"Live beautifully together with herbs."
2006-19-14: Today's still Wednesday and it's autumn and the fluffy caterpillars are falling from the trees and getting trodden on. "So it goes."
Clear Logic and I have been helping each other. Yesterday he checked over my Chinese homework and today he needed help with an English question. The text was about the guy who bought that old London bridge and had it assembled stone by stone in the States. Then I turned on my powerbook and Clear Logic saw the 易经 on my desktop. He said he'd never read it. I said, it's incredibly old and the language is a bit hard for me, I use a translation. We opened the file and he read the first lines of the Heaven hexagram - "Hidden dragon ... Dragon appearing in the field ... Wavering flight over the depths ... Flying dragon in the heavens ..." - that sort of thing. He said hey, actually I know these sentences, I've heard them quoted in martial arts films. He pretended to be in a martial arts film. I said, it's the only ancient Chinese text I've ever looked at, I'd like to read more. He said well, I have lots. It's true, he does have lots, he's quite a kid.
This afternoon Dazzle Upright introduced me to a Chinese girl who wants to do a language exchange. I've never done it before but I think it's going to be good. The girl's name is Rocky Summit and I think Dazzle Upright knows her through church. I was wrong about the Catholic thing - Dazzle Upright is Protestant and so is Rocky Summit. When I first asked Dazzle Upright how come Christianity was so popular in Korea, she said it was because of being such a small, biffed-about country. We had just learned Confucius' "死生有命，富贵在天" (see two posts ago), which she said struck a chord with a biffed-about people.
An Edinburgh classmate who's usually frustrated by religion says he finds young Chinese Christian converts universally bright and thoughtful people with open minds - he compares them to English Buddhist converts.
Later: I've just spent over half an hour having a serious talk with Teacher Order and Teacher Woodchild. They are concerned that an unknown Korean classmate has introduced me to an unknown Chinese friend who doesn't belong to the university. It has made them worry about my safety generally. They say they consider me 单纯 dan1chun2, "simple/pure", and that because I am just a tiny baby university student I mustn't have much understanding of anything outside university life. They stress China's social complexity, and Teacher Woodchild tells me about waigong and the unemployed and what to expect from people who work in insurance, and what can you say but "I know, it's like that 'outside country' too, don't worry, of course I will be extra careful not to be sold into slavery, robbed, raped, cheated or given a particularly bad haircut"?
Their model is the average Chinese student, e.g. their son Clear Logic, who "studies from morning till night and has no experience of anything but studying" (their words). Inner whinge says: what kind of education is that? Also, you know me, I'm definitely naïve, but to say that I've studied so much in my short life that I know nothing besides books would be a fairly amusing irony.
Teacher Order kept affectionately dismissing Teacher Woodchild's more mother-hennish anecdotes and advice. "It's not that we're saying your friends are bad people, don't misunderstand us. It's just that we want you to be careful and bear what we say in mind. If something happened to you we wouldn't know what to do or what to say to your parents or the university. You're a girl, etc. etc."
I do know I'm far, far too friendly. It so far hasn't brought me any worse consequence than slight embarrassment, but I'm aware of it and I'm aware that China is a relatively unfriendly country. I say relatively - I'm Irish! Partly, I think much less is a lot more in China where human relations are concerned (and I'm not just basing this on Jia Zhangke films). I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I think of the contrast between the Chinese on-a-bus norm, which is quiet and undemonstrative and just getting on with it, and, say, the American-abroad norm, which is flagrant and 夸张 and expecting love from everyone. In Beijing airport I was singled out by a very deflated man from Tennessee who had just got to China, who told me loudly that he hated 'this country', that 'these people' were so unfriendly and unsmiling, that none of them spoke English. Perhaps the ones at the desks didn't, but you can bet half the passengers sitting near us did. I didn't know what to tell him. He missed his grinning, have-a-nice-day home. I tried to be didactic but you know me, I'm just a matronising cow. As for those 'norms', I know I err heavily on the American side but don't know what to do about it. It's immodest. Lobotomy?
I think fear is bad and caution is good, and there's a fine line. In one effort to allay their fears, I claimed that although I look young and I smile too much, this doesn't mean I have no sense of caution. I hope that if they didn't believe me they at least appreciated the attempt. I wonder though - all my classmates are staying with families, and some of them can hardly speak Chinese at all. I wonder how they're managing?
Wow, I'm tired. That was all very earnest. I need anecdotal advice now: Teacher Order thinks it's not good to go to web bars, which of course I have to. Even without his concern, it would be nice if I could use the web properly from within the uni (it's free, friendly and I clearly have a slight crush on As A Rock). Mainly, I'm trying to get onto the Edinburgh local area network from my powerbook via a virtual private network, and it's just telling me the server isn't answering or doesn't exist. I'm online and my settings are right - is it impossible? China internet boffinism PLEASE.
Clear Logic and I have been helping each other. Yesterday he checked over my Chinese homework and today he needed help with an English question. The text was about the guy who bought that old London bridge and had it assembled stone by stone in the States. Then I turned on my powerbook and Clear Logic saw the 易经 on my desktop. He said he'd never read it. I said, it's incredibly old and the language is a bit hard for me, I use a translation. We opened the file and he read the first lines of the Heaven hexagram - "Hidden dragon ... Dragon appearing in the field ... Wavering flight over the depths ... Flying dragon in the heavens ..." - that sort of thing. He said hey, actually I know these sentences, I've heard them quoted in martial arts films. He pretended to be in a martial arts film. I said, it's the only ancient Chinese text I've ever looked at, I'd like to read more. He said well, I have lots. It's true, he does have lots, he's quite a kid.
This afternoon Dazzle Upright introduced me to a Chinese girl who wants to do a language exchange. I've never done it before but I think it's going to be good. The girl's name is Rocky Summit and I think Dazzle Upright knows her through church. I was wrong about the Catholic thing - Dazzle Upright is Protestant and so is Rocky Summit. When I first asked Dazzle Upright how come Christianity was so popular in Korea, she said it was because of being such a small, biffed-about country. We had just learned Confucius' "死生有命，富贵在天" (see two posts ago), which she said struck a chord with a biffed-about people.
An Edinburgh classmate who's usually frustrated by religion says he finds young Chinese Christian converts universally bright and thoughtful people with open minds - he compares them to English Buddhist converts.
Later: I've just spent over half an hour having a serious talk with Teacher Order and Teacher Woodchild. They are concerned that an unknown Korean classmate has introduced me to an unknown Chinese friend who doesn't belong to the university. It has made them worry about my safety generally. They say they consider me 单纯 dan1chun2, "simple/pure", and that because I am just a tiny baby university student I mustn't have much understanding of anything outside university life. They stress China's social complexity, and Teacher Woodchild tells me about waigong and the unemployed and what to expect from people who work in insurance, and what can you say but "I know, it's like that 'outside country' too, don't worry, of course I will be extra careful not to be sold into slavery, robbed, raped, cheated or given a particularly bad haircut"?
Their model is the average Chinese student, e.g. their son Clear Logic, who "studies from morning till night and has no experience of anything but studying" (their words). Inner whinge says: what kind of education is that? Also, you know me, I'm definitely naïve, but to say that I've studied so much in my short life that I know nothing besides books would be a fairly amusing irony.
Teacher Order kept affectionately dismissing Teacher Woodchild's more mother-hennish anecdotes and advice. "It's not that we're saying your friends are bad people, don't misunderstand us. It's just that we want you to be careful and bear what we say in mind. If something happened to you we wouldn't know what to do or what to say to your parents or the university. You're a girl, etc. etc."
I do know I'm far, far too friendly. It so far hasn't brought me any worse consequence than slight embarrassment, but I'm aware of it and I'm aware that China is a relatively unfriendly country. I say relatively - I'm Irish! Partly, I think much less is a lot more in China where human relations are concerned (and I'm not just basing this on Jia Zhangke films). I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I think of the contrast between the Chinese on-a-bus norm, which is quiet and undemonstrative and just getting on with it, and, say, the American-abroad norm, which is flagrant and 夸张 and expecting love from everyone. In Beijing airport I was singled out by a very deflated man from Tennessee who had just got to China, who told me loudly that he hated 'this country', that 'these people' were so unfriendly and unsmiling, that none of them spoke English. Perhaps the ones at the desks didn't, but you can bet half the passengers sitting near us did. I didn't know what to tell him. He missed his grinning, have-a-nice-day home. I tried to be didactic but you know me, I'm just a matronising cow. As for those 'norms', I know I err heavily on the American side but don't know what to do about it. It's immodest. Lobotomy?
I think fear is bad and caution is good, and there's a fine line. In one effort to allay their fears, I claimed that although I look young and I smile too much, this doesn't mean I have no sense of caution. I hope that if they didn't believe me they at least appreciated the attempt. I wonder though - all my classmates are staying with families, and some of them can hardly speak Chinese at all. I wonder how they're managing?
Wow, I'm tired. That was all very earnest. I need anecdotal advice now: Teacher Order thinks it's not good to go to web bars, which of course I have to. Even without his concern, it would be nice if I could use the web properly from within the uni (it's free, friendly and I clearly have a slight crush on As A Rock). Mainly, I'm trying to get onto the Edinburgh local area network from my powerbook via a virtual private network, and it's just telling me the server isn't answering or doesn't exist. I'm online and my settings are right - is it impossible? China internet boffinism PLEASE.