Gettin' Learned
So I didn't come here just to roam around the city like a chicken with its head cut off, which I have done quite extrodinarily--I came to learn some Chinese! The two teachers I am pictured here are Glenn and Marianna. They are both from Australia and he teaches economics while she teaches business statistics. I took the economics final just for fun, all 2 and a half hours of it, and dominated it like the White Sox on its opponents last postseason. Out of the teachers, I was closest to them. They took me out to dinner a few times, and gave me some necessities here and there.

Now that their work is over, with the students having finished finals, a few of my classmates have offered their time to teach me Chinese. Cecilia and Tom (below) come over every few days for a couple of hours--they are native Beijingers, so they have a bit of time. Now most of the time we are translating sentences, but sometimes we get a little sidetracked--which is a good thing. Big Tom Lend (I call him Big because I know another Tom and one of the teachers referred to him as this and it just kind of stuck) is such an engaging person. Just by the picture you can probably tell he is very "Westernized". Sometimes I think he was born in the wrong country. He loves basketball, Ben Wallace, hip hop, and black girls. Tom's Eglish is really good, and he is very articulate, but sometimes he misinterprets the question. For example, I asked him about China's political system and if he is allowed to vote for the President. I don't know how he did it, but somehow he steered the conversation to the majority/minority conflict in Iraq and the U.S. He explained, "So I think this is very interesting." He uses this phrase often. First he talked about Iraq, and how they have two violent warring groups--Muslims and Islamics. I tried to convey that they really were the same group and rather they have Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, but he didn't really seem to understand (or maybe he did, he just couldn't explain himself using English). He said he liked America because our "two" groups, whites and blacks, don't get into widespread battles. I tried to tell him that our Latino population is actually larger than our black population, but he felt comfortable shrugging off this small detail.


Big Tom Lend may have missed a few of the facts, but I was very impressed that he takes an interest in these global issues. This seems to be concurrent with what I find with much of the Chinese population. Helen, the lady I stay with, reads Cosmo and other America-based magazines and knows more about American celebrities than I do. American and other foreign brands are everywhere: people use Nokia phones, wear Adidas shoes, drink Coca-Cola, eat McDonalds and drive Volkswagons. Sure half the stuff is made in China, but the ideas--the entrepreneurship, that comes from America and abroad.

And now China is trying to join the club by opening their economy. Part of the reason China is so globally aware is that for the longest time it was so inward-looking. Marco Polo of Spain ventured from Europe to China--a Chinese explorer didn't venture from China to Europe. There was no reason to--Chinese rulers felt all the knowledge they needed was within their own borders. They didn't allow their scholars to leave, or anyone for that matter. It wasn't until some 30 years ago, if that long, that they finally let foreign journalists in. And the native name of China, "Zhong Guo", means "Center nation". They felt they were the center of the earth. And indeed much of their ideas and technology were superior to the rest of the world (ships for example). And if they had used these superior ships for the banned exploration, it is quite possible that we could all be speaking Chinese now. Pretty crazy.