Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Another (remarkable) profile and a class picture


Last day of class yesterday. I gave the students pens as gifts and thanked them. They have been my eyes and ears to understanding China. I know so much more. And so little. Here's one last profile that I like a lot:

---’s story: living in the city is the most important.

It is 9 o’clock in the morning on Pingshi Street in Nanjing. --- has just finished her job as a Chinese style breakfast seller, standing in the street for nearly three hours.. It is in deep winter now, and her cotton quilted coat is too old to resist the cold weather. She can’t help shivering the moment she stops moving. Since breakfast time is over, --- begins to pack up the unsold food into her tricycle, which is both her vehicle and her shop. Her red and bloated fingers are still agile enough to do all the packing. After she packs up, she wraps a thick scarf closely about her head and climbs onto the big tricycle to ride home.
It is 13 years since --- left Anhui Province and came to Nanjing.
--- was born in a small village in the north of Anhui, which now is famous for its beautiful countryside. Her parents are farmers who grow tea leaves, like most of the farmers in the village. When --- was very young, she began to help her parents pick the leaves.
“People usually think it’s hard for a girl to do farm work when she is very young,” --- says. “However, I didn’t feel anything uncomfortable then since other children help their parents do this too.”
When she was 8 years old, her parents sent her to a local rural primary school. “My Chinese teacher was nice and offered me his own books to read. I enjoyed reading but my school work wasn’t good enough.” In a rural school, only few top students can further their study in a university. --- wasn’t one of them, and she left school after she graduated from a local middle school.
“I don’t feel sorry for it,” she says. “I knew clearly I wasn’t going to be one of the top students no matter how hard I worked.” She lived at home for about half a year as a jobless teenager and then decided to look for opportunities in the city. She and two other young girls came to Nanjing by train in the spring of 1995.
“The train station then wasn’t as big and beautiful as it is now. but it was as crowded as it is today,”--- says.
There are still tens of thousands of farmers pouring into cities every day. According to government statistics, there are nearly 200 million migrant laborers now working in the cities.
--- and her two friends, with help from an acquaintance, quickly found jobs in a privately owned factory producing drygoods in a suburb of Nanjing. She lived with three other girls in a dormitory owned by the factory and the factory provided them with lunch and supper. Her first month’s salary was 600 yuan.
“I went to downtown and bought new clothes for myself. It was alive, clean, and beautiful, totally different than my home” --- admits that she was deeply attracted by this strange place then. “I had never seen so many beautiful clothes before.”
However, --- didn’t get many chances to visit downtown because of her hard work. She worked about 10 hours a day, six days a week. “I felt tired and missed the beautiful clothes a lot which I know I can’t afford.” One of her roommates started to wear more and more beautiful clothes, which no doubt were beyond her purchasing power. “She makes the same salary as us but her ‘boyfriend’ was rich.” The “boyfriend” --- mentioned is a married man who has taken this girl as his mistress. That was common then and even now. Beautiful poor girls always make money much easily than average-looking girls.
--- was not bad-looking when she was 20, as her photo shows, but she had no luck. Her first boy friend was a temporary worker in her factory who is also from a rural place. When --- realized that she would still be a farmer and a farmer’s wife if she married him, she broke up with this young man without hesitation. “I make little money in the suburb of the city, but I would like to stay in the city rather than be back to my hometown, a quiet but boring village,” --- says. “City life is interesting and beautiful even though I can not enjoy it now.I hope my child will grow up in the city, knowing how big and wonderful this world is.”
Ten years ago, --- was introduced to an old woman who was looking for a proper wife for her 30-year-old son. The old woman and her son lived on Pingshi Street, an old street in the inner city. They lived in an apartment in a small single-story house, no bigger than 40 square meters with little furniture in it. The young man was a blue collar worker and his mother had no work. Few city girls would like to marry him and be a hostess in such a small apartment. --- met with the young man in his apartment for first time. “He was shy and didn’t talk too much, but I think he’s a nice guy.I know I will get a permanent urban residence certificate after I marry him and that’s important to me.”
They married in 1998.Her dowry was only 5000 yuan which she deposited over three years. Her parents came to the city on the wedding day and went back home by train that night since there was no room for them to stay in her small house. Her factory was too far from her new house so she quit her job and looked for some temporary work close by.
--- was working as waiter in a small restaurant when she found herself pregnant in 2002. It was not the first time she got pregnant since she married. “In my home village, it is natural for young couple to have their own baby when the wife gets pregnant. But you know, raising a child in the city is rather difficult. I love children but my husband and I were not ready for a baby, so we chose to abort the first baby. By 2002, we were still poor, but I think maybe it’s the time. I was 27 and my husband was 35 then, we are no longer young.”
Her baby was born in winter of 2002. It was a healthy boy. --- lost her job in the restaurant and stayed at home to look after her baby until 2005, when her boy was 3 years old. Her husband’s salary was too little for this four-person family. As a thirty-year-old woman with no professional skills, --- found it was too difficult to find a job near her house. She decided to start a small business--a very small business. She bought a second-hand tricycle with 200 yuan and modified it into a mobile shop. She sells some simple food for breakfast to working people who have no time to cook for themselves. --- has to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning to prepare the food. This small business brings her family some income, about 2000 yuan a month, almost the same salary her husband earns at his factory.
“I know clearly that my life now is difficult, but it is in the city. Most people in the city have to try their best to survive, just as I did when I came to Nanjing in 1995. Now I’ve got my own family here: a healthy baby and a hard working husband. Maybe I’ll lead an easier life if I go back to my home village, but I will always miss the vitality and beauty of city. Now I’m living in the city and that’s the most important.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Final assignments

I’ve asked students to write profiles as the final assignment for my writing class. Several students are writing about college graduates who can’t find jobs or are getting paid less than factory workers.
One writes:
“From 2001 to 2005, the number of college graduates in China has grown rapidly but the employment ratio has dropped.... It is estimated that raising a child from cradle to college costs 400,000 RMB while the average starting salary of the graduates is 1549 RMB per month. Students with master’s degrees earn an average of 2674 per month and those with doctorates earn an average of 2917. Some people suggest it is better for parents to spend their money on pension insurance than on their children.”

There is tremendous pressure on children, particularly now that most families have only one child, to succeed in school and earn enough money to support their parents, since few of them have pensions or health care. But the economic slowdown here is making it increasingly difficult to find jobs.


Another student profiled a migrant worker and concluded with this anecdote:
“It was time for lunch and I invited ---- to join me, but he refused. “My clothes are so dirty. If we have lunch together, you will be laughed at by others,”--- said shyly. “There is no choice as a worker.”
“Never mind, “ I said, “Nobody will do so.” He still disagreed. When I proposed that I go buy fast food so we can have lunch on the construction site together, he refused my offer. “Whether your family is rich or not, your money comes from your parents as a student,” he said.” I have earned money by myself on earth, so I should pay for the lunch.” He spoke to me like a parent, although he is three years younger than I. Finally, I had to give up my plan for us to have lunch together.
When we left the construction site and walked through the campus, it was very crowded, as usual. ---- looked uncomfortable, and walked carefully so that he wouldn’t knock into the students. “Walking on campus, I feel particularly self-conscious,” he said..” He seemed embarrassed..
“It does not matter,” I said. “You will open your own company, won’t you? At that time, college students may be working for you.” I smiled. ---- scratched his head, and laughed. The smile spread on his face, bright and warm.

Others are writing about programs for handicapped children, such as a treatment center for autism and a school for deaf-mute children. Another story in progress is about “fake” journalists, people who make a living as reporters even though they are not licensed by the government. Some are quite successful at breaking important stories, like illegal coal mining operations, yet at the same time are willing to take bribes to make money and to keep stories out of the news, as some “real” journalists do as well. (One student told me last week that executives of Sanlu, the company that sold milk tainted with melamine, offered a bribe to the owners of China’s most popular search engine to delete all links to stories about the scandal.)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Tiger Leaping Gorge & The Chinese Tea Party

From Marcus:

Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world, near the mouth of the Yangtze River:
"The snow on the top of the glorious mountain gave the luster of mid-day to the objects below, when what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a miniature tiger and stuff."

Tea Party, tasting rare Pu'er tea in Kunming, some more than 20 years old!

"The taste of the tea was good, especially before a big meal. One tea tasted like freshly peeled oranges. I was invited to assist the people who were pouring tea and were making the tea. First you had to put tea leaves in a cup, and then you poured water in another cup, and then you poured it in the cup with the tea leaves. Then you strained it into a jar, and poured it into cups. And people were giving me all these gifts, like orange tea and pu'er tea, and a special basket of bamboo to store it in. When I grow up I'm going to become a master tea maker."

Marcus is now engrossed in a program on Chinese television on how to speak English, so I think this is all for now....

Monday, December 8, 2008

Critiques

My students have been writing critiques of plays and movies and, again, this has been a wonderful learning experience for me. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that "The Truman Show" is popular here, at least for those who download it from tudou.com.
I've also learned about some new plays, such as “Madame Bovary is Me.” Here's an excerpt from a student review.

The drama, in 15 acts, shows the dilemmas women face in modern life, mixed with the original plot of the novel "Madame Bovary." On the modern side, audiences can easily recognize caricatures of popular stars from actors/actresses' exaggerated performances. The 15 acts are performed in the form of TV talk shows. On the classical side, paragraphs of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" are recited by performers between scenes, which brings audiences back to 19th century France.

Why does it link modern life with "Madame Bovary"?

"Everyone is Madame Bovary," playwright Edward Lam said in an interview published on a website promoting the play. "It doesn't matter whether you have read the novel or not. You can find such kind of woman everywhere now and 150 years ago, who are always filling their happiness and love with endless fantasy."

Lam gives the fantasy a more definite meaning in the drama--desire. "One day in 2006, I saw, in a subway station, countless ads were luring woman to go shopping. Modern society is eroding women. They love beauty by nature, but not all can achieve it. Once they have immersed themselves into the created dreams, they keep thinking it can become their everyday life. Ads and the media suggest beauty is every woman's right, but all are based on money. I hope women can understand they can gain their identity by other methods."

Lam attracts audiences with the imitations of popular stars and TV shows. The parodies are hilarious. For example, female stars like Chiling Lam, Jolin Tsai, Faye Wong, and popular TV shows like "Kangxi has come" and "Everybody Speaks Nonsense" are represented in this drama. Lam uses well-known figures and stories to represent the possible styles of a modern Madame Bovary.

Lam insists that modern media have a great influence on women. TV programs focus on female audiences. They cover everything women are concerned with, such as hairdressing, cuisine, housework, and stories about stars. Women have gradually relied more and more on the media. And the media, hand in hand with advertising, erode women’s values by creating a beautiful dream. In contrast, Lam has created absurd scenarios, where stars have common people's desire, weaknesses and sorrows. It serves as a mirror, from which women can recognize their common dilemmas beneath the shining surface produced by the media.

To some extent, dilemmas shown in "Madame Bovary is Me" are not just for women. Several female characters are acted by men.. It may hint that men and women are facing similar puzzles. Since all of us are living in a society full of temptation, the question "Am I lost in desire?" is not just for women.


Below is part of a critique of a film titled "The Equation of Love and Death":

"We are not attractive and no one cares about us,", said Lee Mi at the end of the film. Both Fang Wen and she are abandoned by the mainstream of the society, and their love is suspended under great pressure from their parents. Actually, the narrative perspective of the characters in the film demonstrates the fate of the poor and underprivileged in this changing society. Their anxiety about their status, their dreams and struggle to win social recognition and their pursuit of true love are all discouraged by cruel reality. In short, they can not control themselves and nobody cares about them, so they can only care about themselves, rescue themselves, or even exile themselves.
I think Lee Mi and Fang Wen’s story is a tragedy. On the one hand, the tragedy reflects the suffering of disillusioned people; on the other hand, the tragedy makes us respect their hopes. This movie warns us that there are some marginal groups whose upper mobility is cut off in our society.

And here's an excerpt from a critique of "XIAOWU":

Finally, it is the real relationship between people displayed through XiaoWu in the Fenyang town that shocked us most.
The silence and embarrassment when XiaoWu gave the gift to Xiaoyong, the secret war between XiaoWu and HuMeiMei on the street, his father’s request for XiaoWu to donate five thousand yuan to finance the marriage of the second brother, and the home warmth between senior police and XiaoWu. These never appeared in other Chinese films, but they are so real and met with what we see in real life. They always occur in many corners of society, and they are deep- rooted in social life, rooted in our social ways and habits. Once they were put on screen, we got unprecedented shock and experience.
Now, people are accustomed to classify JiaZhangke as one of the sixth generation directors born in the 90s such as ZhangXiaoshuai andJiangWen. Their style is different from the fifth generation, such as ZhangYimou and ChenKaige. The fifth generation directors put the ethnic customs and the imagery of ancient China into the international film word, with a nation-state knot(???).
The Sixth-generation directors follow traditional realism, but make a new interpretation of realism at the same time: they demonstrate the political enthusiasm in the producing; they pay attention to the theme of urban young people's political beliefs, ideals and the suspicion of so-called ultimate concern, the dissatisfaction and confusion in the future; the leading actors of films are often marginal in our lives.
The new generation directors describe young people’s lives with distinct personal insight and experience. They choose the flowing live tide(??) to reflect the main situation of the society, and strong youth soliloquy and personal tensile force(???) can be seen in the film.
XIAOWU is Jia’s classical work. It is full of reminiscence. It tells the story about common people’s lives and their emotion. It appropriately illuminates the style of the new generation in their early days.. So XIAOWU is the magnum opus of the sixth generation’s works.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Road Trip

Jews first came to China from Persia as early as the 8th century via the Silk Road. Some of them settled in what was then the Chinese capital, Kaifeng. They brought a Torah with them, built a synagogue and followed Jewish law, including keeping kosher. They were treated well by the Chinese and the local Muslim community. Marco Polo met some of them in Beijing in the 13th century and Jesuit missionaries visited them in later centuries. A series of floods from the Yellow River repeatedly leveled the synagogue, which was last rebuilt in the 17th century. After a few more generations, the Kaifeng Jews, like the Mongols and Manchus and other foreign peoples who had come to China, were almost totally assimilated.
Western scholars have long been fascinated by this small community, which never numbered more than 2000 people. It also has been studied by some Chinese scholars, most notably by Xu Xin here at Nanjing University. Prof Xu originally taught American literature when he became fascinated by Jewish writers like Saul Bellow and Phillip Roth. He founded the Judaic Studies Center here and has written two books about Kaifeng Jews. He now runs one of the most successful programs at the University and has raised $15 million from foreign donors so that he can send his students to Israel to study Hebrew, hire visiting lecturers and attract hundreds of undergraduates and dozens of graduate students to his courses.
I have known about Xin's work for years and got in touch with him as soon as I learned I would be teaching at Nanda. Marcus's Hebrew tutor and my Chinese tutor are both graduate students in his program. I lectured in one of his classes some weeks ago and we began talking about making a trip to Kaifeng. Xin arranged an invitation for me to speak at the Judaic Studies program at Henan University in Kaifeng. Xin was kind enough to come with Marcus, Irene and me on the trip.
We took a fast evening train from Nanjing and arrived in Kaifeng in less than five hours. Our hotel had overbooked so they upgraded us to their "VIP" suite, a huge room with a jacuzzi in the middle. After breakfast, Xin took us to a Kaifeng theme park. The city is relatively small for China and doesn't have much industry, so it's trying to attract tourists. The Milennium City Park has pavilions, rivers and squares where performers act out battles, acrobatics and arts and crafts. My favorite was the fire eater. At one point, he drank a bowl of maotai (strong Chinese liquor) then spit it up in the air at a burning stick, shooting flames high in the air.
But the real reason Xin took us there was to see a small two-story house in the park that told the story of the Kaifeng Jews. He had helped put together the exhibits based on his research. It included copies of their Hebrew writing that showed evidence it had been transcribed from spoken words rather than from another text (the "lameds," l's, had been written as "raishes," r's), a copy of the steles that told some of the history of the community, a small model of the synagogue complex, and sketches of some members of the community. Later that day, we visited the site of the former synagogue, which is now a hospital. Xin also took us to visit the family of Guo Yan, who still identify themselves as Kaifeng Jews. The family doesn't follow any Jewish practices but, with Xin's help, greets occasional Jewish guests from around the world in their small home in a narrow hutong. Xin got government approval to put up street signs identifying their street as "Teaching the Torah Lane. Guo's family has some pictures and art work in their home and sells paper cuts, including one based on the design of the synagogue. They also have a website.
That evening, I spoke to about 100 students and faculty at the university. My topic as "Who is a Jew?" and I discussed how difficult it is to answer the question since Jews have adapted and changed their traditions, languages, beliefs and practices in different societies over thousands of years. The students seemed knowledgeable and asked good questions, including one I always dread answering. Why did Hitler and the Nazis hate the Jews and murder them? I answered with a question. We all know that the Chinese people have a rich history and culture and are a wonderful people, I said. What would you say if I asked you why people hate the Chinese?
We enjoyed our VIP suite for another night and then headed off to visit the legendary Shaolin Temple. Marcus and I are off on another road trip today to Tianjin--I'm lecturing on journalists in American film at Nankai University. Irene will pick up the story of Shaolin and the Longmen caves when we return. She's got her final in advanced acupuncture and moxibustion this week so she's staying in Nanjing.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Land Reform

OK, I'm on a roll here. One of my students did an extra story about one of the central issues in China today, land reform. Here's part of her story:

--, an apprentice in a barbershop on Guangzhou Lu, had to leave his family five years ago. His home is in Shihu village of Chaohu county, Anhui province. His two little brothers are still living there now.
When I asked him why he left his family, he shook his head and kept silent for a while.“ Money!My family needs money !”he said.“When I graduated from high school, I went to Nanjing to look for a job. I wanted to study in university but my family didn’t have enough money for it because my two little brothers also needed money to pay tuition. As the eldest son, I felt that I must help my parents lightening the heavy burden on them.”
--- said his parents were farmers and once had more than ten mus of farmland. They mainly planted wheat, paddy rice and some other vegetables. His parents could only earn four hundred yuan every month by cultivating the land when --- was in middle school. The money didn’t cover their monthly expenses,so they had to borrow money from others and then fell deep into in debt.They wanted to sell the usage rights of their land but this was prohibited by the law.
One day two village officials came to his home and said that the local government needed to expropriate their farmland to build industrial parks and would compensate them for the loss with three thousand per mu.
“We dared not refuse and that was a large sum of money indeed," --- said. "We could use the money to pay the debts. So we transferred our farmland to the government. Later we learned that the government sold the land to some developers for ten thousand per mu."
__ and his parents left home and became migrant workers.
“Now I earn eight hundred yuan every month and the barbershop is my home in Nanjing. There are also several boys and girls like me in the shop. We work in the daytime and sleep on the sofa at night. We lack social security and face prejudice from others.”
I asked him what his family would do if the country returned their land and they had private ownership.“Sell our land at a higher price and become residents of the city,” he said.

On October 19, the Communist Party Central Committee issued a policy document as a guideline to further rural reform and development. Many experts and scholars believe that farm ownership will change soon and farmers will be allowed to mortgage and sell their farmland. But those changes don’t actually appear in the new Party document.
“At present, China's rural land reform has its bottom line,”said ---, a sociology professor at Nanjing University.

In ---’s view, rural land reform should be a long-term process. Permanent land use rights are equivalent to private ownership and that can’t be achieved in the current conditions, --- said.
“The breakthrough in the reform of land property rights depends on the level of economic development and the development of democratic politics,” he said. According to domestic law, farmland is collectively owned, but meted out to farmers in small plots by leasing contracts.
“Collectively owned” is a vague concept. In fact, the country is the true owner of the land. The local governments usually use the rights to buy the farmland back from farmers at a very low price in the name of “the collective” and sell the land at a higher price to a land agent. This expropriated land has become the government's main source of revenue. If farmers become true masters of the land, the government will lose a major source of income.
And if farm ownership becomes private,more and more farmers will give up their land by mortgaging or selling it and then move into the cities. That will bring more pressure on the already overcrowded cities. If the farmland is sold to developers, this also might further threaten the country's food safety and significantly reduce food production.

The new Party policy, --- said "will break the monopolizing right of government purchasing land... Simply speaking, farmers will not have to sell farmland usage rights to local governments at an unfair price but can sell them to users directly at a reasonable price.”
But this change, he said, is not "land reform" in the strict sense. The government has just adopted some more liberal policies. The current system will be kept stable and unchanged for a long time.
“In addition, ideology is a big problem,” ____said.“Allowing farmers to become true masters of the land means private ownership. In essence, it is contrary to the socialist public ownership and may be seen as the collapse of socialism.”
“How to make farmers have their own land and houses and benefit from land value-added gains is not only an economic issue," he said. "It must be seen as the fundamental rights of farmers as citizens. If this problem cannot be solved, it is impossible to solve the other problems in Chinese rural land reform.”

Milk Scandal

I don't think many of my grad students here will become journalists--most are worried about supporting their parents and (surprise) journalists aren't well paid--but they are doing some terrific stories. I've got them working in teams to investigate different angles on the milk scandal.
So many things come together here: rapid economic growth, corruption, limited government regulation, the plight of the peasants, health care and the lack of a social safety net.

Here's part of one story:

The milk industry in China has grown dramatically in the past ten years. That rapid growth has involved high risks, a ----- professor at Nanjing University says, and those risks can be linked to the Sanlu milk scandal,
Professor ---- recollected the history of the milk industry from 1998- to 2007 and defined it as “The Great Leap Forward” of China’s milk industry”. Sanlu led the way in aggressively producing and marketing its milk. But high speed also means high risk, --- says.
“Melamine is the result of unceasing experiments by people to produce fake milk,” --- says.
Sanlu doesn’t have any farms or cows. They just collect original milk from milk stations or milk peasants. Seventy percent of the profit goes to Sanlu and 20 percent to the milk stations, leaving only 10 percent for the peasants. If the peasants or milk stations want to increase their profit margins, they add water and chemicals to the milk, --- says.
In addition, the demand for milk continues to exceed the supply. --- suggests that inbreeding among cows may have reduced their productivity.

From a story about advertising:

Most parents today believe formula milk products provides all the minerals needed for babies’ wisdom and robustness and it must be better than breast milk. People get this opinion from the heavy advertisements on television or in newspapers that are repeated over and over again.For example, one TV advertisement of Sanlu infant formula says:“It’s mothers’ achievement to have greater children. Our products make babies smarter, healthier, greater.” Another one uses such words:“The choice of thousands mothers. Let wisdom create future.”The scene on TV shows lovely little babies playing with toys with English letters happily and as their mothers watch joyfully.
As most Chinese have only one child today, the whole family usually does whatever they can to make their baby stronger and smarter. The only thing they’re afraid of is if their baby falls behind others. As long as a product can help, they will not care about the price.
“Those advertisements touch young parents easily,” Dr--says. She a little helpless. But she says that, in fact, no infant formula contains the perfect combination of proteins, carbohydrates and fats to enhance brain development as well as breast milk does.
Dr --- says that a rule approved in 1995 prohibits companies which produce infant milk powder from advertising their products or promoting them on the packaging, banning any images of babies and requiring a statement that promotes breast feeding.Most companies ignore this rule, she says, and no government department has taken action.

Another group of students wrote a moving account of a peasant family which brought their sick baby to Nanjing Children's Hospital for treatment after their local hospital failed to remove the kidney stones. The baby is recovering now and the government is paying for his care, but they haven't been reimbursed for the 10,000 yuan they paid the local hospital or the loss of income when they had to leave their farm for two months.

And the legal system hasn't come up with a solution yet since courts have been dismissing individual lawsuits and not permitting class action suits.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

He's so handsome

I watched the election results this morning at the John Hopkins Center for Chinese and American Studies. As the early voting was being announced on CNN on a screen behind me, I commented briefly on how new media and technology changed the way this campaign was covered. Then a Chinese student spoke. She (like so many Chinese I've talked with) said it won't make much difference who wins but she likes Obama because he's so handsome. Then, as the result became clearer, a Chinese professor lauded Obama for making history. "Perhaps 20 years from now," he said, "we can have an election like this in China."
****
Random observations on the street:
--a stylish young woman in a black leather jacket, gray wool pants and heels strolls down Guangzhou Lu (the street just outside where we live on campus) past the Adidas store chatting on her cell phone in her left hand. In her right hand, she holds a large handbag, a small shopping bag and a very large chicken.
--Marcus got new winter slacks for school but without cuffs. Nina set out Sunday to find a tailor shop but came upon a chainsmoking grandma with a sewing machine who worked in a small shop next to the student cafeteria. Nina called a Chinese friend who passed on her instructions to grandma. She sewed cuffs for three pair of pants in less than an hour for 12 yuan, about $1.50.
--Nina reports there's a fascinating shell game on the sidewalk outside. Passersby keep betting and keep losing as the young man hides a coin inside a teacup and somehow makes it disappear
******
I've done a few more guest lectures at other universities in town as well as to Judaic Studies classes here. Also showing some films ("Shattered Glass" to journalism students, "To Be or Not to Be" (1942) at Judaic Studies). Marcus continues to set new records with his Playstation Portable and we find time for the golf driving range, badminton and ping pong. He's also making amazing progress on his Torah portion with his Israeli tutor. My Chinese is getting better and Nina is now taking a qi gong class as well as working in the clinic every morning and taking traditional Chinese medicine classes every afternoon.
Next week, the director of Judaic Studies is taking us to Kaifeng, the ancient capital (and, many centuries ago, the site of a large Jewish community) where I'll give a lecture. Then we'll tour Kaifeng and also travel to Luoyang (historic caves and Buddhist rock carvings) and Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of kungfu.
Time to go pick up the boy and tell him about the election results.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

"Are you ready for the country, because it's time to go."

Two hours by bus and subway and a world away from urban China.

Jim, Marcus and I were invited (actually invited ourselves) to the home of one of his friend's parents. Both he and his parents, he tells us, are very happy we want to take the time to meet them. I am spending the week trying to figure out the appropriate gift to bring: I settle on a basket of fruit our family picks out from the local city markets because we are told that: 1) It is a traditional gift when Chinese visit hosts; and 2) Fresh fruit that is not grown in the village can be quite expensive for those who live there.
Our friend's parents are "peasants" and the only reason we are getting to meet them is because this colleague did so amazingly well at school that he received scholarships that allowed him to continue in school -- all the way through his PhD -- a literally one-in-a billion case.

So we are all together, ambling up a newly paved path ("This is no good...no plants can grow here now" says Jim's colleague). I'm surprised at this country attitude coming from a city-living PhD-er.

His father and his father's oldest brother greet us: the father in a Nike windbreaker and tennis pro cap and uncle wearing a wool suit. We walk over the path, rice fields on either side of us, looking yellow green in the distance and reaching toward the mountains. The air is fresh.
The house consists of three structures: an outhouse (a squat toilet connected to the pig stalls) an open room with a dining table, benches, a wall full of our friend's school achievement certificates with official red star stamps (the display had to be rearranged several times, as the awards kept coming), and bags of fresh rice from his family's fields (the brown for the pigs, the white for people); and a house with an open kitchen and one closed room: the bedroom.

Our friend's mom, about my size with a brown wrinkle-less face, huge smile, straight strong back, serves us duck with potatoes, chicken, a greens and tofu dish, rice, and stir-fried cilantro. We dig into the greens and cilantro though the family has strategically placed the meat in front of us. It's all just so good.

Later, Marcus and I feed brown rice and its chaff to the ducks, and chickens (which sneak into the dining area, but are shooed away by our friend's mom) and pigs. I admire the baby pigs and our friend's dad makes the slash-across-the-throat sign ie: "do I want him to slaughter it so I can eat it?" Somehow I'm able to communicate that it is not that kind of like, so the baby pig lives another day.

At some point, after several cups of tea, I have to use the bathroom, and our friend's mom worries that perhaps I should use the village toilet, and I insist that theirs is just fine. I try to balance myself and commune with the pigs and it all works out.

We are the only foreign family in recent memory to visit the village, and we try to not commit any faux pas, though it's hard to know what is or is not acceptable. We come to understand that not having third helpings would have been an insult, but we are expected at another professor's home that evening for dinner and not eating at THAT home would have been an insult: so we get away with just having seconds.

Jim and Marcus are doing well speaking and understanding the Chinese conversation. But then Marcus has a hard time at one point listening and smiling to all this adult talk (very few kids in the village as families who can move to the city often do, unfortunately) and asks to play with his hand-held game computer. I say "no." So, instead, he goofs around and starts making animal noises, and our friend's father declares he must be very bright, as any boy in the village who can do such a thing is considered very smart. I think he is being polite, but I'll accept it.

We take two long walks, one through the village center and see a few kids. One little boy starts crying because he is afraid of the foreigners. One little girl hides, then bravely says hello. I make a baby laugh by tickling his feet, so I feel I successfully communicated.

We are invited back, and I am amazed at what I saw. I ask our friend if he thinks living in the city or country is "easier" and he believes country life is better, "because you always have food."

I do hope things continue to go well for his parents. As an only child in a system with no pension, our friend will be their sole source of support should they be unable to work. I ask him what their thoughts are on his amazing achievement. His father's parents were able to afford 6 years of school, his mother's, two. "They have no idea," he says.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

What sabbatical?

I've spent most of the last week line editing 22 student stories. Most of them are fascinating--examples below--but take about an hour each to edit. I've also been invited to lecture at 2-3 other colleges in Nanjing, am working hard on my Chinese and helping Marcus with his Hebrew tutoring. And I'm now one of Nina's acupuncture patients. I went to her clinic yesterday where I had my chronic knee pain treated by the head doctor and half a dozen students. They stuck in lots of needles and used heat from burning cotton swabs (as the smoke was rising, I told the doctor I felt like a Nanjing kao yangguizi, a Nanjing roasted foreign devil). Four more treatments to go. The good news, I'm told, is that none of this can do any harm.
Marcus is making new friends--he's having a sleepover with a Canadian boy and his family this weekend--and enjoying the school. They brought in a former European league basketball player to coach the kids this week. They're also studying Shakespeare, Roman history, maths and Chinese. (He's getting better faster than I am but is usually too shy to speak.) We're also hanging out regularly with Ma Yan and her family--a connection from an NU Chinese prof. We went to the driving range with them Sunday and then Marcus and BangBang joined dozens of kids half their size bouncing around a giant, inflated jungle gym in Baima park. We're going to try to cook together Sunday.
Back to some student papers. I assigned them to write travel pieces during the week off and now they're rewriting them. Most of them have great story ideas although they have trouble with English, particularly our weird colloquialisms. One story was based on a student's visit to a small Hani viilage in Xishangbanna where she and her family visited a Hani home (where they butchered a pig for them) and went with them to pick tea leaves. Another student visited a museum commemorating a shipyard in Mawei that introduced European education to China in 1866, brought foreign teachers here and sent students, some of whom became prominent leaders, to study in Europe beginning at age 12. Another wrote about the freshwater springs of Jinan City through the eyes of a 70-year-old man who has lived there all his life.
"On a sunny afternoon, Cui Liangjun came to wash clothes in a spring stream, and happened to come across another old neighbor. They swung clothes lightly, and let running water wash dirt away. At the same time, they chatted charmingly together, sharing news on the price of eggs, discussing details of their shadowboxing practices, and exchanging information about their children. They both have lived here for many years and are highly familiar with each other’s family. In this traditional Chinese community, a near neighbor is better than a distant cousin. Cui said he knows the names of his neighbors’ kids, breeds of their pets, and their hobbies. “I can even know what they will eat at supper by the smell,” he said.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Rosh Hashana and The Golden Week

At the end of class a week ago Tuesday (September 23), my students asked me if I was having class on Sunday. I hadn't heard about it before, but it seems that's the price we pay for Golden Week. National Day on October 1, celebrating the Communist Party coming to power on October 1, 1949, has become National (Golden) Week this decade, an opportunity for hundreds of millions of Chinese to travel to historic sites, visit family and spend money. I don't think that's what Mao had in mind, but Deng Xiaoping is smiling.
At any rate, since the holiday doesn't officially start until Wednesday (and all the students leave town well before that), those of us with Monday or Tuesday classes hold a makeup session on Sunday. About half my students came but it was a pleasant class. I also got to spend part of the morning with four Nanjing high school students who wanted to discuss careers in journalism with me. They are even more shy than my grad students but I'm planning to see them at least a few more times. It's the kind of outreach the Fulbright program encourages and it's fun for me.
We'd been thinking about going back to Shanghai for Rosh Hashana since Chabad holds services there. (Judaism is not one of the authorized religions in China but Rosh Hashana is OK since it's a New Year's festival of sorts.) But Marcus's Hebrew tutor Enav told us he'd be conducting a small service here in Nanjing at the Judaic Studies Center. It was another unique China experience.
About a dozen of us gathered around the conference table--Chinese master's and doctoral students in Judaic Studies, a junior faculty member, an old China hand whose connection to China goes back to the days of Kissinger and Nixon, Marcus, Nina and I--and joined Enav in blessing wine (he brought a bottle from Israel), bread (which Enav baked) and plates of fish, fruits and vegetables Enav had prepared. String beans, pomegranates, pumpkin, apples, honey. We talked about the significance of the holiday, said our blessings and ate. A special Rosh Hashana.
We spent the rest of Golden Week following Deng's wishes by joining half the country in Beijing. We've all seen the new China on tv but it's certainly different from the country I taught and traveled in during the mid 80s and the China Nina and I saw on our three-week trip here in 1992. Beijing is a stunning, futuristic city. It also had a palpable feel of political control we haven't sensed in Nanjing. Police, security checks, security cameras. People who are careful about what they say. Tiananmen Square may be filled with crowds but it's clear the Party is keeping a close watch on their make up.
We got to spend some time with our Fulbright friends in Beijing. The Balla family lives outside a hutong (a traditional neighborhood with single story houses that open onto narrow unpaved streets)in northwest Beijing and we met them near Tiananmen just after we arrived (but not until we got our first taste of Beijing duck). The crush of people in the subway and on the street was overwhelming so we headed to the night market where we sampled everything from jiaozhe to scorpions. We did the usual tourism--Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace--the next day, then headed to their hutong and a great family-style restaurant.
On Friday, we visited the Great Wall at Mutianyu--almost tranquil (except for the hawkers) compared with the other sites. Ok, so I bought a "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt and Marcus bought a funny paper hat. Then back to town to join the Ballas at a Uighur/Muslim restaurant with terrific chicken kebabs and a curry, anise, paprika dish that translates as "big plate of chicken."
We paid our respects to The Chairman on Saturday--two hours of pushing and shoving in an endless line so we could spend about 30 seconds filing by his eerie but well-preserved corpse. And more jostling to see the Forbidden City. One thing that hasn't changed in my decades away is the Chinese passion for taking pictures of each other virtually blocking out historic sites in the background.
We got back to Nanjing late Saturday. It's nice to be home. It's even nicer that our adopted home in China feels that way.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Stories from My Students

I had my writing students interview each other in the first class and over the past week they've been emailing me their stories. Most of them need help with their English writing but they have some remarkable stories to tell. Some are simple stories about having a bicycle stolen or being caught in a bus in a snowstorm. Or about a young woman who nearly had her ear cut off (accidentally) by a mischievous boy when she was 10.
I've been projecting the stories onto a screen in the classroom and ask the writer to discuss it first, followed by the person he/she is writing about. They are good at criticizing themselves (I made a joke about self-criticism, a Communist Party tradition, but it fell flat. But my Chinese tutor taught me how to say it in Mandarin.) The biggest challenge for me is dealing with political/cultural barriers. I'm careful not to interject my opinions about Chinese policies, but it seems as if some things are not even open to discussion. One young woman had worked as a volunteer for the Party in one of the Western provinces, sponsoring events and rallies designed to build up community spirit. I told her I had read some accounts in America about conflicts between minorities and the Han majority and asked her if any of the minority peoples were in any way hostile to the Chinese who came to help them. "No," she said. "They all want to be just like us." End of discussion.
Here are a few excerpts (names deleted) from two of the most fascinating stories so far:

Through the camera len

This is a story about a boy and his camera.

In Guangdong province,there are 67 leprosy rehabilitation villages in which 6500 leprosy recovery people are still living an isolated life.They can not work or play like normal persons.The discrimination against these poor people and their children is hurting them even more than the illness has done before.

_____ as a vonlunteer,came to Haifeng village (a famous leprosy rehabilitation village in Xuwen county Guangdong province)for the first time .During that whole volunteering week, ___had meals with the villigers on the same table,visited residents house by house and help them do some farmwork .He always took a camera along with him in order to record the life there.

“Through the lens ,many details can easily be seen,”___ said .

The head of Haifeng village, whose children go out to work , lives with his wife all year long .When it comes to important hollidays such as the spring festival,this old man’s daghters will come back.

Deng maoman and his wife suffered from leprosy at the age of 14 .To everyone’s astonishment,illness never knock them down.,but strengthen this couple’s love for each other.

Lin Qinghong and her two young brothers are espected to spend their childhood in this special village like many other habitants’ children.Without remote control car or barbies,playing with a balloon becomes their most interesting entertainment .

The faces of them are permanently kept in ____’s photos.Behind the faces,we saw the lonliness ,which is shared by all the leprosy patients.

Now, ___has entered into Nanjing University to futher his study. Before him,a new chapter has unfolded yet. When asked about his plan in photographing, ___ seems to be a little puzzled. “If time permits,I still choose to record the life of people belonging to bottom class in China.Sometims you and I also can experience the feeling of being isolated.”

“The things you choose to reveal in the photos can reflect the way you feel for the reality. ” To some degree,press photography can be more impressive than ordinanry text report.So ___ has a strong desire to attract enough attention and concern from the whole society,making his photos become a bridge between the isolated crowd and mainstream society.

*****

A DEAF GIRL

I want to tell you a story of a deaf girl. In the summer holiday, I took a part time job of teaching a 12 years old girl lip language in a countryside of Qingdao.

Her name is Wangxiao. She is a lovely girl who always with a smile on her face. Her face looks like Yanglan who is the famous TV anchor.

She had many hobbies,such as watching idol play,embroidering,guessing the riddles,and so on.

She was so optimistic to life that you couldn’t believe she was a severe inborn deaf patient.

My work was to help her correct pronunciation.We need pronounce every letter of the alphabet precisely. Meanwhile,we also need read the articles of the elementary school textbook fluently. It was not an easy task. I have no patience. When I began this work I was worried that I couldn’t persevere. However, I was deeply moved when wangxiao pronounced every letter once and again. She repeated it cautiously until I nodecd . Sometimes, she couldn’t accurately pronounce a word although she had try it many times. Then, she saw my mouth shape carefully, tought my throat to feel vibration, and put her palm before my mouth to feel my breathe. I was absolutely touched and couldn’t help bursting into tears when I saw her striving against the misfortune that she had encountered. One time, she asked me: “_____,what are you weeping for, or you have some unpleasant things? ” “No , I just feel a little pain of my eyes. ”I answered. Then she simled sweetly and uesd gesture language: “Closing your eyes for a moment you’ll be comfortable. ” As seeing the smile on her beautiful face, I recognized that what I should is to help her learn skills of communicating with other people as every normal girl rather than have a pity on her unfair life.

In the blog of wangxiao’s mother, I knew she have started to learn surfing on line. Wangxiao and her mother have written several articles to erncourage many other deaf girls,sharing their experience of surmount obstacles in life. They believed that there are great interesting things in their life. Nothing can resist a heart of cherishing life.
*****

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

September 18

Today marks the anniversary of the Japanese invasion of China in 1931. Full-scale war didn't break out until 1937 when the Japanese conquered Shanghai and headed west to brutally rape and murder hundreds of thousands of civilians here in Nanjing. So perhaps it was appropriate to lecture to my journalism ethics class today about freedom of the press and the limits on press freedom that are often imposed in times of war and surging nationalism. I ended my talk with Justice Holmes' dissent in Abrams v. US (1919), a case about three anarchists and a socialist, refugees from Czarist Russia, who distributed leaflets in Yiddish and English in the Lower East Side opposing President Wilson's decision to send US troops to Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. Their convictions for sedition and sentences of up to 20 years in prison were upheld by the majority of the Court. But Holmes, joined by Justice Brandeis, dissented, arguing that these immigrants had as much right to publish their leaflets as the government has to publish its Constitution. Holmes wrote that we "should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death."
That opinion might not get much support from our current Supreme Court. And it's a particularly radical idea in China, despite some recent relaxation of restrictions on the news media. Perhaps it has some resonance here at Nanjing University, which has a long and proud tradition of protest. We'll see.
We really enjoyed the Moon Festival Sunday at the home of a friend of an NU Chinese teacher. Marcus played with their son Bang Bang, and the two of them found enough English and Chinese words in common--and lots of hand signals--to play together while the rest of us (two young English teachers from Omaha and northern California, an older couple from New Zealand who teach at a Canadian school and our hosts) made dumplings. They live near a big lake in the southern part of Nanjing. It was an adventure catching a taxi--every cab was either full or was grabbed by someone else who outmaneuvered us. A sweet old lady with a fan and her husband felt so sorry for us that they hailed a cab, fended off several people and escorted us into the cab. It can be crowded and noisy here but moments of kindness like that make it memorable.
Nina just headed to Gulou Hospital to work with the doctors there and Marcus is due back in a few minutes. He's got a Hebrew lesson tonight. I'm making some progress on my Chinese and am meeting with my tutor tomorrow. And I'm determined to find the golf driving range this weekend. And we don't mind if the Sox have to settle for the wild card.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Moon Festival

The Moon Festival approaches. We've been invited to a party to have dumplings and moon cakes on Sunday. There are many versions of the myth of the moon goddess and I'm sure we'll hear more. And everyone gets the day off Monday.
We all make new discoveries every day. Even in the new China, with its Starbucks and KFCs, nothing is quite the same as in the US. I'm learning enough rudimentary Chinese to order food and get directions (although I don't always understand the answers). Nina has learned how to negotiate with the neighborhood xiguo (watermelon) seller. I taught her two phrases--duo shao qian (how much?) and tai gui le (too expensive), which is enough to bring home a large watermelon for 3 yuan (about 50 cents). And Marcus is adding to his Chinese vocabulary and is the only one of us who can read any Chinese characters.
We took the cable car to the top of Zijin Mountain on Saturday, a great view of the city from about 1500 feet up. The summer heat seems to be dissipating a bit and it was cool up on the mountain and mostly clear. There's often a mist over the city--I'm not sure how much of it is air pollution.
Nanjing may be small compared to Shanghai but it still has 7 million people and buses, cars, motorcycles and bicycles coming from every direction. The cars and buses generally stop for traffic lights, unlike the chaos of Shanghai, although there are no rules for the motorcycles and bikes. (I'm sure there are many rules but few people follow them. And most people are talking or texting on their cell phones while they walk, drive or ride. That reminds me of home but the sheer volume of traffic, even on campus, means you have to remain alert all the time.)
We've learned the route to the supermarket and our favorite new restaurant, Gold and Silver. We're really enjoyng the food--jia chang dou fu (home-style tofu with bamboo shoots and a spicy sauce), hong shao yu (whole fish, sometimes cooked in soy sauce, sometimes in a spicy broth with huge red peppers and peppercorns), suan cai mian (noodles and bok choy in broth), zha daxia (fried shrimp), and, of course, dumplings. We can eat a big dinner for three of us at the canteen next door for about 10-12 yuan (less than $2), or splurge at one of the restaurants and pay 70 to 80 yuan (about $10). And I've been able to do some cooking at home as well--spicy tofu, noodles, rice.
Marcus really likes his school, particularly since we let him take his psp for the long bus ride. They're studying micro-organisms in science (they did a little skit last week), the Aztecs in humanities, measures and metric conversion in maths (as the Brits call it), lots of writing in English, art, music and ICT, where they'll be making multimedia presentations. And he's in the advanced Chinese class, even though half the kids in it are Chinese. He loves soccer(oops, football) most of all and claims to be able to bend it like Beckham. And he's earning points and marbles (I don't understand the system yet) for being helpful to the little kids and being polite and respectful (which I hope he can bring home). Oh yeah. He loves his little British school uniform--maybe he'll wear it to school in Brookline.
We've been watching dvd's in the evenings, including Lawrence of Arabia, Big Fish (highly recommended) and Meet Dave (has some funny moments). We've bought a few that don't work in English or don't play at all, but they usually sell for for 10 Yuan or less.
My graduate assistant from Beijing (she's a doctoral student in history at NU) came here last weekend and we searched bookstores for books about Jews. Nearly half the books in one of the large humanities sections were books about the Torah and Talmud (apparently badly translated excerpts that quote passages about making money, educating children, etc.) and many books in the business sections about why Jews are so shrewd at business. (The Chinese consider this a compliment--they want to learn from us). We also met with Xu Xin, the head of the Judaic Studies program here at Nanda, and some of his graduate students. He's put together a $15 million center with a library, conference rooms, scholarships for students and funds to bring in visiting lecturers and scholars. Most of the money comes from American, Canadian and British Jews and his students seem well-versed in Hebrew, Torah and even Talmud (the real one). He's also got an Israeli Hebrew teacher on his staff who runs holiday services for visiting foreigners. I just recruited him to teach Marcus some Hebrew and tutor him on his Torah portion.
My classes start Tuesday. Happy Moon Festival from Nanjing.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Traditional Chinese Medicine #1

This is my first blog from Nanjing and it's a little too early in the morning for me to be writing--but I'll try to give some context and not sound too flat. I feel lucky to be here with Jim & Marcus and even luckier that Mount Auburn Hospital granted me an academic leave to be learning something I had only read about with interest -- Traditional Chinese Medicine. And I owe it to one of Jim's colleagues at Northeastern (who was willing to call/e-mail friends, who e-mailed friends, who e-mailed friends--literally) who connected me with a TCM school that teaches one small section in English that had a class starting soon after I arrived.

Nanjing's school of TCM is associated with the World Health Organization and had taught Giovanni Maciocia, the doctor who wrote the textbook on the topic: The Foundations of Chinese Medicine.
Why study it at all?
One thing I've focused on in medicine is why, despite money, resources, some patients do not receive good treatment. Those patients tend to have problems -- such as addictive disorders -- that are not "solved" easily, and therefore become a frustration to their doctors who naturally want to see good results of their hard work. When I worked for Health Care for the Homeless, acupuncture to the ear was prescribed for patients who were withdrawing from alcohol, to help with the craving. At $2 a session at the Fenway health center, they sat in a room with others getting the same treatment (a needle placed on a certain point on the ear), drinking tea. And I heard from some of those patients that it seemed to work -- whether it was the point, the company of others in similar situation, time away from alcohol.
The school is a long hot walk from our apartment along streets with intersections more complicated to cross than Times Square (yes, even with the current construction there) because sidewalks also host motorcyclists/bicyclist/motorbike riders but the hard part is that unless I take an even longer and hotter route there is no caffeine to be had before I walk into the classroom.
The classroom has five rows of wooden desks, padded chairs, and in the left front corner, a lifesize white model of naked (though somewhat edited) man with blue and red acupuncture points mapped out.
Up front is a blackboard where two doctors stand, with cups of hot tea which they sip from during lectures. The older doctor lectures in Chinese. The younger once translates in English. It is the lingua of our class which includes myself, and 7 other doctors, one each from Switzerland, Poland, Turkey, Australia, Japan and two from Mexico. I am among the three who are Western-trained internal medicine docs, the others are acupuncturists looking for more training.
We ended up in this sometimes stuffy, sometimes cool (depending upon who gets control of the floor to ceiling "cooling tower" of an air conditioner first) through the usual ways, internet, word of mouth, and two are repeat students looking for more advanced knowledge.
Included in the course is a 590 page textbook, and a foot tall plastic model of, who guessed it, Acupuncture-Man.
What is different about this medical learning versus that I've done in the past will be a topic for another day. But even more is the same: after a little learning, we are all diagnosing ourselves. As is obvious to all of you who know me, I have way to much yang, I always feel hot, I like spicy food & stimulants (cafeine) , don't like to be quiet. I made this claim when I was cranking the air conditioner and got a laugh from my classmate who wanted the AC off and suffers from, you guessed it, yang deficiency.
Hoping you all have had a good meal (an old Chinese greeting)...Irene

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Creature Comforts

My two tireless journalism students and I spent four hours at our local super super market yesterday buying a new cell phone, a dvd player (only about $30 US) and all the food and kitchen equipment I need--wok, rice cooker, chopping board, knife, bowls, ingredients for the spciy tofu dish Marcus likes. We spent most of the time trying to translate things like soy sauce, chili paste with garlic, corn starch, bok choy, etc into Chinese so the students could find them. They have a small keyboard that translates words. By the time we got done, it was too late to cook so I took them and Marcus and Nina to a nice campus restaurant we hadn't tried yet next door to our apartments. We had them order and we got kung pao chicken, spicy home-style tofu, a gigantic bowl of noodles, two vegetable dishes, tofu/vegetable soup. We have enough leftovers to last us to days so I may not start cooking right away. I thought the meal might be expensive but the total came to $15US.
We watched a few minutes of Seabiscuit on our new dvd player and went to sleep.
I took Marcus to his first day of school by taxi early this morning--he looks great in his white shirt, blue tie, blue shorts and black leather shoes-- but the school has now arranged to have one of their minibuses pick him up and drop him off across the street from our apartment. We arrived early and Marcus headed to his classroom, where his teaching gave him some morning warmup writing exercises and math problems--he jumped right into it. The headmaster invited me to sit in on the morning assembly. He had the kids playing some games and singing songs and they all seemed to have fun.
Nina is off to her first day of classes in acupuncture and I'm looking forward to hear what she's learning. Our language teacher--she works at the front desk here--is coming tonight for our first lesson.
Will have to figure out how to use the gym--I'm getting an id soon--and how Marcus can get in some ping pong, tennis and basketball. He's been working hard on his Torah portion. I had to pull a few teeth (take away his psp for a day)but he's really on it now.
Natural disasters the news of the weekend--another earthquake in western China, flooding in India, Gustav threatening New Orleans. And we also try to keep track of the presidential and pennant races.
More to come soon.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

In Nanjing

We arrived by train Wednesday. The Shanghai train station reminded me of how crowded, hot and noisy that city can be when you wander from the overly pleasant confines of where the waiguoren hang out (read: Ritz Carlton). Hauling our luggage through the crowds, up escalators and onto the train was hard work but our two reps from Nanjing University were terrific. We took a high speed train--over 200 km/hr--and arrived in Nanjing in two hours. And when we got there, the head of the international exchange office and a driver were there to greet us with a large, air comfortable minivan. The difference between the Shanghai and Nanjing train stations is something like the difference between New York City and Boston.
We settled into our lovely apartment in the foreign experts building on campus--two large bedrooms, a living dining room, cable (mostly CCTV replaying Chinese gold medal winners from the Olympics), Internet access (a bit slow, but it works for almost everything except my NU email, which is incredibly slow), a nice bathroom with washing machine and a porch where we can dry clothes and a kitchen with a machine that dispenses hot and cold water.
We spent most of the past two days with two journalism students who have been working very hard to help us get settled--getting my computer connected to the Nanjing U system, helping us order a fresh water tank for drinking water and new shower head, and taking us shopping to the supermarket (about a half hour walk, a long way to carry tea kettles, toasters, water, juice and whatever else we've needed so far, including a basketball for Marcus). We've made three trips there so far--it's an amazing supermarket with clothes, shoes, appliances, kitchenware, and every kinds of Chinese (and some Western) food.
Prof. Chao from the Journalism school took us all out to dinner the night we arrived at a campus restaurant next door to our building. Wonderful soups--fish, noodle, mushroom--spicy fried tofu, something like moo shu pork, a local beef pot dish, omelettes, noodles, chicken, duck and a good local (Jingiang) beer. A wonderfully warm greeting with far too much food.
Prof Chao, his wife ( a Chinese lit prof) and their three-year-old boy came to greet us yesterday morning and took us on a tour of the campus. It's quiet now--most of the students will be returning this weekend--and the campus is beautiful. Small parks with benches, basketball and tennis courts, new buildings going up all around us. And then they took us out for another huge meal.
The city around us is more hectic--5.5 million people may be a small city in China, but not to us--but crossing streets is easier than Shanghai, where there are no rules. People seem to stop for traffic lights and the bicycles and motorcycles ring their bells or honk their horns and don't seem eager to run us over.
Today we're off to Marcus's school--a British School about 40 minutes from here--to meet his teacher and get oriented. He'll be taking a school bus every morning starting next week and I think it stops nearby.
Nina has been in touch with the college of traditional medicine and the hospital where she'll work--she also starts classes next week.
I've got more than two weeks before my grad classes (journalism ethics and writing) start so I hope to be well prepared. But I won't know what my students want or need to learn until after the first few classes.
In the meantime, I'm going to be working on my Chinese, making contacts here and figuring out what I can cook.
That's enough for now. Best wishes to all.

Monday, August 25, 2008

At the Ritz

We arrived safely after the long flight and are here at the Ritz Carlton in Shanghai for Fulbright orientation. When I was last in Shanghai in 1992, Pudong was mostly a swamp. We landed at the ultra-modern airport there and were driven past astonishing skyscrapers, high-speed magnetic trains and into the heart of a city I barely recognize. The monsoon rains--the thunder woke us up at 6 am today--were quite familiar and the city still floods during the worst storms. But it was an exciting light show from the safety of our hotel room and our family decided to head to the fancy health club in the hotel to get some exercise after our early awakening.
Last night, we were taken to a great Chinese restaurant and enjoyed sweet and sour whole fish, tofu soup and hot and sour soup, spicy shrimp, mushrooms and bok choy, pastries with red bean paste and many of the wonderful dishes you don't see often in the US, although we could have done without the jelly fish (a bit chewy and not very flavorful).
Marcus and Irene are off to the Shanghai Aquarium now and I just wrapped up a day of meetings with consular officials briefing us on do's and don'ts in China these days. Also talked a bit about ethics, which I hope will help with the course I'll be teaching. One thought is that shame, rather than guilt, is what constrains people's behavior in China.
According to the consulate experts, there seems to be more personal and political freedom but it seems as if press freedom has a long way to go and Internet sites are still being blocked from time to time (including blogspot, but there is a way to work around that). And there are still many problems with corruption and the gaps between urban and rural, rich and poor.
Still lots to learn about Nanjing and the university where I'll be teaching--the university rep is arriving this afternoon.
That's all for now. We should get to tour Shanghai tomorrow and I hope to find some places I remember from the olden days. Then we're off to Nanjing on Wednesday. I'll post from there as soon as I get Internet access.

Friday, August 15, 2008

A week to go....

We've got our visas, plane tickets, shots for the whole family (rabies, Japanese encephalitis, Hepatitis, Tetanus) and stacks of stuff we need to pack. I'm still preparing for my two graduate courses (journalism ethics and feature writing). I'm told the students at Nanjing University speak excellent English but I have no idea how much they know about American journalism. And I also have no idea if journalism as a democratic institution will make sense in the current Chinese political landscape.
Marcus will be attending a British School and is working on his writing and Hebrew before we go. His Mandarin is way ahead of mine but I'm trying to catch up with Rosetta Stone online. I'm bringing along his Torah portion and haftorah in print and audio so he can get an early start on bar mitzvah prep (June 26, 2010--save the date). The guys have discovered there's a golf driving range in Nanjing as well as two excellent (but pricey) golf courses nearby.
Nina is still working late into the night at Mt. Auburn but is making plans to study at an acupuncture college in Nanjing.
We'll be at the Ritz Carlton in Shanghai from Aug 24-27 and then off by train to Nanjing. We should be able to get mail through the University:
c/o Office of International Exchanges
Nanjing University
22 Hankou Road
210093, Nanjing
China