winds
Y’know, it’s really hard trying to figure out which is my favourite wind in Beijing. They all have some pretty big disadvantages. This morning, judging by the smoke from the local central heating plants, the wind was coming from the northeast. The air was not good. Northeast, of course, is the Bohai Sea (humidity) and the industry of Tangshan and Qinhuangdao. By lunch time the air was getting thick enough a machete could’ve made hacking my way through a bit easier. I looked for the nearest central heating plant and just managed to make out the hazy form of coal smoke floating northwestwards. Great, a sou’easter. That means the humid muck from Baiyangdian and the Tianjin coastal swamps plus all the airborne shit from the factories of Tianjin, Langfang and perhaps Baoding. No wonder my lungs are complaining.
The norwester, on the other hand, is good at clearing the air out, but it’s so cold and dry. The norwester cuts you to the bone and scatters your dessicated flesh over the plain and down into the swamps, leaving nothing behind but a shitload of static electricity. Kinda like the Green Party, really: I like what it does for the environment, but the rest of it’s bollocks I could quite happily live without.
Yao’s Tomb
It’s not all severe pollution and corruption in Linfen. For such a small, out-of-the-way, notorious amongst those who know of it city, Linfen has played a pretty huge role in Chinese history. Yao, for example, is buried there, and his tomb has just finished phase 1 of its renovations:
“三皇五帝陵居首，百世千秋泽流长。”12月9日上午，位于临汾市东部山区郭行乡的尧陵山门前，锣鼓喧天、人山人海、彩旗飘扬。历经20个月的艰苦努力后，尧陵一期工程圆满竣工。
“First among the tombs of the three wise kings and five august emperors, favoured by hundreds of generations over thousands of years.” On the morning of 9 December, in front of the gate of Yao’s Tomb in Guoxing Village in the mountains in the east of Linfen City, there was the deafening sound of gongs and drums, a sea of people, banners fluttered. After 20 months of arduous efforts, the phase one of the Yao’s Tomb project was complete.
And you know what? Having just spent an absurd amount of time wading through a terrible translation of the rest of the article, I decided not to inflict it on you. It was difficult to read, and if you think I did a horrible job on that first paragraph (and you’d be right, that is an awful translation), let me assure you the rest was even harder to translate. Let’s just say what they’ve accomplished so far is only the first step in a project in which 460 million yuan will be invested into turning Yao’s Tomb into a seriously major tourist destination by 2012, and that first phase, which commenced on April 3, 2007 and was completed earlier this month, cost 60 million yuan and involved construction of buildings, roads, dam-like things to protect the tomb from the ravages of the Lao River, and a bridge; greening- i.e. the planting of 50,000 plants, flower beds, hedgerows, and probably a whole lot of other stuff I’ve forgotten and am too lazy to remind myself of.
And on my short little trip to Linfen and Yuncheng back in early November, I was left with the impression that the local governments are working really hard to move beyond heavily-polluting heavy industry and develop their cities, and especially to develop that wealth of history Shanxi is endowed with into some serious tourism.
And who was Yao? One of the legendary rulers of pre-Xia Dynasty China.
one for the teachers out there
Posted by wangbo in tilting at windmills on December 12, 2008
Here’s an interesting article looking at teacher quality– and how to predict who will be a good teacher, and how much teacher quality affects educational outcome, and much more- using the selection of American college football quarterbacks for NFL positions as a surprisingly effective metaphor and comparison. ‘Surprisingly effective’ because I know almost nothing about that bizarre spectacle Americans call ‘football’. Oh, and the selection of financial advisers, too.
What I found most interesting was the rating of teachers based on how they directly interact with students. A key premise of the article seems to be that no amount of academic achievement will make anybody a good teacher. What makes a teacher good is their ability to engage with the students. That is meeting the students where they are and drawing them personally in to the learning process, getting them personally involved. I have to say I agree.
See, I went to nine different schools- seven primary schools and two high schools- as a kid and I was taught by a huge number of teachers. Some of them were good, some were atrocious, most were mediocre. If we add university into the mix, I can get enough material to give a basic outline of what I consider a good teacher:
One of my university lecturers would enliven classes- including classes on Emile Zola (and enlivening anything involving Zola is a not insubstantial miracle in and of itself)- with such things as tales of his first encounter with tear gas or statements such as “You’ve never lived until you’ve seen your front door fall away from you as you try to insert the key” (meaning he was thoroughly pissed- it wasn’t his front door falling forwards, but him falling backwards). My high school German teacher would liven things up with tales of her time as a diplomat’s wife in Beirut in the middle of Lebanon’s civil war or her more bizarre experiences in small towns in the centre of Germany. All my language teachers, from high school right through university were the same. They’d bring this apparently vague, theoretical stuff down to earth with personal anecdotes that humanised what we were trying to get our heads around. They’d bring these foreign linguistic and literary phenomena alive in middle New Zealand.
My high school physics and English teachers, on the other hand, should have been classified as “Crimes Against Education” by the United Nations and exiled to Campbell Island. My fourth form maths teacher was even worse. Let’s leave the discussion of bad teachers at that.
I model my teaching after my high school and university language teachers. I’ve always done my best to bring the English language to where my students are at and engage with them. It’s not easy. Just ask my wife and she’ll tell you: I contribute the IQ to our family, she provides the EQ. Even so, I do what I can to bring the English language alive into the context of my students and their lives. This week the first lesson in second year writing was all about plagiarism and how to avoid it. I threw in a few references to Guo Jingming and 花儿乐队, partly to get a few laughs, but mostly to bring this abstract concept to life in a context they’re familiar with. Judging by the results of my little follow-up in this week’s second lesson, it may have helped get the message across to one or two students. This semester I’ve also managed to work ‘tofu dregs’ into lessons- using construction as a metaphor for essay writing to show how they need to back up statements with good, strong support. That also raised a few laughs, but hopefully helped to drive my message home.
Am I a good teacher? Hell, no! But having seen so many good teachers bring abstract, foreign concepts into the kind of everyday context I could understand, I work hard on bringing abstract, foreign concepts into the kind of everyday context my students can understand. I have bugger all EQ, but I’ve seen what needs to be done and do what my EQ-free self can to replicate that in my classroom.
the awesomest train ticket
I saw the headline elsewhere, but for whatever reason I only clicked on it when it appeared on 京报网: A train ticket from “The east is red” to “The sun is rising”. The pictures say it all, provided you can read Chinese:
Train ticket from
East is Red Station sign
East is Red Station
网友曝
Netizen reports
最牛火车票
Awesomest train ticket
现如今史上最牛的事情太多了：网友“罗小蛮”向华商报记者展示了一张火车票，起点站是“东方红”，终点站是“太阳升”。
These days there are too many awesomest things: Netizen “Luo Xiaoman” showed a Hushang Bao reporter a train ticket whose starting point was “The East is Red” and whose destination was “The Sun is Rising”.
“东方红，太阳升，中国出了个毛泽东……”相信每个看到这张票的人，脑海中都会响起这段耳熟能详的旋律。不过，真有这两个地名吗?经过求证，国 内叫“东方红”和“太阳升”的乡镇村屯有很多，仅黑龙江省就有多处，但是在铁路系统，“东方红”站和“太阳升”站确实都各有一个。
“The east is red, the sun is rising. China has brought forth a Mao Zedong….” I believe every person who sees this ticket will immediately be reminded of this familiar melody. And do these placenames really exist? Seeking verification, I find that in China there are many villages called “The East is Red” and “The Sun is Rising”, only Heilongjiang Province has many, and there is only one station each of “The East is Red” and “The Sun is Rising” on the railway system.
“东方红”站位于现在虎林市与饶河县之间的密东铁路的尽头站，而车票中显示的“太阳升”站，是位于黑龙江省大庆市大同区太阳升镇的“太阳升”火 车站。这张2005年的车票显示，由“东方红”站至“太阳升”站需要经过多次转车，而售出这张车票的是“东方红”火车站。昨日记者打电话询问该站工作人员 得知，票上的“鸡下哈让”分别代表4个中转地：鸡西、下城子、哈尔滨、让湖路。这样的车票现在还可以买到，不过当年的车次已经改变，现在这条路线的车次应 该是6224次。
“The East is Red” Station is at the railhead of the Mi-Dong Railway between modern Hulin City and Raohe County, and the “The Sun is Rising” Station that appears on the ticket is the “The Sun is Rising” Station in The Sun is Rising Township, Datong District, Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province. This ticket from 2005 shows that to travel from “The East is Red” to “The Sun is Rising” one must change trains several times, and it was sold at “The East is Red” Station. Yesterday, having phoned the station to ask a worker, your correspondent learned that the “Ji Xia Ha Rang” on the ticket represents four stations at which one changes trains: Jixi, Xiachengzi, Harbin and Ranghu Lu. One can still buy this kind of ticket, although the train number of that year has been changed and the current route number should be the 6224.
It’s really tempting to translate 鸡西 as West of the Chicken. The world needs a West of the Chicken Station.
Translation of the East is Red lyrics comes from Wikipedia. Don’t blame me.
Anyway, it’s almost worth a trip to Heilongjiang just to get such an awesome train ticket. Wait, a mate of mine will be moving to Harbin soon…. Perhaps I should send him on a mission….
an observation
Asking my two first year speaking classes this week to name some famous places produced an interesting sequence:
- Famous places in Beijing
- Famous places around China
- Europe, Korea, Japan and North America (with perhaps some pyramids thrown in)
It took quite a bit of effort to get them to think of any famous places in the rest of Asia, Central and South America, Africa or the Pacific (other than pyramids- both Egyptian and Mayan).
However, I was impressed that two students working together managed to mention Easter Island’s Moai.
Now, Beijing and the rest of China as steps 1 and 2 is fairly self-explanatory. We are in Beijing and my students are all Chinese. I’m not sure what conclusions to draw from the expansion to Europe, Korea, Japan and North America (and generally in that order). There is the obvious political, economic and cultural strength of those areas. But thinking about it, the European examples were generally in Paris and London (Eiffel Tower, Big Ben)- nothing from Italy despite the football, nothing from Germany despite all the German cars cruising Chinese streets, nothing from any other European country.
No, wait- I did get a Red Square, but only after I told them “outside Europe, East Asia and North America”.
And the North American examples were almost all from big cities in the US, with the addition of Alaska and Hawai’i (ahem, that would be Polynesia, not North America).
And all the famous places they named in Beijing, and most of those from the rest of China, Europe and North America were historic sites. In one class, almost all the famous places they could name from Africa, the rest of Asia, South America and the Pacific were natural places- The Great Rift Valley, Uluru, the Amazon, etc. The only exceptions were the Pyramids and the Moai.
Yeah, I’m not sure what can be read into this, but the fact that those patterns reproduced themselves independently in two separate classes interested me.
Thinking about it, a similar pattern emerged when I asked the class this morning which places are famous for food and drink:
- Various regions of China (Sichuan being the first)
- Europe (Italy and France coming first)
- After much persuading from me, the rest of the world.
Again, I can understand the various regional cuisines of China being first in their minds, but thence strait to Europe? And once I’d convinced them there was a whole wide world out there, Korea and Japan came easily, but it took some prodding to get them thinking of other places.
Interesting, but lunch is coming, and that will require a short walk starting in about 5 minutes.
light at the end of the tunnel
There is light at the end of the tunnel. The semester is winding up, I only have a little more work to do- final classes, which are mostly review/exam prep, then marking, then freedom. It feels good. Five eight o’clock starts a week was starting to weigh me down, kinda like carrying a comatose elephant around everywhere.
pondering
Posted by wangbo in news, tilting at windmills on December 7, 2008
The story of the woman who sued her husband for the right to breastfeed their child, which I posted very briefly about yesterday, has me intrigued. Trouble is neither of the TBN articles has much detail. The first article from late September tells the basics of the story, and yesterday’s article gives a quick recap, a very brief summary of the verdict, and a strange quote from the father. Based on the very little reported in TBN yesterday:
- The mother, Ms Li, demanded the right to breastfeed her child. Fair enough, but notice the focus on her personal rights.
- The judge awarded her that right, but seemed to talk more of the parents’ responsibility to do what is in the child’s best interests. Not rights to do what I want, responsibilities I have towards those in my care.
- The father, Mr Liu, protested, saying his wife does not have money with which to raise a child, but nowhere does anybody mention his responsibility to provide for his wife and child.
But yesterday’s article didn’t provide much information, and the Mr Liu’s responsibility to provide for his wife and child may well have been beyond the scope of the trial, meaning the judge may not have been legally able to order him to pay child support. It’s hard to tell given the lack of information currently at my disposal.
So I guess I’ll have to go looking…. Well, it seems to me that the 法制晚报 would be a likely place to start, but apparently it’s not open on Sunday mornings. A search of Google.cn’s news gives only one result. Let’s see how good that is….
This article on the China Court Network is very similar to yesterday’s TBN piece in that it recaps the story and then gives only a very brief summary of the judgement. It does, however, provide two new pieces of information:
要求法院支持自己对孩子的哺乳权，同时还要求被告支付精神赔偿金两万元（诉讼过程中撤回该项诉求）。
She demanded the court support her right to breastfeed her child, and at the same time demanded the accused pay 20 thousand yuan in spiritual damages (this demand was withdrawn during proceedings).
法院审理后认为，由于双方孩子尚处哺乳期，出于对妇女、儿童合法权益的保护及有利儿童成长的原则故作出以上判决。
After the trial, the court came to the above that because the two parties’ child was still in the breastfeeding period, starting from the protection of women’s and children’s legal rights and interests and to favour the child’s growth.
So she did demand money, but for whatever reason, withdrew that demand. I think we can assume that she was not awarded any money, then, as either damages or child support.
Now, I’m not sure, but I suspect that the reference to protecting the legal rights and interests of women and children refers to the fact that Mr Liu tried to divorce Ms Li but was rejected because it is illegal for a man to divorce his wife while she is still breastfeeding the child.
And so still I am wondering….
the right to breastfeed upheld
Back at the end of September I translated an article in 新京报/The Beijing News about a woman suing her estranged husband and demanding the right to breastfeed their child. It seems, judging by this article in today’s TBN, that the woman was successful and her right to breastfeed has been upheld by the court. Roughly half the article is a recap of the story already told, so I’ll just excerpt the juicy bits:
父抱走孩子 母讨要哺乳权
Father took child away, mother demands right to breastfeed
母亲获法院支持，此案系本市首例
Mother wins court’s support, this case first example in this city
昨日，本市首例“母亲讨要哺乳权”案在怀柔法院一审落槌，法院认为，孩子尚处于哺乳期，应同母亲生活。
Yesterday, this city’s first case of a mother demanding the right to breastfeed was ruled on in the first instance in Huairou Court. The court considers that as the child is still in the breastfeeding period, it should live with its mother.
Uh, yeah “一审落槌“, I could use some help de-uglifying my hopeless translation of that. And I always disliked using ‘it’ as the pronoun for a child of undetermined gender, but that is technically correct, the word ‘child’ being neuter. Anyway:
昨日，刘某在法庭门口看见有记者，转身要走，被法官劝回。他认为“妻子没钱养孩子”。但法院认为，考虑到孩子尚处于哺乳期，从利于健康成长的原则出发，法院支持母亲的请求。
Yesterday, Mr Liu, on seeing reporters at the court entrance, turned around and tried to leave, but was encouraged to go back out by the judge. He thinks “My wife has no money to raise the child”. But the court believes that considering the child is still in the breastfeeding period, and starting from the principle of benefitting the child’s healthy growth, the court supports the mother’s demands.
Seems to me that the judge came down pretty firmly on the mother’s side.
It’s also interesting that in this latest report, the names of the parents were given only as 李某 and 刘某, Ms Li and Mr Liu, with no further identification, but in that first report from the end of September full names were given. And yet it’s the same reporter, Zhu Yan, in both cases.
winter
Posted by wangbo in random, tilting at windmills on December 4, 2008
Wow, winter has arrived, and with a vengeance. That wind is so strong that, with a hefty dose of sea spray and the temperature cranked up to something positive, it would remind me of home. lzh ordered the change to heavy mid-winter jackets, and I suspect I’ll have to dig out the thick longjohns if I want to get home from tomorrow morning’s class without my knees shattering. And my hat. Where is my hat? I’m surprised I still have ears, having been running around hat-less all day.
At least, though, it’s left me feeling a bit more alive than I’ve felt so far this week. Tired, but alive. I suspect my body is starting that end-of-semester wind-down a little early. I’ve still got a month to go until the holiday. Still, an early Spring Festival does mean an earlier (and hopefully longer) holiday. First year spoken winds up the week of Christmas, and second year writing should be done a couple of weeks after that. That will be good, because as much as I am generally happy with work and pleased with my students’ progress, I’m feeling in desperate need of a break.
And just for the sake of adding another completely random and unrelated note: At China Beat Jeff Wasserstrom muses, through a book review, on the apparent lack of 80s nostalgia in China. I’ve noticed plenty of nostalgia for the relative simplicity of times gone by- even though everybody knows that in the real world those times were never simple- but I have to admit that I’ve never come across nostalgia for the 80s in particular. But what I wonder about is the lack of nostalgia for the early 50s. Everything I’ve read of or from that period of modern Chinese history is so dripping with optimism and hope and progress that I simply cannot understand how it has managed to disappear from everybody else’s memory.
strange weather
What strange weather! This morning we dressed assuming it would be cold outside, and yet, when I got outside it was oddly warm. And with a norwester blowing! I checked with lzh this evening and she said she also felt it warm. And Roubaozi said the same thing about lunchtime.
See, it was a year ago to the day that lzh, Roubaozi and I took my parents up to our village to meet lzh’s parents in their natural habitat. We stayed at lzh’s parents’ place for the night. It was freezing cold. Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary. The ceremony was in Yanqing County Town. It was freezing cold. My parents had arrived several days earlier, and even down in Beijing at the time it was freezing cold- although not quite as freezing as up in Yanqing, of course. My mum spent her entire two weeks in Beijing looking as cold as it is humanly possible to look without being rushed off to hospital for treatment of severe hypothermia.
But this winter? I’m sure half the reason I haven’t quite realised Christmas is just round the corner is that it just isn’t as cold as I’ve gotten used to.
And this morning just felt so warm. How could it feel warm with a norwester blowing? (before answering, please remember I’m in Beijing, not New Zealand’s Canterbury).