is no big loss if they are taken. Then throughout the rest of the semester, they can use their claimed space. Lily said some students will really treat it like home, leaving food or bags there, even bringing in flowers!

The freshmen students don’t know about this “seat claiming” ritual, so they always lose out. Of course, there are plenty of empty classrooms to study in. They are usually not as crowded, but Lily said they are sometimes noisier. She prefers the good study atmosphere of being surrounded by 200 diligent students.

Occasionally there will be fights if another student tries to occupy a claimed seat. Several times students have gotten really upset about it, hitting and yelling and causing a scene. This sort of behavior is one of the reasons the library doesn’t want students to save seats. So every month or so, the library workers will come through at night and move everyone’s books and items off the desks. It doesn’t work. The next day, the students come back in and reclaim their same territory, unchallenged again until next month’s sweep.

Lily has a claimed seat, but she said she doesn’t get mad when someone uses it. “Usually it is just a freshman who comes and stays for a few hours. After they leave, I will go back to my seat.”

"Trouble is a Friend"

We've had some issues with updating our blogs thanks to a certain anniversary that just took place in China. However, several people have asked about how the "cheating episode" turned out. I didn't want to bore you with all the details, but given your interest, here goes:

I considered several options, weighing the balance between justice and mercy, punishment and forgiveness. I thought about sticking to my guns and forgiving the students morally while still punishing them for their actions. I considered simply allowing the students to keep the grades they'd earned through cheating (about half the cheaters still managed to fail even with the help). Finally, I thought about simply giving them a new, more difficult, exam and only counting that for their score.

After having my meeting with the students, I decided on the last option. I created a new exam for them and told students to meet me in the lobby of the building, so I could bring them to a new classroom. I questioned the fact that "every" student really cheated on the initial exam (China is a collective society, so I figured it wasn't outside of the range of possibility that some students may have admitted to cheating when in fact they hadn't), but since everyone signed the paper and asked if I would give them a new test, I gave the exam to each of them.

However, for the first question, I asked the following: "How and why did you cheat on your exam (if you did not cheat and just signed the letter because you wanted to support your classmates, now would be a good time to tell me. I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice for your friends, but I don't want to punish you unjustly by making you retake your exam)?"

Naturally, my plan was thwarted again: for the last couple months the school has relentlessly been scheduling away all of the student's spare time with time-intensive out-of-class activities. This week it came in the form of a dance competition. Naturally, the "cheating" class had made it to the finals, which were scheduled for -- you guessed it -- my class time. So, about one-third of the class couldn't be there for the beginning of our two-hour lesson. They said they were scheduled to perform seventh, so they should be able to return for the second half of our class time. I scrambled to make the best of a bad situation that had just turned worse.

"Ok," I told them, "Come back as soon as you are finished. I will begin my lecture, then I will give the exam as soon as you return."

They didn't come until there was only 15 minutes left. Not nearly enough time to complete the exam. My next class would begin 30 minutes after this one.

I scrambled to figure out a new approach. I shared a parable about a king committed to carrying out the law, stepping in to take the punishment of a law-breaking son. Then I explained why I was willing to forgive them. I understood their reasons for cheating, but I could not condone it. I told them that I was willing to forgive them because I have been forgiven for so much more. I thanked the students for their confessions, then I forgave them and told them that I hoped that they could see this as a learning experience. Some seemed moved by the story, but others seemed disinterested.

I handed out their updated exams and, knowing they wouldn't have time to finish it, instructed them to label the map first (since this was the most common way they'd cheated on the initial exam), then answer the other questions.

In grading, I took a hybrid approach. Instead of counting the original map, I replaced that part of their score with the new map. On top of that, for those who confessed to cheating (about half the class), I deducted 10% from their final scores. For those who just signed the paper to support their classmates, I didn't reduce their scores.

I still am unsure whether I handled the situation the best way. The last couple weeks, I've been grappling with the issue anew as I prepare for a class this summer on "Cross-Cultural Conflict." While this isn't the same issue as the Rwandan genocide or South African apartheid, the issue resonates for me. How should we forgive? Is it possible to have true reconciliation in absence of confession on the part of both sides for their role in the conflict? Thankfully my students confessed. If this happens again in the future and students DON'T confess, what approach should I take? Some of the students said their desks had numerous answers written on them BEFORE they arrived to take the exam. That means students in another class cheated, but I don't know who it was. Can there be reconciliation with those who didn't confess? True, I don't know who they are, but now I'm suspicious of all. I've had to take the step of forgiving all of them. But that doesn't make me any less suspicious. Next exam, I think we'll be finding a new classroom at the last minute.

As I write this conclusion, a strangely-appropriate song, "Trouble is a Friend," by Australian singer Lenka plays over the loudspeakers that blare over campus each day at noontime:

"Trouble will find you
No matter where you go
Oh, oh
No matter if you're fast
No matter if you're slow
Oh, oh
The eye of the storm
wanna cry in the morn
Oh, oh
You're fine for a while
But you start
To lose control

He's there in the dark
He's there in my heart
He waits in the wings
he's gotta play a part
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
Ahh

Trouble is a friend
But trouble is a foe
Oh, oh
And no matter
What I feed him
He always seems to grow
Oh, oh
He sees what I see
And he knows
What I know
Oh, oh
So don't forget
As you ease
On down my road

He's there in the dark
He's there in my heart
He waits in the wings
He's gotta play a part
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
So don't be alarmed
If he takes you
By the arm
I won't let him win
But I'm a sucker for his charm
For his charm
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
Ahh

How I hate the way
He makes me feel
And how I try
To make him leave
I try
Oh, oh, I try

But he's there in the dark
He's there in my heart
He waits in the wings
He's gotta play a part
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
So don't be alarmed
If he takes you
By the arm
I won't let him win
But I'm a sucker for his charm
For his charm
Trouble is a friend
Yeah
Trouble
Is a friend of mine
Ahh

Ooh
Ahh
Ooh"

The Fate of Unlucky Girls

It’s always interesting to hear students’ stories, even if it is one variation of the same story over and over again, it amazes me each time. Tonight I was talking to two of my students in the office, and one of the students was telling me about her good friend.

Her friend was from Xinjiang province (the farthest west in China) but moved to Xian (the city near us) when she was 13. She came alone, and she knew no one. She came because her father had died. He had some sort of disease and came to Xian for medical treatment, but the treatment failed and he died.
“What about her mother?” I asked. “Did she not have a mother?”
“No,” my student said, “She had a mother. But her mother didn’t like her.”

The girl had been born at an unlucky time. Apparently each year there are certain times that are unlucky for birth. Some people think that babies born during these times will cause harm for their family, especially brothers or fathers. They are thought to have some sort of medical power. My students said that these beliefs are common in the countryside all over China, but not as much in the city.

If a family has a child during an unlucky time, they may give the child a different family name than their own. This is to counterbalance the unluckiness or to keep harm away from the rest of the family. This happened to someone in my student’s family, who still has a different family name than her parents and siblings.

So my student’s friend moved away when she was 13 because her family felt like she caused her father’s death. The first night in the city she slept on the street, but after that she found a school to attend.

We moved on to talking about traditional attitudes toward girls. One of the students said her grandfather did not like her and was unhappy when she was born. “I don’t know why,” she said, “but now that I am grown up he likes me.”
The other one said her grandmother does not like her. Her grandmother likes her brother and is always giving him gifts and treating him well, but she does not like my student. Her cousin also doesn’t like her. Her cousin had three girls, each time trying for a boy. The third time, he left his youngest daughter on the floor of the hospital, hiding outside until someone came and took her.
“But we are very lucky,” my students said.

Most of my students are girls. I hear a lot of these stories. But somehow it amazes me every time.

Old Woman Enjoying Shaanxi Opera

Old Woman Enjoying Shaanxi Opera
Originally uploaded by kevsunblush

Shaanxi Opera is a special form of grating Chinese music that the old people here are quite fond of. Every weekend and most weekdays in the main city square, you can find groups of old people playing traditional Chinese instruments. There's generally a man or woman singing traditional opera (if you've ever heard Beijing Opera, aka Peking Opera, you get the idea). The other day, I even spotted several musicians practicing in the outdoor dining area at McDonalds (I wish I had my camera that day).

I just uploaded a bunch of photos of people playing and enjoying Shaanxi Opera in the city square, in addition to shots of the Sports Meeting, our trip to Xi'an a couple weeks ago and other stuff to flickr. Check them out here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevsunblush/