Linguistically Lost in Jiangxi

The day following my return from Hebei Province, my host father called and invited me to visit his home town in Jianxi Province. After sorting out the formalities, he ended the phone conversation with a note of mystery, “be prepared to see the blossoms,” he said. I was already exhausted from travel, so I did not think too hard on his words. The next day, we met up at the train station, my host family and I, and we proceeded to board the overnight train. In no time the rocking carriage lulled me off to sleep. A short seven hours later and I woke up to the “ooos and ahhhhs” of my host family. They pulled the carriage curtains open and my eyes met the flowered fields of Jiangxi Province.

The flowers of Jiangxi and the Changjiang River. Jiangxi Province, China

Flower fields. Jiangxi, China

My host father’s family could not have been more warm and welcoming. From the moment I stepped off the train, I met nothing but kindness. Verbal communication, however, was rather difficult.

In Jiangxi they speak a different dialect than the Standard Mandarin that I’ve been taught. For speakers of only English, this concept of mutually unintelligible dialects is hard to understand. First we must understand that language is not only a natural phenomenon. It is also governed by human thought and practice. In this sense, language can be a political instrument. This is the case for Chinese. The entire Chinese language encompasses a wide range of dialects (including Standard Mandarin) that may not necessarily be understood by all speakers. The classic example is the comparison between the Mandarin Chinese spoken in Beijing and the Cantonese Chinese spoken in Hong Kong. While both speakers are still considered to be speaking Chinese, a Mandarin speaker and a Cantonese speaker would be completely unable to have a conversation without a good amount of knowledge about the other’s dialect.  Why, you may be asking, are two seemingly separate languages considered the same? This goes back to the idea of language as a political device. In the spirit of unifying a diverse population, the powers that be in China consolidated all these different dialects and called them all the Chinese Language.

In any case, prior knowledge of the linguistic phenomenon of dialects did very little to help me understand what the heck people were saying in Jiangxi. Fortunately, my host family was kind enough to translate Jiangxi dialect into Standard Mandarin when needed. However, the one who helped me the most was my host father’s 19 year old nephew. Since all schools are now required to teach in Standard Mandarin, he was the easiest to communicate with. In fact, he talked with the same rhythm and pace that I hear on the television and radio. The older the generations, however, were much harder to understand. That is because when they were growing up, Standard Mandarin was not the sole instruction in school, and they were taught by teachers whose first language was not Mandarin. As a result, often times the nephew would have to correct his mother’s pronunciation of a Mandarin word before I could understand what she was talking about. As for my host father’s parents, I never really got accustomed to their patterns of speaking, because they never fully mastered Mandarin.

Fortunately for me, a smile can be understood in any language.

Me and Juicy hanging out with some flowers. Jiangxi Province, China

My host father’s home town. The little city of Pengze, Jiangxi Province, China

My host mother, father, and I standing in some flowers. Jiangxi Province, China.

Hoofing it around Hebei

Sorry for the long break! Anywho, on to what I’ve been up to….

A few weeks ago China celebrated Qingming Festival and we had a short three day break from classes. As such, my friends and I decided to take the opportunity to go travelling. It was only after we had bought our train tickets that our teachers explained we would in fact be missing class if we went on our trip. At first I didn’t understand because for this particular vacation period Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all supposed to be vacation days. Come to find out, in China during certain “breaks” schools make up for missed time by rescheduling classes on the weekends.This means that our Monday and Tuesday classes got moved to Saturday and Sunday. As a tried and true American, I have a strong sense of pride in my weekend time so I was not about to go to school on a Saturday. In the end, my friends and I decided to go ahead and skip class. And so we rode off to Hebei Province.

The first stop was Chengde, a 6 hour train ride from Beijing by commuter rail. While we were still on the train, Akiko and Andrea struck up a conversation with a woman. She happened to live in Chengde and was naturally curious as to why four foreigners were headed to her home town. She was very friendly and when we got off the train she introduced us to her husband. As we exited the station, she even helped us find a taxi cab. As we said our goodbyes, we thanked them. The four of us piled into the taxi and just before we shut the door, my friend Li-Anne, bursting with exuberance shouted out, “Happy Qingming Festival!” And we zoomed off.

This last sentence, while innocent enough, caused the rest of us to burst out laughing in the small taxi cab. In China, Qingming Festival is celebrated for honoring the dead. Individuals return to old family graves to clean, honor, and leave offerings to past generations. It’s hardly what one would call a “happy” holiday. Nonetheless, the phrase “Happy Qingming Festival” became a catchphrase for the rest of the vacation.

Chengde itself is a relatively small city. Back in imperial times, it was the summer get-away for Beijing’s royal court. As such, there’s quite a lot of history and architecture packed into the little city.

Our first stop was the Bi Shu Shan Zhuang (lit. Hiding from the Summer Mountain Mansion but it gets translated as the Summer Resort in English). This was a massive park compound filled with plenty of man-made lakes, pagodas, and villas. Hard to believe that is was designed for only one man to enjoy. Walking around there easily took up an entire morning, and we never got to see it all. The mountain section had still been closed to visitors.

A bird sits in its cage singing to the other caged birds in the morning. Chengde, China

Li-Anne, Andrea, and Akiko in front of one of the lakes at the Summer Resort. Chengde, China

Andrea, Li-anne, and I in front of one of many, many pagodas. Chengde, China.

Pagoda in detail. Chengde, China

Andrea, Akiko, and Li-Anne in front of another pagoda. Chengde, China.

Akiko imitates a random chicken outside of a police station. Chengde, China.

After our tour around the Summer Resort. We ate lunch and decided to change our train tickets. Originally, we had planned to leave Chengde and head for Shijiazhuang. However, the lady on the train told us there was nothing very interesting in Shijiazhuang and we’d best go elsewhere. So after lunch we headed to the train station. When we arrived, we were greeted with a massive line of people. An hour and a half of waiting, getting cut in line, blocking people from cutting us in line, we finally made it to the window. At that point, the irritated ticket woman informed us that it was 5:00 and she was off work. We, and the entire line of people behind us, immediately began to shout angrily. In a tired, nonchalant voice, the woman reminded us that the next person on duty would be coming in 30 minutes. So we waited it out at the front of the line. When the woman finally arrived, we gave her our Shijiazhuang-Beijing return tickets and asked if we could exchange them for Qinghaidao-Beijing return tickets. She looked at us blankly and said, I can’t do that here. You have to be at one of those stations to do that. We ended up waiting in line for 2 hours all for nothing. By that point we were so frustrated it became comical. We wished the ticket woman a Happy Qingming Festival, left the train station, and headed back to our hotel to play card games and plan the next day.

Frustrated into laughter

The next day, we headed off to tour various temples around Chengde. As I have come to learn, temples in China are a lot like churches in Europe, apart from the really famous ones, if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. I’m afraid my time in China has given me a sort of temple-apathy. For example, at the temple even though I was witnessing the world’s tallest wooden-carved standing Buddha statue, I couldn’t bring myself to fully appreciate it. I just kept thinking that it looked like all the other Buddha statues, just bigger and wooden.

"Won't you take me to Temple Town" Chengde, China

Temple. Chengde, China

For our last day in Chengde, we decided to see…. a giant rock. We’re not particularly clear on its history or how it got to be there, but then again how often do you get to see phallic rocks in your every day life?

The rock. Chengde, China

Jumping near the rock. Chengde, China

After our visit to the rock, we headed to the train station and caught an overnight train to Shijiazhuang. The next morning we arrived at around 7 o’clock. All of us were pretty exhausted from a bad night’s train sleep, so we rested until the afternoon. Afterwards we went out to explore the capital of Hebei Province. As it turns out, the lady on the train was right. There’s not a whole lot to do in Shijiazhuang. Nonetheless, we went on our own self-guided temple tour till dinner time.

Temple number 1. Shijiazhuang, China

Asking for directions

Temple number 2. Shijiazhuang, China

Asking for more directions. Shijiazhuang, China

Temple number 3. Shijiazhuang, China

Trying to figure out where all these different temples are! Shijiazhuang, China.

Temple number 4. Last one! Shijiazhuang, China

The following day, we ran out of temples to see. So we decided to check out this place called “The Garden in the Sky.” As it turns out, the Garden in the Sky is a makeshift amusement park, resort-thing on the twelfth floor of a random building in downtown, Shijiazhuang. The complex was massive, sprawling at least a city block, and it included rides, a river, waterfalls, swimming pools, as well as various plant and tree species (albeit some fake).

Empty pool in the Garden in the Sky. Shijiazhuang, China

Still indoors.... Shijiazhuang, China

Akiko takes a photo while Li-Anne poses indoors at the Garden in the Sky. Shijiazhuang, China

Inappropriate statute of a little boy. Shijiazhuang, China.

After touring the Garden in the Sky, we headed off to the Shijiazhuang Museum of history. The museum’s facade was elegantly designed and was surrounded by a massive square making the architecture look more grandiose. However, once we entered, we discovered there was nothing in the museum at all. In place of exhibitions, the walls were lined with panels displaying pictures of artifacts. It seems as though the museum was trying to cut a few costs by showing pictures of exhibitions without actually having any.

By the end of the vacation, we were all quite exhausted. I for one was happy to get on the train heading back to the semi-normalcy of Beijing.

Hungry for Movies

One of the convenient things about living in China is their lack of copyright law enforcement. I have been wanting to watch the Hunger Games movie for some time now. Although it was released just last month in the States, it is not due to come out here for a while. No worries though! All I had to do was go to the counterfeit DVD store located in the back room of a tiny dumpling restaurant just down the street from me and voila! They already had a DVD edition ready for my viewing pleasure.

A Truly Unfortunate Thing

To begin with, I want to apologize in advance for the content of this post. Although I normally try to keep things light and positive here, I feel that current circumstances merit a more serious tone. Indeed, today’s post is not a happy one. It discusses a serious issue plaguing Chinese society today, but not including in the blog would be a failure on my part to present the China I see everyday. You’ve been cautioned.

Last week, I found out through a friend that a Chinese girl attempted to jump out of her dormitory window. Fortunately, her attempt was thwarted in time, but the news was still unsettling. Although for me and my fellow exchange classmates the stress-level here is rather low, for the thousands of Chinese graduate and undergraduate students it is immensely high. Tsinghua is the top Chinese university and there is tremendous pressure to succeed here. On top of that, China’s One Child Policy has created a generation of only children who must bare the burden of being their parents’ and grandparents’ sole object of affections and aspirations. On top of familial pressure, the competition they face in the job market after graduation is only more daunting. Imagine 1.3 billion people all of whom needing to work. Coupled with this situation is the old Chinese view that one must learn to “eat bitterness,” to brush aside personal feelings for the good of one’s family and society.

Of course, this is a vast oversimplification of the societal pressure the Chinese face, but when it comes to life the Chinese do not have entirely all that easy. As for the universities, many lack the proper mental health counseling services to aid students going through rough times. While Tsinghua does have this kind of service, it is not widely advertised nor known. And most startling for me was the reaction the administration had to this event. Rather than issuing a statement encouraging students to seek counseling when needed, they remained silent on the issue. Their stance being that if less people know about the suicide attempt, the less it will influence others who may be contemplating the same thing. Indeed upon further research, I found that many universities have rather low instances of actually reporting deaths from suicides. I have even heard rumors that schools have a certain number of “suicide allowances” before government action and investigation takes place. I could not, however, find sources to back up the latter so don’t quote me on it.

Regardless, I feel that this lack of information presented to students serves more to harm rather than protect them. Indeed, just this very morning I thought of nothing when I saw the workers scrubbing the pavement outside building 22. I was heading to class and didn’t bother to give the seemingly random fix-up project a second thought. However as I later found out this evening, a South Korean student had jumped out of an eleventh story window in the early hours of the morning. I felt a chill pass through me as I realized what I had witnessed this morning. The men had been scrubbing away the blood stain his body made when he hit the ground. When asked about the event, the workers in my building responded that they were not allowed discuss the issue. The poor guy lived in the building next to me, and at the moment hardly anybody knows he died. And unfortunately, that’s just how the school wants it.

I disagree. This issue needs to be discussed in such a way that students realize there is help out there. This kind of death is a tragedy but it is also preventable. It is clear that more effort must be put forth by the Chinese universities to ensure suicide prevention rather than just concealing it. That however, can only come through frank and honest dialogue not through silence.

If you need help, seek help. You will find it.

A Test of Wisdom

Well these past few weeks have been stressful to say the least. Earlier this week, I finally finished writing my undergraduate paper for my Chinese major back home. In addition, my American university requires that I take the American proficiency exam of Chinese administered at the end of each semester. This presented a small problem due to the fact that I’d be in China during the time of the test. In place of taking the American proficiency exam, my professors suggested I take the Chinese version of the proficiency exam known as the HSK (hanyu shuiping kaoshi – the test of mandarin proficiency). This exam has six different levels to choose from  with 1 being the lowest and 6 being the highest. While my teachers here encouraged me to try and go for level 6, I opted to take a little safer route by choosing level 5. I did this mainly to ensure I could present a certificate to my university back home proving that I took and passed a proficiency exam, then it would be a oneway trip to graduation town. 

Unfortunately, due to the stress of wanting to finish my paper, I completely forgot that the HSK was happening this week — that is until four days before the test when my friend asked me how my studying was going. After a short panic attack, I began to hit the books. Everyone kept telling me not to worry, that I would be fine. I heard classmates even say it was an easy exam. It was only after taking my first practice exam that I realized the HSK level 5 was not going to be as easy for me as everyone had made me to believe. So by the time the test came I entered the room a little jittery, feeling both nervous and unprepared. 

The test itself was divided into three main sections: listening, reading, and writing. The listening section for me tended to be the easiest while reading was the most difficult. The main problem I had was dealing with time. With 45 minutes to answer 45 questions, I couldn’t linger over problems for too long. What I found to be most difficult however, were the reading questions dealing with grammar. There were quite a few covering aspects of Mandarin grammar I had never learned. 

Although the reading section was a little rocky, I have to give credit to the testmakers for their creativity. The last section of the reading portion presented 5 essays with questions following based on reading comprehension. Although I was pressed for time when I finally got to this section, many of the essays were actually interesting enough to leave a bit of an impression (pity I didn’t have longer to appreciate them). Majority of the short essays included parables, whereby a story was presented and the essay would continue on with what sort of lesson was to be learned. It’s a pretty Chinese/Confucian way to do things. 

Anyway, when I got to the second to last essay, I had roughly 7 minutes left with 10 questions to answer, so I began feverishly speed reading through its contents. The gist of the essay was about a manager who refused to hire a man who had worked his previous job for ten years and had a completely clean record. While the man was a good at his job, the manager wanted nothing to do with him. When asked why he would not hire such a capable worker, the manager replied, “He hasn’t ever made a mistake, clearly he hasn’t done anything in life.” The essay went on to enlighten us testakers that by fearing mistakes we stop ourselves from doing the incredible. The fear of failure is a hindrance for obtaining the truly valuable asset of experience. Failure is not an ending so much as it is a base on which to improve. 

So there in that tiny room, with 4 minutes on the clock, I had once again been reminded of the necessity of mistakes. Even if my proficiency scores don’t turn out as well as I hoped, I at least walked away from the HSK with a little lesson learned. Shame they didn’t put that essay at the beginning of the exam!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Everyone! (I only just realized…. the Chinese government has been really trying to suppress leprechauns lately)

Just a thought…

Hello, folks! I came across this quote randomly on the internet machine today, and I thought it nice enough to share with everyone. I’ve been busy researching and writing my final paper/thesis thing for my university back home, and haven’t had much time to update the blog. That will change soon hopefully as I am on a bit of a roll at the moment. In any case, on with the quote:

“To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.”
-E.E. Cummings

Don’t know why, but it struck a chord today. Keep on fighting the good fight, friends and family!

Love, love, love.

Lost in Tebowing contemplation at the Shanghai Aquarium. Jellies are also in contemplation.(Photo courtesy of Muriel)

Back to Beijing

Long time, no see! Have you ever taken a moment to think about this saying? Despite its grammatical incorrectness, most people are surprised to learn that it is not originally an English greeting. The phrase is taken from the direct translation of the Chinese idiom “hao jiu bu jian.” It first came into popular use during the days when Shanghai was conceded to foreign powers. In any case, it truly has been a long time since I’ve last updated this little blog, and for that I must apologize. To you, my five or so faithful readers, I promise not to take so long of a break next time.

I’ll start this post with a brief recap of the past two or so months, the months of traveling! It all began with the trip to Harbin. Located in China’s frigid northeast, the city of Harbin is blanketed in snow five to six months out of the year. Despite the harsh and bitterly cold winter, Harbin celebrates with a spectacle of ice and snow. Each year the Harbin Snow and Ice Festivals attract tourists the world over. Clearly this was something I needed to see for myself.

After an 11 hour “red-eye” train ride from Beijing, my friends (Takeshi, Akane, Wazuki, Mizaki, Yujiro, Akiko, Li-Anne, Julien) and I arrived in Harbin at 7 am. Already lacking in sleep, we stepped off the train into sub-zero temperatures. From the station we proceded to walk to our hotel, a good three-fourths of a mile away. This would have been all well and fine, however being from Florida, I was not aware of how cold sub-zero could actually be. The one pair of jeans and long underwear I was wearing was not nearly enough to keep out the cold. To make matters worse, every intake of breath froze the hairs in my nose. The following exhale of warm air would melt the newly frozen snot, and in a short amount of time a steady flow was running down to my lips and into my mouth.

After finding our way to the hotel, I started layering like crazy. Two pairs of long underwear, a pair of sweat pants, a pair of jeans, a shirt, five jackets, a coat, and two pairs of socks later, I was somewhat ready to face the Harbin night. Why do so many people come to Harbin if the winter is so harsh you may be wondering. Here’s why:

Castle made of ice

Harbin 2012

In addition to the mammoth sculptures of ice, Harbin is also home to a tiger “reserve.” I use this word lightly because most reserves do not keep their animals in such small cages. Additionally, I’ve yet to find a reserve where for 1000 Chinese Yuan a cow can be bought and fed to a tiger in front of its customer… that is until I came to Harbin. The result is a rather dull looking compound where overfed tigers lay around all day amid a mess of bird feathers, the preferred choice of animal to feed the tigers. And while we did not spend a thousand yuan on a cow, we did buy the tigers a chicken for 60. Poor bird stood no chance.

Fat tigers amid chicken feathers

Small cages and freezing weather make African cats sad

Although we only stayed in Harbin for two days, we were ready to leave when the time came. While the ice festival was beautiful, the extreme cold kept me from truly being able to enjoy it, as well as influenced the decidedly less amount of pictures I took. I would have taken more, but my hand was just too cold. My overall impression was like this, Harbin is a beautiful city that I never want to go back to.

After returning to Beijing, I had around 30 hours before setting off to China’s southern Hunan Province. A 22 hour train ride later, and we were in Zhang Jia Jie, Hunan Province. While a nice escape from the polluted city of Beijing, much of Hunan Province was blanketed in clouds. Unlike the major international tourist places of China, Hunan Province is severely lacking in transportation services. Most places of interest are several hours from each other and reachable only by car due to the mountainous terrain. As such, Vivien had prearranged a Chinese speaking tour guide to take us around. Vivien’s fluency in Chinese as usual proved to be most hopeful throughout our trip.

Arriving at Zhang Jia Jie (me, Rachel, Li-Anne, Akiko, Chorong, Vivien)

The first night we were taken to the charming little town of Fenghuang Gucheng. The old city was situated on a canal and alight with color. The classical buildings lined with strings of different colored lights added to the romance of the town.

Chorong, Vivien, Me, Li-Anne, and Akiko in Fenghuang Gucheng

The next few days were a blur of viewing various mountain ranges. Like most scenic areas, each had their own special history and unique place in Chinese culture. However, to me, everything kind of looked the same in regards to shape in form. It was beautiful nonetheless, but I was more preoccupied with the wild monkeys whom I found both cute and terrifying. Due to the winter season, they were especially hungry and unafraid of approaching humans in the hopes of finding food.

cute monkey

Scary monkey

In addition to monkeys, Zhang Jia Jie is famous for its rounded mountains. Carved out eons ago by ancient rivers, the site has been inspiring Chinese painters for centuries. However most recently, they have been seen within the frames of James Cameron’s Avatar. The strange rock formations of in southern China are in fact the exact ones that make up the alien landscape of Avatar’s Pandora. Vivien and Li-anne were most disappointed to learn that the rocks in Zhang Jia Jie do not in fact float like they do in the movie. 

Chorong, Akiko, Vivien, Li-Anne, and mountains.

Being Avatars

upon finding out that the rocks do not actually float

The famous (non-floating) rock

The week in southern China was indeed a very nice break from the hectic city life of Beijing, however by the end I was happy to be going back.

A short while later my mother, uncle, and sister came to China to visit. While it was a little exhausting being tour guide, translator, and navigator, the trip was very fun and I was happy to share some of this country with them. After a brief stop in Beijing, we flew to Shanghai to celebrate Chinese New Year. My sister who’s new hobbies include photography and video editing has complied a great video. In my opinion, it has recorded our adventures better than any words I could ever write. So without further ado: Reflections of China 2012:

And so this is where I’ll end my post for now. It’s a new semester, a new year, and a new beginning. Stay tuned for my second semester at Tsinghua University!