Runnin' the Great Wall...

End of Peace Corps China?

2011-09-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

Hao jiu bu jian!

End of PC China?

Yikes!

Razem

RIP Cannon Stamm, Peace Corps China

2011-02-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

Today, I mourn the loss of one of Chongqing's finest. I never met Cannon, but I feel I know him from the life he lived and the world he worked so hard to see and experience. Xiexie, pengyou.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1711

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 8, 2011 – Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams is saddened to confirm the February 6 death of Peace Corps volunteer Cannon Stamm in Thailand. The preliminary cause of death is cardiopulmonary arrest. Cannon, 26, was serving as an English teacher with the Peace Corps program in China.

“Cannon was a dedicated volunteer and a committed English teacher working to strengthen our friendship with the people of China,” said Director Williams. “On behalf of the entire Peace Corps community, our thoughts are with Cannon’s family, friends, and fellow volunteers at this difficult time.”

Cannon is survived by family in New York. He arrived in China on July 1, 2010, for pre-service training and was sworn in as a volunteer on August 27, 2010. Cannon was an English teacher at Chongqing University of Technology and worked with students training to become middle school English teachers. He was scheduled to continue his Peace Corps service through the end of the school year in the summer of 2012.

His passing is mourned by the entire Peace Corps community, including his students and colleagues in Chongqing. He was committed to developing his students’ English comprehension by sharing his knowledge of American language, culture, and history. Cannon worked closely with his Chinese colleagues to exchange ideas and teaching methodologies. He understood that daily interaction with a native English speaker was integral to his students’ proficiency and confidence in English.

Cannon graduated summa cum laude from Boston University in 2008, with a dual concentration in finance and international management. Cannon was an experienced teacher of English as a second language and worked as an English tutor in Japan prior to his service with the Peace Corps.

In his 2010 Peace Corps aspiration statement, Cannon wrote that he was committed to approaching his assignment with an open mind and friendly demeanor, balanced with the knowledge that patience and determination were his best assets to navigate his role as a teacher. He was committed to public service and interested in learning the local language, Mandarin, and being a part of his local community.

There are 132 Americans serving as volunteers in China. Peace Corps volunteers are known as "U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers" to their students, colleagues, and communities. The program focuses on university English teaching. Volunteers are placed in Sichuan, Gansu, and Guizhou provinces, as well as the Chongqing municipality. More than 660 Americans have served as volunteers in China since the program opened in 1993.

Liu Xiaobo, a great Chinese.

2010-12-10T08:36:00.000-08:00

Deserving 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner: Liu Xiaobo

Nobel Peace Prize goes to Liu XiaoBo!

2010-10-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

你们好！

恭喜恭喜！ Congrats, Liu XiaoBo! I couldn't agree with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee any more!

Freedom is inevitable, CCP!

蓝麦飞

Phil's Peace Corps "Readjustment" Road Trip, USA, 2010

2010-03-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

你们好:
.

Why? And why now?

.
While in China, probably 18 months deep into my 2-year Peace Corps service, I walked by a street merchant on the campus of Southwest University in Chongqing Province, where I was teaching English language and literature. This man was selling jiade, or counterfeit, books and magazines to passing students, trying his best make a few extra yuan or, more likely, earn a living photocopying and rebinding great works of Chinese and English literature and selling them for a quarter of the retail price. There were enough English-language learners at Southwest University to sell these books, and with weak enforcement of copyright laws, passing police didn’t take a second look. Many of the books were entirely in English without Mandarin translations, and many from the selection the books at this specific stand, based on my assessment of students’ reading levels, were beyond most (if not all) of Chinese university students’ comprehensions; when learning to read English, it’s much more feasible to begin with, let’s say, Dr. Seuss, than Brontë’s Jane Eyre or Dickens’ Hard Times. Yet, I learned, Chinese actually bought and read these great works…with their English-Chinese dictionary within reach of course. Imagine that: reading Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, translating it line-by-line, all for an understanding of life, albeit a fictional portrayal of life over hundred years ago, outside of their China.

So I stopped and sorted through the books. There was Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat (incredibly popular in China), Joyce’s Ulysses (a book I still have trouble understanding), and a handful of Shakespearean tragedies. But there was also Thoreau’s Walden. While in graduate school, a highly respected professor at SUNY Fredonia told me that Walden wasn’t on par with the other works of its time, and maybe, for that reason, I had never encountered it in all my education. I kept putting it lower and lower on my “to read” list. The cover was stylish – circling lines wrapped around the title in both English and Chinese – and for 10 yuan ($1.25) it was mine.

When it wasn’t too cold or raining, I read Walden as I walked to and from my classrooms, about 20 minutes each way. In retrospect, I laugh. There was the most functioning chaos (which I now, 6 months deep into my Peace Corps “readjustment,” identify as being synonymous with “adventure”) occurring all around me – motorcycles whizzing inches away from me at 40mph, students laughing in a language I was falling in love with but barely understood, the smell of the lunch hours filling the air with chili peppers, trucks full of concrete spewing exhaust into the air with every tap of the gas pedal – and there I was, buried in a book written over 150 years ago:

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,

and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

- Walden’s “Economy”

.
Walden’s sidekick was Kerouac’s On The Road. I found an old edition of the Beat Generation’s masterpiece on the Peace Corps Office’s “Free” shelf, mangled and yellowing. I studied On The Road in graduate school, and frankly, didn’t remember a thing about it except reading it felt like driving through sand: wheels ferociously spinning without getting anywhere. But in China, it was completely different. I finished reading On the Road during my Peace Corps “Summer Project” in Fengjie, Chongqing Province, a city partly flooded for the construction of the infamous Three Gorges Dam, requiring the relocation of millions of Chinese from family homes lived in for generations. This setting and book helped me successfully identify and remove (and possibly smash) the rose-colored glasses worn by many PCVs and myself during their first year of service, and, possibly for the first time, see the country I presently called “home” in its true colors. China, though littered with beautiful diamonds, was predominately an endless, polluted diamond mine with billions (billions!) of people scrapping and clawing for wealth. On the contrary, Kerouac’s America, projected by his characters’ wild-eyed, oblivious meanderings, seemed like a land where diamonds could be found in your morning cereal box. This was the curious moment when I stopped remembering America, and began dreaming about it.
.
These two books, stacked among many others read during my two years in China, fueled my desire to not only see America, but experience it, drive down its highways, feel its size, weigh its short but concentrated history against my 27 years. Everyday was an adventure in China. Imagine 750 straight days and nights of exhilarating adventure that thickens your skin, churns your insides, and accents your perceptions of everything. I thought, “Why can’t I keep this adventure rolling? Does it have to stop when I huijia, or return home?” I needed to see the country that I taught about, dreamed about, and at one point of my life, despised and only wanted to leave. But upon return from China, I couldn’t identify my feelings towards America as “nationalistic” or “patriotic” like I felt it necessary to cover my rear bumper with “Freedom isn’t free!” stickers, but more like the feeling of pulling one’s head out of a bucket of water. I felt for the first time America’s real, tangible “freedom” like the that first deep breath of oxygen. It gave me a high that many around me couldn’t feel or understand when I tried to explain it. It’s still unexplainable. I had learned what America isn’t while in China, and now, it was time to learn what America is before the memory of that oxygen depravation wore off. Thomas Wolfe said it best: “You can’t go home again.” I was coming home, and I wanted to make my one shot count!
.
But there is another reason why I did it. America is a real place. It is not Neverland, or Atlantis, or Tolkien’s Middle Earth. It is real. But for so many around the world, America is almost mythical – a place that exists through blockbuster Hollywood movies and heavily armed soldiers fighting for the preservation of a statue of a green woman holding a forever-burning torch. This is all America is (and will be) to billions of world citizens. For all those faces I saw in the Chinese classroom who watched and laughed at episodes of Friends and Gossip Girl, dreamed of graduating from an American university, and desperately wanted to scream at the top of their lungs for all the grievances they had with those in power but couldn’t in fear of the consequences, I saw America. My trip was proof, adding to the evidence of America’s existence. We are so fortunate. I am so fortunate. We are so fortunate to know America is real.
.
4 weeks, 8197 miles, 27 states, condensed to 3 minutes and 18 seconds:
.

.
Thank you,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞
.
P.s. Thanks:

Adam, Katie, Margo, Scott, Megan, Scotty D, Erin, Eric and family, Ryan, Cherry, Kara and Mom, Kris, Ashley and Mom, Jeff E., Tricia B., Pat D., the 235 friends who provided moral support on my the trip’s official Facebook page, my Mom and Dad, Corinne, all of Peace Corps China “12-14” and staff, all the great travelers I met in hostels in New Orleans, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, and Salt Lake City, the Teach NOLA program, and finally Tootsie, my family’s 14 y/o Dachshund, who passed away during this adventure at her home in Ontario, Canada. Tootsie, sick for the last few years, waited for me to return from China before peacefully checking out to her heaven, which is most certainly a land of table scraps and comfortable pillows for sleeping. Thanks to everyone I forgot to acknowledge here, as well. I am truly blessed to have so many people on this planet who love and care for me. I love you. 我爱你们.

Buffalo News My View

2010-01-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

nimen hao!

Buffalo News My View article

Love from New Orleans,

Phil

My Peace Corps China Reading List

2010-01-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

你们好:
.
Due to Blogger.com being shut down by the Chinese Firewall weeks before the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre 天安门惨案, a few previously-written posts were never published. Now, months later and no longer living in China, I am posting those entries for preservation.
.
My favorite reads over the last 2 years, in no particular order:
.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez:

This was my first book read exclusively in China, mostly in bed under a dying light bulb after a long day of studying Chinese during Peace Corps PST. Probably the slowest moving first half of any epic I've ever read, then BOOM, a nearly perfect finale! The last few pages shook me to the bone...
.
China Road by Rob Gifford

Probably the best book about Modern China. Rob Gifford lived in China with his family for years and mastered the language, thus empowering him to go on his own odyssey across the country (Shanghai to Xinjiang) in taxis and buses, interviewing locals and investigating many of China's dirty little secrets. After several volunteers (and our country director) read this, it become the first selection for a Peace Corps Reading Group. A must-read for past, present, and future PCCVs.
.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I bought this book from a street vendor on the Southwest University campus. It was clearly a pirated copy as the cover was solely in Chinese besides "Walden" and the paper quality was thin, rice paper with offset type. I read most of Thoreau's masterpiece after reading Jon Krakauer's Into The Wild, another inspiring book about taking the road less traveled. A printed version of Walden's chapter, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, hung on a clothesline in my living room. It continues to be an literary refuge for me.
.
The Unheard by Josh Swiller

A copy of Swiller's The Unheard and the the next book, Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, were lent to me from Nikki, a fellow English major nerd/Chongqing PCV, when I just about had enough of spending my evenings before bed with a Chinese grammar book. Swiller is deaf and served in Zambia as a PCV in the late 90's. As I continue to read and review my journals from China, amazed with the chaotic things I experienced and the eccentric people I met, the time Swiller spent in Africa makes my service look like a weekend in Disneyland. Most importantly, Swiller was real and honest, and never held back when he was frustrated with Peace Corps' shortcomings in Africa; this book helped me provide Peace Corps China with the same constructive criticism.
.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Speaking of relaxing getaways, I read Cat's Cradle while vacationing in Sanya, Hainan Province, escaping the chilly Chongqing winter during a Spring Festival holiday. I fell in love with Vonnegut's micro-chapter format, and the social and political setting described in this 1963 book never applied more to our 21st century world.
.
Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler

Peter Hessler: Peace Corps China Hall of Famer. Oracle Bones is funny, clever, academic, personal, and an overall great ride though the past, present, and future China. Makes that Rivertown book look like Everybody Poops.
.
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom

I taught a half dozen Shakespeare plays at Southwest University to graduate English Literature students, and with its English language library being a derelict collection of outdated literary rubbish with even worse access to true literary criticism, Dr. Bloom's collection of idolizing love letters to Shakespeare's genius fueled my weekly lectures. The chapters on Hamlet, The Tempest, and All's Well That Ends Well are sublime.
.
Selected Stories by Lu Xun

I gave an assignment on Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," and my students lead me to his immortal tale called "The Medicine." Lu Xun is prophetic and often called the George Orwell of China. A must read for any Sinophile searching for greater understanding of the Chinese ethos.
.
Red China Blues by Jan Wong

Comparable to Oracle Bones, Wong's Red China Blues opened my eyes to how much China has grown and changed in the last 30 years. She was an advocate of Maoism as a Canadian-Chinese college student was was given permission by the Mao ZeDong-led Communist government to study in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. RCB follows her ideological evolution from Mao lover to shocked and angry observer of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. I read RCB doing my last 2 months in China, and in my exit interview, I expressed regret that I didn't read it before I arrived in China in 2007. I learned so much. The best China memoir if one believes history repeats itself.
.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Freedom. I couldn't get through this book in America. When I read it in China, it made perfect sense. It is beautiful, and I can honesty say, "I get it."
.
You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe

The best book I read in China over my two years. I have reread excerpts many, many times...and will continue to for many years and I sort through the mess China left in my mind. I wrote about the lessons learned from this book in my journals more than any other piece of literature while in China, and concluded that no one should ever leave their motherland for an extended period of time without this book in their suitcase. I have over 75 dogeared pages in my copy.
.
And mentionable post-PC service reads:
.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

One of the best books I read about running; I thought back to my 4-5 times a week runs in the smoggy land of Chongqing. I ran my fifth marathon about 3 months back from China, a sentimental feat for me since I could never run over 6 miles in China due to the air quality.
.
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

Like Lu Xun, this is essential Chinese reading. Wang Lung and O-Lan are archetypal Chinese figures, and Pearl S. Buck is arguably the most important foreigner to decipher the Chinese riddle. Her defense of The Good Earth when it was attacked as being an inaccurate portrayal of China is one of the wittiest rebuttals....ever! Verisimilitude drips from its pages.
.
Reading is great. What more can I say?
.
我需要看书. 你呢?
.
Love,
.
Phil
January 11, 2010

"My View" article: The Chinese Classroom Complement

2009-12-29T15:02:00.000-08:00

你们好:
.
It has been approx. 4 months since I've returned to America from twenty-five consecutive months in China as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I've received dozens of e-mails since I returned, the majority of them asking me about my "readjustment." To be frank, my readjustment remains ongoing, but as I find my way back into American society, I can't help trying to connect what I've done, what I am presently doing, and what I hope for in the future. An article in the Buffalo News caught my eye a few weeks back and inspired me to write a "My View"-esque piece commenting on both my readjustment and how China continues to linger in my bones. Enjoy!
.
The Chinese Classroom Complement
.

There is a train in Shanghai that travels over 311 mph and won’t spill a drop of your steaming tea, albeit poured to the brim. It whizzes Chinese and tourists alike to the sleek, futuristic Pudong International Airport, one of the largest and most technological travel hubs in the world. Smiling new riders stand in the aisles under a large odometer and snap pictures as the train reaches it maximum speed. Some of the few, well-traveled Chinese on board smirk at the amazed foreign tourists while nestled in their plush seats as they are whisked away, secretly beaming with pride for their country’s growth and advancements over the last 30 years. I rode this train on my last day in China – ending a 25 consecutive month service in the Peace Corps as a university teacher – and boarded a plane for my home: Buffalo, New York. When I was picked up after twelve hours in the sky, my parents’ car hit a pothole so deep I swear I thought I would be spending my first moments in my beloved hometown tire iron in hand.
.

It is natural for us to compare – the differences between two or more people, places or things are much easier to detect than their respected similarities. It is even easier to say one system or way or doing something is better than another. It is not very often thought, however, that sometimes two very different things or environments complement each other. Like puzzle pieces, two seemingly different things might fit together in order to create a more perfect image.

I lived in China’s Chicago, Chongqing, the gateway to the West, and taught at one of Southwest China’s most prestigious, federally funded and controlled universities. As an American-educated teacher, I walked into many classrooms over the course of my two years that could only be described as “state-of-the-art”, garnished with technology beyond anything I have ever seen or used. I dumbfounded fellow Chinese colleagues when I asked, “How does this work?” They simply presumed me being from America, the richest country in the world and mostly likely inventor of the technology in question, that such skills were engrained into me through the holding of my beloved passport. However, after the lesson started and the bells and whistles were in full force, the students remained the same as if all I had was chalk and a blackboard: self-disciplined robots that could regurgitate perfectly on command – a skill acquired with help from a language learned from rote memorization - but almost never allowed their imaginations to shine (or how they are indoctrinated, interfere) within their responses.

From this setting, I returned to the Buffalo classroom. Over the last four months of my readjustment, I’ve witnessed teachers and students weave beautiful webs of student creativity, not only allow but encourage students to “get up and move around”, and even push them to negotiate if something seems unfair or unjust. Just recently, I was asked how I tolerated such “noise pollution” in my classroom. If the person who preferred the staleness of a quiet classroom knew what I trudged through for the last two years, he or she might understand the how pollution to one person is the saving grace of society to another. And yet, as innovation and self-expression is what our American education system promotes, students are marathons behind the math and science skills sets possessed by their Chinese peers.

Imagine this: Just two weeks ago, Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent James A. Williams visited China in hopes of creating a “Chinese-immersion” Buffalo public high school in which American and Chinese students will learn side-by-side. When I read that such a classroom might be possible, my imagination ran wild with excitement. We can pick apart each system’s virtues and shortcomings forever, but now, as complementation becomes an option, the sleekness of the fallow Chinese drive pieced together with a freethinking, yet lackluster American proficiency is an unstoppable educational force. The winners: American and China.

A country’s classroom is its barometer of success. As China and America grow closer and become increasingly interwoven through financial cooperation, we must also evolve our respected classrooms based on each other’s assets. A 311 mph train is wonderful if the people who built it knew how it worked and had the potential to someday make it faster and use less fuel, just as a beautiful, yet potholed city like Buffalo could summon the drive to reach out of the red through collective pride and determination. I know a Buffalo Public Chinese-immersion school, having taught in both systems, will transcend education and enter the realm of international diplomacy. All we need to do is complement, not criticize.

- Phil

蓝麦飞

SPECIAL UPDATE: "It makes me be a better leader..."

2009-11-16T06:07:00.001-08:00

nimen hao:

Watch and listen, Obama from Shanghai:

-Phil Razem

I'm back...Runnin' The Great Wall's Final Post

2009-08-02T03:27:00.000-07:00

Nimen hao!

It's been a tough and enlightening final two months...but I've safely and successfully concluded my Peace Corps service in China and write you from my parents' home in Canada (yes, technically I haven't officially returned to the USA, but I am almost there, and when I do, the adventure will continue).

I know many readers are anxious to hear about my final two months of service, as well as my travels to Inner Mongolia following my PC "Close of Service" date. Well, I have both good news and bad news, or if you are a "the glass is half-full kinda-person" like me, only good news. I am not going to detail the lessons learned and sadly, the many misfortunes experienced during my final two months of service at Southwest University within this final post, but I promise to (slowly but surely) document my time for you, as well as "color" this blog with stories and experiences that filled my personal journals during the last 25 months, in a more complex piece of writing within the next few months. I have found a short but significant window of opportunity to write and research over the next few months, thanks mostly to friends, my amazingly supportive family, and of course, my (very small) Peace Corps "readjustment salary." I hope to have something significant before 2010.

In the coming days, I will be posting more glimpses of my final experiences in China on Youtube.com (www.youtube.com/philiprazeminchina) and look forward to any e-mails you feel compelled to send to me regarding anything. I was approached by several Peace Corps China "15" trainees this summer and they said they missed the blog when it was blocked and it inspired many of them to accept their invitation to China, regardless of how frustrating some of my venting diatribes seemed. I hope future PCVs - not only heading to China, but all countries - can reference this blog before they take the leap into serving the world's people, and of course compare their experiences with mine. Peace Corps service, like any kind of education, is about the collision of ideas and cultures and challenging everything you previously thought was right and just, but when it's all over, one lesson remains bright and true: We are all in this together. We are more similar than different.

I love you and am very happy to be home,

Phil
lan2mai4fei1

Blogspot.com blocked in China by the Chinese Communist Government

2009-05-18T16:55:00.001-07:00

Hi, everyone!

This is C--, Phil's sister from Canada. Phil asked me to post this message on his blog because, as of three days ago, the Great Chinese Firewell has blocked www.blogger.com, the site hosting Phil's "Runnin' the Great Wall" blog.

My friends (and digital enemies):

Phil here. The reason for the block is not known (and may never be known*), and I am not the only blogger in China who is sad (and angry) that the Chinese government feel the need to protect their citizens from diverse opinions and cultural-exchange in the name of "political stability." I have had several Chinese university students who follow my blog express the same disgust towards the Chinese government for preventing me from logging in and posting my experiences, opinions, and overall journey through the Middle Kingdom as a Peace Corps Volunteer. As depressing as the situation is, this shared disgust presents a glimmer of optimism, as these same students are the future of China and will hopefully lead their country out of its propaganda wars and promote free press, speech, and individual expression in the future.

It pains me to do write this, but this post could be the last post you see until August of this year; Youtube.com has been blocked for a few months now and if the CCP treats Blooger.com in a similar fashion, then the future of blogs like mine looks grim, especially since the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre (a taboo subject in China) arrives on June 4th of this year. This does not mean that I will stop blogging! I will blog just as much - if not more! - as before, and post all of my experiences whenever the block is lifted, or when I finally reach a country that allows me to think aloud! I will still create enlightening cheese-y videos, snap pictures, and record the lessons I learn from the REAL Chinese in China: my students. No oppressive government can stop Phil Razem from speaking his mind!

If you believe in me, I hope you will read this blog post from one of the leading Chinese bloggers who believes in the power of free speech online:

http://sun-zoo.com/chinageeks/2009/05/16/ai-weiwei-your-silence-and-ignorance-have-already-become-the-price-for-your-safety/

Let's pray - for you and for my own sanity - that this block is temporary!

I love and miss you all,

Phil

The end is near...

2009-05-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

你们好:
.
The end is near. I am reminded of this by Dustin's last few posts.
.
Sarah, a PCV from Gansu Province, is putting together a PCC"13" e-yearbook and sent out a list of questions for us to answer (in as few words as possible) in regards to our experience. Here are a few highlights from my contribution:

1. Favorite moment with your students: Tuesday mornings, 9:30am, Shakespeare class
3. Most useful/interesting Chinese word/phrase you learned: ren 忍
6. Something you still don't understand about China after two years: The popularity and advocacy of the saying: 稳定压倒一切 "THE OVERRIDING NEED IS FOR STABILITY"
7. The thing you'll miss most about China: My students, without a doubt.

8. The thing you'll miss least about China: Open-air sneezes on the bus, without a doubt. And the everyday blind faith in the Chinese Communist Party.
9. Best place you traveled to in China: Beibei, Chongqing, my site.
10. Best Teaching Moment: “I've never thought about that before,” said the student.
11. The thing you're most thankful you brought to China with you: My individualism (个性自由gèxìngzìyóu)
14. Your Greatest Moment At Site: anytime I was hanging out with my two amazing sitemates
15. Your Most Embarrassing Moment At Site: anytime I was hanging out with my two amazing sitemates
18. The thing you missed the most from home: Family, friends, the Buffalo Bills, and the infinitely beautiful game of baseball.
20. Most Disappointing Moment In China: Hearing about my students' indescribable daily hardships during the day and then running alongside BMWs at night.
22. Funniest Moment: Not having any toilet paper in the school's public bathroom, but having a bag full of my students' poems. 哈哈-非常抱歉！
24. Something you'll miss about the Peace Corps: Being in a room full of Americans just as idealistic, confused, and crazy as me.
25. Favorite dish: Pete's Texas Whopper
28. Favorite[/funny] quote you've heard in China: 建立和谐社会 "To build a harmonious society"
29. Number Of Illnesses/Medications Taken: 0 (seriously!)
30. Chinese cultural practices I plan to make cool back in the States: Ping Pong, Hot Pot, Pirated DVDs (shhh!), and open-air sneezes on my neighbor's face.

The end is near...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Hi Mom!

2009-05-10T01:25:00.000-07:00

你好妈妈!

I love you.

Happy Mother's Day!

母亲节快乐!

Your "good son,"

Phil

蓝麦飞

For Teachers, PCVs, and Students in China (past, present, and future)

2009-05-09T19:36:00.000-07:00

你们好!

When I am not teaching or "China exploring," I find myself doing quite a bit of research on the Internet concerning "China" and "Education." As a Western-educated teacher living and teaching in China, there aren't subjects more relevant to me than those of "China" and "Education," but surprisingly, as intense the Internet and Blogosphere is, not as many articles are written about "Chinese Education" in the English language as one might expect.

So, when I come across an article that moves me, I feel I must share it with those who read this blog, many whom were, are, or will be teachers/PCVs in China. Here is the article from the LATimes:

Click!

My favorite excerpt:

Ultimately for China, becoming a major world innovator -- and by extension, a robust economic power -- is not just about setting up partnerships with top Western universities or roping off elites and telling them to think creatively. It's about establishing an intellectually rich learning environment for young minds. It's about harnessing the same inventive energy of the street markets and small-time entrepreneurs and putting it in the schools.

The Chinese don't need expensive free-agent scientists. They need a new farm system -- and about 10 million liberal arts professors. (Source)

I guess as my China days diminish, I will begin retrospecting the lessons I've learned from my two years abroad. One of those lessons - one that I know I would have not understood unless I lived in a country like China, and taught within an education system such as that of China - is how important a liberal arts education is, and how happy I am that I received this type of education at SUNY Fredonia. My Chinese university students are bombarded with English-language grammar and translation, but get very little philosophy, real, complete literature, science, and most importantly, the arts. So much emphasis is placed on passing the test, acquiring that little sheet of paper, and getting a job to make money teaching or doing business/research with the same trite methodologies that something is lost, or forgotten in the shuffle. Defendants of this system can't drop the "Well, China is a developing country with thick traditional roots" or "We have a large population and need to maintain stability" bomb for very much longer. If China should happen to stop growing someday, I think I can take a guess [right now!] as to why it happens. China can pirate the West's Hollywood movies all they want, but they can't pirate the a liberal-arts-educated person's original thoughts. Let the Chinese education system evolve! Listen to Liu DaoYu!

And while we're at it, let's let that political system evolve too! They are linked!

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Snack Street at Southwest University 西南大学的小吃街

2009-05-08T05:10:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Snack Street (小吃街xiǎochījie) at Southwest University is one of my favorite places to grab a cheap snack, buy fruit, or simply people watch under the glowing string of florescent light bulbs. It's made up of dozens of independent food sellers; the majority pack up their supplies, stoves, and tables at the end of the night and go home. Imagine a flea market, but replace the antiques with fried breads, stacked fruits, stray dogs, accumulating litter, and my favorite: 烧烤shāokǎo, or Chinese BBQ.
.
Sitemate Kristen and I dine on Shāokǎo once a week or so; its cheap and delicious. Before I say too much, see for yourself:

As you can see, Kristen and I have a good time mingling with the locals, who appreciate our curiosity and friendliness (and let's not forget, our business). Permanent Snack Streets just don't exist very often in America (health codes, property rights, etc.) but in the Middle Kingdom, they are a way of life - and I am grateful for mine at Southwest University.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

P.s. Excuse the "Kristen and I's favorite..." sentence from the video. Haha! I never knew so many Grammarians read my blog! What an honor! Sadly, after two years in China I to forget how to spoke English language. 哈哈!

Patriots Not Welcome!...in China?

2009-05-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
For the last two years, I have dedicated a large portion of this blog to showing how Western Culture appears, both subtly and overtly, in China, but rarely discuss when I notice parts of China appearing in the West. The obvious reason for this is "I live in China" and witness the spread and acceptance/denial of Western customs and ideologies first-hand. In a few short months, I hope to flip my observations of these cultural invasions ("invasion" is a strong word), noticing how parts of China are slowly leaking to the West.
.
This is all in regards to a recent blog by one of my favorite sports journalists, Tim Graham, of ESPN. I have missed two complete Buffalo Bills seasons while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China. Tim Graham blogs about the NFL's AFC East Division, and being from Buffalo, he seems to give the Bills a little more of the spotlight, and more importantly, understands the hatred Bills fans feel towards (but not exclusively - there are plenty of people and teams for the Bills to hate throughout the team's troubled history) the New England Patriots, their division rival. What Tim Graham may not understand is how one his recent blog entries might influence those Chinese who have yet to decide whether to embrace American football or reject it for a less violent and confrontational sport like, let's say, fly fishing (FYI: American football can be translated two different ways in Chinese: the literal "American football"美国足球 Měiguó zúqiú, or the much more creative,橄榄球gǎnlǎnqiu, or "Olive Ball"). This entry doesn't even need to be read to be understood. A picture is worth a thousand words:

This is not a product of Photoshop either. That's "His Holiness," or how the Chinese media/education system portrays him, "His Terrorist," the Dalai Lama...wearing a New England Patriots hat!

If this isn't a photo-op, and the D.L. is, in fact, a Pats fan, then I might have to admit that the CCP and I have found some common ground to denounce the D.L. This picture just doesn't make sense to me. If anything, the His Holiness should be a Bills fan. We are the underdog, have a loyal tribe of die-hard followers, and if someone tried to sell our turf (Say No to Toronto!), we would fight to the death...forever. C'mon dude, use that righteous mind of yours! Make the connection!

The NFL has been trying to plug American football into the one of the largest markets in the world, but have been less than successful. I don't think this picture will help sell any Tom Brady jerseys! Good!

Let's Go Buffalo! I'm getting my popcorn ready...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

More X-games Shanghai...

2009-05-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Another slice of Shanghai's X-Games with Devon and her Disney English crew (see previous post):

Old sitemates, same crazy adventures in China.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Peace Corps COS Conference and Devon's Shanghai

2009-05-05T04:29:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Well, long story short, Peace Corps China "13" COS (close-of-service) conference has concluded. Last week in Chengdu, most of the volunteers that flew from San Francisco on July 1, 2007, plus a handful of PC "12" extendees, met for the last time together before we depart our separate ways come July/August this year.
.
The conference was quick, productive, boring, and inevitably, sad. What I will remember is two days worth of paperwork concerning medical and financial matters, about 5 sessions asking the same question in several different ways - "How was your experience, Phil?" "It was interesting," Phil replied. - and finally, a conference room full of young (many in years, but all in heart) men and women passing a microphone and telling each other with as few words as possible about their most memorable moment(s) in the last 22+ months. I have had too many memorable moments in China, both good and bad, so I choose two, which developed more into short ramblings of thankfulness than actual moments:

My Shakespeare students from the past two years, for allowing me to bring them something I love and hold dear from my world...and for helping me learn and understand that no matter where you call home, Shakespeare's words are timeless and universal.
Dustin, my fellow PC blogger, for pushing me to keep writing entries on this blog, regardless of how crazy (and angry) each post turned out to be. Just like running friends (You might remember Dustin and I went for a run together - and got lost together - the day before we boarded the plane to China) push each other to run faster and longer, Dustin, who must say out-blogged me by about 50 posts, kept my brain thinkin' and fingers typin'...and continues to. Dustin's reflection

Now for the fun stuff...

Devon, my amazing first sitemate, after a few months in America, returned to China (I wonder what percentage of PCVs return to live and work in their country of service?) to work for Disney English, and live the high-life in probably the coolest metropolis in the East, Shanghai. After spending a few days with Devon, I told her that if I ever came back to live and work/teach in China, Shanghai would be the only acceptable city for me. It's China's NYC. It's China without the political BS that dominates other popular Chinese mega-cities (See "Beijing"), even though, yes, Youtube.com is still blocked there (I had throw that in, sorry). Shanghai seems to be moving forward, and after teaching in Chongqing for two years and watching so many "powerful people," laws, and educational and traditional road blocks holding young people back from expressing themselves, Shanghai seems like the only place for a progressive person like me (that is if I ever come back to the Middle Kingdom).

I stayed at Devon's 40th floor apartment and filmed this video of the Shanghai skyline, day and night:

On May Day, Devon and her Disney English crew took me to the Asian X-Games. Despite getting sunburned, we had a blast watching the skateboards, flying motorcycles, rock climbing, drinking many bottles of Mountain Dew and eating several bags of Doritos, and watching the Chinese watch crazy Westerners nearly kill themselves in various athletic feats. It was certainly an X-treme Day. Here is Devon talking about the "cultural exchange" of the X-games in China (haha!):

Another clip from the X-games Shanghai will be posted soon.

All in all, the last week was wonderful. So many old (and new) faces. But this experience is NOT over. I still have 2 more months of teaching and lots of personal tasks I still need to accomplish. July 17th, my last day as a PCV, will arrive before I know it...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Introducing...

2009-05-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps China "13"

July 1, 2007 - (approx.) July 17, 2009

I love and miss you all,

Phil

Jackie Chan: Sellout or Victim of a Bad Translation?

2009-04-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
I go to the supermarket (超市chāoshì) in Beibei every 5 days or so, simply for (mostly breakfast) foods that aren't served in restaurants - peanut butter, milk, bread, (clean) eggs, etc. - as well as toiletry items and other odds and ends. I only mention the supermarket because of who's picture I associate with it: Jackie Chan, the (former?) Hollywood action star and native of Hong Kong. As the escalator brings me down to the supermarket's ground floor, a huge advertisement for black hair dye (infamously used by 100%(?) of Chinese politicians) proclaims Jackie's smiling face. Whenever I meet new students in the classroom and we discuss the "first thing(s) you think of when I say 'China'" almost every class has someone who says "Jackie Chan." When I watched the Olympic Closing Ceremonies at Hooters in Chengdu, Jackie Chan was singing "I love Beijing, 我爱北京!" with the rest of China's entertainment elite. Yes, he is kinda a big deal in China, but when he sang "I love Beijing!" it turns out, according to a controversial statement he made a few days ago at a gathering for top Communist officials, he wasn't lying.

Chan's statement has been causing quite the debate in China, mostly on the Internet. He said, again, to a room full of top Beijing government officials, "中国人需要管zhōngguórén xūyào guǎn" or more completely, "中国人还是需要被管的zhōngguórén hái shì xūyào bèi guǎn de" which translates to "Chinese still need more 管guǎn."

The character "管guǎn" is the character in question. Many Chinese bloggers (the real media in China) and Western media outlets translated this character as "to control." So, many interpreted Chan as saying that "Chinese still need to be controlled" by the government, thus advocating the CCP's tight regulations, most notably, the suppression of free speech and expression (See YouTube.com still being blocked by the Great Chinese Firewall). An explosion of criticism spread across the Chinese Internet like brush fire, calling for boycotts of Chan's films and even a Facebook group calling for him to be sent to North Korea for a) supporting the suppression of free-thinking and b) more or less saying that Chinese are a bunch of sheeps who do not have the know-how to govern themselves.

However, Chan, who, in my opinion, is already a bad representative of China and the Chinese people for his reinforcement of Chinese stereotypes on the silver screen, may have been misquoted, or rather, victimized by a bad translation. "管guǎn" means "to be managed, regulated, governed" and not necessarily "controlled." Personally, I still don't like this statement, but we must remember a) Chan was talking to people who would probably have him shot in the ally outside the meeting hall if he didn't say these words (or something like it), b) Chan is an actor (and thus, businessman) and with his reputation at stake, the last thing he needs is his Western-funded movies being banned from Chinese theaters by the CCP, and finally c) WHY THE HECK DOES ANYONE WHO RUNS A COUNTRY OF 1.3 BILLION CARE WHAT JACKIE "Rush Hour 3" CHAN THINKS?

Moral of the story: The Chinese language (and China as a whole) is just plain complicated, even for Chinese. Oh, and Chris Tucker is not funny...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

The Guizhou Countryside

2009-04-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
On my way home from Guiyang, Guizhou Province, I pulled my video camera out from of its case and thought it might be neat to "capture the moment" as the bus sailed down the highway through the Guizhou countryside. The final product, with a little editing and an amazing "off the cuff" original piano composition from my dear friend Ryan S-, is something I feel quite proud of, and will be happy to watch again in 5, 10, 50 years when America and China will most certainly be very different countries.
.
Turn your computer's volume up as high as possible to appreciate this simple, personal reflection of Life on the Chinese Road:

I hope to have this video and the one from the previous post on Youtube.com as soon as possible.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Site-Exchange in Guiyang, Giuzhou University

2009-04-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
This past January at PC China's IST conference, PCV "13" Dave (California) asked me if I might be interested in traveling down to his school - Guizhou University 贵州大学 - for a PC-sponsored site-exchange in order to help facilitate the introductory stages of a student production of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
.
"Of course!"
.
Timing could not have been better. I had just finished teaching Hamlet to my post-graduate English Literature majors last week, so the play was (and always is) fresh in my mind. Sitemate Kristen decided to travel down to Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province (about 5 hours by bus), with me to visit some "14's" and help Dave celebrate his 27th birthday (生日快乐, 哥哥!). We arrived on Friday evening, met up with PCVs Todd, Jess, and Lisa, and enjoyed cheap beer, many laughs, browsed Guiyang's pirated movie scene, and devoured the local Guiyang delicacy: Bean Hot Pot. All this before the next day's Hamlet-facilitation marathon.
.
I received the (only slightly) abridged 55-page script from Dave about a week before I arrived at Guizhou University, and my first thought was, "Wow, Dave's students must be English-language machines." Dave originally told me that his students were to put on a Shakespeare play for a competition in Hong Kong, but when I asked them for the details, I was both amazed and impressed that almost none of them alluded to this competition, but simply said they wanted to "challenge" themselves. And after spending the next 6 hours with these students (YES! 6 hours, with one 5-minute break and a 2-language rendition of "Happy Birthday" to Dave), guiding them through the motions but more importantly, helping each actor find his or her own dramatic identity, we finished strong with Act V's "bloodbath!" I don't know if I will ever see the final line of Hamlet read, followed by an uproar of laughter, again! 哈哈!

I regret not recording more of our productive afternoon; all the actors were so good, especially Hamlet (English name, Nemo, red shirt), who has so many lines to memorize...in his second language! This feat, sophomore undergraduates performing original English-language Shakespeare in China, combined with my infinite struggle to read, write, and speak in Chinese, boggles the mind. All in all, I drank about 4 bottles of water, peed twice, and at one point - around hour #5: "the gravedigger scene" - thought I was going to pass out (and die? - how appropriate!).
.
I wrote Dave an e-mail this afternoon, thanking him for inviting me to participate in this incredibly rewarding experience. I told him that as this crazy 2-year performance continues its final act, I try to make every day in China special, and this past Saturday, with his amazingly motivated students and Billy Shaky's Emo King, I felt like I really helped some students not only understand Shakespeare, but feel it too. The pleasure was all mine.
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

Testing a new way to post videos...

2009-04-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

你们好!

With Youtube.com still blocked in mainland China (see previous posts), I continue to experiment with new websites and methods to bring you video glimpses into my life in China as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Below are three videos from a recent Waiban-sponsored outing to Diaoyucheng and Laitan, Chongqing. All these videos (and more) are on my Youtube channel thanks to my wonderful sister in Canada, but if you live on the Chinese mainland, I hope the following videos load on your screen. This is only a test:

Diaoyucheng, Chongqing Part 1 from Philip Razem on Vimeo.

Diaoyucheng, Chongqing Part 2 from Philip Razem on Vimeo.

Laitan, Chongqing from Philip Razem on Vimeo.

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

Concrete Poems, Debate Contests, Anticipated Video Blog Explosions...

2009-04-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

你们好!

It's been about 2 weeks now since the CCP decided to shut down Youtube.com in mainland China. I've had many conversations with students about this move, and though many wish Youtube was alive and thriving in China (the website is a window into the outside world, educational resource, freethinking portal, and helped ME become Time's Person of the Year a few years back), a surprisingly high number justified the block with the trite, Party-line "If China is to respect the world, then the world must first respect China." I always ask these students to consider the vice-versa of this indoctrinated statement, which among many of their defenses include the assumption that I "can't possibly understand" because "I don't understand Chinese culture and tradition" (Are both Chinese culture and tradition advocates of government oppression? I hope not!) and their repetitive stating of the Chinese saying "稳定压倒一切 wěndìng yādǎo yī qie" which translates to "Stability is of overriding importance." Their rhetoric, which is repeated over and over again in (antithesis-longing) Op-Eds throughout the Chinese state-controlled media, scares the bejeebes outta me, especially how it comes out of their brains so fast and definite and with no flexibility, as if they were trained to "block, block block" incoming fists of criticism. To those who educate young, creative people this way - reminiscent of GWB's "You are with us or you are a terrorist" quotation - I say, "Join the real Party." There is a wealth of Truth out there that no government should "protect" you from. To quote Dr. Seuss: "Oh, the places you'll go..."

But the inflexible, iron fist of the Chinese Communist Party will not defeat Phil Razem. The Youtube block never discouraged me from pulling out my video camera (摄像机shèxiàngji) and recording my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Middle Kingdom. This evening I will meet my younger sister on Skype, and send a fresh batch of videos to her in Canada for uploading. Check the Youtube page (link on the right-side column) in the coming days! If only the CCP knew of the inconveniences they cause a foreigner who only desires to bring his experiences with beautiful (real, 1st-hand) Chinese culture to the people around the world...

(Update! www.youtube.com/philiprazeminchina )

On the topic of freethinking, Kristen and I were among the judges of a debate contest on Thursday evening. I really enjoy judging debate compared to the endless speech contests. Debate, which I will teach my students after they finish their TEM-4 exam, is a combination of strategy, logic, creativity, critical thinking, and drama - the latter three I try to incorporate into my classes every meeting. The students impressed me, and without writing you a novel, the most interesting part for me was how Chinese Generation Y'ers are willing to say the things their parents generation would never say loud (and proud!) into a microphone, i.e. "The 1-child policy is a miserable law, and the government should change it at once!" Bravo! They are my Chinese optimism...

My students composed Concrete (visual) Poems for homework last week, and like the Adaptation Poems from the week before, I took pictures of my favorite examples. Concrete Poems are poems that use words and lines of poetry to create an image that represents the subject, tone, mood, or theme of the poem.

Read all of my favorites! (click!)

Here are a few of my favorites:

If you need proof of (sometimes strange/excessive) Chinese nationalism from the 90's generation, this would do (larger print on the Flickr page link above:
And my favorite, because nothing says poetry that a steaming pile of SH*T! Don't ever let someone stop you from expressing yourself. In our dreams and creations, we are truly free...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Testing a new way to post videos...

2009-04-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

你们好！

Testin' a new way to post videos.....

Jiaozi! 饺子! Chinese Dumpling Adventure!

Thanks, sis (我的妹妹), for your assistance! Cross your fingers, ya'll!

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

English Composition class connects students with Chinese counterparts (SUNY Fredonia Campus News)

2009-04-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Before I became a Peace Corps Volunteer in China, I taught English Composition as a graduate student to mostly freshmen and sophomores at SUNY Fredonia. It was a wonderful experience. Besides facilitating a university-level writing class, I was given the opportunity to closely interact with the Department of English's amazing faculty. As an undergraduate, these professors were my heroes (they still are!), and then suddenly, I was able to sit next to them in department meetings, like a kid who comes of age watching the Red Sox, and then one day being drafted and hitting a home run over the Green Monster. One of these "heroes" was Bill Boerst, a fellow ENGL100 instructor and former Peace Corps Volunteer (Liberia III, 1963-65).
.
Bill and I started talking about doing a project with our university students about a year ago. Just this Spring Festival, the idea took shape and BAM!, before we knew it, 15 of his students and 15 of mine were communicating through e-mail, sharing stories, asking questions, and most importantly, improving their English-language/writing skills. The SUNY Fredonia Campus Report did a story on it: (click or below)
.
English Composition class connects students with Chinese counterparts
Monday, April 06, 2009

Fourteen students in an English Composition class at SUNY Fredonia have stumbled upon an opportunity to not only interact with students seated across the classroom — they're getting to know some from across globe as well.

Phil Razem, a former SUNY Fredonia graduate student now teaching English to college students in the People’s Republic of China, enjoyed sharing his experiences with friends and family back home in Western New York so much that he decided to find a way to incorporate it into his classroom.

While corresponding with SUNY Fredonia English professor Bill Boerst, they decided to create a similar experience for their students by developing a modern day pen pal element to one of their courses. Their students have volunteered to become "e-mail pals," corresponding regularly with each other to learn about one another's lives and cultures. So far, indications show that both sides are truly enjoying and benefiting from the experience.

Melissa Cummiskey, a freshman at SUNY Fredonia, said of her exchange, "I really enjoy learning about my e-mail pal's college experiences, family, friends, and the events that are happening in her life."

"America, to many Chinese (citizens), remains a place that only exists in their history books and through Hollywood movies," said Professor Razem. "This experience will help them gain a better understanding of our country and, likewise, help young Americans gain a better understanding of the future of China."

By the end of the semester, Fredonia students will hand-in what Professor Boerst calls "cycles" of emails: five printed pages each of e-mails from the U.S. students to their Chinese counterparts, as well as return correspondences from their e-mail pal.

"The opportunity to chat with a real American is worth a lifetime of 'A's,' Razem asserted. Not only are the students learning about the other culture, there are some practical English lessons in it as well. One of those is the concept of understanding one's audience. "English teachers love to talk in terms of audience," Professor Boerst said. "For whom are you writing? And how can you best reach that audience?" He says that, for these students, an audience is built into the project.

Both professors hope that this exchange will be a lesson not easily forgotten. These days it is common to make light of texting, instant-messaging, and e-mailing, as if such pursuits lack depth," Boerst added. "For these students, bridging miles and languages and customs may be a way to change that popular perception."

To learn more about Professor Razem's experiences in China go to the blog at www.philiprazeminchina.blogspot.com.
.
I can't wait to read these "cycles" of e-mails! "Professor" Razem sounds nice too....it only it was true! Someday...
.
Tearin' down the wall and buildin' the bridge!
.
Bill deserves all the credit; it was his idea, and without his students' participation, 15 Chinese university students would still only have Hollywood...and their lowly Peace Corps Volunteer teacher (wink). Thanks Bill! And Thank you SUNY Fredonia!
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

This just in: Another public CCP message on Southwest University's campus...

2009-04-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is not earning points with this 老外(laowai, foreigner) with its blocking of Youtube (Update: no update - it's still blocked. Chinese [students] who desire the outside world are the victims) last week - not that it had earned many in the past with creating an education system in which my students constantly tell me they are "powerless" and feel ignored by those of power. This from a country's government that (secretely, but every now-and-then, deafeningly) claims its political and social ideologies are far superior to those of the West (see the new best-seller in China: 中国不高兴 Zhongguo bugaoxing "Unhappy China" for some interesting [jingoistic] opinions). A (powerless) foreign teacher who only stays in China for his (self-identified "powerless") students can't help but feel a little down when his students need to eat so much bitter - and worse, some don't even know that bitter is the only dish on the menu.
.
Speaking of power and ideologies, I noticed a new sign around campus and snapped a picture. I translated one of these suspicious-looking signs in a previous blog entry from January, and since I am in a Chinese-language kick in preparation for my final Chinese-language exam at the end of this month, I decided to translate this one too. Let's take a look:

在新的发展阶段继续全面建设小康社会,发展中国特色社会主义,必须坚持以邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想为指导,深入贯彻落实料学发展欢.

zài xīn de fāzhǎnjiēduàn jìxù quánmiànjiànshèxiǎokāngshèhuì fāzhǎnzhōngguó tèsè shèhuìzhǔyì bìxū jiānchí yǐ dèngxiǎopínglǐlún hé "sāngedàibiǎo" zhòngyàosīxiǎng wéi zhǐdǎo shēnrù guànchè luòshí liào xué fāzhǎn huān

Translation (approximately):

At this new stage of development, we must continue to construct an affluent society and develop China's unique socialism by firmly upholding Deng Xiaoping Theory and "The Three Represents,"* placing special importance on direction, guidance, and persistence in order to achieve harmonious material development.

* socio-political ideology credited to General Secretary Jiang Zemin which became a guiding ideology of the CCP at its 16th Party Congress in 2002. The official statement of the ideology stipulates that the Communist Party of China should be representative to advanced social productive forces, advanced culture, and the interests of the overwhelming majority. The ideology is important that it attempted to transform the Communist Party to become a ruling party representing the majority of the people as opposed to its old image of a vanguard revolutionary party driven by the proletariat. To a certain degree it legitimized the inclusion of members of the business class, i.e. capitalists, into the party. It has been criticized as a political legacy project by leader Jiang Zemin with no practical application, with the main purpose being to equate him with former leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, who each had their ideological vision enshrined in the party constitution. (wikipedia)

The sign blazons its message louder than any other permanent signs on campus, and like the previously mentioned sign, it acts as a simple reminder of what to believe. Orwellian? perhaps. It sure doesn't feel like an advertisement...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

April Fools! and integration...

2009-04-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
It's April Fools' Day (愚人节 yúrénjie - literally "fools' festival"), and surprisingly, my students only mildly attempted to trick me. I strolled into my 8am class and they all giggled, so I was braced for a mutiny, but then it never came...or at least I think it never came! I did get a few text messages today from fellow foreign teachers that "Oh my gosh! Obama was shot in London!" (not funny) and a few from students who wanted me to go to a specific athletic field at a specific time because they claimed that it was haunted and needed me to "hunt ghosts" with them (funny).

I just finished reading "The Unheard" by Josh Swiller, a hearing-impaired Peace Corps Volunteer's memoir of his service in Africa during the mid-1990's. It was a great read, and since the only other real PC memoirs I have read were written by PC China's [infamous] Peter Hessler, this perspective was a breath of fresh air, full of honesty, insight, and humor that made Pete's first two years in China (no offense, Pete!) seem...well, prude.
.
But the defining difference between PC China and PC Africa is that of "integration" - a word that is repeated to PC volunteers all over the world as if it was the only word that mattered in a Chinese-style English pronunciation class. Integrate Integrate Integrate! In Africa, it seems like volunteers are placed in villages where they can have direct contact with (a smaller number of) villagers, work with them directly, help and plan with them directly. In China, PCVs are little fish in a ocean stocked with billions of curious eyes, and if we do not create little microcosms of China, we never really learn who anyone really is! So whenever I "integrate" in a new way, it's worth mentioning. The latest success (if you are a past/present PC China Volunteer and you are reading this, please don't laugh!) is my mastering of QQ. (Okay, stop laughing so I can continue...)

QQ is to China what AIM is to America - a chatting service that allows people to, well, chat. However, in America, I would guess that only Gen. X and Yer's have/had AIM, but in China, it seems like everyone has it, from high schoolers to Chinese who felt the wrath of Mao before his death in '76. Whenever I receive a business card from a colleague, it have his/her QQ number directly under their telephone number, sometimes ahead of their e-mail address. To have a QQ number (not a username) is to be a part of something bigger...

I have had QQ for about 2 weeks now and already I have 87 friends (Okay, stop laughing!). About 95% of them are my students who send me English-language questions, questions about culture, books, movies, or current events, or most importantly, need advice about life and it endlessly complicated mysteries! Since many of them still feel nervous calling me, and texting can be time consuming, QQ provides a quick window into my world/mind. In addition, I post a "weekly topic" to consider, this week's: YouTube.com has been blocked by the CCP for several days now. Is "stability" more important than personal freedom [of expression] in China? Your opinion?
.
Some students have already answered, and, well, it doesn't look like the CCP really understands the next generation of "Communists." I have optimism...
.
...and pessimism. This is truly scary -- read the comments that follow the story.
.
It sounds funny, but if you are a PCV in China, I recommend diving into the world of QQ. You will learn so much more about your students' lives and [real] opinions....

And if you do have QQ, and you want my number, shoot me an e-mail: philiprazem@gmail.com
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

Friedman for 40 Yuan

2009-03-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Youtube.com came back to life Saturday, but this evening, after I prepared a very special entry with a recent video contribution, the Great Chinese Firewall decided, "NAH!" and just pushed their magic block button. So, yes, let them unravel their confusion about self-identity and who and what to fear, and then hopefully this will pass like a kidney stone...
.
Today I was walking to buy some fruit when I saw a small book stand selling [what I thought was] used books. I always gravitate to these makeshift book stands, seeing if they might have the answer to my Chinese language plight (no such success yet), but to my surprise, surrounded by Chinese-language novels, calligraphy books, cartoon collections and Chinese business texts, I found both "The World is Flat" (22 yuan) and "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" (18 yuan) by the NYTimes' Thomas Friedman. All together, I bought both of these books for 40 元 yuan, which is a little less than 7 US dollars - "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" retails at 18 bucks alone on Amazon. How is this possible?

Well, there are 100% fake. Hot of the photocopy machine - even the copyright page is included! Gotta love it! - unless you are Thomas Friedman or his publisher. One a side note, Mr. Friedman, in case you find this blog entry after Googling your name (for some odd reason), just know I am a huge fan, think you should be President (of any country, preferably America, but more necessary: China), and I plan on investing in your books when I return to our America in a few short months. Keep doing your thing! And maybe the next book can be on education - another relevant topic when we talk about needed "revolutions"!

The lilacs have bloomed outside my apartment and it smells lovely, especially after an afternoon rain shower. If only the sun would break through these thick (and perpetual) Chongqing clouds... I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

The Chinese University Adaptation Poem

2009-03-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Hearts, Love, Longing for that special someone, and a few more Hearts for good luck...
.
As my students prepare for their grueling and, in my opinion, extremely silly TEM-4 (Test of English majors) Exam (today I had a student ask me the difference between "assume" and "presume" - do you know?), I have been trying to provide a creative, non-grammar-related learning environment where they can freely express themselves without thinking about whether the better answer is A or B. Poetry to the rescue...
.
The Adaptation Poem is simple, yet requires students to a) work together, b) use what they already have, and c) joint the pieces together with their own homemade glue (metaphor) to ultimately create some new kind of flying machine. Think back to Ron Howard/Tom Hanks' Apollo 13 where the NASA crew had to take supplies already on the space craft and make a contraption that filters CO2 - duct tape here and there, a tube sock, a piece of wire wrapped around there, and WHA-LA! An Adaptation Poem!

I gave the students a list of famous/infamous lines from poetry and/or music (below) and they must write a 10-line poem alternating the list's lines with the original lines:

My heart is as dry as dust.
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love!
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
There are daggers in men's smiles.
My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. (many questions about this one)
I'm bringing SEXY back!
Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games.
And my heart will go on...
Girls! Girls! Girls!
This is the first day of my life...
Will I wake tomorrow, from this nightmare?
I woke up this morning, I suddenly realized, we're all in this together.
We didn't start the fire!
For the times, they are a-changin'!
I am the walrus!
I am going to stay 18 forever...

I gave the students about 30 minutes to write and decorate their poems, and then they presented them in front of the class. I took pictures of all 25 poems so you can see and read them all HERE. Many laughs were had. It's lovely to observe how free-thinking minds can start with the same exact things, tinker with them, and then finish with completely different inventions...

But are they different?

I think it would be interesting for a sociologist to examine my students' poems; about 80% of them seem to have the same subject matter: LOVE, whether it is lost, gained, wanted, or completely missing. Not even "love for one's country," or love for anything other than intimate human relationships. Even the poems about "growing up" and "being positive and optimistic" were about love being the missing piece of the life pie. I counted nearly 100 heart decorations before I gave up, hearted out!. I have many hypothesises for this subject choice, and I am sure if you are a Westerner teaching in China and are familiar with the (unscientific) effects of the College Entrance Exam (GaoKao) on Chinese social adolescent development, then you can put 1 and 1 together.

But some poems really impressed me! I read a few that were about real issues: war, political activism (sort of), and narrative in nature. One of my favorites - just because the group didn't know what a walrus was until I drew a rough sketch for them, used the famous Beatles' line and changed it into a poem about animal rights (again, sort of). You gotta love the bloody cross in the bottom corner:

Poetry is grand...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

P.s. Sitemate Kristen is a Mexican Chef! 很好吃!

The CCP is afraid of the Internet

2009-03-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Sitemate Kristen and I did not have a pleasant lunch this afternoon. The topic of conversation: YouTube.com and why, as of last night and all day today, it is blocked across China.
.
I use YouTube in my classroom every week for a series of "Dramatic Dialogues" (more on this in future posts - as soon as [if] YouTube returns) ripped from popular American sitcoms, used in order to inject emotion to my students sometimes robotic oral English-language skills. It's been a raging success for the past 3 weeks and so today, I thought it might be interesting to videotape it for YOU. SUCCESS! However, you will have to hold your horses because (I guess) the Chinese Communist Party thinks Youtube is not good for its people. Again, "stability" (AKA government officials keeping their unelected jobs, black-tinted BMWs, and guanxi) dominates individual freedoms.
.
But why in the last 48 hours and not last week or month?
.
The Internet is a-buzzin' about why the Great Firewall of China suddenly stopped YouTube from passing. This is not the first time Youtube has been blocked during my service; last year at about this time, when Tibetan monks rioted for autonomy, many foreigners captured live footage (later and foolishly distorted by CNN, which I must say is NOT affiliated with the American government - a common mistake made by Chinese) and BOOM, YouTube blocked. One hypothesis is there is new footage of the PLA beating Tibetan monks, as reported from BBC:
.
The site has been carrying a graphic video released by Tibetan exiles, which shows hundreds of uniformed Chinese troops swarming through a Tibetan monastery - a group of troops beat a man with batons.
In another scene a group of men, including a monk, are beaten, kicked and choked, while they lie on the ground. Some have their hands tied others appear to be unconscious.
.
The date and locations of the footage cannot be confirmed. Beijing maintains that it dealt lawfully with last years protests in Tibet. On Tuesday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China "is not afraid of the internet". However, he was unable to confirm if YouTube had been blocked.
.
Another, and probably more plausible hypothesis is the posting of official US-Navy videos on Youtube showing real footage of an incident a week or so ago involving an American surveillance ship, USNS Impeccable, and its run-in (described as "harassment") with a few Chinese fishing boats. The fishing boats mooned the American ship and tried to "snag or cut the cable to its towed sonar array." Sadly, the Chinese fishing boats didn't have their cameras rolling when it was time to be accountable for their actions. I think the below images says a hell of a lot about each country's military might...

But the real issue is how China is not afraid of the Internet, but the powers that govern China are. Many Chinese are upset too; the message boards are full of Chinese citizens and bloggers who see these blocks as a sign of a nervous and confused government, giving the country of China (I disagree with Mr. Mao - China and the CCP are NOT interconnected and reliable on each other) the P.R. problem that trails them like a ball and chain as they take their first steps onto the world's stage.

So I guess you will have to wait to see how YouTube is used to bring China and the West together through education, language, pop culture, and creativity...

"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." ~ President Barack Obama 奥巴马, January 20, 2009

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

St. Patrick's Day in Chongqing (year #2)

2009-03-24T06:43:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.

Peace Corps China (Chongqing) 13 and 14

+ a few special extras

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

The 6-word Memoir (Expanded!)

2009-03-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
I've written about my experiences using 6-word memoirs in the Chinese University Classroom approx. 1 year ago, and due to their overwhelming success then, I thought I should expand the lesson this semester for my English major students. Last week I gave my students the homework of writing one six-word memoir followed by a short paragraph explaining the "story" behind their 6 words.
.
Read all my students' 6-word memoirs!
.
My favorites:

Rock, Rock, Rock, Keep on Rockin'!
I once was so much naughty!
Grammar and Vocabulary make me down!
No absolute fairness in this world
Try to remember, try to forget
Friends hurt me, friends save me
The stereotype sucks, the rationalism rocks!
East or West, home is best
What am I going to do?
Like a fish, but couldn't swim
I will be my own boss!
So lucky to be with you
Got the flu, lost in school
I never feel alone, thank you
Mum and I planted the tree
I WANT TO BE WITH YOU!
My life seems like a ladder
Love me or hate me. Choose.
No one knew. But I did. --- my favorite...

After we looked at a blackboard full of summarized experiences, picked our favorites and explained why they "stirred our soul," students got into 5 groups and I asked them to work together to write one 6-word memoir for each of 5 "famous" persons from history (pictures taped to the front board; see above pictures link). I tried to select a mixture of Chinese and Americans, from both the past and modern society, the last person being the "most intelligent, good-looking, and overall coolest person of the five pictured." Here are some of their responses, concluding with the 6-word memoirs/autobiographies I wrote for each of these world-renowned figures (Bolded):

George Washington:

First President of the United States

He chopped down a cherry tree

I really like your hair style

Where would America be without him?

Brave hero, but he approved of slavery

Mao ZeDong:

No Chairmen Mao, No new China! (insert smiling, clapping students here)

He swam across the Yangtze River

He made life easy and hard

Sometimes the hero can't resist temptation

Where would China be without him? (Good Question!)

A "foreign teacher" is an oxymoron (homework was to understand this)

Bill Gates:

Money Money Money Money Money Money!

Hundreds, Thousands, Millions, Billions, Trillions, WOW!

Gained from others, gave to others

You can't take it with you

Liu Xiang: (2004 Olympic gold-medalist who was injured for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, inspiring many Chinese tears)

Proving Chinese can run fast too

Run, Jump, Run, Jump, Run, Jump

Will come back stronger and faster

Love him or hate him? Decide.

Disappointed? What if he won silver?

Philip Razem:

Phil: 桃花朵朵开 táohuā duǒ duǒ kāi (Phil: You cause the peach flowers to blossom)

Being handsome is not your fault (Trust me, I know!)

I love you! Yes! Me too! (I love you too!)

A bridge to a different world

All I want is the truth!

This activity, of course, was designed to exercise students' creative skills, as well as think critically at a life and note its successes and failures ("Remember: No one is perfect"). The most interesting answers were groups' 6-word memoirs of Mao; when I put his picture on the front board, many students in the class clapped and got physically excited (wiggling in their desks) when it was him I chose from Chinese history. Some groups, as listed above, had only good things to say, but others acknowledged the many (many!) faults of Mao in their 6 words. If a class from, well, any country outside of China was asked to write this summarized moment of Mao, I am sure a very, very large percentage of them would use words like "murderer" and "evil" and "failure" etc. But the question is: How many American students would acknowledge Washington's (many!) faults like I did above?

Final note: A student in my last class came up to me and asked, "Why didn't you select any women?" I had no good answer, and for that, I apologize.

PCVs! Do this with your class! and check out http://www.postsecret.com/ for inspiration. "We are more similar than different."

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Mountain Dew in Chongqing, China! 激浪, 不山露水

2009-03-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
Kristen and I were walking to lunch this afternoon and decided to stop into a small grocery store to pick up a drink. To our surprise, on the top shelf of the small, upright refrigerator was my first sighting of Mountain Dew in over 21 months. For 2 RMB (30 cents or so), I bought, popped open the can and...DID THE DEW!
.
The can is interesting; it reminded me of something I might find in my family's Canada, where the official language is English, but all the products are labeled in both English and French. In my experiences perusing Chinese supermarkets, this "half and half" labeling method is still rare; most foreign products - i.e. Tide Laundry Detergent, Heinz Ketchup, Jiffy Peanut Butter - are translated into Chinese, retaining only the English-language brand name for credibility. As you can see, half of the can is the standard Mountain Dew logo we (I say "we" meaning mostly young college students who don't want to drink hot coffee while buried under a stack of Shakespeare books until 3 a.m. - cough cough) know and love:And the reverse side is the Chinese translation, which I must say, looks very, very cool.

Kristen and I both knew how "Mountain Dew" could be translated - 山露水 shanlùshui, literally "mountain dew" - but on the can, it has been given the name of 激浪 jīlang, or "turbulent/surging wave(s)." Hey, I think that's pretty accurate! Just wait till Chinese start drinking this stuff and begin experiencing that caffeine-induced high, followed shortly by the disabilitating caffeine withdrawal that only another ride on the Dew's "turbulent wave" can fix! Do the Dew!
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞
.
.
.
Note: In no way does "Runnin' the Great Wall" endorse or receive sponsorship from Mountain Dew Citrus Cola. Or does it?...

Our "Muslim Noodle" Restaurant in Beibei, Chongqing

2009-03-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

你们好!

Actually, there are dozens of "Muslim Noodle" restaurants in Beibei, but this specific one has an indescribable charm. DeCaprio (his spelling), who I write about often (running friend; we travelled to Beijing and ran on the Great Wall), and his girlfriend, Mary, also a senior English major at Southwest University, introduced Devon (My lovely first-year sitemate) and I to this small, cubby-hole-of-a-place during my first semester teaching in Beibei. Before I say anymore, take a look at this place, and then I'll tell you just a few reasons why this is "My Favorite Restaurant in...China." Enjoy!

I mentioned in the introduction that one of my favorite characteristics about this restaurant is the "diverse" crowd. I (try to) teach world citizenry in my classes, which is difficult when China, for the most part, is a homogeneous society (Chinese will quickly disagree and claim they have 55 minorities and blah blah blah, but the truth is, more than 90% of Chinese are of the Han majority, and "minorities" seem token and exploited in the tourism industry). However, Southwest University is a blessing due to it's sheer magnitude; it has a large(r in comparison to other Chinese universities) population of foreign students, coming from as close as Thailand to as far away as the U.S., Africa, and the Middle East. This restaurant, garnished with pictures of Mecca and whose cooks and waitresses kneel and pray on stray mats, sometimes amid the chaos of lunch hour, does not serve any pork dishes (the staple meat of most Chinese food) and prohibits alcohol. It's food and environment caters to a demographic of SWU students who come from western provinces (Xinjiang Province most notably) and countries that share China's Western border. In the video there is a cameo from one of my friends, Kunduz, who is a foreign student from Kirghistan, sitting at a table with other foreign students from, I was told, Pakistan and other Central Asian countries. Though Chinese is the most widely spoken language inside, local dialects and heavily-accented English swirl through the air. Think The Tower of Babel without the chaos, add great food! It's quite an experience, and I always learn more and more about the world and its people every time I order my fanqie rousi gai jiao fan, jia yige jidan!
.
The family that runs the restaurant still presents many mysteries to me. I have learned a few details about them from DeCaprio (Mongol minority) and Mary (Hui Muslim minority), as well as from random English tutors and friends, but as for their real life story, I feel it will always be lost due to their private disposition. The lone waitress, a young girl about 13 years old, works everyday, all day, and she is so sweet and speaks really slooow Mandarin to me - "Chi Shenme?" - and then repeats my order back to me with a smile. The Laoban (boss), complete with his Muslim hat and long black beard, chuckles when I ask him, "Duo Shao Qian? 多少钱?" (How much?) and we have a friendly tradition of shaking hands every time money is exchanged. He has two little children, a boy and a girl, who can't be much older than 6. They play all day while their mother works in the kitchen, and have confessed that they aren't upset about not going to school - tragedy for me as a teacher - and I can't help but guess that they will do the same job as their older sister - bringing dishes from the kitchen and taking orders - when they grow up. Enjoy your youth while you have it! A small part of heart breaks every time I see them playin' around the restaurant with big, curious smiles, and then their older sister, sweating and carrying big plates of chopped chicken and potatoes, exits from the kitchen. It reminds me of what I have had, continue to have...and will have. And how fortunte I am.
.
I hope you can experience this scene, or something like it, in your life. Life lessons and delicious food is a lovely combination...
.
Finally, please click this link to learn about and possible donate to PCV Val's secondary project in Guizhou Province! She is the ultimate do-gooder and deserves all the support she needs! The task that lies before her is very arduous, and every US Dollar YOU donate will be used to change the lives of a few (many!) Chinese children who have not been blessed with the fortune YOU (unknowingly) possess! Check it out!
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

Updates, Anniversaries, Women, Cooking Lessons, Shakespeare, etc...

2009-03-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

你们好!
.
A few interesting updates from the Life of Phil in China...
.
Last Sunday, March 8, 2009, was "International Women's Day" (国际妇女节 guójì fùnǚ jie). Various banners hung around Southwest University's campus wishing the female population a merry day. In fact, all the female students in the School of Foreign Languages received a 15 RMB gift card, just for being a woman! However, are they "women"? I have written about this specific phenomenon before; the distinction between "girl" and "woman" is quite large in China. I've learned a great deal about "being female" from my classes, being that about 80% of my students are women...ladies...girls! Most female university students want to remain "young at heart" and, my favorite adjective they frequently use, "fresh," thus they laugh whenever I ask for a brave woman to participate, and further, shocking me when very few raised their hands when I asked if they celebrated the only day designated for being female. Being a woman in China means you are old, married, have children (or in China, a child) and are, for the most part, washed up and domesticated. This view is slowly changing as China grows and opens, but old habits die hard: women are still viewed, and especially in the mind of a man who is ready to settle down, as a house work/family servant. The most interesting tidbit of knowledge I learned about this holiday is in Chinese (I am told, originating in Southeast China) there is a slang expression - "三八 sānbā" which to any Chinese language learner would simply mean the numbers 3 and 8. Actually this slang means "bitch" in Chinese, and what a better way to say "Bitch!" than using the numbers 3 (March) and 8 (8th): The date of the holiday supposedly honoring women. John from Sinosplice wrote about this back in 2005. Happy Bitch Day?!
.
Speaking of becoming a domestic servant, I had a very lovely cooking lesson from a former student yesterday. I hate cooking in my apartment; I don't see the point when I have 200 restaurants with amazing, cheap food right around the corner. But since I live in China, and it's my mission to learn as much as this culture as possible, it's nice to see, learn, and experience how China's real Chinese food (as compared to America's fake Chinese food) is chopped, mixed, stirred, fried, boiled, and steamed. Tina, one of my best students who is working on her MA in elementary English education, invited me over to her apartment and there her and I made some delicious Chinese delicacies, my favorite being homemade "糖醋里脊 tángcù lǐjǐ" - Sweet and Sour Pork. Here are some pictures:

糖醋里脊tángcù lǐjǐ (above)

"It's Chinese food...and I helped!" (see old Shake n' Bake jingle)

My Shakespeare class started this morning - Act I of Hamlet - and it went well. I dressed in black (how else can one dress when "clouds hang on you"?) and screamed and whispered and laughed and cried, the way (I think) Shakespeare should be taught. I made a little mistake on board, however, when I was writing the date. I wrote "March 10, 2008" instead of "March 10, 2009." A simple mistake, probably not worth noting here, but I will admit it kinda got my heart pumping? Why? Well, last year on this day, the Tibet uprising occurred, resulting in many deaths on both sides (More Tibetans died, of course, because the People's Liberation Army (ironic title?) have the guns). I doubt anyone in the class made this connection, but I did instantly, even though I wrote it subconsciously. I don't want to write too much here about the situation in Tibet because I know my students read this blog and if I say the "wrong thing" (aka, anything in support of the D.L.), I don't doubt they will hate me from this day forth: a reaction I don't blame them for - they are the products of Deng XiaoPing's "political re-education reform" after the 1989 T-men Massacre, which I must say again and again, is not discussed in schools in China. Or, worse yet, they would just dismiss me as another "fell-fed foreigner who has no business criticizing China" as said by China's future President, Xi Jinping, who I must say has very poor diplomatic skills with such a quotation. I think my students and I both know the situation in Tibet isn't going away. Sadly, I care about them too much to bring it up in debate lessons, which might (I have been warned) result in me getting the boot. They can't even begin to try to understand; every video with the D.L.'s speaking is blocked on Youtube. Like Hamlet, that's a real tragedy. Thanks Mr. Deng! You've made my job sooo fulfilling... (that's "sarcasm" for my Chinese readers).

Men: Be kind to women. We need them! Women: Don't stop fighting for your rights. You've made a lot of progress, but there is still work to be done in both America and (especially) China.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Introducing Zappa! "For BRAIN POWER!" and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

2009-03-05T22:19:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Introducing Zappa!

"For BRAIN POWER!" "Zappa! is an all natural supplement that stimulates brain activity. Popular with American university students during Finals Week, it can be taken directly or mixed with the beverage of your choosing. Tasteless and odorless, it aids memory, recollection, and mental alertness!"

Now before you start thinking I am trying to sell homemade heroin on the blog, hear me out! At the end of last semester, I gave my students a take-home "final exam": Shirley Jackson's 1948 short story, "The Lottery" (click if you haven't read it) and asked them to write a simple 1-2 page composition detailing their reaction to the story's "ridiculous" (the most popular adjective in their essays) ending and how the story was relevant to personal experiences from their own lives. I gave the assignment and said nothing more. All Spring Festival, I read hundreds of these essays, collected interesting quotations from a select few, and just this past week addressed the story/assignment to the class. But before that....

I want to thank my lovely mother, who sent me a huge crate of Zappa! in the mail. I chopped it up into small cubes and passed out tissues to all my students. I used a pair of Peace Corps-issued tweezers to disperse the Zappa!, because every American college student knows you can't touch Zappa! with your bare hands or the active chemical in it would be compromised. As I carefully placed the fragile cube on their tissues, some of their faces moved curiously close to the Zappa! and gave it a really hard look. I gave myself a cube and, after raising my tissue, stuck the tip of my tongue onto the small cube and pulled it into my mouth, chewing quickly and then swallowing. The class followed.

The class quickly started, we did our speaking/thinking exercises, and after a 10 minute break, we started talking about "The Lottery" and the things they said in their essays (NOTE: If you want the handout with the complete quotations, send me an e-mail). Here are a few of my favorite quotations:

"Today, we still follow like sheep. When seeing a report in the newspaper, we believe it without thinking; when knowing a piece of news from the TV, we accept it; when hearing an inflammatory speech, we respect it. But is it true? Is there something phony? Is there a stereotype which puzzled our right decision?...Because of conformism (conformity), we lose our creation; because of conformism, we stops thinking, because of conformism, we human being degenerate to animals"
"We cannot tolerate to see the situation in Tibet worsen like in DRC, not let Taiwan be independent as Kosovo, not have an election like America does. We hold different history, different culture and different backgrounds. The tree that bear fruits in the outsider are unquestionably cannot always grow well on the soil of China"
"Sometimes opposition is not enough. Last year, almost all the students in our major asked the school to change a better dormitory for us, or at least gave us a shower. We wrote a letter to school and we all signed our name on it. But our school didn’t take any action, and in other words, our school just ignored our request. Though we felt very angry about it, we can do nothing. Perhaps we need to adapt ourselves to our environment."

And a quotation that received many laughs and nodding heads:

"It seems that people can only be happy when they see others unhappy. I have to admit that I have also had this kind of feeling. My friend ____'s boyfriend is gorgeous and they look very happy. I really envy them. Once ____ had a quarrel with her boyfriend and cried in front of me. I felt sorry for her and tried to comfort her. I could feel the smile inside my heart. That was true. I could feel it and even hear it."

We talked about these quotations; some students said some really interesting things that I believe aren't normally shared in a Chinese university classroom (setting aside tradition for modernism, wanting a say in political affairs, etc.) but there was still many who regurgitated the Party line: "The West should stay out of our affairs. The monks in Tibet like their hard life - it's part of their culture." The Peace Corps and SWU told me when I arrived that I shouldn't talk about the "Three T's" (Taiwan, Tibet, and 19_89 Tian_an_m_en - the last still being too controversial to discuss in a classroom) but I slowly start to see I don't need to bring them up in class - the students make connections themselves. That is wonderful.

And finally, in the last 5 minutes of class, I ask the students where their Zappa! is, and ask them why they ate it. "You did it!" they yelled. The week before, I gave everyone a fortune cookie my mother had actually mailed from home. They were primed for receiving presents. "Guess what? Zappa! doesn't exist...I made it up. It's poison - (Phil looks at his watch) - you have 5 minutes to live." The class sits back quickly and stares at me with a mixture of curiosity, catharsis, and pure fear. "Just kiddin'" I say.

"What how many things are like Zappa! in your life? How many things do you just accept and put into your body or mind without thinking and asking yourself, 'Wait a minute! What?!' What is your Zappa!?"

Heads nod, small smiles, working brains.

Of course, maybe they will never trust me again. But I would rather have them not trust me than compliantly swallow without first thinking if they should put something or idea in their mouths/minds. "Never forget Zappa!" I tell them before the bell rings.

What's your Zappa!?

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

References:

Lu Xun's "The Medicine"
Zappa! is just Chinese snack food called 禄豆糕 I bought in Guangxi Province. Hard Bean Cake. 不好吃!

The needle in the haystack...

2009-03-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
In his 2005 book, A Man Without A Country, Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC."
.
This past weekend I journeyed down to Chongqing to NUTS, a rock/punk music hall recommended to me by one of my students.

China's music scene is dominated by pop. Pop stars' faces are all over television commercials, billboards, and food packaging at the supermarket, and their voices seem to be perpetually singing a harmonious ballad of triviality. Very rarely do I meet a student who tells me that they enjoy a genre that's not pop music - sometimes they say they like Jay Chou, calling him "Rap" or Hip Hop," but trust me, he is a sheep dressed in wolves' clothing. As a music lover who involuntarily pushes the (shallow) pop genre as far away from my ears as possible, living and listening in China has not been the most pleasurable musical experience. In short, I learned another valuable aesthetic characteristic of American culture: musical diversity...or at least America's promotion of diverse genres of music, compared to that of poppy (poopy?) 中国.

But that's not to say that China's music scene is hopeless. Club Nuts is a needle in the haystack, and judging from my experience there, a source of new creation and individualized expression in a vanilla world. I met up but PCVs Scott and Megan, took a cab to the venue, paid the 25 RMB cover, and walked into an small cement-box concert hall holding maybe 150 people. The band was local and to our surprise, played 1/2 their set of songs in English, claiming their indie-rock, New Age sound was heavily influenced by The Cure. The band's lead singer was female (think Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), had large, round black-framed classes and short auburn-dyed hair. They wore a conservative green dress with bright yellow tights and neatly laced Converse high-tops. Her voice was high and resonate, and she subtly swayed in pulsing colored lights. The band members, all men, played to precision, and more than once I looked over to Scott and Megan and yelled, "These guys are legitimate!" They received hordes of cheers from the crowd of Chinese musical outcasts (and a few foreigners), many dressed with their own Bohemian flair, ending their set with a cover of Coldplay's "Yellow" (with Chinese characteristics)! 哈哈

In all honesty, the experience was rejuvenating. I lose faith in China sometimes - the suppression of university students' creativity, especially of those who are supposedly studying a subject in the field of "Humanities," is fuel in my fire - but now and then, I've learned how something as simple 1-hour rock n' roll show, with performers who probably failed the GaoKao (College Entrance Exam) with all-time lows, can recharge my optimism in the Middle Kingdom. Rock n' Roll...the best diplomacy!

Picture TAG: ClubNuts

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

The First Week

2009-02-27T22:14:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
The first week is done and on the record. I thought it went pretty successful. During the winter break, my students have been in their hometowns for 2 straight months with very little English-language exposure, so the mission of Week 1 was to "pull them" (Insert image of me pulling an invisible rope in front of the room) back to the world of English I try to create during our 90 minutes together each week. The below image is our theme this semester - the students fired off their interpretations! What do you think our goals are this Spring? If you read this blog regularly, you already know that there are two pinnacle skills I feel obligated to facilitate for my Chinese university students (taken from my Spring 2009 Syllabus):

Creativity – See the world around you in new and innovative ways. Use what you know and have and invent and transform! Be unique and original! Search and find life in everything！Don't be afraid to be different! It might be uncomfortable at first...maybe seem foolish - But it's not foolish at all! It's invention!
Critical Thinking – The empowerment of inquiry, or the power a person feels when he or she has the ability to reflect and search for the Truth ("capital 'T'"). How do I feel about something? Why do I feel this way? How and why do others feel differently than me?

Both of these skills are neglected by the Chinese Education System and students are almost never exposed to any classroom pedagogy that utilizes either. Since the students have a dreaded country-wide exam (TEM-4) next month, I've decided to focus most of the first 6 weeks around the first skill - creativity - and have them a) write poetry and b) perform various learning techniques that use a discipline very close to my heart: "Dramatic Pedagogy" or "Enactment". Enactment is, quite simply, creating situations in which we "imagine to learn" (Wilhelm and Edmiston, 1998). Let's take a look at two popular first class activities from this past week.

The Stick:

"What is this? A stick, yes. But tell me more! What do you see? Bamboo, yes, it is bamboo. But do you think it could be something more than just a bamboo stick? Let's look at it for 5 seconds. What could this stick be? Create! Create Create!"

"Yes! A javelin! Yes! A flute! A Harry Potter broomstick! A calligraphy brush! A stick of sugar cane...Delicious! A pole vault! A telescope! Gimme more!"

The Paper Platform:

"Okay, get into groups of 5 people. Here is your platform. Your mission is to see how many people from your group you can get off the cement ground and onto the piece of paper in front of you. Start slow! 1 at a time! Ready...Go!"

Both activities produced some interesting answers and performances. After both, the students understood or began to understand why both are relative in the classroom and most importantly, in their lives as active learners and planners. They began to recognize each other's strengths (girls with high-heels had an advantage on the platform; boys with muscles could carry each other/smaller girls) and weaknesses (trying to have everyone start on the platform and then try to balance) and compared this collective cooperation activity with the previous "Stick" activity which dealt with individualized creative expression. All in all, the students did a great job...

The very lovely Mother Razem sent me a box of Chinese fortune cookies over Spring Festival (Chinese restaurants in China don't give customers fortune cookies after the meal, much to the sadness of first day tourists in China, and a custom completely unknown to my students) so I handed these treats out and asked them to read each other their "fortunes". Some did not understand their pieces of wisdom so I tried my best to explain. May favorite fortune of the week:
.

"All the water in the world can't sink a ship unless it gets inside"

"Who is the ship? What is the water?" A lesson everyone, indiscriminate of country or culture, can learn from...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Chongqing Hot Pot

2009-02-25T20:44:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
I apologize for not posting for the last week or so - CLASSES HAVE STARTED! That's right! and I will be updating you on my (successful) first week of my last semester teaching at Southwest University in the coming days.
.
In celebration of sitemate Kristen's younger brother, Tim, visiting his big sister in Beibei, our Waiban took a small entourage to a fancy Hot Pot restaurant, so I thought this would be the perfect time to capture this "cultural culinary experience" on film for this blog (and, of course, the next round of PCVs coming to China this summer). Enjoy!

I think this video provides a small (or maybe large?) insight into the importance/effects of strong Baijiu 白酒(Chinese "white wine") as a quintessential element of the Hot Pot experience, as well. I think my favorite part of the evening was the last minute or so - that 5 minute taxi ride felt like 10 seconds! Ha! That's what the Peace Corps calls "integration".
.
More in the coming days!
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

E-mails from Students

2009-02-18T23:17:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
As I mentioned a few blog posts ago, I gave my students one simple assignments for their long, nearly 2 month Spring Festival break from classes: write me 1 e-mail, updating me on their lives away from our classroom. Classes start this Monday - I have been planning non-stop for the 48 hours or so - and, better late than never, my mailbox is being flooded with 20-30 e-mails/day from students who, in some cases, haven't been in front of a computer in weeks because they either lived with their grandparents during the break or their home doesn't have/can't afford Internet access. I reply (or at least try to reply) to everyone (some students forget that I don't necessarily read Chinese too well), usually with a short and sweet message of thankfulness that he or she survived all the fireworks that were inevitably being set off all around his or her limbs and face (Yikes!).
.
Many of the 150+ e-mails are the same: students talk about the delicious foods they ate, the friends from high school they were able to see again, the endless games of Mahjong, and in some cases, meeting their very own Mr. or Miss Right. However, there were some highlights. I picked 3-4 e-mails - no names mentioned - that stuck out from the bunch with humorous and/or sentimental anecdotes (pasted as original e-mail).
.
The first is from a student who desired to improve his or her spoken French during the break (yes, my students have a 2nd foreign language as well!). I thought this e-mail was great because he or she described a scene that can me found in every 21st century classroom, indiscriminate of country or student - the diligent juxtaposed with the straight-up lazy:
.

There were two [people] in the training class who left me a great impression. One is a middle-aged man.He has to learn French because he is going to imgrant to Qubec,Canada.Maybe because he was not in the time of study any more, he couldn't understand the classes very well. Sometimes he raised some questions that was stupid enough to throw the class into laughter. But he did not lose heart. He was the last one to leave the classroom in the evening. He was not ashamed of his innocence and continued to ask questions. I got moved. There was also a girl who impressed me . It was her third time to take this training class because every time she took this class, she spent most of her time playing around and learnt nothing when the class was over. She came from an extremely rich family and she lived extravagantly. She told us she bought a new cellphone every year for the simple reason that she would get tired if she used one cellphone for more than a year.She was wearing heavy make-up and seldom attended class in time.I don't like her.

.
My reply: "I don't like her either."
.
Another student sent a long e-mail about his family's Spring Festival and then concluded it with a short, 3-sentence-long story with a few pictures that could have filled pages:
.

Let me share one of my interesting experiences on the mountain with you. One day, when we were playing games on the mountain, I found that my uncle's dog was missing. We searched for a long time but it didn't appear. When we were about to leave, the dog appeared, it jumped up and down and threw an object to us. Guess what? It was a big hare! Oh my god! Our dog caught a giant hare which weighted 5 pounds! That night, we cooked that hare, the meat was very very delicious!

.

.
I laughed, partly because of the "coming-out-of-nowhere" last sentence and remembering a much younger Tootsie (The Razem Family's daschund) bringing dead baby rabbits into the house...and moreover, onto my parents' bed in the middle of the night. Why didn't we cook all those "hares" up, Mom and Dad? Delicious!
.
Lastly, a sentimental message I just want to remember, or rather, post to remind myself of the the real reason I am here in China - to help. My students may not know it, but they are one of the only reasons I have morally-survived China for almost two years. They are my rock...and without even knowing it, their country's rock:
.
Dear Phil, honestly speaking, you are the teather I like and respect most among all the teachers who teach me in my college. That't neither because you are the only foreigner who teach me nor you are a handsome man, more important, you teach us with your heart and soul! I like your creative teaching style(that's also the reason why I didn't miss even a lesson last semester). Your class is full of passion and enthusiasm, and the final aim you teach us is to develop our creativity, which is not only useful for ourselves but also for the fate of our whole country! In your lesson, you give us couragement as much as you can, you make us see the hopes of our English study. I know my English is very poor, however, you give me 90 point in last semester, which is the highest grade I have got in college so far. Thanks a lot! It's you who give me enough motive to study and practise hader and harder, to gain more and more progress in the next semester. I know that next semester wiil be the last semester you teach in China. All my classmates are very sad about this. We like you at the bottom of our hearts, however, we can understand you have your own dream to persue, you have your own country to come back. Just fly as you like! we are for you forever!
Last but not the least,I have three wishes to you:first, I wish you had a promising future;second, I wish you don't forget us--your chinese sincere friends forever;last, I wish you can consider china to be your family, your home. Don't forget me! don't forget China! Yours, ________
.
How could I forget?
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

A week in Guangxi Province

2009-02-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
First, thanks to all for reading this blog. I have been getting more than an average number of comments and e-mails - mostly well-wishers - and it feels nice to know people use this blog as a source of information about China and/or Peace Corps Volunteers in China. If you are reading this, please know I spend many hours a week writing, snapping pictures and filming my experience for you.

Last night, I opened my apartment door and collapsed into bed after a 6-day excursion through Guangxi Province. Only an hour flight away, I left Chongqing last Monday with Keegan, a foreign teacher at SWU, and planned to meet up with sitemate Kristen, PCV Lisa (see Sanya trip), and Rob, a SWU foreign teacher who had been making his way around Southeast Asia before arriving in Southeast China. It was another great gang of travelers:

We had three destinations on our agenda: Guilin, XingPing, and Yangshou. Guangxi Province is known for its beautiful scenery - most notably, its limestone pinnacles that rise high above small villages, carved by the Li River - so many Chinese and foreigners alike snap millions of photos a year to capture its natural beauty. Kristen and I have had several conversations about Chinese aesthetics, concluding that the most recognizable appreciation Chinese have, whether observed from ancient paintings to modern-day television commercials, is with nature and serene environments. XingPing, the first stop after arriving and spending our first day in Guilin, is a run-down, poor town with crumbling buildings and dusty roads, but it has one shiny gem of Chinese beauty that is seen by Chinese consumers everyday: The picture on the back of the 20 yuan bill. Take a look!
Right in the middle of the 20 yuan bill is a man on a bamboo raft, which happens to be one of the most popular tourist trap in XingPing - an attraction we 5 Americans couldn't refuse! So, on the last day before heading to Yangshou, we bamboo-raft-floated down the river for 2 hours for not much more than 4-5 US dollars a person. Funny though, when we jumped on to our raft we noticed it wasn't bamboo at all, but PVC piping painted green to resemble bamboo! So I guess our experience was entirely genuine...

Yangshou is the most popular city around Guilin, catering to tourists who want to buy jiade (fake) goods - I bought a pair of NorthFace pants and a NorthFace Jacket (probably selling for over 150 dollars in America) for 120 yuan (roughly 20 US dollars) - and eat western food, drink coffee, and take in the natural scenery around them. We stayed in a cheap hostel built right inside one of the limestone pinnacles, snacked on wood-fired pizza, drank cheap local beer, and walked in and out of the mazing streets all day, finally retiring to the roof of our hostel at night for some stories and laughs. The weather was beautiful - 70 degrees for most of the trip - so we decided to rent bikes one day and ride through the countryside (this was my most memorable moment of the week). I hadn't rode a bike in years, so it felt good to feel the wind in my face and tires spinning in front and behind me. We shared the both cement and dirt paths with water buffaloes and cows, as well as SUVs and tour buses packed with "yuppie" Chinese escaping the city life. For a moment, it looked as if we were in Southwest America in the late 1800's - mud bricks homes, water wells, and livestock roaming everywhere, all with giant stone mountains jutting out of the rocky, sun-scorched earth. After we returned the bikes, it felt like I had used muscles in my legs and butt that, even with all the running I do, had never been used before.
Rob's girlfriend, Jamie, who is a 4th grade teacher in Hong Kong, arrived towards the end of the trip to celebrate Valentine's Day with him/us (most mostly him...booo!) and we all chatted about the failing education systems in China (and America - please click this: America's "Greatest National Shame" and as a teacher, I agree with Nicholas Kristof's every word) and how Obama's stimulus package might (might!) turn things around for America by FINALLY funding education-related projects. I was able to keep up to date with a few current events while I was away from my regular blogging. Two sad events occurred: first, a hotel was almost entirely ruined and killed a fireman in Beijing by some misguided fireworks ignited by some misguided people, just a baseball-throw-away from the brand new CCTV Tower (a building, on some days, I wouldn't mind if caught fire and burned down, as long as no one was in it) and a plane crashed and killed 50 people in Buffalo, NY, my hometown. This story, being felt so close to home, did not make the turbulence on the flight back to Chongqing comfortable at all. I said a little prayer for them and for the Chinese captain flying me back to rainy, miserable Chongqing. It really makes us appreciate what we have...now.

School starts in a week - Last semester at SWU!

Please enjoy the pictures - they tell the story much better than I ever could!

Picture TAG: Guangxi Province

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

A Peace Corps "13/14" Collection of Blogs

2009-02-08T02:14:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
I am guessing that Peace Corps Washington has sent out those infamous invitation letters to Peace Corps China's "15" group (15th group to come to China); I have received e-mails from a handful of invitees, asking for advice and whatnot, all friendly. I thought, since the most I could possible give these new volunteers as way of advice is my blog address: "It's all on there! Happy reading!"
.
But I am just one experience. I thought it would be helpful for them (as well as for all my readers) to check out a few other current Peace Corps China blogs:
.
Dustin: 1 and 2 (click!)
.
Val: Click!
.
Nick and Alison: Click! (this blog has a much longer list of PCVs with blogs)
.
Patrick: Click!
.
Katie: Click!
.
Todd: Click!
.
There are many more, I am sure. In fact, if you know of another PCV with a blog, please let me know and I will add to this list!
.

Welcome Peace Corps China "15's"! You are in for a wild ride!

I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

My Peace Corps Apartment

2009-02-06T06:42:00.000-08:00

你们好!

I've lived in the same apartment for approx. 19 months now and have only taken a few pictures here and there of its layout. My family and friends have requested to see its insides for some time, so I did a 1-shot, no takes, MTV Cribs version of "My Peace Corps Apartment." With filming this fast 6-minute tour, I hoped to clarify two very important points about Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as present a question, which I follow with a meditative "hmmm" at the end of the video:

1. Not all Peace Corps Volunteers live in mud huts. (But those who do deserve the utmost respect!)
2. I did not choose this apartment. It's too big and just plain frivolous.
-and-
"Do Peace Corps Volunteers in China need the luxuries the Chinese education system gives us?" Maybe paid foreign teachers need these accommodations, but we are here as volunteers, fully prepared to live in a mud hut, which many call home in China, if need be.

Filming yourself is a funny thing - something I have never done before. I think all Peace Corps Volunteers talk to themselves (too much time alone) and I will be the first to admit I talk to myself all day - I see it as a way of "exercising the imagination." But when a camera is recording every word and facial expression, it's a completely new experience. I hope to look back and laugh at these videos someday, when I am old and gray... ENJOY!

I think its worth mentioning that there have been PCVs in China who have went home early ("ET" Early Termination) because they discovered the accommodations as a PC China Volunteer were better than those at home in America. They didn't like being pampered. They didn't want to be taken out for expensive dinners at fancy restaurants. They didn't want to be showered with gifts every time they did something any PCV would do for free: judge a speech contest, help a (well-connected) student, do a favor, HELP A PERSON IN NEED! He or she wanted to test their instincts and at the same time, do something to help those who were less fortunate than him or herself. It's ironic, actually, because while running I am passed on the road by BMWs driven by kids that don't look much older than me. Sometimes PCVs help Chinese who have a more financially-stable future than the actual volunteer. This happens, and I won't lie, it bothers me too - hence the "hmmmm." It's been a confusing experience.

Finally, Happy Birthday to my lovely sister - pictured at the end of the video! I can't wait to see you in a few months!

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

A Short Glimpse into a Chinese (countryside) Wedding...

2009-02-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

你们好!

As a homework assignment during the Spring Festival, I asked my students to send me (at least) 1 e-mail, expressing to me (in English) what they are doing at home, what delicious foods they are eating, what fun activities/traditions they are performing, and most importantly, who they are spending the holiday with. I did this because I know many of my students will go home and not speak a word of English for 2 months and they will need all the practice they can get, but also because I miss them. They are one of the sole reason why I live and teach in a place I, for the most part, don't agree with. And I don't mean my stomach doesn't agree with its food, my patience doesn't agree with the language barrier, or my health/hygiene doesn't agree with all the spit on the ground and the air pollution while I run - these are tolerable and irrelevant reasons for not wanting to live in a place you currently call home. The real reason is much more complicated, of course. And at the same time, very simple. Cliffhanger...

Getting back to my student e-mail assignment, I was excited to see a student sent me a video of a Chinese countryside wedding. I have always wanted to see a real Chinese wedding - and by "real" I mean "traditional"; wedding planning shops are all over Beibei and they advertise wedding packages that look no different than Western-style weddings. This video, though in Chinese, is as real as I may ever see it. Have a look:

The student seemed very excited to send this to me. She said in her e-mail that she climbed on the roof a nearby house to make the video - a feat I commend her for! Notice the red cloth over the woman's face being removed by her husband (How would a feminist critic interpret this wedding?) and the bowing towards the end of the video - all traditions discussed during one of my cross-cultural lessons. The man talking is the host, or the "MC," who is pretty much the wedding ceremony's narrator and facilitator. I love Truth, as many of my friends and readers know, and I think there is a lot of Truth in this video.

More soon...

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

Flying Shoes and Current Events...

2009-02-02T19:12:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
I wrote in a previous blog about how the "Bush Flying Shoe Incident" affected my attitude about GWB after living in Communist China for 19 months. The simple act of throwing a shoe showed me how a free society is the only real society. I think many Iraqis are starting to understand that too - as they, for the most part, had their first peaceful election this week.
.
But to my surprise, GWB isn't the only dictator getting shoes thrown at him: Below is Wen JiaBao, the Chinese Communist Party's (beloved) Prime Minister. I don't have one student who seems to dislike this man (In the Chinese media, he is constantly pictured "kissing babies" and shaking hands with Sichuan Earthquake survivors); a politician with a 100% approval rating? Something isn't right here! Have a look at what happened at Cambridge University in England:

And so the "Wen JiaBao Shoe Flying Incident" deserves equal coverage on this blog as to the pair that flew at Bushie. I don't want to write too much about this because I hope to use this clip, juxtaposed with a clip of Bush's reaction to his protester, in my classes this semester (I know some/many of my students know about/read this blog) but I will ask this question: After the shoe landed a few meters from P.M. Wen and the protester was escorted out, he said, "This despicable behaviour cannot stand in the way of friendship between China and the UK," using the word 卑鄙 (bēibǐ) which means "despicable" or "contemptible." What was President Bush's immediate reaction to his own shoe-throwing protester in Iraq?
.
In other news, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, just announced she will make her way to Asia to kick off her duties - China is on the schedule. No word on whether or not she will stop by Peace Corps Headquarters in Chengdu, but I have already sent my request to PC Director Bonnie for permission to shake a few hands if the situation presents itself.
.
I was able to watch the Superbowl yesterday via my wonderful family and the magic of Skype. My sister positioned the computer camera in front of the the television at home and, with only a few minor interruptions and exercising my tolerance for poor resolution, I watched the entire game, but was sad to see the Steelers come out on top. Cardinals, even though they didn't get the rings, definitely deserved the victory. Looks like Kurt Warner's kids are going to have to wait to get that puppy...
.
More soon...
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞
.
P.s. Please read the comments to this post!

Life stinks...literally!

2009-01-31T02:17:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Not everyday of the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer is glamorous, or even exciting. Some days just plain stink!

The water gets turned off now and then in my small development - pipes need to be unearthed, repaired or replaced by a small team of workers - but it usually never lasts longer than a few hours. Yesterday, I saw a man doing some welding on the main water pipe just outside my apartment and thought nothing of it. This morning, I found a toilet bowl full (to the brim) of what looked (and smelled) like 2-month old beef stew. I will spare you any more similes; I have been thinking of them all day.

I walked to the foreign students guest house and told the attendant that I needed some help and that my toilet was broken, having never learned the word(s) "clogged" or "overflowing with who knows' partially-digested Spring Festival Chinese sausages" (see previous blog entry). This was at 9am.

Four hours later, 2 men arrived with a special electric tubing machine and I apologized repeatedly, first because it was Spring Festival, and most importantly, I pitied them for having to open the bathroom door I sealed off for the last few hours (to ferment...yuck!). They stuck the metal tubing in the toilet - bare hands; they neglected to use the latex kitchen gloves I bought - and then the really gross part: they turned the machine on and like a blender full of liquid without the lid properly fastened, proceeded to spray "liquid Chinese sausages" all over themselves and the bathroom. I opened all the windows (to survive).

At one point, I thought they had finished. But nothing had changed. They left. To where? They didn't tell me. Hours pass. My bathroom is a mess. I send a nasty text message to my Waiban director, complaining that I have no where to relieve myself (not even close to the level of nastiness coming from the bathroom). 10 minutes later, the team plus 2 women arrive and do it all over again, plus this time concluding with a successful bypass (and manys laughs). I sure hope they all live in a place with a shower, because if I were them (and I am not the stereotypical American germ-o-phobe) I would bathe in bleach. Speaking of, I bleached my entire bathroom for an hour after they (quickly) left (without an explanation as to why this happened), leaving me their homemade crap-flavored milkshake (on the walls).

That was my day. It stunk!

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

Chinese Sausage...It's what's for dinner?

2009-01-29T03:04:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Two nights ago, I met up with PCV Patrick (you remember Patrick - aka "Captain Ahab" - from my Sanya adventure) in Beibei, who returned to Chongqing from his site in Guizhou Province to spend his first Spring Festival with his host family, only to leave 3 days later to start a long stretch of traveling with my sitemate, Kristen. I was raiding Kristen fridge for food that would spoil while she was gone and Patrick said his host family inundated him with gifts, one being homemade Chinese sausage (中国腊肠 Zhōngguó làcháng). He wouldn't be back to his site for several weeks so I said, "What the heck!" and inherited this traditional Spring Festival treat. I wrote about jiao zi (饺子) being the traditional Spring Festival food, but I would consider Chinese sausage, based solely on how many I saw hanging outside apartment windows, the close runner-up. I even captured some of these homemade "delicacies" in this SWU video, where you can see some drying in the chilly Chongqing breeze. I haven't decided how I will prepare these dangeling treats, but I will keep you posted (suggestions?)

It's been a sleepy last few days. I have been planning my upcoming semester - it doesn't start until the first week of March - and gathering materials for my teaching portfolio when I (inevitably) have to find a teaching job in the States. I have been running every night and studying Chinese whenever I can, hopefully improving my reading and spoken grammar skills. I have a long way to go, but any practice is good practice. I hope to meet up with Patrick and Kristen in a week or so for a short trip to Guilin (桂林), one of China's most revered scenic spots. On a high note, the sun is out and the sky is (believe it-or-not) BLUE in Beibei. It will be a great run this evening, hopefully with a few stars to get my eyes and imagination busy.

My apologies to my Peace Corps vegetarian readers for this meaty entry - I feel your pain! (wink!)

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

More signs...

2009-01-27T00:59:00.000-08:00

你们好!

China is about to go through some interesting changes in the coming year, and with tensions high after thousands of factory closings do to a possible (inevitable!) Chinese recession (let's not forget the Communist Party of China holds legitimacy only because the economy has been growing for the last 30 years - take away the money and bye-bye goes Mr. Mao's fraternity, so says the 800 million Chinese farmers...bringing this piece of Truth into the spotlight), I like to explore the changes happening in Beibei, my Peace Corps site. For the last year, bulldozers and trucks full of earth have been going in and out of a certain area adjacent to Southwest University's "snack street (小吃街 xiǎochījie). There has been a 7-feet-high concrete wall blocking this area from the street and sidewalk, and every so often a long sign with 5-feet-high, loud Chinese characters is glued to this wall stretching for about 100 meters. I have seen this message on the bus for the last 2 months of so, so I thought it would interesting to translate this "proclamation" as I continue to study Hanzi (Chinese characters) and maybe find a little enlightenment in what needs to be said with such gusto!全力实施城市危旧 (quánlì shíshī chéngshì wēi jiù)
房改造,不断 ( fáng gǎizào, bùduan)
改善人民群众 ( gǎishàn rénmínqúnzhòng)
居住环境 (jūzhù huánjìng)打造中国西 (dǎzào Zhōngguó xī)
部一流生态 ( bù yīliú shēngtai)
宜居城市 ( yí jū chéngshì).
天生街道党工委, 办事处 (tiānshēngjiedào dǎng gōngwěi, bànshìchu)

Translation:

"Full implementation is being carried out to renovate unsafe homes, we are continually working to improve the masses' housing conditions and build [Beibei] into the most suitable place to live in Western China. ~ TianSheng Road Communist Party Building Committee"

This, again, is just one simple example of the many (too many!) reminders the CCP government spoon feeds the masses. Block the bad from being printed, but post in HUGE characters have wonderful we are! No government deserves world credibility when it blocks its people from expressing themselves and denies resources for "the other side of the story." A booming economy (not for much longer) alone is not the golden ticket into Wonka's World Respect Factory - you must give your people real power and enable individual voice. Anything else is a society of drones and followers. My students suffer, and some don't even know it.

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

A glimpse into Chinese Lunar New Year

2009-01-25T22:57:00.001-08:00

你们好!

It sounded like a war zone last night in Beibei, and sitemate Kristen and I didn't do much to silence the sound and fury. I recorded the evening in two short videos, full of lights, smoke, and pure unbridled danger. Note: Count how many times I say "very nice!" This video blogging (vloging) really makes a person laugh at him or herself - I still don't think I am as scared of fireworks as these videos portray. 哈哈！haha! Or maybe the Chinese, since they invented fireworks (gunpowder), are fearless.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Happy Chinese New (牛) year!

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

My second and last Chinese New Year as a PCV

2009-01-24T23:06:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Tonight is the CCTV Chinese Lunar New Year Gala, a television event that is watched by upwards of 700 million people...that's more than twice the US population. I won't be watching because 1) I don't have a working television and 2) Even if I understood everything that was being said, it ultimately is just a big talent show "with Chinese characteristics." Not my cup of tea. That knife is dull.

I am spending this Lunar New Year, in comparison to last year's Spring Festival-on-the-move, here in Beibei, studying a little Chinese, reading, journaling, running (which I just returned home from; hats and gloves required), and preparing for my life after Peace Corps, all while huddled close to my electric heater wearing several layers of clothing, hats and gloves required.

Sitemate Kristen, who leaves Beibei for her first Spring Festival-on-the-move tomorrow, and I love to eat out (or maybe we just hate to cook) but right now, its almost impossible to find any restaurant that's open. Luckily, my Waiban dropped off a gift yesterday that is coming in handy when the belly growls:

These are dumplings (饺子 jiǎozi) and are "one of the quintessential foods eaten during the Spring Festival." As you can see from the image, I couldn't wait to open the package until after took a picture - they are that good (or maybe I was that hungry)! A little boiling water and 10 minutes = lunch or dinner when China decides to have a holiday and won't feed you. And how can they not be good? Yes, that's a chef Jackie Chan thumbs-up!

Fireworks have been poppin' outside all day and I expect more tonight...maybe I will even light off a few myself (wink)

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year, world!

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Those signs around campus...

2009-01-23T23:26:00.000-08:00

你们好!

All over Southwest University's campus, glaring poster boards display large messages and quotations for the student passersby. I have walked by these posters for 19 months and haven't given them a second look until today. I figured I should randomly pick one, snap a picture (below) and translate, character-by-character. Let's take a look:

改革开放是决定当代中国命运的关键抉择，是发展中国特色社会主义，实现中华民族伟大复兴的必由之路 (gǎigékāifàng shì juédìng dāngdàizhōngguó mìngyùn de guānjiàn juézé, shì fāzhǎnzhōngguó tèsèshèhuìzhǔyì, shíxiàn zhōnghuámínzú wěidà fùxīng de bìyóuzhīlù)

What the heck does this say?

It took me about 30 minutes of plugging each individual character into my electronic dictionary, resulting in a mess of words and ideas that needed to "Englishified." I thought it would take me hours to make sense of it...until I did two simple things. First, I was having a problem transferring the 4th-last character into my dictionary, which is 必 bì, but, at least to me, doesn't at all like the character in the picture. I text messaged a few students, giving them the characters before and after this "bì" character hoping them could fill in the blank. To my surprise, they all knew it, and one even sent me the entire quotation from his memory. This got me thinkin'. So, I copy and pasted the Chinese characters into Google and found this article, entitled "Reform & opening up is vital to the destiny of China." Surprised once again, I found the exact text within the Chinese translation at the bottom of the article. To quote this (extremely boring, plagiarized, Chinese Communist Party-line) article, the sign above can be translated as:

"The decision to begin reform and opening up is vital to the destiny of contemporary China, that reform and opening up are the only way of developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and rejuvenating the Chinese nation."

An important note is this specific sign can be found directly across from the School of Political Science at Southwest University, which is a major I find as pointless to study in China as studying astronomy in perpetually cloudy Chongqing. There is very little debate in the controlled Chinese political science classroom, or any Chinese classroom for that matter, except mine and other PCVs' of course.

Propaganda? Yes. Where in the Western World are there college campuses lined with signs telling students how to think and which political ideology to support? I would like to see how long a sign like this would last on an American college campus - even if it promoted absolute DEMOCRACY - before someone sprayed-painted it with satire.

This sign is nothing unique or creative. It can be found over and over again in newspapers and on websites in China. The simple fact that students (of mine) have memorized it sets off the Propaganda Alarm. And it's sad that students aren't encouraged to think for themselves at the university level. It's my students who will be given the power to make real changes in China, yet they are significantly deterred from reaching their full potential as individual, free-thinkers. To back up this idea, I was happy to find a New York Times article this morning that proves that not every Chinese young person is a Communist drone. Hip-hop, arguably the most creative form of music (maybe just behind jazz), is exploding in urban cities around China and these free-thinkers are the ones who speak their minds:

"'Hip-hop is free, like rock 'n' roll — we can talk about our lives, what we're thinking about, what we feel,' said Wang Liang, 25, a popular hip-hop D.J. in China who is known as Wordy. 'The Chinese education system doesn't encourage you to express your own character. They feed you stale rules developed from books passed down over thousands of years. There's not much opportunity for personal expression or thought; difference is discouraged.'"

As one who knows first-hand, I can affirm that Wang Liang aka Wordy is right. By not promoting individualism in their university classrooms, the Communist-run education system neglects to acknowledge that maybe the brightest young people might not be in their classrooms, memorizing, memorizing, memorizing, but on the microphone and graffiting walls with messages of Truth, unlike the picture above.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

A day in downtown Chongqing

2009-01-22T22:08:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Yesterday, sitemate Kristen, two other Volunteers (Lisa and Kristina from BiJie, Guizhou Province) and I traveled down to Chongqing for a day of sightseeing and lunch. I documented our adventures in a short 10-minute video. Enjoy! Link to video.

Note: Chinese pirated DVDs are illegal, and rumored to be produced and distributed by the Chinese military. Really?! That would be quite the scoop!

All are welcome in Chongqing...

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

Obama's Speech in China and FU

2009-01-21T04:22:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Obama's inauguration went off with only a few minor glitches, but ultimately his speech was impressive. I watched it at my sitemate Kristen's apartment with a few other PCVs through the extremely disappointing CNN/Facebook live feed, which must had crack addicts with ADHD running its cameras (there was a 10-minute shot of the cameraman's feet as the Obama family was walking in). We agreed to put off watching the speech due to the slow Chinese Internet so it wouldn't lose its effect. The next morning, the world published Obama's picture and speech on its front pages. Here are two papers I bought in Chongqing:

The paper on the left reads "奥巴马: 接手美国 àobāmǎ jiēshǒuMěiguó" or "Obama: Takes Over America." But as much as it seems that China accepts Obama as a legitimate leader (I would argue that the American President is just as important to the Chinese as their own leaders, due to the dependency China has on America to its junk), the Communist Party and their media-monopoly (CCTV) took the speech and cut it, censoring it as not to inspire ordinary Chinese that Obama would be a better leader with better ideas than them. Need proof? Watch this:

From Danwei.org:

CCTV-News aired Barack Obama's inaugural address live until he spoke about how "earlier generations faced down fascism and communism," at which point the anchor scrambled to ask an analyst about US economic problems.

According to Anita Chang of Associated Press, the Chinese also didn't care for the bit about silencing dissent:
At one point, Obama said earlier generations "faced down communism and fascism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions." He later addressed "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent — know that you are on the wrong side of history."

The Chinese translation of the speech, credited to the Web site of the official China Daily newspaper, was missing the word "communism" in the first sentence. The paragraph with the sentence on dissent had been removed entirely.

A few students have e-mailed me about the inauguration and I always make sure to send them the Youtube link to the REAL speech, with just a subtle reminder that their government has censored the version shown on Chinese television, and then encouraging them to think about why certain sections have been cut out. Personal Note: I was never more proud of Obama's speechwriters for including "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent — know that you are on the wrong side of history," especially since The Tiananmen Square Massacre's 20th anniversary is this June - an event my students either have never heard of or acknowledge is 100% taboo in public conversation. New York Times article.

But I love Jimmy Kimmel's reporting on the speech censorship the best: click!

On an unrelated note, the mass migration of Chinese to their hometowns for Spring Festival has begun! I bought my "福 fú" sign and hung it outside my door:

What's interesting is the first picture is the character for "fortune" but most Chinese hang it upside-down on their doors. "Why post it upside down? In Chinese language, the character "upside down" is pronounced exactly the same as the character 'arrive'. So this is a homophone rhetoric to mean 'Fortune arrives'." Interesting!

Wishin' you a whole lotta FU!

Seek the Truth!

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

A Farewell Letter to President George W. Bush

2009-01-19T21:43:00.000-08:00

你们好!

In about 12 hours, America swears in its 44th President, Barack H. Obama. I plan to watch the inauguration with a few other PCVs here in Chongqing at 12:30am Beijing Time via CNN.com. It's bound to be a moment millions of Americans will remember and tell their children and grandchildren about far into the future.

However, as President Obama is welcomed, President G.W. Bush becomes "former-President Bush II". I have been thinking about Bush's exodus for some time and thought I should write him a farewell letter, explaining to him who exactly he is to me. As you will learn, the words and feelings that poured out of me in the last few hours weren't what I initially expected. This is the last blog post on Runnin' the Great Wall as George W. Bush as my President, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer, my boss. Thanks for reading, and if you know how to contact the soon-to-be former President, please forward this on to him. I think he will appreciate it. Thanks for reading.

Dear President George W. Bush:

In the next 24 hours, you will move out of that big ivory house in Washington D.C. and leave the key to your office desk's top drawer behind for a new President. The newspapers from where I live say many millions, maybe even billions of people are overjoyed by your exodus. I am sorry to say I am one of them. But before you go, I think you should know who I am.

I was born in the summer of 1982. You were elected President a few months after my eighteenth birthday -- no thanks to me. I voted for the other guy in my high school gymnasium. He, not you, was my first vote. I am not completely sure why I didn't vote for you – something about that other guy being connected to the President that came before you. Then, the country's economy was growing and people around the world thought, for the most part, America was a good place and had good people. Plus, that President played the saxophone. This was when I was eighteen years old.

The following autumn, I became a university student and began, better late than never, my "coming of age." As an English education major, I only had to take one math class, which I choose for my first semester, Tuesday mornings. I walked out of class on Tuesday, Sept 11th, 2001, hungry and tired of numbers. Those were my last moments in a Pre-9/11 world.

Affected by that morning's events, I took a liking to politics and our American Constitution. I developed opinions fostered by close examinations. As two mammoth holes lay empty in Manhattan, you made an announcement that America would militarily invade Iraq and bring to people of an evil dictatorship freedom and democracy. I marched through the streets of New York City with hundreds of thousands of others, protesting your ambiguous plan. It was my first protest. It felt right. I was angry.

The war started anyways. I cut class on November 4th, 2004, to stand on an Erie, Pennsylvania, street corner in the pouring rain with a sign encouraging drivers-by to vote for that other guy. I didn't want to eat or talk to anyone in the week that followed your election victory. I graduated from university, then again from graduate school, and, with only a year left in your Presidential contract, joined the United States Peace Corps and was sent to China to help the world's people, educate them about my real home, and bring back knowledge of the world to America after 2 years of being far away from her. At this moment, I have lived in China for almost 19 months.

"China and America are more similar than different." This is the right thing to say; this is the line of lines that fosters peace and friendship. It is the Peace Corps anthem. Sometimes it is the truth, but the more I submerge myself in the great pool of Communist-run society, I start to think that maybe the differences, which are naturally more visible and easier to notice, should be promoted just as much as the similarities. Why? Because of a pair of flying shoes.

I am sorry to say, sir, I smiled when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at you a few weeks ago, but not a smile of contempt for you or because I advocate violence of any kind. I smiled because I have always fantasized about making a scene in your presence, refusing to shake your hand, giving you a cold stare, or screaming in your face about how you've only made the word "America" sound ugly around the world. Then, as I reveled in those flying shoes like some sort of beautiful 4th of July firework finale, I remembered where you were when you so gracefully ducked: Iraq. There aren't too many Middle Eastern leaders I wouldn't mind throwing my shoes at, but would I? Not a chance. It would be a death wish. Yet this man did not die, and is actually being praised by his fellow countrymen as a hero and a symbol of change. And then I remember where I am: China. I know millions (millions!) of Chinese wish they could throw their shoes at their own government oppressors, but can't because they know it will mean the end of not only their lives, but the end of opportunity for everyone they hold dear. I see it in my students' eyes – they want to yell out but know if they do fight back it will most certainly lead to further oppression. They are confused and powerless, but inspiringly optimistic. I hope someday they will know the empowering feeling felt when their voices are no longer silenced by those who have the real ability to change their country for the better. Who knew a flying pair of shoes, paired with my students' cravings for individual empowerment (whether they recognize it or not), will be the thing I will positively associate with you for the rest of my life?

Sociologists claim captives can fall in love with their captor(s) as their time together passes, and though I am not proud to say this, I find myself feeling nostalgic for you, even before you depart. You must know that you are all I have ever truly known. My entire life as an empowered democratic citizen has been during the Bush administration. In the simplest terms, you were my first love – being that hate is a form of love, and vice versa – and as you buy property and dough-si-dough back down to Texas, I am confusingly sad to see you go.

I've learned so much from you. I've learned to see through the fog, to ask questions, to hunt and fight for the Truth. I learned to take chances and debate and form a personal identity that is identifiable to others who choose not be empowered democratic citizens. You have ripped me away from potential friends, but brought me closer to those who care the most about America – those who dare to question its every move.

But don't you worry. That next guy - you know, the guy who is getting all this attention – isn't getting a free pass from all worldly 26 year-olds like me. His 4 years will not be paved in gold and garnished with exotic truffles. Here in China, I have learned the importance of the fact that I do not work for the American government, the American government works for me. Yes, he received my vote, but until he practices what he preaches, he hasn't earned it yet. I wish him the best of luck. He will need it, like he will need people like me to support him as we grow in courage, experience, and wisdom.

I will still be here in China when this new guy moves into your old house, and frankly, if I had not been able to look at America through a Chinese lens as a Peace Corps Volunteer, my parting words to you might have been radically different than what I am about to say. So, without further ado, as the last few hours tick away from your time in Washington, Mr. President George W. Bush, from the bottom of my heart, "Thank you."

An empowered American,

United States Peace Corps Volunteer
美中友好志愿者
Chongqing, China
January 20, 2008

Again, thanks for reading. I welcome any and all comments here on the blog or to my e-mail (philiprazem@gmail.com).

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

A Lazy Week in Sanya 三亚

2009-01-19T02:15:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
This blog entry is dedicated to one of my most loyal readers, Patti S-, mother of Patrick "Captain Ahab" S-.
.
Scene I:
Four Peace Corps Volunteers, tan skin, bundled in layers in a freezing apartment, eating banana pancakes with coconut jam. They have just returned to Chongqing (40 degrees) from Sanya (75 degrees), China's southern-most city and beach getaway in Hainan Province.
.
The Players:
Lisa (Illinois) - Codename: "土豆炒饭tǔdòu chǎofàn" (Potato Fried Rice). Lisa is dark and mysterious, as most former English Literature graduate students are. She is the master of subtle "backhanded insights" and can be found staring at the South China Sea on cold nights examining every possible way a person cold kill him/herself using the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. She is a barrel of laughs!
.
Patrick (South Carolina) - Codename: "Captain Ahab" (see also "Ahab the Arab"). Patrick's hobbies include whaling, denying his love for whaling, belittling Canada, praising Guiyang (贵阳; capital of Guizhou 贵州 Province), and scaring waitresses with his unhealthy love of dog meat Hot Pot (狗肉火锅 gǒuròu huǒguō). He says "ya'll" a lot. Do not call him "Pat." His mother is awesome...and possible mythical (see dedication).
.
Kristen (Hawaii) - Codename: "Brown-Eye Girl." Kristen, being from Hawaii, had to be sedated by local authorities in order to be removed from Sanya's beaches and transplanted back into miserably-cold Chongqing. She refuses to wash her hair, which still has sand in it. Her dancing style is both superior and unique, described as "a lot of upper-body motion juxtaposed with motionless legs." She scolds herself for talking in her sleep...while she is asleep.
.
Phil (New York) - Codename: "The Sizzlin' Fajita." Phil is the most intelligent member of this gang, and without a doubt, the best-looking. He likes to dig holes in the sand and steals Ice-T from posh night clubs. If anyone in Sanya could land a plane in the Hudson River without any injuries on board, it most surely would not be "The Sizzlin' Fajita." He can eat a bread & butter sandwich in 1 second flat.
.
We arrived in Sanya last Sunday and checked into Sanya Blue International Youth Hostel - one of the best youth hostels I've stayed at in the world. Just a 5-minute walk to the beach, each of our days in Sanya had a nearly identical itinerary:
.
8am - Phil and Patrick suit up and run for 45 minutes on the beach. Girls sleep.
9am - Breakfast: Eggs, Toast, Peanut Butter and Coconut Jam
9:30-12:30pm - Sun-bathing, swimming, and reading on the beach
12:30 - 2pm - Lunch and afternoon siesta (休息 xiūxi)
2 -5pm - See "9:30 - 12:30pm"
6pm - dinner (Western Food 西餐 xīcān)
8pm - ??? - downtown Sanya or hanging out with fellow travelers at the hostel, which ranged from fellow American English teachers to Finnish folk singers to Russian jugglers asking for advice on "seduction English" to woo the hostel's female Chinese staff.
.
As for that, everyday was a relaxing getaway from the Chongqing chill and moreover, the grind of teaching (and in my place, the endless internal and inconclusive battle for understanding my present and future role as an American volunteer teacher in Communist China.
.
One of the most interesting aspects of our experience was all the Chinese vendors and fruit sellers greeted (rather, yelled to get our attention) us first in Russian and then in English. Sanya is a huge tourist destination for wealthy Russians needing to escape the even-more-miserable-than-Chongqing Russian winters. They feed the Sanya economy by buying the expensive (but deliciously diverse) seafood, loading up on silk and warm-weather produce, and "investing" in Sanya's "erotic-entertainment" industry (very cheap!).
.
Overall, it was a great (lazy) week. I avoided getting sunburn (晒伤 shài shāng), read an entire book (Vonnegut's immortal Cat's Cradle), ate delicious food, and talked with people from almost every corner of the world. Most memorable, however, had to be the laughs we PCVs (later to be joined by two foreign teachers from SWU, Keegan and Andrew) had together, telling stories from college, talking about our futures, past loves lost, and all that is strange and mysterious about this country known as China. Lisa, Patrick, and Kristen as PC China "14's" which means they have another 18 months in China, as opposed to my 6-7, so I tried to give advice to them, telling them what i did that worked (this blog is one of my greatest projects, partly inspiring Patrick to start his own...coming soon!) and of course, my inevitable shortcomings.
.
Picture TAG: SanyainJanuary
.
Final Scene:The setting sun, kites flying, warm sand, good friends.
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

Return from IST and Killer Pandas

2009-01-10T17:53:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
Peace Corps IST in Chengdu was nice, both with the discussions and ideas it inspired and the all the faces I rarely see. There were a few notable sessions: Matt (you will remember Matt from a year ago, pushing buses up snowy mountains with me, his wife, and a few other PCVs) gave a great 45-minute rundown of the last 60 years of Chinese history, carefully showing each of China's "existential crises" ('77, '89, '09) and where economics (he was a US Government economist before joining Peace Corps) and politics collide. Alison and I gave our talk on "Integrating Sensitive Issues into the Chinese University Classroom" which went well and sparked some interesting debate (PPT available for anyone curious - philiprazem@gmail.com) and the biggie - "Why Peace Corps China?" - with Country Director Bonnie, sitemate Kristen, and I was a popular hit for many. I took so many notes after this session, based on so many different prospectives of the engulfing question "Why the heck are we here?" that it would be impossible to relate them back to you now. However, I did present the question/idea that Peace Corps might want to think about removing itself from the Chinese countrysides and think about integrating into the even larger metropolitan cities; are we humanitarians or "soft diplomats"? A large percentage of PCVs in China and around the world would argue we are the first, but this is CHINA, and the latter might not be that wrong of a description/direction to head.
More soon, but I wanted to share with you a story that I think (oh so poetically) describes the "Harmonious Society of China." Click!

Gu Gu is not your typical soft and cuddly giant panda. For the third time, he's tasted the flesh of an unwitting intruder in his pen at the Beijing Zoo.His most recent victim was 28-year-old Zhang Jiao, who told CNN he fell into the panda pen Wednesday while trying to catch a small toy thrown by his young son. "My son and I were playing with a panda doll, throwing it to each other, when I dropped with the toy" into the pen, Zhang said. That's when Gu Gu went on the attack.

and my favorite line...

"I always thought they were cute and just ate bamboo," Zhang said.

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

A simple, multi-part introduction...

2009-01-03T23:25:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
In the next 24 hours, sitemate Kristen and I will head to Chengdu, join the rest of the 100 or so PCVs in China, and participate in my 2nd Peace Corps IST (in-service training) conference. I will be presenting in two different sessions: "Integrating Sensitive Issues into the Chinese University Classroom" and "Why Peace Corps China?" Both are very important to me and are routinely discussed on this very blog. I have created a PPT about the first issue; if anyone is interested, please shoot me an e-mail (philiprazem@gmail.com).
.
Since my grades are submitted and my free time as grown before a few Winter Holiday trips begin, I decided to experiment with my video camera (摄像机shèxiàngji). The success of my "Merry Christmas" video (189 views is a success to me!) inspired me to create "A simple, multi-part introduction" to Southwest University and my life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China. Before you take a look (below), please remember that this is just an informal sliver of my life. I can promise many more videos about the different parts of my time in China - coming soon! Here is the link to all my Youtube videos, or you can watch them back-to-back below! Part 5 has an unfortunate, anti-climatic ending, mentioned below...

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5: (I wanted to show the final scene at night - complete with superfluous Spring Festival lighting decorations - but learned the lights don't get turned back on until the end of January, so I inserted some photos I took last year around this time)

I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

"The Democratic Classroom"

2009-01-02T00:26:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
Peace Corps China volunteers produce a small, bi-semester publication called The Rice Paper, asking volunteers to submit articles based on their personal experiences and discoveries. I submitted an article a few months ago - "Politics as usual" (link on the ride side of this page) - and so I thought I should submit another (below). Dustin, famed PCCV blogger, is the editor, which is a job I commend him for since he has to deal with the strong arm of censorship; the line we were told by the PC was everything has to be written as if it was being printed in a "1950's American newspaper." This makes me wanna vomit. I wouldn't be allowed to sit next to Barack Obama on a public bus in the 1950's. So, dreading the content is not appropriate, I am thankful for this blog, which has published much, much worse things about China and the Communist-run education system. Enjoy my thoughts and superfluous metaphors!

Granting our Students the Privilege of a Democratic Classroom

Call me Zeus. Whether you, PCV, can relate or not, I am a god when I yell "Good Morning" to my Chinese university students. I stride into my classroom after a tempest of hello's, daily welcomes like those after checking in to a Hawaiian hotel sans lays, and student conversations end abruptly when I quickly step onto my throne, a 10-inch stab of raised concrete in front of their bolted-down desks. They are quiet when I am talking and sometimes quieter when it's their time to talk. I navigate their eyes and swirl their pencils like an omnipotent being swirling planets and galaxies with perfect alignment. Sometimes I feel that if I suddenly left, walked out of the classroom, disappeared, even for the briefest of moments, they would fret and inevitably implode. Throughout the span of human existence, there is no greater feeling felt than that of being needed. I feel needed in my classroom. As a teacher, it is lovely and troubling.

During my undergraduate degree, I took a semester-long course on classroom management. At first, "Classroom Management" seems like an exalted term for preventing students from killing each other (and you!) and lubricating the ebb and flow of productive participation. At a recent Hot Pot dinner with a few Chinese graduate students majoring in education, I was asked about the major differences between a Chinese and American classroom. "Classroom Management," I told them. "In China, I am a figure of authority and must be listened to, like a parent or a politician. Students in China are, more or less, easy to handle." One student animatedly disagreed with me and said many Chinese students are "very naughty." Thinking back to my time as a summer school teacher in Brooklyn, I told this student that she should download "Dangerous Minds" for her next movie night.

My life as a university teacher in China, despite being busy and feeling occasionally overworked, is good, and the average American English teacher teaching in China shouldn't have too many complaints. Everyday I walk into a classroom full of smiles, and when I peer through the peepholes of other teacher's classroom doors, the scene is similar to my classroom: diligent note-taking, quiet conformity, and harmonious (ugh!) nodding heads. What more could I ask for? This classroom is a serene, peaceful snow globe without the smallest trance of wind. Such a scene, day after day, has got be thinking about my American classrooms – chaos deep-fried in a bubbling bat of expressive emotion – and I feel surprisingly nostalgic. I think this snow globe needs a shake!

As an educator, I believe some of the most important skills students should acquire at a young age, indiscriminate of which country students live and learn, are those of creativity and critical-thinking. I also believe there is only one way to progress these skills; the teacher must create a "democratic classroom," which is, to quote Jonathan Zimmerman in The New York Times, an environment where "students would be required to formulate their own views rather than imbibing the ideas of somebody else." I almost never use this term – "democratic classroom"– when students ask me about my teaching philosophy because, well, China is not a democracy, and to promote "democratic" anything might not win me any teaching awards from the Chinese Educational Ministry. However, just because I don't say it, doesn't mean it is impossible to create and facilitate in a Chinese classroom. In fact, the students - and I realize this is quite a hyperbolic simile - are like children taking their first taste of chocolate. There is just as much confusion as there is excitement. "What do you mean we have a choice?"

On the other hand, one can't just give someone democracy - Bush learned this the hard way. We need to give students the option of empowerment. We need to help them creatively create, and then criticize, but be respectful of others' criticism. Most importantly, we need to "unbolt" them from their desk prison cells and focus their culture, literature and language learning not on a text book, but ourselves and our personal experiences. The production of intelligent, world citizenry should be our highest priority, regardless of your students' language-level.

We are not gods, the classroom Chairmen, lecturers, or even teachers. We are facilitators. As foreign teachers, important ones too! We shouldn't take complete comfort in our compliant students and amenable classroom environment. My favorite quote about education comes from Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pale, but the lighting of a fire." Democracy, as we learned this past year, is quite the inferno, and it gets people's hearts pumping. Remember: A snow globe is much prettier when there's snow falling.

1/1/09

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

再见 2008, 你好 2009 (二00九)

2008-12-31T00:20:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
2008 was a wild ride: Tibetan Protests, An devastating Earthquake, The Beijing Olympics, A New American President, A "World Financial Meltdown," and so much more. It was also my first complete year living abroad. If you do one thing in your life, live abroad for a complete year without going home once. It will change you for the better.

The year of the Rat passes away and the year of the Ox is ushered in. Will 2009 hold more promise for China? For America? Or will it produce equally chaotic and confusing events? Time will tell.

I just booked my flights to sunny and warm Hainan Province for this coming Spring Festival. If you can remember my last Spring Festival, you will understand why I prefer to sit on the beach this January - no more pushing buses up snowy mountains (even though it was pretty awesome)!

I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year. May 2009 bring you health, wealth (unlikely, at least financially), and wisdom. My resolution will be to give my Chinese students all the energy and inspiration I can possibly provide, hoping they can someday do what my already-determined highlight of 2009 will be: return home from a journey and experience that "home" in a new, inspiring way.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Phil at the Southwest University Shakespeare Conference

2008-12-28T18:01:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
This way to the 1st Annual Southwest University Shakespeare (莎士比亚 shāshìbǐyà) Conference: Yesterday afternoon, I attended and participated in my university's first Shakespeare conference. This meeting of scholars from mostly Chongqing universities was the master plan of Prof. L_, my friend and fellow "Bardophile" (lover of the Bard - absolutely no relation to the more-popularly-know "Pedophile": molester of small children). A few weeks ago, Prof. L_ asked me if I would "represent my country" at the conference - how could I turn him down?! - but when I arrived at the conference and glanced at the participating scholars, I was the only one who wasn't Chinese. So, without trying to elevate my presence, technically I was representing the whole world outside of China. Talk about big shoes to fill...
.
In my experiences, most Chinese are pretty laid-back, beholden people (compliment!) so I knew that whatever presentation topic I chose, it would be appreciated. As a graduate student, I had written several lengthy papers about Shakespeare and his plays, some with titles that seem to stretch the length of the actual paper (i.e. "Advancing Aristotle's Mimesis in Dramatic Tragedy: The juxtaposition of Greek Dramatic Tragedy with Shakespeare's Tragic Epilogues" - yikes!). As I brainstormed, I knew I might be the only presenter who spoke entirely in English (I was right!) so the worst case scenario would I would go on and on (each presenter was only allotted 10-12 minutes) about this and that, confusing everyone, especially those who do most of their research in Chinese. But then I thought about why I am here in China - to teach, to inspire, to expand minds - and the topic I chose, though sounding somewhat complicated, was simple and representative of everything I believe should be present in a Shakespeare classroom: "Reprioritizing Shakespeare Teaching Objectives: The importance and promotion of "I" in student understanding and explanations." In a nutshell, I set the complicated mumbo-jumbo aside and I delivered a 10-minute "call to action" promoting a "student-centered Shakespeare classroom," as opposed to the conventional text-centered, lecture-style classroom setting. Why? Because, in the words of Shakespeare critic Harold Bloom, "Shakespeare invented us." Why not introspect who we are through his work?

It was fun, and I think I set myself apart from the other speakers, not only by picking a topic dealing with Shakespeare Education, but because, and I think this is what most people will remember most, I didn't use the microphone, preferring to pace and, I guess, "perform" the 10-minute speech. It's Shakespeare - it is meant to be experienced! I will give props to an older professor who performed a monologue from Romeo & Juliet with a very (very!) thick Chinese accent. This was my highlight of the conference.

All in all, it was a great experience and I am happy Shakespeare, a person who helped me understand the world and my place in it, is gaining momentum in China. I proud that I could campaign for him yesterday and every morning I am able to facilitate his masterpieces to those irreplaceable smiling Chinese faces...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Soaring birds that transform into hearts - So Cute!(?) and other thoughts...

2008-12-26T07:12:00.000-08:00

你们好!

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. ~ Shakespeare's As You Like It

Well, Christmas has come and gone. Boxing Day, celebrated in my parents' Canada, is also Mao ZeDong's birthday and Chinese internet BBS threads (in Chinese, for my Chinese readers) have been lighting up with chatter that this day should be the China's equivalent of Christmas, pushing away the confusing celebration of a Western holiday. Bahumbug! What would Chinese do to celebrate? Replace Santa's image (who is fictional, btw) with Mao's? If Chinese wants to further the stereotype that they are cognitively-whitewashed by the CCP, they will denounce Christmas and replace it with the birthday of a man who is denounced by the world. All those statues of Mao, reminding us of his tragic social and political experiments, scare foreigners enough... (I wonder how many of my Chinese readers have "X'ed" my blog right...now?)

But all this relates to my uphill battle, with the simple, yet infinitely complex goal, of understanding how Chinese, mainly Chinese young people, think. I have no evil agenda with this desire - being called a 糖衣炮弹 (tángyī pàodàn; "super-coated bullet") still subtly lingers in my mind - but only to leave this place with some trace of authenticity stored away in my brain, bag, or even a sliver stuck under my fingernails. My hunt, I like to imagine, is no different than Henry David Thoreau's pursuit of authenticity; I don't need a feast of knowledge, just a single shining gem, a crumb of diamond dust, in a truckload of coal.

But this is not an easy task. I have vented about my frustration in Chinese Truth-seeking many times on this blog, and I 've leartned that my desire is not unlike many Chinese and foreigners alike. What is real? What can be trusted? Why is so much watered-down in the Middle Kingdom? (article in Chinese; thanks to Danwei.org)

The image above is printed on a bag I occasionally use to carry small books to class. I always laugh at this image, because I think it represents a lot of what I see in China. Girls (and boys), sometimes the same age as me, have these "harmonious" pictures of bunnies and hearts and smiling faces all over their clothes and books (and hopping around within PowerPoint Presentations). Maybe these images are popular because there is an unbridled passion to never grow up in China ("We must stay young and fresh!" my (mostly female) students have said to me; can you say "peter pandemonium"?). Maybe they simply find beauty in pure innocence (I guess I can appreciate this...but "pure innocence" is impossibly Utopian in today's world). Maybe some higher power doesn't want young people to care about "today's world" - I conspire the CCP is a lot like America's producers of shows like "Gossip Girl" - and why would they care? In China, not many young people understand the empowerment of having a choice. Most is done "behind the scenes" and spoon-fed to them. Why not revel in what is harmonious? So Sad, in my opinion...

Above the entrance to the foreign language building to my school, there is three Chinese characters, then under this name are a few brass-colored soaring birds that slowly transform into perfect hearts. This is an academic building. PhDs lecture here. Sometimes when I walk into class, I think I work in a kindergarten...

I just finished teaching The Taming of the Shrew to my graduate students. In that play's final Act, Katherine, the shrew, as criticized by Harold Bloom, "hyperbolically" belittles the role of women in society and in marriage. When I read this, no lie!, I thought about those transforming birds, my green "bunny" bag, and how sometimes when we "hyperbolize" things, we are only trying to cover up the authentic Truth. Katherine's feelings surely do no match her words. I hope my students' feelings, and Chinese young people's feelings en masse, do not match the the harmonious world they "play" for me, the foreigner. There is beauty, though you need to dig deep, in the inharmonious too.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Merry Christmas! 圣诞快乐 shèngdàn kuàilè

2008-12-25T03:37:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Merry Christmas, one and all. A cold day in Beibei, Chongqing, but nothing like that of Western New York. I taught this afternoon (second consecutive year I've taught on Christmas) but it was a treat indeed. We had out Secret Santa gift exchange, watched the 1966 version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (subtitles included) and took our Christmas class photo (above). As I mentioned in the previous entry, it pains me (seriously! Physical pain!) that I can't give back to those who have sent me so many packages over the last 18 months, most notably, my parents. So, since the rule for Secret Santa was "You can't spent money!" based around the forever-old lesson that the best gifts are free - also the moral of Dr. Seuss's Grinch tale - I have filmed my loving family a video message, aiding by none other than those who keep me thriving in China: my students... (click here if the below video does not work - watch it in "high quality" and click "more info" on the ride side of the screen for the subtitles)

.

My last Christmas in China (hopefully) - nothing against Chinese Christmas, but when it comes to holidays like this, home truly is where the heart is. I want to thank my students again for helping me create this gift for my family...these, and all my students, are most beautiful Chinese in the world.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Corinne Razem's Christmas Gift

2008-12-22T19:22:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
There is nothing more frustrating than getting amazing Christmas presents from others and having limited opportunities or means to "give back" what they truly deserve. This is my Chinese Christmas holiday gift-giving conundrum.
.
To emphasize this point, I present to you Corinne Razem's, 我的妹妹, Christmas gift: (click here if below video fails)

How do I possibly compete with that!? She is great...
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

Art at Southwest University

2008-12-22T07:25:00.000-08:00

你们好!

One of the reasons I enjoy teaching at Southwest University is every now and then it makes me feel a little nostalgic for art scene at Fredonia State, my Alma mater. There I lived for 3 years with a graphic design major, Eric, and was fraternity brothers and friends with countless painting, sculpture, and design majors. I visited the Rockefeller galleries often and even took my English Composition classes there to explore the ins-and-outs of descriptive writing. SWU is huge (55,000 students compared to FSU's 5,000) and with so many students, almost every major you can think of is offered, including the Arts. I was happy to find a student art show happening this month and perused the works, snapping pictures of some of my favorites:

.
.
.
.
.
.

What's interesting is that if you want to study visual art, music, design, etc. in a Chinese university, more than often your tuition is much higher than the average English or Poli-Sci major. In other words, most of the students who study Art...can afford to study Art. It breaks my heart when a student tells me a story or writes an e-mail claiming they love to, example, play the piano or violin, but had to give it up at the age of 11 or 12 because it was time to get serious about studying for the college entrance exam. This is a problem (for both China and America). When will society learn the true importance of Art and Art education?

More pictures can be found here....

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Southwest University's "Marathon" 西南大学的"马拉松"

2008-12-20T04:53:00.000-08:00

你们好!

Well, it's all over. First, because I know you are dying to know my results, I think (think?!) I finished in 2nd place for the teachers. I only "think" because the only proof of my results are student text messages congratulating me. There wasn't an official clock so, sadly, I don't have a time to share either, but I am guessing around a solid 22 minutes (keeping just above a 7-minute-mile pace). In all honesty, the race was a lot more fun than I expected, and all rumors of "heavy competition" faded away when I saw teachers warming-up in casual sneakers with the smell of cigarettes filling the air. Mr W-, my Waiban team organizer, who was clearly out to win, stocked our team with teachers who, I swear, had leg muscles that were throbbing with power like some gang of Clydesdales. My "fear" of becoming Peter Hessler very quickly subsided: "There is no way I am winning this race..." I thought.

I was dressed in all black - retrospectively, I was overdressed since the weather was perfect: a mild, partly cloudy 48 degrees - garnished with a winter hat my mother sent me resembling an American flag (REPRESENT!). As I ran, I heard whispers of "ooooh, MeiGuoRen..." from the crowd, "American..." The fans were lined throughout the course, which looped around the campus, and cheered as I ran by. I clapped and cheered on the teachers and female students as we ran towards each other at one of the turn-arounds. At the finish line, I pulled off my hat and in a very Shakespearean-way, quickly bowed to the crowd, receiving the expected giggles. It's all in good fun, and sometimes I think they expect something a little extra from the foreigner, which I am (most of the time) happy to give them.

A few interesting highlights:

- To minimize cheating/corner-cutting during the race, I discovered at the 1/2 mark, dozens of volunteers were laying cloth "rings" around the runners' necks as proof them actually made it to the farthest-away-point from the finish line. Mine looked like it was used a few hours earlier to clean the public toilets.

- There were water stations set up throughout the course, but only once did I grab a cup, which I snatched due to pure curiosity. When I grabbed the clear cup, I first noticed it was warm water - Who drinks cold water in China!? It's not safe, they tell me - and then after I took a little sip, I instinctively splashed the water on my face....only to discover that the "water" was actually salt water. So now I was running with salt in my eyes! My first thought: "I can't wait to write this on the blog..."

- As I crossed the finish line, a team of workers were fighting to take my number off and then instantly presented me with an award of a 50 RMB (about 8 USD) gift certificate to use in one of the campus supermarkets. Not bad!

I have to thank Julie, a foreign teacher at SWU, for doing a little filming of the event. Below are two videos: the first is the start of the men's 10K run, where thousands of male students (Physical Education Majors - aka professional athletes - included) have to run through a comparatively tiny exit gate in the stadium (start fast!). I do a little commentary...and as you will notice in both videos, still have some of my "runner's high" lingering in my silliness. Take a look (click here if the below video fails):

All the male students finished in about 45 minutes or so, including Decaprio (pictured above). Keegan, another foreign teacher at SWU, and I do a little commentary of the most interesting part of the 10K finish: how dozens of students couldn't hold down their lunches as they whizzed by us. Take a look! We are ridiculous (and not drunk)...

All in all, I am happy I could participate and witness this SWU tradition - one that wasn't plagued with political diatribes. As to what I will spend my 50 RMB prize, maybe I will stock up on toilet paper, maybe I'll treat myself to some chicken feet (unlikely!), but I will most likely spend it on my students in some shape or form. Christmas is only 4 days away...

More pictures here: TAG SWUMarathon

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Pictures of the Week!

2008-12-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
Here are a few interesting glimpses into my life in Beibei, Chongqing, this week:
.
"Hey Dad! Why water your garden twice a day all summer long when you could simply install one of these tree I.V.'s?" Lots of remodeling is happening on 天生路, the main road leading from my apartment to the school, including the planting of dozens of fully grown trees. I snapped this picture with a few curious Chinese wondering what was so interesting...
.

Speaking of trees, a large majority of the trees on Southwest University's campus (there are thousands!) had their annual "painting" this week. The bottom 3 feet of these trees are painted white (for mysterious reasons; I have heard this is done for "protection" and to make them "beautiful") and has you can see, the painters who slop this white paint on are real Michelangelo's - such skill and grace....
.

This is my new favorite snack, and thus thing, about living in China. This is a piece of sugar cane, called 甘蔗 (gānzhè) in Chinese, and is sold in either small pieces (1 RMB) or in its original form, a 6-feet-long black pole that resembles bamboo. What's unique is you must really bite and then chew and chew, essentially drinking the sugary insides, then spit the cane out like chewing gum. As you can see from this picture, I'm really enjoying it...

. And finally. I snapped this picture right outside my apartment this afternoon as I walked home from class. You gotta love a place where people decide to hang up some clean underwear and pillow cases right next to a dead, drying fish. Oh! all I can do is laugh to myself...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Peace Corps Volunteers on the Chongqing Rugby Team

2008-12-17T07:44:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
Below is a YouTube video from Guangdong Sports featuring the newly-formed Chongqing rugby team. From this video, I can recognize three volunteers: Andrew, who I traveled to Yunnan with last Spring Festival, PCV 14 Jonah, and former PCV Matt, who is a recently married and, as you see from the video, speaks pretty good Chinese. I especially enjoy the German rock music that comes in at about 5 minutes and the BLEEP at :40. Enjoy!

If the video above doesn't work, click here.
.
I love and miss you all,
.
Phil
蓝麦飞

Running Races and New Suits...

2008-12-16T03:21:00.000-08:00

你们好!

This Friday afternoon is the Southwest University "Marathon." I get giddy whenever the word "marathon" is mentioned, so I'm lucky my double-major students' classes ended last Friday, freeing up the schedule for participation. A marathon, or at least what we in the West think of a marathon (26.2 miles/42 kilometers) is translated into Chinese as 马拉松 (mǎ lā song), but this race will be nothing like the 4 marathons I've ran in last few years...mainly because it's only a 5K (just over 3 miles). haha! 哈哈!

Two afternoons ago, I had to get my blood pressure checked at the school hospital so the school can feel comfortable allowing me to participate (this scene was eerily similar to the prerequisites before Peter Hessler's race in RiverTown). The rumor is that the teachers and the girls will run the 5K "marathon" and the male students will run the 10K, starting about 15 minutes after the teachers/girls. I told my Waiban that I would rather run the longer race because "I have no idea how to run 5 kilometers....plus I don't want to (and this might seem a little strange to you, my readers) draw a lot of attention to myself." Decaprio, my running friend, told me most of the teachers who run the race are women and only do it for fun. In all honesty - and this will look super funny when the race is over and I blog about getting destroyed by about 50 girls - I really don't want to win. Too much of my experience has been, again, "eerily similar" to Peter Hessler's Rivertown (Hessler, a PCV, wins the school's running race by a mile and is given prize money that pays for 3 weeks of noodle lunches), and I would hate to leave China with all the same stories/triumphs/embarrassments! But then I learned that the Waiban and the the School of Foreign Languages were competing for me on their team, so now I am pretty sure I am the school's racehorse....I wonder what my spread is?

On an unrelated (but pleasing) note, I ran into student "N" today, one of the students Devon and I admired and choose to give a monetary donation to from a few generous Americans in order to help him and his family after they were severely affected by the 5/12/08 earthquake. N was wearing a new suit and interviewing for a teaching job in his hometown in Sichuan Province. He was with his smiling girlfriend and looked professional and happy. About 10 minutes later, I ran into student "K," a former student of mine and the other recipient of some of our private earthquake relief donations. He was waiting outside the Foreign Language Building to meet the dean who was awarding him a 1500 RMB scholarship for his exceptional academic accomplishments. I congratulated him and thought about how sometimes the people who really deserve a break in life...actually get it. It was a nice walk home, sunny and cool.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Happy Holidays from Peace Corps China

2008-12-15T04:11:00.000-08:00

你们好!

As I plan my lesson for The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, for my Tuesday morning graduate students, I received an e-mail from Peace Corps China (中美友好志愿者) wishing me Happy Holidays:

Holiday Greetings to All!

The Peace Corps Staff would like to wish all of you the very best during this holiday season. We thank you for being here, for your willingness to leave the comfort of life back in the U.S., and for the personal sacrifices that you have made to be a Volunteer in China.

It is a time for you to reflect on what you have experienced and accomplished during the time you have been here, the difference you have made in your life and the lives of your students and colleagues. Peace Corps can be exhilarating, frustrating, emotionally lifting and emotionally draining all at the same time. Our New Year's hopes and wishes for you are that you consider the amazing opportunities for you in China, savor the experience and continue to do your best for your benefit as well as those around you.

May you, your families and friends here in China and back home have a safe and pleasant holiday season.

Best wishes,

Peace Corps China Staff

This is my second consecutive holiday season in China, and to be honest, it's rough. I had a great conversation with PCV Ryan (you might remember Ryan from my tales of Fengjie this summer) two nights ago after PCV Jake's birthday party. We, more or less, agreed that China doesn't have any holiday season that is as intense as what Christmas alone is in America. I know many Chinese might disagree with me, but after looking back at all the holidays in China, Spring Festival, which is seen as Christmas's equivalent, isn't much different than other Chinese festivals. Sure, there are a few different foods to eat, families get together, fireworks pop, but that is nothing compared to the endless list of solely Christmas traditions we have in the Western world. I think Chinese subconsciously know this too, because they try to imitate this season with setting up x-mas trees in restaurant fronts, sell Santa hats, dub Christmas songs into Chinese without knowing exactly what "Silent Night" is about, and so on. Is it that a kind of holiday globalization? Again, I am not trying to prove that one culture or society is superior or inferior to the other, but when it comes to missing out on all the things I know are happening at home, the mental "countdown" to COS (Close of Service) illuminates in my mind.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Food, Table Manners, and setting aside the chopsticks...

2008-12-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

你们好!

I just returned home from a Waiban-sponsored venture to Metro, a Sam's Club/CostCo.-esque supermarket that sells many of the foods and brands found in the American equivalent. As a PCV (who barely cooks), my purchases consisted of:

-French Bread

-2 bottles of ketchup (great on eggs!)

-sugar-glazed donuts (a birthday party donation for tonight; 生日快乐 PCV Jake!)

-a package of sliced cheese. (if you are a Western foreigner in China, I know you are drooling after reading the "C" word)

But after two hours of looking at food I desperately want but can't afford, I was reminded back to this week's lesson entitled "Hungry in America?: Foods of the world, Manners, and Etiquette." This is the first generation in China to grow up with a choice in how their taste buds should be titillated. Food is an amazing educational tool/subject when talking about culture, and judging from my students positive response to the lesson, especially the mini-lecture on table manners (I know, Mom, who am I to teach table manners!?), this is a lesson they will remember far into the future.

I must say that I can't take full-credit for this lesson; Devon, my site mate last year, designed a presentation and supplemented it with a massive purchasing of plates (3 different sizes), cups, forks, knives, bowls, napkins, and doilies. I sat in on her talk and only tweaked it here and there to better accommodate my students. As you can see above, before we talk at all about how to eat, I let my students attempt and create their own table setting, then ask them to try their best and place the objects in their "correct" places.

The most fascinating parts of this lesson:

- Chinese students have no idea what fortune cookies are.

- For the most part, students know how to use forks and knives (with only a few small mistakes). I asked one class where they learned how to cut a piece of meat - their answer: "Movies!" Thank you, Hollywood!

- Eating noodles in China can be a quick processes, but when I taught them to use a spoon and twirling fork with their Italian pasta - "1-3 noodles at a time...Keep you posture!...twirl, twirl, twirl....not too much!...now gracefully place into mouth...." - they felt exhausted.

- Finally, I told them how in America I am required to "sign" my name on the check. I printed my name on the board, then under it, I sign it, which is a fast looping, barely readable chicken scratch. "What's that!?" they ask. "That's me!" I say.

I conclude the lesson with the same advice/encouragement I end most of my lessons on world culture. "You might think this is funny. Maybe even some of you think this is useless. But I know many of you dream of seeing the world, or at least the world outside of China, and my dream is that you will use this lesson someday when you fulfill that dream. Your dream is also my dream! Hey! Everybody has to EAT!...and NEWSFLASH, more than 75% of restaurants in the Western world don't offer chopsticks! Don't get caught spittin'!" (referring to my instruction on the proper use of a napkin).

Don't get caught spittin'!...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

December is Human Rights Month

2008-12-11T02:15:00.000-08:00

你们好!

The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is one of the worst human rights violators in the entire world.

There. I said it. Unlike the Chinese media, I didn't beat around the bush. I didn't tell you a million and one reasons or make excuses for why human rights violations happen in China (large population, people lack education, "it's our tradition," Americans are hypocrites, etc.) in order to gain your sympathy or understanding. Sympathy and understanding doesn't exist for violators of human rights. I know this, the CCP knows this, the Chinese people know this, my students know this. Why do I know? Because they all tell me, some with their actions and others right to my face.

Human rights transcend issues like Tibet/Xinjiang, lack of property rights, government corruption, lack of a free press, etc. They enter the classroom as well. Students should be free in what they need to learn in order to be world citizens. Their rights are being violated. The government is to blame. They are making soldiers for China. The gov't controls what goes in and what comes out. This makes my job harder.

I am optimist, however. The Internet is not the CCP's friend. Bloggers are hungry for the truth, and I am sure the CCP will be defeated by the Chinese truth-seekers, not by the foreign devils that "hurt Chinese people's feelings."

Think Americans are hypocrites. You are too! Click! The evil Western media can't make this up. It happened. There are pictures and proof.

Don't get me started on Darfur. My students don't even know about this, and if they do, they have no idea all this is happening because of the CCP's cold shoulder. Think about how many "people's feelings" you are hurting when you could keep 5000 more people/month alive but don't because you need oil and resources. This blood in on your hands too, China. We do it in the Middle East too, you say. Yep! But at least we know about it and continue to fight against it instead of blindly loving a 1-party rule and throwing all those who speak against it in jail. Obama, if you really want to end this genocide, press China. They can save lives with a single signature - STOP FEEDING THE SUDANESE GOVERNMENT'S GENOCIDE MACHINE!

But again, there is hope:

"China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress toward human rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among the major nations that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China’s own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer."

This was written and signed by hundreds of Chinese intellectuals as a part of the Charter 08 - soon to be used as toilet paper in Beijing. The document is everything China needs and deserves.

I like China. I love my students. I see a world in them I have never seen or experienced before. They are the only reason I stay here. They are my friends and my family. And when someone violates my friends' or family's rights as human beings, I have nothing good to say or blog about. December is Human Rights Month, and with all the progress China has made, it is still below .500 in my standings. Someone needs to be replaced. I say this publically, because I care, not because I am anti-China. I am a volunteer teacher in China for god sakes!

Don't be a victim. FIGHT for what you deserve. Or better, don't sell your soul for money and power and stability. Be the exception.

Soon to be blocked in China: Phil's blog. But the world will keep reading....

I welcome all comments and refutations. I will debate you...to death.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Watch this video! What are human rights?

P.s.s. More harmonious blog posts in the near future...We don't want to hear about the negative side of things, right CCP?

I am Caesar and Fighting Back...

2008-12-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

你们好!

A perplexing thing happens when I run here in Beibei; I get super angry. I spend the most part of my day smiling (ugh!) because, well, smiles are contagious and as for teaching, it's 10% preparation and 90% performance. When students feel comfortable and "relaxed" (an adjective frequently attached to my classes), they retain, think constructively, set aside memorization, and most importantly, remain interested and attentive. But when the sun goes down, I get fired up! I don't know if I am repressing my anger in the extremely, undoubtedly harmonious world that is China (ugh!), but Wow, if those motorcycles don't have their lights on while they zoom by me at 40 mph, they are getting a long 20-second scolding, loud and furious!, in both English and Chinese. From the look on their faces, they are either about to sh*t their pants in pure fear or they look at me with the most casual stare and then tell me to go F*ck myself (in Chinese).

The truth is: I am kinda proud of those who tell me to go F myself. I am not entirely right in my expressed anger (I know! The heart pumpin' doesn't help me control it...that and simply not having any other outlet for expressing my anger - which is by far one of the most important human emotions - in China as a foreigner) and such a severe scolding might be a little over the edge, especially in a compliant and "friendly" place like a Chinese university. I can hear what you are saying: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do...blah blah blah." Listen to me, trust me, I do do what the Chinese do for 95% of my life here...But hey, c'mon!, in NYC, this outward expression happens every 5 seconds, and those who think that New York City needs to "calm down," surely don't understand the beauty of New York City...and America for that matter! We are all born with the inalienable right to say "Fuck you." (Sorry, mom...)

Below is a great/funny video (and moreover, a representation of what I feel is the real "Chinese spirit") of ordinary Chinese resistance to the powers that be. This, of course, is comedic (and is rumored to be an advertisement), but stories and media like this are growing quickly on the Chinese Internet, and thus, "fighting back," the universal human right exercised when injustice occurs, is entering China (and being expressed publically) and gaining momentum. If only young people - in China and America alike - could (and continue to) hold this spirit and demand more from their superiors in their future...

Courtesy of one of my favorite Chinese media sites: ChinaSmack

Need another (better) example? Click!

Quote of the day:

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done, and I am Caesar."

~Anonymous

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

The Race is On!

2008-12-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

你们好!

How rich/poor is China?

2008-12-06T20:02:00.000-08:00

你们好!

This video sums it up pretty well. China has the opportunity to do some pretty amazing things in the coming years. The question is: Will they do it, or will they talk the talk (like we Americans) and do nothing?! After watching this, I have absolutely no idea why there are still Chinese living in the slums (but of course, I am not an economist, so what do I know?...). Show me up, China, and reform your education system! You certainly have the funds to do it! Unlock the students from their cells! Give them what they need! What are you afraid of?! Don't underestimate elementary/adolescent education investment like the American government does every year! Education investment is like Jello - there is always room for more! Promote Creativity and Critical-thinking! Instead of this shit (no pun intended)!

Click!

Keep thinkin'...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

P.s. Your thoughts on the "Jello" video link above?

Midtern Speech (Confucius vs. Shakespeare)

2008-12-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

你们好!

I just finished grading my students' midterm speeches. The assignment was as follows:

Speech Question:

1) "Hear much, but maintain silence in regards to doubtful points and be cautious in speaking of the rest; then you will seldom get into trouble. See much, but ignore what is dangerous to have seen, and be cautious in acting upon the rest; then you will seldom want to undo your acts." ~ 孔子, 论语 (Confucius, The Analects)

2) "Nothing can come of nothing..." ~William Shakespeare, King Lear

Above are two quotes: one from Confucius* and the other from Shakespeare. Your mission is to write a speech and perform it in front of the class. You need to make a decision, based on your experiences living in the 21st century. After reading both quotes, which quote do you agree with? Why? Which quote do you disagree with? Why? Maybe you agree with both, maybe you disagree with both, but you need to make a decision and you need to justify it in no more than 3-4 minutes! Every sentence matters!

So the students spent a week (some, the hour before class, I could tell) preparing their opinions based around their own countryman's (Confucius - you can begin to see my objectives...) words and the poetic verse of William Shakespeare. At first look, Confucius' words stress the virtue of caution and advises learning a lot but avoid acting on the "dangers" attached. Shakespeare, in only 5 words, says if we don't confront (面对miànduì) the "dangers" attached to life, we will never change and grow. However, and this is a valuable lesson I've learned in China, nothing is as it seems. Which quote do you think the students preferred? Many (including myself, initially) might think this midterm would be a die-hard defense/landslide victory for Confucius. He was Chinese. There are statues of him on almost every college campus in China. Chinese children memorize his writings as elementary students. He is to China what Plato, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson are to America....

But nope! It was about a 50/50 split (in fact, I dare to say that around 60% picked Shakespeare; one class has 26-1 in favor of the Bard) and I couldn't be happier. Now, a lot could be said about their answers, and why so many/most did not pick Confucius' advice as practical/enlightening "in the 21st century" is up-for-grabs. Is it a generation shift (The post-80's generation is viewed as/accused of being "individuals" - this word carries a negative connotation when translated into Chinese (个人主义gerénzhǔyì) - and abandoning the past for a bright, more globalized future)? Do the quotes not give enough information? Do they not understand the quotes (please, God, don't let it be this)? Are they selecting Shakespeare as superior because they know I teach/enjoy Shakespeare and maybe that is the way to winning an A on their midterm? Or maybe, just maybe, they do understand and they read Confucius as, and I quote from a students' speech, "out-of-touch with the 21st century."

But don't get me wrong; this was not some elaborate plan to show my students that the "god" that is Confucius is irrelevant. In fact, many of my students made the good point of saying that up until the last few decades, the only way you could get a promotion in China was to follow Confucian ideals. It is only now that some (certainly not all) Chinese feel comfortable confronting (My favorite English word while living in China:"confrontation") problems, whether they be personal of societal, and proposing solutions to those who, in the past, could swash them like ants. This is a good sign. Barack Obama's message of "Change" - they mentioned this often in their speeches and strangely wasn't publicized in China as much as it was in other countries (why?) - and America showing how they to can confront and change for the better may have added fuel into their Shakespeare tanks. But of course, this is just speculation.

Some highlights:

- "Chinese don't question the rules of society...we just follow."

- "Chinese believe in the "Middle Way" (中庸之道zhōngyōngzhīdào) so I agree with Confucius."

- "Trying is important, but so is struggling..."

- "Confucius is right. He is the golden mean in our bones."

- "If we are conservative with inventions, like the Chinese were with gunpowder, then foreign powers will take these inventions, advance them, and use them to build weapons and create a strong empire."

I was proud of most my students, and their grades reflected it. Some even claimed that they were so lost in finding "the right answer " that they started reading King Lear to gain a great understanding of the Shakespeare quote. Others said they read various renditions of Confucius' quote (in ancient Chinese) to do the same. I usually take it easy on my students when it comes to homework, so I am glad many used the free time I've given them over the semester to research something that taught something below the surface ("Think DEEP!") of their repetitive academic lives.

I wrote a speech too, and if you'd like to read it, send me an e-mail: philiprazem@gmail.com and you'll see what I think about these two quotes.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Why I am not teaching this Friday afternoon...

2008-12-05T00:58:00.000-08:00

你们好:

I just return home from the supermarket in Beibei. It's a gloomy day - typical December weather in Chongqing. I usually do my grocery shopping on the weekends, but I found myself with some extra time this afternoon after I received a call late last night from my teaching counterpart telling me that my afternoon classes were being rescheduled for Sunday afternoon. "为什么?" I asked. "Why?"

"Red Songs," (红歌, hóng gē) he said.

Red Songs are, according to the link above, "melodies from the early 1920s and the period after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949...They are songs on 'main themes' (referring to tributes paid to the [Communist] Party, army and common people)."

According to word of mouth (the only real source of information I receive at Southwest University), the mayor of Chongqing has required university students to organize and perform various Red Songs in honor of the 30th anniversary of the "Opening up" of China by then leader, Deng XiaoPing (邓小平). This little shindig (pictured above) is happening, coincidentally, on the same day I posted an UPDATE (see bottom of entry in link) on the last blog posting, in regards to what a student text messaged me about her generation being criticized [by the government] for "lack of patriotism." This is mind-lowing to me, because I think the post-80's generation is excessively patriotic! But it just might be a master plan...and I am sad to report, it's working.

It's nice to love your country. But it's dangerous to LOVE your country. It's even more reckless for a government to sacrifice classes, student's time and energy to gather tangible proof that young people LOVE not only China, but the Communist Party. The truth is - and this is for all you Chinese who read this blog, especially my students and Chinese friends - you don't know any other party/organization to love. It's like marrying your 1st and only middle school girlfriend; you never had a taste of anything else. You will never know if the grass is greener on the other side. And in actuality, these students might not even LOVE China and "the Party." They might be the greatest actors in all the world...in fact, I know many of them act and hold up pictures of Mao ZeDong, when in reality, they know they...just...don't...know. How do I know? They tell me.

It's frustrating to be a foreigner in China, especially when all you want is the Truth. Save your expensive Hot Pot meals, decorative gifts, smiling hospitality, and truckloads of excuses...Give me the God Damn Truth!

This week I gave my students the homework assignment of putting their face in their pillow and screaming as loud as they can. "Have you ever done this?" I asked them. "It feels great..."

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

P.s. Random Pictures from the last month or so...

Happy December! 十二月快乐 (updated)

2008-12-03T01:17:00.000-08:00

你们好!
.
I am teaching one of my favorite lessons this week - Stereotypes! I can't remember if I've written about this concept in the past, but when it comes to student catharsis, this lesson really rips their guts out. In summary, I list 10 different stereotypes about Americans (i.e. All Americans like guns, all Americans support war/want to take over the world, all Americans like fast food, etc.) and then 10 stereotypes about Chinese (All Chinese know kung fu, all Chinese know how to grow rice, all Chinese are good at math, etc.) and we chat...and laugh (sometimes). As many of my loyal readers know, my raison d'etre in China is the promotion of critical-thinking skills, something that is neglected and discouraged by the powers that be within the Chinese education system. It's really sad...but I will get to that.
.
I added a new stereotype this semester that has been getting a mixed reaction from students:
.

True or False?

All Chinese love and support the Communist Party and Mao ZeDong (pictured above).

As soon as the stereotype goes up on the screen, there is an immediate "Yes!" - I say nothing (pause, 4 long seconds) - and then a few trail in with some barely detachable sounds - not actual identifiable words but definitely audible graveling - that might indicate that this statement is not necessarily true. "C'mon!" I say. "You know there are people who don't love and support this thing and this person. I have had many Chinese tell me they distrust one and detest the other! Are you naive to that fact, or are you just not speaking up?!" One student said, "We know, but we don't talk about it." I said, "I know. I understand."

"We know, but we don't talk about it."

The lesson eventually leads to the class writing anonymous adjectives on slips of paper describing different groups of people (French, Blacks, Japanese, Homosexuals, Muslims, Rich people, Poor people, Men, Women, American, and finally Chinese). Stereotypes are identified - this is tricky, especially with Japanese, which 85% of my students seem to hate with all their hearts and souls, even though barely 1 or 2 in the class has ever met a Japanese - and I tell a story about the first time I performed this activity with a freshmen class (just after their military training) when, unsurprisingly, 100% of their comments were positive for "Chinese are..." I said with a suspicious tone, "Wow! No one wrote anything even remotely negative about China or Chinese..." The class in the story broke out into an instant and roaring applause, leaving me wide-eyed and speechless. I tell my classes this week that the feeling I felt when these students clapped was one comparable to the feeling you feel right before you vomit. "I felt sick. Why? Well, I knew right then and there that these students weren't going to listen to anything I had to say. The worst feeling in the world for a teacher is the feeling of helplessness. And I was helpless. If you can't look at something and question it, how will you ever grow? How will it ever change or improve? Nothing is perfect. Nothing will ever be perfect."

Silence. Good silence (I think). Thinking silence.

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

Update: (student text message; edited for anonymity)

"Hello Phil, when you told us that hopeless story about the freshmen, I was keeping on thinking. And now, I can tell the reason is that you are a foreigner. We would like to acquire practical criticize from others. But we do not like to show the weak side of ourselves to a stranger, especially a foreigner. I believe the students there did have an opinion about China's negative side. But they chose to show you a united Chinese. What's more, we generation is criticized by the society for lack of patriotic heart. We are sometimes so eager to show that we do love our country. China is a country that can face our problems and also a complex country. I cannot explain you clearly. But in fact we people need a peaceful life. The party can help us."

I think this explanation, if true (and I do truly believe it is true, because I refuse to believe that anyone in the world would be as naive as the freshmen students in question), is a good example of the modern Chinese ethos. Foreigners may never understand China if Chinese don't tell foreigners like me the Truth (capital "T")...or tell themselves the Truth for that matter.