Languished, sync and maelstrom
Tuesday 12 December: Two students talked to me on the bus today when they heard me ringing someone up. One of them was looking at a wad of pretty advanced English text. He showed me the three words he was stuck on: languished, sync and maelstrom.
The other one said he was doing environmental protection law. I said wow, that's good, why did you choose that? He said, it was easier to get into the course because it's hard to find a job afterwards.
Then they started testing how many Chinese writers I'd heard of. A young guy standing nearby was listening closely. I'd noticed him get on the bus because he was unusual-looking, big and child-like. He had curly hair and pale skin and had rolled up the rim of a woolly hat and was wearing it at an odd angle as if to say "I am effnic". He kept patting it to make sure it was still balancing there. He interrupted us at one point, and said "It's very interesting, listening to you all talk." The students asked him where he was from, and he was from Xinjiang. But he said his dad was from outer Mongolia and his mum was of German Jewish origin, whose family were among the Jews who fled Hitler to Xinjiang. (I've heard Einstein also came to China originally.) The students asked this young man how many languages he spoke and he said Mongolian, Kazakh, Hebrew, German, French, English and Chinese.
At home at dinner, the conversation unexpectedly turned to which racial group the Teachers find most scary or strange to look at. "Black people" rated quite high (“太可怕了！”) with South Asians not far behind. Teacher Woodchild is disconcerted by these groups because they're just "so black". I said, I think you're just not used to seeing other races. They said no, we're not. They started talking about which countries have the most black people in them. England, yes, France, lots, America! Teacher Woodchild said there are SO many black people in America, really a lot. The awed way she said it, I wondered how she thought they'd got there. Teacher Order told her, you know, Woodchild, you really can't talk like that, that's racist. I said you're right, but it seems Chinese people don't really have a concept of racism. They said no, we don't at all.
Teacher Order added that, like white people, these nebulous dark groups all smell. I had long passed the point where mental discomfort had turned into physical cramps and uncontrollable giggling, but at this point I told him if he spoke like this "outside country" he would probably lose his job. Teacher Order doesn't listen to me, though. He has more complex views than his wife, based on what he's picked up about Aryans and how "Europeans, for instance Germans, and Indians and Pakistanis are all the same race." I thought, who isn't? But I suck at paleoeffnology etc. All I could say was "that topic's a bit dodgy, you know, that's what Hitler talked about - he said only the Aryan race truly belonged in Germany, and had other groups killed - " but Teacher Order interrupted to say "No no, that's not my point, I'm saying that Indians and white people have the same ancestry, and that's why they smell the same." You really can't argue with that so I went and got a yoghurt from the fridge. I left the table as Clear Logic was expanding on his observation that Japanese people have oddly shaped heads.
In fact a couple of hours earlier I'd been with the girl who does acupuncture, Dr. Cao. She's 26 with a small sensible face and speaks with a gentle intonation that's weirdly Irish. I don't know what we were talking about today while she was putting the needles in, but it came around to Africans in Dalian and she asked me what language they speak in Africa. Then she too told me how frightening she thought their blackness was. For a moment I thought maybe it would be better to get acupuncture done by someone with a wider perspective, but then I thought, no - I like Dr. Cao because she's a person doing exactly the right job, and because she's modest and calm. If she knew everything there was to know about Africa, I might not want her sticking needles in me.
The other one said he was doing environmental protection law. I said wow, that's good, why did you choose that? He said, it was easier to get into the course because it's hard to find a job afterwards.
Then they started testing how many Chinese writers I'd heard of. A young guy standing nearby was listening closely. I'd noticed him get on the bus because he was unusual-looking, big and child-like. He had curly hair and pale skin and had rolled up the rim of a woolly hat and was wearing it at an odd angle as if to say "I am effnic". He kept patting it to make sure it was still balancing there. He interrupted us at one point, and said "It's very interesting, listening to you all talk." The students asked him where he was from, and he was from Xinjiang. But he said his dad was from outer Mongolia and his mum was of German Jewish origin, whose family were among the Jews who fled Hitler to Xinjiang. (I've heard Einstein also came to China originally.) The students asked this young man how many languages he spoke and he said Mongolian, Kazakh, Hebrew, German, French, English and Chinese.
At home at dinner, the conversation unexpectedly turned to which racial group the Teachers find most scary or strange to look at. "Black people" rated quite high (“太可怕了！”) with South Asians not far behind. Teacher Woodchild is disconcerted by these groups because they're just "so black". I said, I think you're just not used to seeing other races. They said no, we're not. They started talking about which countries have the most black people in them. England, yes, France, lots, America! Teacher Woodchild said there are SO many black people in America, really a lot. The awed way she said it, I wondered how she thought they'd got there. Teacher Order told her, you know, Woodchild, you really can't talk like that, that's racist. I said you're right, but it seems Chinese people don't really have a concept of racism. They said no, we don't at all.
Teacher Order added that, like white people, these nebulous dark groups all smell. I had long passed the point where mental discomfort had turned into physical cramps and uncontrollable giggling, but at this point I told him if he spoke like this "outside country" he would probably lose his job. Teacher Order doesn't listen to me, though. He has more complex views than his wife, based on what he's picked up about Aryans and how "Europeans, for instance Germans, and Indians and Pakistanis are all the same race." I thought, who isn't? But I suck at paleoeffnology etc. All I could say was "that topic's a bit dodgy, you know, that's what Hitler talked about - he said only the Aryan race truly belonged in Germany, and had other groups killed - " but Teacher Order interrupted to say "No no, that's not my point, I'm saying that Indians and white people have the same ancestry, and that's why they smell the same." You really can't argue with that so I went and got a yoghurt from the fridge. I left the table as Clear Logic was expanding on his observation that Japanese people have oddly shaped heads.
In fact a couple of hours earlier I'd been with the girl who does acupuncture, Dr. Cao. She's 26 with a small sensible face and speaks with a gentle intonation that's weirdly Irish. I don't know what we were talking about today while she was putting the needles in, but it came around to Africans in Dalian and she asked me what language they speak in Africa. Then she too told me how frightening she thought their blackness was. For a moment I thought maybe it would be better to get acupuncture done by someone with a wider perspective, but then I thought, no - I like Dr. Cao because she's a person doing exactly the right job, and because she's modest and calm. If she knew everything there was to know about Africa, I might not want her sticking needles in me.