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.
Amazing Photos from Adrian Fisk’s “I Speak China”
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the value of a picture of someone holding a poster full of carefully selected handwritten words? I just stumbled across this amazing series of photos from British photographer Adrian Fisk, on BlindBoys.org.
Rainbow Su – 22 Yrs Student software engineering Guangdong Province ‘I am worrying something. Girls in China is becoming materialistic, without house my girlfriend would not marry me. My parents cannot help me either. So I need to get good job with high payment, that’s what I totally want’.
Here is part of Fisk’s introduction:
I have just returned from a 12500 km journey through China to find an answer to this question. I looked for young Chinese aged from 16 – 30 years, gave them a piece of paper and simply told them they could write what ever they wanted to on the piece of paper, I then photographed them holding the paper.
The results are fascinating.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from his collection. Click here to see them all. More of my favorites here below the jump. more »
Defining Modern China: A Little Book with a Multifaceted Perspective.
My colleague Drew gave me this book as a birthday gift. It’s a mini-handbag-sized, 140-page overview of modern China. I particularly like this quote:
China is a continent, not just a country. It is a series of identities, some shared, some differentiated, and some contradictory: modern, Confucian, authoritarian, democratic, free, and restrained. Above all, China is a plural noun. (11)
I found a great video of professor Rana Mitter introducing his book. (That’s a screenshot below. Click here to watch the video. It includes an anecdote about how Chairman Mao pioneered an exercise program involving thrusts for optimal fitness.)
Leap + Lady Gaga Meets the Queen: 2 images I love
Inspiration from Seth Godin’s eBook “What Matters Now” from my favorite author of the moment:
And the best photo I’ve seen in a while: Lady Gaga meets Queen Elizabeth II.
image credit: Leon Neal/WPA Pool via Getty Images from this fun slideshow from New York Times online
P.S. If you’re looking for something more analytical, I’ve been writing up a storm at our new company blog: Beijing Corporate Training. I invite you to check it out 
Creativity in the Context of Chinese Legal Work
I’ve cross-posted this article from Beijing Corporate Training, the blog I just started for my company. I’m featuring it here because I think it definitely relates to the idea of China’s many stories, and I’m curious to hear comments from a different crowd. Enjoy!
I just had a fascinating conversation with one of my students, an attorney at a leading intellectual property law firm. We read “Fright Bulb: How to Crush Your Last Shard of Creativity,” the editor’s letter from the December 2009 issue of Psychology Today. [The article doesn't appear to be online. I teach him and his colleagues advanced, industry-specific, one-on-one English lessons.]
This note from editor Kaja Perina (yes, that’s her picture, from Psychology Today) begins:
For some people, there is no greater buzzkill than the chirpy imperative, “Be creative!” These words are especially irksome when accompanied by the clicking of a stopwatch or the knowledge that the speaker himself cannot solve the problem in question. The idea of creativity on demand can intimidate — or at least irritate — an otherwise innovative brain.
My student found this paragraph tricky for several reasons. He first noticed the unfamiliar colloquiallisms in the first few lines: “buzzkill,” “chirpy,” “irksome.” Once we tackled this vocabulary, the underlying sentiment surprised him more.
He kept saying, “I’m not creative.” In his work, it is rare for anyone to make “Be creative” a chirpy imperative. Legal work depends on both established procedures and clients’ expectations, and it would be quite odd for a manager to insist on explicitly creative output.
Also, he mentioned that a Chinese manager would lose face if he admitted that he “himself cannot solve the problem in question.” In the rare circumstance that he would communicate such a thing, he would do so in a roundabout way that would both maintain his dignity and imply the desire for assistance.
more »
