“China has (over) 5000 years of history.” This is said almost any time a Chinese person discusses China’s place in the world or its future and is often followed quickly by a patronizing comparison to the United States with its juvenile 250 years of history. The quicker among you are already sensing the sandy foundation this statement has. Unfortunately if American history only begins 250 years ago, then its history only began with the War of Independence. And if the metric for historical legacy is when a current political body was founded, then China comes up about 200 years short of the United States since Mao defeated the Nationalists and founded the People’s Republic of China only in 1949. Doh.
Of course, it’s silly to think that a people’s history only begins with the inception of a modern political system, otherwise the world would stand in abject awe of San Marino. But then, what is a useful metric for tracing your historical legacy?
I have few good ideas because in America we’re not generally not preoccupied with claiming credit for the past. The exceptions are notable, like routinely inflating our contribution to the Allied effort in Europe in World War 2; by "our" I mean middle schoolers and soldiers who credit America with saving Europe. But more times than not American esteem comes from its current place atop the global hierarchy and not its history. Americans who are proud are so because of their glorious present, not their glorious past. Our relationship to history is often one of willful ignorance until the academy gets around to educating us about it. For example, the American genocide of Native Americans was whitewashed and swept under the rug for my parent’s generation, when I was in k-12 we skirted the issue by talking about manifest destiny with a half-frown, but students in school today might even use the accurate term genocide in a few places.
History plays a much greater role in Chinese esteem because the CCP uses it to influence the ideology of the population. When the PRC consolidated control over the territory we call China in 1949 it went to great lengths to announce its victory over the centuries of humiliation by Western colonial empires, over Japanese imperialism, and in recent years, the United States and the West. This victory takes on many dimensions, all of them ostensibly to legitimize the party control of state. The dimension we’re concerned with here is the notion that Chinese people are somehow special on the world stage, a nation with unparalleled longevity.
It’s wrong to chalk all of this to the PRC since 1949, because it’s not as if they created the concept of Chinese superiority. That has a long and well documented past from the unification by the first emperor through centuries of receiving tribute from nearby states in South East Asia and Japan, through culturally assimilating their Mongol conquerors, to when strange smelling barbarians started making regular visits in the 17th century. However, the PRC currently holds the reins on compulsory education and to a large degree the academy, and so it would be fallacious to try and paint the concept of 5000 unbroken years of history as just a continuation of old perspectives. Chinese notions of superiority were smashed quite thoroughly during the “century of humiliation” 1850-1950.
Also, it’s wrong to attribute all dimensions of Chinese nationalism to the machinations of the Chinese Communist Party. In metaphor, they’re at the reins, not pulling puppet strings. If I were Chinese, I’d want to shake off the shame of the past and look forward to the future with confidence too. So the party steers the people where they already want to go.
So how do you rebound from a century of humiliation? Your innate awesomeness! If your people predate all of civilization then clearly you are quite special, destined for a bright future…with the help of the PRC’s enlightened leadership. Also, if you are the timeless and eternal, you can look down on those with shorter time spans like America, the West, and everyone else in the world whom you look up to in other areas. Status as an elder is even more crucial in the East than the West, and so if you are 5000 years old, then places only 1000 years old ought to respect you. And if all else fails, you can use your lengthy existence to project into the future, making you appear all but invincible. Poof, legitimacy in everything you do as a nation.
Of course, China does not deserve to rank itself above every other place on the planet. China has had advanced civilization within its current political boundaries for thousands of years. But so has India, the Middle East, Mediterranean, Northern Europe, and Tropical Africa. China developed agriculture within the same timeframe as our much touted “cradle of civilization” in Mesopotamia, but languished relative to the speed of development there and in Egypt. Diamond would tell us this is from a lack of certain cereal grain and livestock, but nonetheless, they don’t predate anyone else. If any current nation is able to claim 5000 years of history, it’s Iraq.
However, even Iraq and Mesopotamia couldn’t claim 5000 years back, because actual history, as in written records, devolves into uncertain mythology past 3000bc. Cuneiform is regarded as the most ancient form of writing on the planet, and it predates Chinese script by 1300 years.
It’s pretty ridiculous. Chinese paleoanthropologists spend a lot of their time trying to prove human remains like Peking Man predate discoveries in Africa and the Middle east, some fringe researchers even going so far as to argue Chinese people evolved independently from Cro Magnon. This is at odds with the preponderance of evidence, and represents a sorry example of how Chinese nationalism disconnects them from the mainstream of what’s going on elsewhere. In a scientific field, no less.
Arguing over dates and year lengths is a really fruitless exercise because Americans cannot claim advances made by Mesopotamians any more than current Chinese can claim credibility from their ancestors. The China of today is not culturally homogenous with the China of 3000bc. Much of today’s discourse concerns alarm at how rapidly Chinese youth are assimilating Western culture: eating at McDonalds, wearing Nikes, and for godsakes listening to rap! Even without the huge influence by the West, at best the Chinese of today are heirs of whatever non-Chinese culture existed in 3000bc. It certainly wasn’t Chinese, because the term China didn’t even exist before Qin unification in 220bc and the Han ethnicity (91% of mainland Chinese are Hanzu) had no name before the Han dynasty around 200bc. More on etymology here.
Like every piece of dirt on the planet, China has been long been occupied by people calling themselves something, practicing some culture that co-mingles and changes , under a political environment which fluxuates. China has been broken up and reunified. It has been conquered and liberated. It is not the monolithic and timeless entity that Chinese claim it to be. China does not have an unbroken history. Its historical legacy, however you measure, does not predate everyone. It does not have (over) 5000 years of history. And that’s okay.
Really I only object unquestioned bounds of the statement and not the spirit. In many ways China does have continuity, such as their pictographic language which has been in continual use since its origin--but not before writing existed. Chinese can still claim to have a really long line of dynasties which ruled over a relatively advanced society roughly in the same area in roughly the same way for a period roughly five fold longer than the nearest European challenger. But then one must answer the question “so what?”
My internet was too slow to log on to the OSU library academic resources. I beg your pardon for several links to Wikipedia.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
1. You should take medicine
There are three things that every Chinese person will say if you talk to him or her long enough. This will be a three-part post, because each one requires a day or two to unpack.
“You should take medicine.” In America this is said, but more commonly we implore each other to “go see a doctor.” But here in China, everyone is a doctor so they just cut to the chase and diagnose you. If you so much as cough, wipe your nose, clear your throat, sneeze, sniffle, yawn, frown, fart, or close your eyes, a Chinese person will suggest medicine. And not as a passive, helpful, FYI mention, but actively and with sincerity. *concerned face* “You really should take medicine.” This totally defeats the mystical or romantic notion I had of Chinese medicine and replaces it with overmedicated hypochondriac mania. Try insisting you’re "just sleepy" or telling someone you’re going to "tough it out." To a Chinese person it just makes you sound delirious resulting in increased calls for medicine and maybe even hot water as well. Before the first symptom of illness Chinese start chain-guzzling remedies in their tea, crunching on pills, and getting booster shots at the clinic. Caught in the rain? Did you get a chill? Quick, chemotherapy. Here, medicine is not just a panacea, but a preventative strike against viral infection. I can imagine Chinese treating broken limbs, brain damage, and cancer all with medicine alone.
I figure it stems from a poor understanding of germs and viruses. A Chinese person has no problem eating undercooked meat from a street vendor who is using his hands and cooking on unclean, never-sanitized equipment. They don’t flinch when munching at a small family restaurant and they bite down on some glass, rocks, or copper. But if you go outside in shorts in 60 degree weather your concerned friends will warn you that you should wear more clothes. “Wearing too few clothes makes you sick.”
This is from high school graduates.
Granted, the same kind of mommy-sense is passed down to American children too, but we understand that a lack of insulation makes our bodies burn more energy to keep warm, which can weaken our immune system, thus increase the chance our system is unable to stave off bacterial and viral infections. Chinese people yell at you when you open a window on a bus not because they’re cold and their immune system is threatened but because they think the illness fairy can get in. Meanwhile people cough all over the bus while I just stare at my closed window, watching condensation bead and fall down, wishing I wasn’t in a humid human petri dish.
After probing a friend and finding where her biological knowledge ended, I became quite curious about what kind of health education Chinese students get these days. They don’t study drug or alcohol use. They don’t study exercise or nutrition. They don’t study pregnancy, sex, or contraception. However, in biology they study cell reproduction, animal reproduction, and quickly breeze through an embarrassing section that explains the same process works in humans.
I can’t tell you how much this explains.
Of course, education is not one-size-fits all. Comparing our educational curriculum to others is tried and true in the West, but as failing to account for cultural differences reduces the analysis to a moral pat on the back, as is the case with Female Genital Mutilation. China seems to have its bases covered. Drug and alcohol abuse seems to be ameliorated to a large degree by culture where shame is a high crime and students are pushed too hard in school to ever pick up the habit. The traditional diet here does a good job of hitting the corners on the food pyramid, and city life, traditionally the only place sedentary lifestyles are attainable, doesn’t quite prohibit walking and cycling the way American cities do. Strong conservative mores regarding premarital sex probably discourage some teenage pregnancy and STI transmission, though there are no numbers to really say. Even if the government is keeping tabs, they surely aren’t going to report a disappointing picture. Moreover, I would wager the logistics of sex are stacked against teenagers and college students here who, even if they are sufficiently informed on technique from Western film and the internet, don’t have anywhere to go do it. They live at home or in dorms with 6 to a room. They don’t have cars to go park in. While it’s not hard to find kids making out on the streets and in dark corners at night, I don’t think I’ll ever find people actually having sex in public. And of course, family planning is easy to come by here, so any unwanted pregnancies that do occur are probably dealt with rather easily. This is all speculation on my part, based on very limited information.
Health curriculum is a lower priority in Chinese schools than subjects which can continue to propel its development, like math, science, and English. But, as China continues to raise its standard of living it is bound to have increasingly levels of obesity (already being noted in Chinese media) and as it consumes more Western media it is bound to have increasing sexual openness and a corresponding increase in incidents of unprotected sex. However, I would be shocked to see any notable increase in drug or alcohol abuse, because there are such high penalties for criminality and antisocial behavior, and because there are no statistics to speak of which one could monitor. Good ol’ ignorance is bliss. It works for the CCP and it works for graduates of Chinese schools who don’t have much in the way of a formal health education. It won’t work forever though. Eventually kids will need to know how to use condoms, and if it doesn’t come from school then it will have to come in an episode of Friends (the most popular show of people in college).
“You should take medicine.” In America this is said, but more commonly we implore each other to “go see a doctor.” But here in China, everyone is a doctor so they just cut to the chase and diagnose you. If you so much as cough, wipe your nose, clear your throat, sneeze, sniffle, yawn, frown, fart, or close your eyes, a Chinese person will suggest medicine. And not as a passive, helpful, FYI mention, but actively and with sincerity. *concerned face* “You really should take medicine.” This totally defeats the mystical or romantic notion I had of Chinese medicine and replaces it with overmedicated hypochondriac mania. Try insisting you’re "just sleepy" or telling someone you’re going to "tough it out." To a Chinese person it just makes you sound delirious resulting in increased calls for medicine and maybe even hot water as well. Before the first symptom of illness Chinese start chain-guzzling remedies in their tea, crunching on pills, and getting booster shots at the clinic. Caught in the rain? Did you get a chill? Quick, chemotherapy. Here, medicine is not just a panacea, but a preventative strike against viral infection. I can imagine Chinese treating broken limbs, brain damage, and cancer all with medicine alone.
I figure it stems from a poor understanding of germs and viruses. A Chinese person has no problem eating undercooked meat from a street vendor who is using his hands and cooking on unclean, never-sanitized equipment. They don’t flinch when munching at a small family restaurant and they bite down on some glass, rocks, or copper. But if you go outside in shorts in 60 degree weather your concerned friends will warn you that you should wear more clothes. “Wearing too few clothes makes you sick.”
This is from high school graduates.
Granted, the same kind of mommy-sense is passed down to American children too, but we understand that a lack of insulation makes our bodies burn more energy to keep warm, which can weaken our immune system, thus increase the chance our system is unable to stave off bacterial and viral infections. Chinese people yell at you when you open a window on a bus not because they’re cold and their immune system is threatened but because they think the illness fairy can get in. Meanwhile people cough all over the bus while I just stare at my closed window, watching condensation bead and fall down, wishing I wasn’t in a humid human petri dish.
After probing a friend and finding where her biological knowledge ended, I became quite curious about what kind of health education Chinese students get these days. They don’t study drug or alcohol use. They don’t study exercise or nutrition. They don’t study pregnancy, sex, or contraception. However, in biology they study cell reproduction, animal reproduction, and quickly breeze through an embarrassing section that explains the same process works in humans.
I can’t tell you how much this explains.
Of course, education is not one-size-fits all. Comparing our educational curriculum to others is tried and true in the West, but as failing to account for cultural differences reduces the analysis to a moral pat on the back, as is the case with Female Genital Mutilation. China seems to have its bases covered. Drug and alcohol abuse seems to be ameliorated to a large degree by culture where shame is a high crime and students are pushed too hard in school to ever pick up the habit. The traditional diet here does a good job of hitting the corners on the food pyramid, and city life, traditionally the only place sedentary lifestyles are attainable, doesn’t quite prohibit walking and cycling the way American cities do. Strong conservative mores regarding premarital sex probably discourage some teenage pregnancy and STI transmission, though there are no numbers to really say. Even if the government is keeping tabs, they surely aren’t going to report a disappointing picture. Moreover, I would wager the logistics of sex are stacked against teenagers and college students here who, even if they are sufficiently informed on technique from Western film and the internet, don’t have anywhere to go do it. They live at home or in dorms with 6 to a room. They don’t have cars to go park in. While it’s not hard to find kids making out on the streets and in dark corners at night, I don’t think I’ll ever find people actually having sex in public. And of course, family planning is easy to come by here, so any unwanted pregnancies that do occur are probably dealt with rather easily. This is all speculation on my part, based on very limited information.
Health curriculum is a lower priority in Chinese schools than subjects which can continue to propel its development, like math, science, and English. But, as China continues to raise its standard of living it is bound to have increasingly levels of obesity (already being noted in Chinese media) and as it consumes more Western media it is bound to have increasing sexual openness and a corresponding increase in incidents of unprotected sex. However, I would be shocked to see any notable increase in drug or alcohol abuse, because there are such high penalties for criminality and antisocial behavior, and because there are no statistics to speak of which one could monitor. Good ol’ ignorance is bliss. It works for the CCP and it works for graduates of Chinese schools who don’t have much in the way of a formal health education. It won’t work forever though. Eventually kids will need to know how to use condoms, and if it doesn’t come from school then it will have to come in an episode of Friends (the most popular show of people in college).
Monday, March 10, 2008
Chinese teachers are...
Very personable. For instance, I was playing hookey to write this post but my teacher called my room phone (instead of my cell which I can screen) and now I have to go to class. I suppose this violates my sense of privacy less than when she walked in on me taking a nap last semester.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
No one can leave until he or she asks me a question.
Last night came and went in a blur. I've rewound the tape and played it back in slow motion, and I still can't account for all the time, but a sizable portion of it was spent contemplating my future career in academia. Specifically, I was for the first time really seeing things from the other side--that is, not as a student but as a professor.
This sudden insight comes from rateyourstudents.blogspot.com, a blog I discovered after an interesting Techdirt post. It seems that while China hurtles itself toward the West culturally and economically, France continues to lead Europe toward socialism and totalitarianism by blocking ratemyprofessors.com. I've used the site to determine which section of a course to enroll in and to leave feedback for my favorite teachers. In particular I remember contradicting one girl who claimed professor Ip had an accent too thick to understand. Another time I mentioned that Mr. Wanke，a poor adjunct, was one of the most thought-provoking and funniest teachers I've ever had. I did what I could to help him on the official course evaluation but found it insufficient and took my appreciation to the 'nets too.
It's fascinating to realize the kinds of concerns and issues professors face teaching at a university setting. We students get whiffs of frustration while reading syllabi underlined and bolded until a white page is black and from listening to our professors start stories each class session with "every term at least one student...." But these are professional cautions. They lack the candor of what's on ratemystudents: the stomach-turning vitrol; the dejected, jaded, and hopeless rants; and the darkest fears a student could entertain.
The first hour was defeating. My rosy future turned a sickening shade of Beijing smog. I've only been teaching English for a few weeks, but I could already sympathize with a post which referred to the manor in which a class stares back at you like "caged animals." Rather, my caged animals are fiercely domesticated Korean kids too embarrassed to speak up in a classroom, let alone in English. They spend most of class locked in a staring contest with their desk, and I'm not even lecturing. I'm asking them questions, making wild hand gestures and being funny. But when they laugh they suppress it and nuzzle closer to the teat on their desk.
I suppose that means they're listening and I should be happy. But my real challenge isn't that they listen, because there isn't a single sound in the building which could prevent that, but that they're comprehending. You see, I teach TOEFL speaking and writing. It's a college admission test for studying in the US and other countries, like a language SAT. All of my students are 16-18, and they have been studying English on average for, get this, 3 months to 1 year. Some of them can barely understand directions in the classroom like "I'm going to read the sample now, take notes, listening for the five problems and their solutions." As a result, teaching this class is much different than I envisioned.
It's still very rewarding though. When one of them sputters out something that might actually pass for English I am elated. Particularly when they sputter, and I give them five minutes to write down what they're going to say, then have them read it off the page, it comes very close to being something that might score on an actual TOEFL test.
But the kids aren't to blame. I'm learning on the job, but my job isn't to teach English, it's to teach TOEFL. Which puts me in an odd place since English should be a prerequisite, but it's not. The only prerequisite is that parents pay the school money so the 20something guy running it can not provide books for the students and not pay me. Then their children sit in fear for 3 hours a week, and everyone is happy.
In order to facilitate a warm environment we circle the desks each class. I'm trying to break the conception that a teacher talks down to students which is the paradigm in Korea, Japan, and China. Afterall, if they one day succeed on the TOEFL they will be studying in a Western country, so I may as well give them a more Western classroom environment now. So that they'll get comfortable asking questions I don't let anyone leave until they ask me something. Anything. What my favorite color is. What I did this weekend. What I think about China. Where I bought my pants. So far this creative and funny strategy has not encouraged a single question about English, not even over email.
Fortunately new students are trickling in, and so far none of them have had less English than a month. So if the trend continues eventually the average might be somewhere around 1 year, which is about how long it takes 16 year olds to get college-level proficient in a foreign language.
Anyway, after reading more and more at ratemystudents I've gotten pretty angry and determined to be a good teacher should I one day become one. I find the perspectives expressed in many of the posts horrendous and lacking in the skills we expect of college students, like recognizing logical fallacies and failing their critical thinking roll. But I'm also unfortunately old enough to know how fleeting idealistic zeal can be, so I'll cross my fingers and keep my eyes on the pie in the sky.
This sudden insight comes from rateyourstudents.blogspot.com, a blog I discovered after an interesting Techdirt post. It seems that while China hurtles itself toward the West culturally and economically, France continues to lead Europe toward socialism and totalitarianism by blocking ratemyprofessors.com. I've used the site to determine which section of a course to enroll in and to leave feedback for my favorite teachers. In particular I remember contradicting one girl who claimed professor Ip had an accent too thick to understand. Another time I mentioned that Mr. Wanke，a poor adjunct, was one of the most thought-provoking and funniest teachers I've ever had. I did what I could to help him on the official course evaluation but found it insufficient and took my appreciation to the 'nets too.
It's fascinating to realize the kinds of concerns and issues professors face teaching at a university setting. We students get whiffs of frustration while reading syllabi underlined and bolded until a white page is black and from listening to our professors start stories each class session with "every term at least one student...." But these are professional cautions. They lack the candor of what's on ratemystudents: the stomach-turning vitrol; the dejected, jaded, and hopeless rants; and the darkest fears a student could entertain.
The first hour was defeating. My rosy future turned a sickening shade of Beijing smog. I've only been teaching English for a few weeks, but I could already sympathize with a post which referred to the manor in which a class stares back at you like "caged animals." Rather, my caged animals are fiercely domesticated Korean kids too embarrassed to speak up in a classroom, let alone in English. They spend most of class locked in a staring contest with their desk, and I'm not even lecturing. I'm asking them questions, making wild hand gestures and being funny. But when they laugh they suppress it and nuzzle closer to the teat on their desk.
I suppose that means they're listening and I should be happy. But my real challenge isn't that they listen, because there isn't a single sound in the building which could prevent that, but that they're comprehending. You see, I teach TOEFL speaking and writing. It's a college admission test for studying in the US and other countries, like a language SAT. All of my students are 16-18, and they have been studying English on average for, get this, 3 months to 1 year. Some of them can barely understand directions in the classroom like "I'm going to read the sample now, take notes, listening for the five problems and their solutions." As a result, teaching this class is much different than I envisioned.
It's still very rewarding though. When one of them sputters out something that might actually pass for English I am elated. Particularly when they sputter, and I give them five minutes to write down what they're going to say, then have them read it off the page, it comes very close to being something that might score on an actual TOEFL test.
But the kids aren't to blame. I'm learning on the job, but my job isn't to teach English, it's to teach TOEFL. Which puts me in an odd place since English should be a prerequisite, but it's not. The only prerequisite is that parents pay the school money so the 20something guy running it can not provide books for the students and not pay me. Then their children sit in fear for 3 hours a week, and everyone is happy.
In order to facilitate a warm environment we circle the desks each class. I'm trying to break the conception that a teacher talks down to students which is the paradigm in Korea, Japan, and China. Afterall, if they one day succeed on the TOEFL they will be studying in a Western country, so I may as well give them a more Western classroom environment now. So that they'll get comfortable asking questions I don't let anyone leave until they ask me something. Anything. What my favorite color is. What I did this weekend. What I think about China. Where I bought my pants. So far this creative and funny strategy has not encouraged a single question about English, not even over email.
Fortunately new students are trickling in, and so far none of them have had less English than a month. So if the trend continues eventually the average might be somewhere around 1 year, which is about how long it takes 16 year olds to get college-level proficient in a foreign language.
Anyway, after reading more and more at ratemystudents I've gotten pretty angry and determined to be a good teacher should I one day become one. I find the perspectives expressed in many of the posts horrendous and lacking in the skills we expect of college students, like recognizing logical fallacies and failing their critical thinking roll. But I'm also unfortunately old enough to know how fleeting idealistic zeal can be, so I'll cross my fingers and keep my eyes on the pie in the sky.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
But I am le tired...
Today while returning from the cafeteria with some delicious food to go I found myself repeatedly hearing “Frenchman! Frenchman!” This is not particularly compelling conversation, nor is it my name, so I continued walking ahead, thinking about the times I have had cab drivers tell me they thought I was French. One time I was with a Chinese girl, which the cabbie suggested meant I was romantic like a Frenchman, but another time I was alone. I asked him why he thought I was French and he gestured to my Carhartt jacket, which is about as American as a brand of clothing can be. It’s an American company worn predominantly by American farmboys. It’s rugged, functional, and I would say highly unfashionable, which collectively defeat the French stereotype, right? Right? Just then I hear someone yelling again, “he’s French!” I'm happy just to find my Chinese comprehension has grown increasingly disruptive of my thought bubbles, but given my proclivity for French airs, I thought I ought to turn around, just in case the yelling was regarding moi.
And it was. I proceed to chat a bit with a group of three French students with one of the girls refusing to believe I wasn’t really French. I explained that I had already met two of them last term at a party. To demonstrate I asked one, “your name is Lamia, right?” Unfortunately the proper pronunciation of her name cemented the suspicion. I must be French. No buts about it. Raised in America by sandwich makers. It’s just who I am.
Je suis français. You didn’t know it, nor did I. You just liked me for who I was, but as it turns out, you liked someone who was French. On the otherhand, this development presents a challenge since so many of my social interactions here in China are oriented toward presenting an American face to foreigners and Chinese. I live in an international nexus. Above me are four floors of Uzbeks, Russians, Kyrgyzstanis, Europeans, and below are floors of Japanese and Koreans (floor 8 and below are all squatty potties). I am likely to be only one American in the handful that any given person will meet in their life. This is a weighty burden for someone who understands how memes reproduce and die. Everything else they know will come from media, especially media generated in their own country, which predominantly provides the meat of the errors I must correct, stereotypes to break, or learning to do.
So let this be my motto, La souris est sous la table, le chat est sous la chaise, le singe est sur la branche.
And it was. I proceed to chat a bit with a group of three French students with one of the girls refusing to believe I wasn’t really French. I explained that I had already met two of them last term at a party. To demonstrate I asked one, “your name is Lamia, right?” Unfortunately the proper pronunciation of her name cemented the suspicion. I must be French. No buts about it. Raised in America by sandwich makers. It’s just who I am.
Je suis français. You didn’t know it, nor did I. You just liked me for who I was, but as it turns out, you liked someone who was French. On the otherhand, this development presents a challenge since so many of my social interactions here in China are oriented toward presenting an American face to foreigners and Chinese. I live in an international nexus. Above me are four floors of Uzbeks, Russians, Kyrgyzstanis, Europeans, and below are floors of Japanese and Koreans (floor 8 and below are all squatty potties). I am likely to be only one American in the handful that any given person will meet in their life. This is a weighty burden for someone who understands how memes reproduce and die. Everything else they know will come from media, especially media generated in their own country, which predominantly provides the meat of the errors I must correct, stereotypes to break, or learning to do.
So let this be my motto, La souris est sous la table, le chat est sous la chaise, le singe est sur la branche.
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