(no subject)
13 November: Monday evening. I had two very involved conversations today. I should be seeking them out more 'cos they're brilliant for my Chinese. The first was with Teacher X, who wanted to go over my letter of suggestions for grammar mistakes and 地道ness of expression - clearly, the man loves to suffer. As soon as seemed polite I changed the subject, because I wanted to put him straight about white people: they're not all creationist Evangelicals. (They are all called Michael, but that's got more to do with Catholics and contraception.) I told him it was something I really needed to confirm with him, because I had a feeling that he took our married friends as representing "the West" as a whole, and worried that he now thought all "欧美" people spurned Darwinian theory. This struck a chord and he looked a bit guilty. He thanked me for explaining to him. In fact it seems he didn't originally think "Euromericans" were all thus inclined, but recently the married friends had told him that "more and more Westerners doubt evolutionary theory". So convert, heathen.
It's an odd situation, because now that he's put himself in a helpless position in relation to his students, he spends a lot of attention visibly avoiding the things we've told him not to do. For my part, I seem to have trained him to think scarequotes around "the West". That's not even something I'd get too hung up about, since it's sometimes a valid term, but the culling of any generalisation is for the best. I mean, er...
At dinner I ate a token prawn and then concentrated on the steamed gingery vegetables and unassuming pork. Teacher Woodchild seemed relaxed and chatty, and we stayed at the table talking for a good while. Teacher Order is off down south moving vast amounts of money and water around, and it's nice to talk to her without his impatient contributions. We talked about my classmates, what their nationalities all were, how many of them were fascinating "mix-bloods" (argh), how many Russian girls there were in the school, and what upright Chinese ladies think of shocking Russian girls.
Imagine walking along in Edinburgh, watching e.g. some Japanese tourists trying on kilts, then bumping into e.g. a Chinese friend and announcing happily, "I just saw some of you foreigners!" The Teachers have both said this to me after seeing non-Chinese people out and about. So talking to Teacher Woodchild can be a bit odd when I'm reminded that, while she's my senior and acts it, she also has these funny quirks and naïveties which don't match her level of education.
Speaking of which, we also got onto education and the hardships facing kids from the country who want to go to university - loans, trying to eat with €30 or €40 a month (see below), train fares, families with no means to support them. I compared it to the European problem of trying to make university available to people from all backgrounds. I was impressed that I'm able to say things like "it's important to make education equal, otherwise it brings about problems in society" without thinking too hard. Deluxe 刘凯琴®: can now make wishy-washy noises in the language of your choice!
Notable about the Teachers' household is that, although the living environment is quite luxurious, the lifestyle is Spartan. There's no slacking, no lazing, no long hot showers for them, though I do all of these things. Living with them, I always feel I ought to behave with more purpose, and today it occurred to me that my porpoise is bleeding obvious - I've got this year in which to bring my Chinese, especially spoken language, up to the highest level I can manage. So I'm already doing the right thing all the time, and I shouldn't feel lazy if sometimes all I want to do is sit around crawling through 读者 magazine or something.
•••
€40/RMB400 a month (so hmm, €1.30/13元 a day) could just barely feed a student here, totally excluding dorm fees, tuition, clothes, karaoke on Sundays, badminton admission and/or web bar gaming time. On days when I eat "outside", I rarely pay more than 30RMB (€3) for a whole day, even when there are only three or four of us and we've ordered piles of tasty food. On 13 kuai a day you could spend 3 - 5 kuai for lunch and eat a bag of baozi (those white bread dumplings) or something else cheap and bulky like rice noodles or wonton. If you had dinner with friends you could keep it under ten kuai and still have varied dishes. That's if you're "doing AA制", though (splitting the bill). A lot of students still like to pay in rounds. That way you might not pay for food at all until your turn came round again, and if you really were living on 13 kuai a day, I'd hope your friends would cut you some slack.
•••
Yesterday a complete stranger accidentally topped up my phone with 30RMB, and half an hour later rang me up to check what had happened to her 30 kuai. I could tell she wanted it back, especially after she told me she works in a hotel in the inner city and doesn't take weekends off. When I thought about it, 30 kuai is only €3, but as I said, it goes a long way. I told her the next time I went into the city I'd come and find her and give her the money.
I rang up Lao Da and recruited him to take me to her workplace this weekend - partly to save the bother of looking for it myself, and partly because I really owe him a dinner, if he'll let me 请 him to one.
It's an odd situation, because now that he's put himself in a helpless position in relation to his students, he spends a lot of attention visibly avoiding the things we've told him not to do. For my part, I seem to have trained him to think scarequotes around "the West". That's not even something I'd get too hung up about, since it's sometimes a valid term, but the culling of any generalisation is for the best. I mean, er...
At dinner I ate a token prawn and then concentrated on the steamed gingery vegetables and unassuming pork. Teacher Woodchild seemed relaxed and chatty, and we stayed at the table talking for a good while. Teacher Order is off down south moving vast amounts of money and water around, and it's nice to talk to her without his impatient contributions. We talked about my classmates, what their nationalities all were, how many of them were fascinating "mix-bloods" (argh), how many Russian girls there were in the school, and what upright Chinese ladies think of shocking Russian girls.
Imagine walking along in Edinburgh, watching e.g. some Japanese tourists trying on kilts, then bumping into e.g. a Chinese friend and announcing happily, "I just saw some of you foreigners!" The Teachers have both said this to me after seeing non-Chinese people out and about. So talking to Teacher Woodchild can be a bit odd when I'm reminded that, while she's my senior and acts it, she also has these funny quirks and naïveties which don't match her level of education.
Speaking of which, we also got onto education and the hardships facing kids from the country who want to go to university - loans, trying to eat with €30 or €40 a month (see below), train fares, families with no means to support them. I compared it to the European problem of trying to make university available to people from all backgrounds. I was impressed that I'm able to say things like "it's important to make education equal, otherwise it brings about problems in society" without thinking too hard. Deluxe 刘凯琴®: can now make wishy-washy noises in the language of your choice!
Notable about the Teachers' household is that, although the living environment is quite luxurious, the lifestyle is Spartan. There's no slacking, no lazing, no long hot showers for them, though I do all of these things. Living with them, I always feel I ought to behave with more purpose, and today it occurred to me that my porpoise is bleeding obvious - I've got this year in which to bring my Chinese, especially spoken language, up to the highest level I can manage. So I'm already doing the right thing all the time, and I shouldn't feel lazy if sometimes all I want to do is sit around crawling through 读者 magazine or something.
•••
€40/RMB400 a month (so hmm, €1.30/13元 a day) could just barely feed a student here, totally excluding dorm fees, tuition, clothes, karaoke on Sundays, badminton admission and/or web bar gaming time. On days when I eat "outside", I rarely pay more than 30RMB (€3) for a whole day, even when there are only three or four of us and we've ordered piles of tasty food. On 13 kuai a day you could spend 3 - 5 kuai for lunch and eat a bag of baozi (those white bread dumplings) or something else cheap and bulky like rice noodles or wonton. If you had dinner with friends you could keep it under ten kuai and still have varied dishes. That's if you're "doing AA制", though (splitting the bill). A lot of students still like to pay in rounds. That way you might not pay for food at all until your turn came round again, and if you really were living on 13 kuai a day, I'd hope your friends would cut you some slack.
•••
Yesterday a complete stranger accidentally topped up my phone with 30RMB, and half an hour later rang me up to check what had happened to her 30 kuai. I could tell she wanted it back, especially after she told me she works in a hotel in the inner city and doesn't take weekends off. When I thought about it, 30 kuai is only €3, but as I said, it goes a long way. I told her the next time I went into the city I'd come and find her and give her the money.
I rang up Lao Da and recruited him to take me to her workplace this weekend - partly to save the bother of looking for it myself, and partly because I really owe him a dinner, if he'll let me 请 him to one.