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.
*****

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.

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.

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