Closing Notes on Tianjin

Thank you those of you who have written recently. As always these posts are late, disorganized, and un- proofread. I apologize on all of those points. There are only a couple of things I would like to say about our last couple days in Tianjin.

First, in true Minnesotan fashion, the weather. Tianjin has a serious pollution problem. Honestly, after a weekend in Beijing I pine for some nice, crisp, clean Beijing air. There is a large needle-like antenna-tower-thing behind our dorm that should be able to be seen from the entire college. I was in my dorm a couple of days ago I honestly couldn’t see it. It’s a huge tower a block behind my dorm AND I COULDN’T SEE IT. I was even wearing my glasses. The Chinese bicyclists sometimes wear facemasks and stuff, but, honestly, the only solution that I’ve managed to come up with is to convince myself that Tianjin is the sister city of San Francisco. Keep saying “It’s just the fog” and it seems fine. I also love how the Chinese grade their weather. They say things like “Today’s air is not good.” Not only does the air sound sick but also sounds somehow morally lacking. Also, calling air that turns my snot black “not good” is understatement on the level of Hawaii being humid and the polar ice caps being a mite chilly. I was running a couple of days ago and I am pretty sure I got acid sweat. I looked outside and was like, I can almost see my hands, it’s just the morning fog at three in the afternoon, and I have a lot of energy, I am going for a run. Chinese people, by the way, don’t go jogging they believe such frivolous activities should be done on treadmills indoors and, after the run, I quite agree. I got all dressed up and was running quite fast when I felt pricklings on my skin. Then slowly as I continued running I realized that all parts of my body that were sweating had dull burn that was very uncomfortable. It took me five minutes to name the feeling acid sweat. I hate to think what the air is doing to my lungs.

Second, my Chinese friend. From the outset of the program we were assigned Chinese friends to help us with homework. I gave her a call before the midterm to meet up with her and ask a few questions. She is an excellent conversationalist whose English is sufficiently good that speaking Chinese is both embarrassing and counterproductive. To get into college here you need to be able to speak a good deal of English so basically all students want to practice their English with the ‘foreigner’ anyway. We met up a couple of times after that. She had a couple funny things that she said. One, in the middle of one of our conversations she leaned across the table with a self-satisfied, conspiratorial smile and said, “I know someone who believes in God.” I tried to keep from laughing as I congratulated her. That’s a sentence I don’t hear very often. Second, the Chinese are very interested in the US election taking place right now. At some point she asked me who I was supporting in the presidential election and I mentioned that I had worked for the Obama campaign during the Iowa primaries. She looked at me and, with a somewhat professorial tone, asserted that Obama was a rather unsavory word for African-American. She then asked me if I hated such people. The easy part of the response was to say no. The hard part was to form an explanation to her questioning and somewhat skeptical eyes and her repeated usage the offensive word before mentioned. I think even if she was convinced as to my lack of racism (which is unlikely) I am positive that she is convinced that every other white American (including my classmates) have a Confederate flag tattooed somewhere on their bodies and attend lynching after church every Sunday. It’s disturbing in the face of those misapprehensions that the Chinese still like America.

Third, Jingju. On the final day of Jingju (Peking Opera Class) those of us who felt like it paid 50 kuai to dressed up and painted in the traditional Chinese opera style. The pictures are, I think, self explanatory. I was lame and studied for my test.

Fourth, finals. The Chinese culture final was interesting. We were told a couple days before the test a list of poems, names, and idioms to memorize. Although, the amount needed to be memorized was fairly large, we study Chinese. This is the kind of academics we are good at-- bulk memorization. I left it with the distinct feeling that I had somehow cheated. I memorized it all and then evacuated it from my brain onto the page as quickly as possible. The class itself is fascinating. My initial impression was that it was like a history class only minus dates and facts. However, really our textbook is wonderful and provides a summary of all history. The class has nothing to do with it. The class is about what the Chinese tell their children the history is. It is the legends, the scraps of poetry, the idioms, and, of course, the field trips to actual sites. We also had an essay which was very manageable. Everything is graded very easily.

Before coming to China, I had been told that the Tianjin program was basically a vacation. This was in no way why I wanted to go but I was told explicitly that the academics were not in the least bit rigorous and that Zhao Laoshi was occasionally hard to find. Both these statements do not represent my experience in the slightest. The workload is at the same time manageable and impossible. Yes, you could put almost no effort into the class and end up with a decent grade, but, that’s not the point. To live up to the teachers’ expectations of how much we should retain and understand to the core of our souls I would need to work literally every spare moment I have. Especially for those of us in the class who either have not been in China all summer, or whose parents don’t speak to them exclusively in Chinese. The grammar surprisingly enough is often what strikes me as difficult. The book lacks any explanation of grammar and considers a single example sentence to be sufficient preparation for tests. Our homeworks almost exclusively cover things we do not discuss until after we have handed them in. It is not the hardest class I’ve taken but it is far from the spoon fed A that I had been told so much about. It also often feels that not only are we cramming to much information to retain but I honestly, occasionally, think that the class is worsening my Chinese. I just spend too much time doing homework and not enough talking to Chinese people. Second, Zhao Laoshi is, one, easy to find and, two, very actively involved in our lives. He treated us all to bubble tea and made himself available for questions the night before the final. I see him almost everyday either on the walk to breakfast or leaving the gym or something that he has planned. The program has been without any serious problems and Zhao Laoshi has always been available to talk with and has been more than sympathetic to all questions and problems people have had.

Finally, karaoke. Chris and David performed in an international students singing competition. The wowed the world (and what seemed like the entire population of Nankai University) with an inspired rendition of some sappy Chinese pop song. Pointing at various girls in the audience when lyrics like “I love you” came up (the girls usually responded by laughing, turning red, shaking their heads and saying “No”) and throwing candy into the audience.