My Hypothetical Certificate in Applied Modern Chinese Studies

Today marks four years since my graduation from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies.  This means I’ve spent as much time as a university graduate as I did as a university student.  The experiences feel parallel in terms of topical variety and timeframe.  I’ve spent three of the past four years in China and one in California; I spent three of my college years in Berkeley and one particularly fabulous(!) year in Chile.  To reflect on what I’ve learned over the past four years, I hereby grant myself a hypothetical certificate in “Applied Modern Chinese Studies.”

A photo from my first week in Jiaxing, in the convenience store across the street from the university.

Looking back at the lessons I’ve learned and the ways I’ve learned them, I propose the following course outline for this certificate:

Applied Chinese Language (3 years):

• Modules include casual chats with vegetable vendors and train travelmates; more than a year of twice-weekly one-on-one lessons with my wonderful tutor Layla; conversations about Barack Obama and basketball with students and taxi drivers; advanced pantomime and guessing; childrens’ books like 喜羊羊与灰太狼 .

喜羊羊与灰 太狼: that translates to “Pleasant Sheep and Big Big Wolf.”   My best purchase today: A book featuring these cute characters, complete with both characters and pinyin.  Its title translates to “The Blue Frog Prince” and I got lots of amused stares as I read it aloud with a patient, amused Chinese friend over dinner at one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants.  Good times.

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How I Use Google Alerts to Follow Niche News in China

A friend who’s a freelance journalist just sent me this question:

There are too many channels/websites for news related to China for me go to them individually, so I want some filtering system to do the job for me. I think you said that you use Google Alert or something like that to do the work. Could you give me some tips on how to set up the system effectively?

Google Alerts are a system with which Google searches the web for a certain word or group of words, and emails you the results at a specified interval (as it happens, daily, or weekly).  Here’s how they’ve been most useful for me:

Use names of journalists whose work you follow

Christina Larson, my good friend and former roommate, writes about China and the environment for publications such as Foreign Policy (where she’s a contributing editor), Yale E360, the Christian Science Monitor, and Boston Globe.  This week, she published two pieces: Tibet is No Shangri-La, and the Dalai Lama is not what you think and America’s Unfounded Fears of a Green-Tech Race with China.  The Google Alert I’ve set on her name sent me both pieces, as well as reactions from bloggers, such as Matt Schiavenza’s personal reflection The Real Tibet and David Wolf’s industry analysis Zen and the State of BYD Innovation.  Google Alerts also sends me links to other Christina Larsons; if I wanted to avoid them I might amend the Google Alert to say “Christina Larson” + China.

Use two or three words that relate to your topic but are uncommon in broader conversations

This strategy has helped me follow the demonstrations against the planned garbage incinerator in Panyu, just outside Guangzhou.   I set my Google Alert on the words Guangzhou + Protest.

Over the past several months, this alert has helped me find three basic types of information: more »

Happy New Year! And the Little Boy’s Favorite Toy

It’s nearly Chinese New Year. Here in Beijing there is remarkably little traffic, since many people have gone home for the holiday. The city seems to be taking a deep breath before two straight weeks of fireworks all day and all night.

Image Source: China Daily

I just received an email from someone considering the program that initially brought me to China, and she inspired me to look through my old mass emails. This story particularly cracked me up, so I’m sharing it again here. It’s part of an email I sent April 28, 2007.

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Students say the darndest things! For one of my lessons, I brought in a collection of random household products and toys for my students to advertise, including rubber duckies, a pink toilet plunger, a wooden back massage hammer, and a clay whistle in the shape of the chicken. I instructed each group to name the product, think of four or more unconventional uses for it, imagine its target customers, and put together a creative presentation. Many groups impressed me with their creativity. The duckies became trusted confidants, the pink plunger became a hat for toddlers to wear so their mothers wouldn’t lose sight of them in public places, the back massager became a self-defense weapon for elderly women, etc. I couldn’t help but laugh when one group advertised the chicken-shaped clay whistle. A shy boy explained, “This is small c*ck” (a word undoubtedly chosen with the help of an electronic dictionary). “Little boys think it is very interesting to play with. They play with it all day. Little girls think it is a bit boring….” Ah, I could not stop laughing….

But I also try to tackle some more substantial topics. I discussed the shooting at Virginia Tech with some classes. The Chinese are not allowed to own guns, and a large percentage of my students blamed this tragedy on insufficiently strict laws. They were horribly embarrassed by early news reports saying the shooter was Chinese. National pride runs deep here, as does the need to present a positive public image. However, a similar tragedy occurred at a Chinese university a few years ago, when a student stabbed his sleeping roommates. I guess that empathy and evil exist everywhere. All I can say is “rest in peace” and “seize the day.”

Orville Schell on China, and the Melting of America

I just stumbled across this article by Orville Schell, on what is wrong with America. Schell is the the Director of the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations, as well as the former dean of my alma mater’s journalism school. The whole article is definitely worth a read. These lines about China particularly caught my attention.  Emphasis mine.

China, a country I’ve visited more than 100 times since 1975, elicits an especially complicated set of feelings in me. After all, it’s got a Leninist government which was not supposed to succeed; and yet, despite all predictions, it managed to conjure up an economic miracle that, whatever you may think about political transparency, the rule of law, human rights, or democracy, delivers big time. When you’re there, you can feel an unmistakable sense of energy and optimism in the air (along with the often stinging pollution), which, believe me, is bittersweet for an American pondering the missing-in-action regenerative powers of his own country.

Read the full article here.