Catching up

This past week I taught a lesson about Hispanic and Asian Americans. We watched some Spanish-language music videos, learned a little Spanish (when my students see me around campus, they have been calling out “hola” lately and it makes me laugh because they are very excited about it), learned a little about the history of Asians in the US, and discussed famous Asian Americans. I was surprised by how well the students did with the lesson and how engaged they were with the content. One of the highlights for them seemed to be the section where we learned a few Spanish words and phrases. In China, the only language high school students study is English and they have no choice in the matter. Many of the students haven’t learned much about the Spanish-speaking world, or even heard the language much, so I think they enjoyed being exposed to something new.

To further enhance the new cultural experience, I showed them a music video from a Mexican brother-sister guitar duo named Rodrigo y Gabriela. Many of the students watched in complete silence (which is something rare here) and one of the classes even clapped when the song was over; I also noticed that many of the kids wrote down the name of the group so they could listen to the music later.

Believe it or not, we’ve got five weeks left in the PRC. It’s strange that our time here is winding down. I’ll be happy to eat pizza, cereal, and fresh fruits and veggies again, but I’m going to miss China. I’m not sure how to explain it. China can be dirty, disgusting, and the most frustrating place on Earth, and yet, somehow, it gets under your skin and endears itself to you. It’s so outrageous and completely different from anything I’ve experienced before that it forces you to love and be charmed by it. Yes, there have been many times that I’ve wanted to get on the next plane and leave because of frustrating cultural differences, but once you take a step back (and realize that there are multiple ways of looking at the universe), things get easier. My experiences here have taught me that our history and culture have shaped us in ways that we don’t fully understand until we are confronted by people and situations that cause us to challenge our ingrained assumptions. What might seem like a simple logical thing to me could appear completely insane to a Chinese person and vice versa.

Take the government, for example. Westerners often have a difficult time understand how the Chinese Communist government has been in power for so long, but now that I’ve lived here for a few months, I understand the situation a bit better. Historically, China has been ruled by dynasties and there hasn’t been the strong push for the individual freedoms that we have seen in the West. Many aspects of the culture (a strong desire for harmony for example) make it such that strong leaders are admired and even desired by the people, so, in many ways, the society is set up for a strong central government. Yes, this is a simplistic overview of the situation, but it does provide a good example of how people from different cultures view life and their roles in it.

Before I sign off, I do have a funny story from this weekend. Yesterday, Jean-Jacques and I stopped by a store that sells Western food items; we've been to this shop a couple of times, but we haven't established a deep connection with the owner. As we were paying for our goods, the proprietress decided to give us some smoked fish from her lunch. We tried to refuse, but she insisted and fed us with a toothpick. The food was good, but I did feel a little bad about taking about a quarter of her lunch -- she didn't seem to mind much, though.