立冬
Posted by wangbo in admin, life in Beijing, weather on November 7, 2009
And so today is 立冬, the start of winter. After a week of obssessively bleeding radiators to try and encourage hot water to come through the pipes, only for cold water to drip out, we seem to have some heat.
Well, not so much “heat” as “not cold”. Still, it’s enough that the temperature inside our apartment climbed to 17 degrees last night, and 18 degrees by the time I got up this morning. It’s amazing how much of a difference those precious few degrees of warmth make. Waking up to 15 degrees was chilly, prompting me to crank up the aircon so we could start the day warm. Going to bed at 16 degrees had us shivering and huddling together to try and get warm. And as our radiators get less and less “not cold” and more and more “actually quite warm”, perhaps the situation will continue to improve.
But based on last winter’s experience, another cold snap will have us back down to 16 degrees pretty quickly.
Waking up, I looked at my cellphone. Twentysomething past six. Surely not, it’s still pitch dark outside! I snuck a peak out the window. Aha:
Lack of wind + the city’s central heating boilers firing up (many of which still burn coal) = ever thickening haze.
Understood. The sky did slowly, weakly lighten as the sun tried to penetrate the haze.
Curious: Yesterday saw a veritable torrent of hits to this blog coming from one particular American IP address. These hits are listed as “feeds” and have lead to an utterly absurd spike in the stats. The IP address in question seems to be connected to this page, which I can’t open (indeed, other links from what seems to be the site’s main page also behave as if they’re GFW’d). The torrent seems to be continuing this morning. I can’t see anything objectionable about that site, I’m just kinda curious as to what is causing this sudden surge in the stats.
three
Three headlines grabbed my attention this morning:
Beijing: CCTV building soon repaired. Actually, I don’t care too much about this, but that burnt-out shell has been sitting there for so long… If, as the article says the architect claims, the structure is basically sound and it is salvageable, then cool, salvage it.
And in not-so-good news: 5.0 earthquake in Yunnan, 28 injured, Civil Affairs Bureau launches level 4 response. The quake hit Bingchuan, up near Dali, at 5:07am yesterday. No reports of deaths, at least not in that article, which is fortunate- and hopefully it stays fortunate- but there are plenty of damaged houses. Relief supplies are being rushed in.
Better news: 60% of central heating boilers already lit, won’t be stopped if weather warms up. To be honest, I haven’t even read that one yet. As soon as I read the headline I sprinted madly round the apartment bleeding the radiators. There was much hissing of slightly pressurised air coming out, followed by water. Cold water, but hey, that means there’s water in the pipes, and hopefully the cold water will soon be followed by hot. I did notice smoke coming from a heating plant not far north of here yesterday. I can’t see any other chimneys from my apartment, but I will be looking out for them and hope to see plumes of smoke. And I hope to soon feel heat coming out my radiators.
snow!
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study, life in Beijing, weather on November 1, 2009
All Saints’ Day. I wake up a bit after 7, properly awake, no way to get back to sleep, so I get up. My wife was still sleeping, so I left her in peace, wandered in to the lounge room, open the curtains, and
SNOW!
It’s snowing! I knew it had suddenly got cold yesterday, but yesterday was dry, clear blue sky, and I didn’t realised it had suddenly gotten that cold. And snow on November 1, isn’t that a little early?
So I fire up the computer and start brewing tea. I sign into Kaixin001 and see Guoan won the championship, Chen Lin is dead, and a video of a Chinese guy (Sun somebody) who plays football in England making a most impressive save, sprinting back and getting a foot to the ball just in time to prevent the goal.
lzh woke up and asked if it was raining. No, I say. Don’t lie, she says. Go look for yourself. Snow! But Ma and Ba haven’t sold the apples yet! Will snow freeze the apples? I don’t know. So she phones home and her dad says it’s only sleeting up in Yanqing. That I do not understand. Yanqing is colder than Beijing. If it’s snowing here, how could it only be sleeting up there?
And then I learn a new word. lzh is still much perturbed by the snow, and asks maybe if it’s some kind of 冤情. What? 冤情. Yeah, but what’s that? Eventually I get an answer, and she tells me a legend of some guy who died in June, and so it snowed, apparently the snow being Heaven’s tears. Fine, but what does 冤情 (yuānqíng) mean? Nciku says it’s “Facts of an injustice”, while CNKI says simply “grievance”. The dead tree dictionary next to me agrees with Nciku.
And what’s this legend? I try searching Baidu Baike. No luck. Baidu Guoxue. Still none. Well, I’d only just started looking when lzh says she’ll find me the story, and here it is on Baidu Zhidao. And that rankles. My students know from long and repeated experience that if they ever suggest Baidu Zhidao as a possible means of researching their essay topics, I will immediately respond 百度什么都不知道 (Baidu knows nothing)! Oh well, at least I can read the story, now, assuming of course that the answer Baidu flags as best is accurate. Anyway, it’s the story of a young woman who was unjustly executed, and as a result, it snowed in June. Something like that.
And I learn another new word: 昭雪 – to exonerate or rehabilitate. Interesting.
Meanwhile, the snow changes from the usual Beijing-style tiny little flakes to gigantic, fluffy snow, and the paths, which still had too much heat for the snow to settle on them, seem to have cooled enough to allow the snow to start piling up there, too. The usual low rumble of buses passing along Xidawang Lu is only a faint whisper.
one love
Posted by wangbo in Uncategorized on October 30, 2009
I think this is about the awesomest thing I’ve seen online all year.
erhuaing the fenqing
Posted by wangbo in Chinese study on October 30, 2009
Maybe I should’ve snuck a recording and submitted it to the good folks at Beijing Sounds…. Anyways, my wife just said:
愤青儿
Yes, with a full, classic, and entirely natural, uncontrived, Beijing 儿化音 (rhoticization? is that the right word?) on the end. And so, naturally, one wonders what the R means here? Is it some kind of diminutive? Indicating what? Familiarity? Or is it perhaps a little belittling?
And what sparked this off was the need to explain ‘misanthrope‘ to her- a word I know only in English and French (a word which would be the same, just pronounced differently in those two languages).
Why? Because I’ve been in a rather misanthropic mood today. Well, alright, “misanthrope” is my default setting, but I haven’t had the energy to keep up any pretence of sociability today.
Anyway, lzh seems to equate ‘misanthrope’ with ‘愤青’ (angry youth) – an equation that does not sit well with me. Misanthropes may be often grumpy and generally prickly round the edges, but in my experience they tend to be highly rational individuals. The angry youth, so far as I can tell, don’t do reason or logic very well, placing the emphasis on irrational outbursts of anger. I still haven’t managed to figure out what that anger is about or where it comes from, as they seem to be generally from affluent, urban backgrounds.
Still, it seems to me that developed countries in general have an overabundance of irrationally angry young people, so perhaps we should take the emergence of the angry youth as a sign of China’s development?
Whatever, I was just surprised and intrigued to hear ‘angry youth’ given the Beijing R-treatment.
heating contracts
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, news on October 30, 2009
新京报/The Beijing News reports on an interesting little development in Beijing’s central heating: Contracts. TBN’s Du Ding reports:
“供热合同”出台 供暖不达标将向市民赔偿
“Heating contract” promulgated. Citizens to be compensated if heating not up to standard.
北京今年出台“供热合同”,明年试行,今冬供暖11月7日点火试运行
Beijing promulgates “heating contract” this year, to be trialled next year, this winter heating to be lit November 7 for trial operation.
今后供暖期,供热单位将和市民签订“供热合同”,昨天,北京市市政市容管理委员会供热办主任郭维圻做客“首都之窗”时表示,为保障供热双方利益,今年北京将出台“供热合同”,明年试行并推广。内容包括供热企业达不到合同规定标准,将给市民赔偿等。
In the upcoming heating period heating companies will sign a “heating contract” with citizens. Beijing Municipal Cityscape Management Committee Heating Office chairman Guo Weiqi said yesterday as a guest on eBeijing (English) that in order to guarantee the interests of both parties, this year Beijing will promulgate a “heating contract” to be tested and promoted next year. The contents will include a requirement for heating companies to compensate citizens if they don’t reach the required standard.
今年出台“供热合同”
“Heating contract” promulgated this year
每年供暖期,都会发生部分市民、单位因嫌供热单位供热不到位而拒交供热费;一些供暖企业因收不到供暖费便降低供热质量。郭维圻表示,针对此问题,北京市 将通过立法的形式加以规范和完善,“立法过程中就要建立合同制度。”据介绍,该“供热合同”将由市民与供暖单位签订,如果供热企业达不到合同规定的标准, 将会给予市民相应的赔偿等。
In every year’s heating period there are some citizens and units that feel the heat supplied by heating companies is not up to standard and so refuse to pay the heating bill; some heating companies, because they don’t receive heating fees, lower the quality of heating. Guo Weiqi said that, with this problem in mind, Beijing would set standards and perfect the system through a legislative form. “We need to establish a contractual system in the legislative process.” It is said that this “heating contract” will be signed by citizens and heating companies, and that if heating companies don’t meet the standards stipulated in the contract, they will have to appropriately compensate citizens.
62357575供暖热线将开通
Heating hotline 62357575 opened
[eliding a paragraph- I don’t think we need a rundown on how much gas and coal is ready to be burned to keep us warm]
李楠表示,全市各个供热应急抢修队伍11月7日开始实行24小时值班。另外,从11月7日起将向社会开通市级供热服务热线:62357575。各区县政府大型供热企业和单位,也要同时对社会公布服务电话。
Li Nan [note: a member of the Beijing Municipal Cityscape Management Committee] said that all the city’s heating emergency repair teams would start implementing 24 hour duty from November 7. Also, from November 7 a city-level heating service hotline, 62357575, would be opened to the public. Every district and county government’s large-scale heating company will also need to publicly announce a service phone number at the same time.
Notes:
- 北京市市政市容管理委员会- well, I found their website easily enough, but I couldn’t figure out why, although their address (bjmac!) was clearly based on an English name, no English name was apparent, even if only in tiny type in the logo. So I just made up a name, and I think “cityscape” sounds way cooler than “Municipal Appearance Committee” or whatever it’s supposed to be.
- 北京市 将通过立法的形式加以规范和完善- I wound up just having to mangle that. If anybody has better suggestions, comment.
- I used “heating company” for every word referring to any kind of organisation responsible for supplying heat for simplicity’s sake.
- Yeah, I know, that last sentence I translated uglily.
Anyway, it’s good to know there’s likely to be hot water running through our radiators from November 7 and that they’re working to set and improve heating standards. Last winter our apartment hovered around the 15/16 degree mark on the coldest days and it was occasionally necessary to crank up the aircon.
through the window of a bbq restaurant
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing, random on October 24, 2009
So as midday approached and my stomach grew insistent I started thinking, well, I haven’t been to the barbeque restaurant recently. The somewhat controlled tumble downstairs met me with a colleague, who was also hungry, and planning to meet another colleague in 10 minutes outside. And so I sat in the garden waiting. Then a neighbour, girl of 7 or 8 came out looking for our puppy, and, on being told that we’d taken the puppy up to the village, decided to practice long jump. The first colleague came back downstairs, followed by a third and a fourth (we were waiting for the one who has a slightly different understanding of “10 minutes”), and so this rather small neighbour decided to play with us games involving string wrapped around fingers. Eventually the one we were waiting for appeared, and so I and three colleagues (the third was on his way somewhere, but the fourth we managed to ensnare) headed off to our friendly, neighbourhood dead-things-on-sticks-roasted-over-charcoal restaurant, leaving the small neighbour with her mother who had conveniently arrived just as we were heading off for lunch.
And so there was lunch. It involved, as you’ve probably guessed, various dead things skewered on thin sticks and roasted over charcoal. It was good. But they all had things to rush off to, one to the airport and two in search of clothing to ward off the menacingly increasing cold. That left me in a state I quite enjoy: Staring out the window at the passings by.
The restaurant is down a lane a short walk north of our estate. It’s a lane marked by a hotel at its eastern end, a hotel built over what was a very stinky canal not too many years ago, but whose extent west of Xidawang Lu was encased in a tunnel, and a hotel which houses, along its northern side, the restaurant in which I was sitting. Beyond the hotel are a few restaurants in what should be temporary accomodation- those kitset buildings build around a steel framwork with steel/polystyrene/steel walls used for workers’ housing on construction sites or temporary refuge in disaster zones. Then there’s a construction site, a low-rise building going up on what has been mostly waste land for quite some time. That’s followed by a patch of land going to waste largely because of the low-slung high-tension power line that crosses it, followed by apartment buildings built any time between the 1950s and the 1990s- nothing new, and all very well established neighbourhoods.
Along the north side of the lane is all apartment blocks, largely the same as those along the western extent of the southern side of the lane, punctuated by that high-tension power line and a primary school.
But I sat in the restaurant just a few metres in from the eastern end of the lane looking northwards onto two housing estates. The nearest was the oldest, and of an age that is hard to guess. It could be anywhere from 15 to 50 years old, judging by the style, although I would guess closer to 15. No bricks were in evidence, but I would assume that’s because the bricks had been coated with cement and then painted. I’ve never been able to tell if they intended the buildings to be a faded pink with white trim or white with a faded pink trim. Most windows on the first, second and third floors, and many on higher floors, of course, were covered in steel cages intended to keep burglars out. Most first floor residents had, naturally, enclosed a bit of extra space as some kind of yard or an extra room, with the residents of one apartment having claimed quite a large area behind a concrete wall with jerry-rigged looking windows and a slapdash asbestos tile roof held in place by pieces of brick. In the neighbouring building one resident family, having found themselves on the end of the building, had put an outside door in the side of their “extra” room and an old armchair next to that door, where grandpa spent the time I sat staring out the restaurant window sitting and observing the passing world.
Two floors above that extra large “extra” room was what I first thought to be a balcony craftily converted into a pigeon coop that allowed the birds a certain freedom of movement and room for exercise. A second look showed it wasn’t a balcony, but one of those anti-burglar cages custom made to give about twice as much space between window and bar with a sheet or two of plywood laid across the bottom. A wooden box had been place at one end to give the pigeons a nesting space, but the pigeons had room to flit about within the cage. I presume there was a door to let them out to fly around in the open sky, as most urban Beijing pigeon coops have, but from my angle I couldn’t see it.
The restaurant is directly opposite what seems to be the main entrance to that faded pink/white estate. There are no major gates to it on Xidawang Lu, just one big enough to allow cars, but with wrought iron gates permanently closed to all but pedestrian traffic. On the north side is a very new housing development, and along the west is a lane just as small as the one running along the southern side, which took me to and from the restaurant, but considerably more isolated from the bigger roads.
Pedestrians, cars, bicycles, tricycles, and scooters both electric and two-stroke petrol came and went for reasons personal and commercial. A white VW Jetta with Henan licence plates entered. Last I heard, cars registered outside Beijing needed a special permit to enter the capital. I don’t know how that works or how that is obtained, but I can understand people resident in Beijing registering cars in Hebei or Tianjin, obtaining that permit, and driving here. But surely Henan is a bit far away for that to be practical? But then again, I regularly see a car with Guangdong plates parked on the side of the next lane south of there.
That new development immediately north of the faded pink/white complex I have watched grow from the hole-in-the-ground phase to basically complete. Last time I went past its northern face it was still a construction site, but one in the final stages of finishing off and polishing up. Judging by the number of curtained windows and aircon units on balconies I saw today, they must be very well into the process of delivering units to buyers. But whereas this faded pink/white 5-storey complex immediately to its south looks organic, like an established community, the new complex looks modern, tan, sterile, and clinical. I guess it takes time for a development to become a community.
ppt dependency
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on October 23, 2009
“Tear down the multi-media classrooms!” a student cries at the start of this article by Xiong Bingqi on 思想国@21世纪评论. What could this be about? As Xiong states:
这让我很吃惊,因为那时全国各地的大学,正推行多媒体“先进现代教育技术”,鼓励教师上课用PPT,用多媒体技术,其好处据说很多——可以让教室很环保, 老师不用吃粉笔灰;可以图文并茂,图像、视频、音频并用,让讲课丰富多彩;可以点击链接,与网络连接,延伸学习,大大拓展上课空间;可以与异地学校课堂交 互,获得完全不同的上课感受……
This really surprised me because at that time universities throughout China were implementing multimedia “advanced modern educational technology”, encouraging teachers to use powerpoint in class. Apparently there are many advantages to using multimedia technology in class- it’s more environmentally friendly, the teacher doesn’t need to eat chalk dust; you can use pictures and text, images, video and audio can be used all at once, making the lesson rich and varied; you can click links, connect to the internet, extending learning, greatly expanding the class space; you can interact with classrooms in other places, getting a completely different experience of class…..
First a few translation notes:
- I don’t know what the English usage is outside of my own immediate work environment, but ‘PPT’ seems to be the common Chinese way of referring to powerpoint presentations.
- 图文并茂, according to the dictionary, is used to refer to books, magazines, etc, and means “both pictures and texts are excellent”. It’s Friday morning, and I’m not yet caffeinated enough to find a better way of rendering that into English than “you can use pictures and text”. Maybe I should use coffee rather than longjing tea to fuel my translations….
- Chinese university classrooms still largely use blackboards and chalk, and believe me, environmental concerns aside, eating chalkdust is one of the bigger occupational hazards of teaching here. That chalkdust is incredibly efficient at drying out the skin on your face and hands and your throat- the throat’s the worst, though, as that, apart from shredding your voice, increases your susceptibility to colds and flus, and when you look at the students’ living conditions….. Teaching in China gives your immune system a good, solid workout.
Anyway, when I read this yesterday morning (I didn’t have time to post on it then, and had no energy after class yesterday afternoon), I was intrigued. See, I’m too lazy to use powerpoint much- for one thing, my first several years teaching I had a desk, blackboard and chalk. Heck, I had classrooms in Taiyuan that had no electricity and lights that went on and off according to the whim of somebody in some other room. Secondly, I find that powerpoint drastically increases the time spent preparing lessons. All that fiddling around with text, images, video, audio…. and despite the obvious advantages of multimedia, the actual benefit to the lesson outcomes is not always worth it. Yes, pictures, graphs, video, audio, maps, and all that can be extremely useful for boosting the students’ understanding of an issue, but I mostly teach academic writing. For that I find a good old-fashioned blackboard and chalk combined with working the classroom talking to students individually far more useful than fancy multimedia stuff, and word at least as good as powerpoint.
But the explanation comes: Apparently a lot of teachers have used the multimedia as an excuse to get lazy. Just borrow somebody else’s ppt, chuck it on the multimedia, and work off of that, no need to prepare. And if there’s a powercut…. you’re screwed. The result is students who, powerless to rage against their teachers and the system that allows them to continue “teaching”, vent their fury on the bloody multimedia classrooms. The machines can’t retaliate (yet), so they’re a safe target.
Xiong points out that, obviously, one cannot cure this “ppt dependency” (PPT依赖症) that lazy teachers have developed by simply ripping the multimedia technology out of the classrooms. The problem is in the system, so clearly the system needs to be fixed so that lazy teachers can’t use the technology as a crutch. He offers up a comparison that I find interesting:
America. In the American system, he says, universities have to compete for students and students have a lot more freedom to choose their university and then to transfer if they are not satisfied with their first choice. This keeps the universities on their toes, and although America, too, has its university staff who’d rather not see the inside of a classroom, the pressure is there to perform.
Fair enough, and it would be nice to see students here offered more choice as to what they study, where, and how they arrange their courses. But one can’t simply import some foreign system and expect it to work. Considering America’s own not small population, I can’t figure out how their university admissions departments work…. Surely they must find themselves buried under whole rainforests’ worth of paper? How do they process all of that? Vast armies of highly trained oompa-loompas?
In any case, I was intrigued by the article and found it provoking a thought or two. Firstly, it confirmed a suspicion I’ve long held that much of this new technology is little more than gimmickry. Let me explain: In the hands of good, dedicated, motivated teachers, the technology can be very useful for improving educational outcomes. But here’s the thing: Good teachers will get good results regardless of the technology used. The technology, be it a blackboard and chalk or a computer, projector and screen, is simply a tool. The tool itself is a mere object. The results depend on how the tool is used, not what the tool is.
Some people seem to think that “kids today” have somehow magically changed and we need to be using fancy electronic stuff to reach them. Nonsense. When I was a student the lazy students would skip class, read books or newspapers, or generally just not really listen much, maybe take a few token notes at best. Instead of reviewing or working on assignments, they’d go to cafes or pubs or watch TV or read books or…. My students now, if they’re lazy, play with cellphones, skip class, read books or newspapers, sleep, or generally just not really listen much. Instead of reviewing or working on assignments, they’ll play basketball or go to the internet bar or watch TV or download and watch pirated movies or…. Whether I use blackboard and chalk or computer and powerpoint, those who are motivated pay attention and study, those who are not, don’t. Using fancy technology doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to how many students pay attention or how attentive they are. The change is in the range of methods students can use to not study, not some magical difference in the students.
Secondly, I’ve been thinking a lot this semester, perhaps even deeply, about how my classroom works and what I can do to improve things. There are issues particular to my job that I won’t discuss and which I can’t do anything to change anyway, but I have been thinking a lot about what I can do to improve what happens in my academic writing classes in particular. I doubt there’s any way to make such a dry, technical subject interesting for the students, but as students of a Western as well as a Chinese university, they need these classes. I’ve finally gotten a chance to experiment with a whole new approach, something entirely different from how I’ve done things in the past. It’s really hard to change old habits. But I have seen improvements- some even quite dramatic- in how the students have handled various aspects of writing. Xiong’s article is a reminder that technology, in and of itself, will not make things any better. The key is not the tool, but how the tool is used. The big question for me is: How to apply the technology so as to improve outcomes in my writing class? I have yet to find an answer to that question- in fact, I find it puts more of a barrier between me and the students, as it keeps me behind a desk when I’d rather be moving around engaging directly with the students.
Food for weekend thought, at least.
help if you can
Now, I personally know very little about the Overseas Chinese Education Foundation. It looks like a good cause, though, so I’d say it’s worth, at the very least, checking out. If you like what you see, you have access to Facebook, and you can spare $10 (I’m assuming thats US$), then help them out. Pop on over to the Ji Village News (link at the top of this post) for the details.
10
Ten years ago today I first arrived in China. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. October 20, 1999, I flew into Hong Kong, where I spent one night and one day, before heading back out to the airport to meet up with my colleagues and hop on our flight to Changsha. But Hong Kong was a mere stopover (sorry, Hong Kong). Arrival was the evening of October 21, in Changsha.
I suppose I should have something profound to say about my experiences over the last decade, but I don’t. Nor do I have anything interesting to say about the changes I’ve seen in China over the years. Sorry. I do have to say that, as milestoney as it is, it actually seems like a very short time. And indeed, a mere decade it is.
One of my students said, wah, you must’ve looked really young back then. Yeah, and how about you? Oh, I was just a little girl. Yep, one thing that makes me feel old is that my students were in primary school when I first arrived here.
But there you go, a decade.