I have two excuses for why I didn't write a blog for my last several weeks in Beijing. The primary reason for no post was that in early May China blocked blogspot. : ) I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Chinese government for giving me a legitimate excuse not to write a post.
My second reason for not wanting to write this post is that it means it is really done. Putting off writing this last post meant I could pretend that I'll be back in Beijing soon and have an awesome new adventure to describe. But it is done. No more pulling on my electric blue track suit every morning. No more bike rides through hard hitting wind storms. No more listening to my host parent's lectures on Mao over a cup of green tea. No more stares from the locals at the funny white girl who thinks she is Chinese too. It is done.
In fact I've been home for going on three weeks and it already feels like a dream. I feel as if I haven't gotten on that flight to San Fransisco and onto Beijing September 4th yet. Everything at home is eerily almost just as I have left it so there are times when I forget what I did for this past year. But then I'll see a color or smell a whiff of something that takes me unawares and sends me immediately shooting back to my wonderful second home. Seeing a bag of fertilizer instantaneously makes me think of my trials carrying cow crap on my shoulders in a village, and glimpsing 15$ DVDs for sale makes me scoff as I think of my 50$ DVD collection that bought me over 60 bootleg classics.
So, basically, I am numb most of the time until unexpected flashes of memories take over. It hurts a little to think of these memories, the best I have ever had, and know how far away I am from it.
People stop me all the time and ask me if I miss "it". Yes, I miss it. I had a life in Beijing and changing back to American life is unsettling. Luckily, I have the best family in the world and they have been more than supportive in getting me to adjust. Still, there are moments in which I miss Beijing so much it is painful. I want my bike, my uniform, and my friends back. I miss waking up in the morning, looking out at the gray sky and knowing that Beijing's streets are just waiting for me to explore. But I am not desolate. Really, I am not sad I am in America and not there because I know I'll be back in Beijing soon. This is not any end besides an end of SYA, a vehicle to take me to China. This is just the start of my explorations in China and I hope soon all of you will be reading my China blog again.
Thanks for following all this time,
Sincerely
Julia Loughlin
Song of the Week
Chariot by Gavin DeGraw
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Guizhou and Sichuan
I know, you can't believe it. Another blog post within the same week as the last one. Incredible. :)
So after traveling around Yunnan for 3 weeks we all came back tanned and smiling to Beijing. From there, everyday we peeled off another layer of clothing as Beijing's winter faded. We watched green shoots creep up tree branches and then one day, sometime in early April, there was an absolute explosion of pink and white. A certain type of tree actually released chunks of white fluff that balled together to create fist sized snowy balls. When I first saw it from my window my first reaction was that winter had returned and the nice weather was just a cruel joke. Thankfully the temperature has since held above 70 degrees every day.
After a week or two of enjoying the nice spring weather, it was off to travel again! We took an overnight train from Beijing to Guizhou and spent about a week there. In Guizhou, we spent most of our time in villages. There is one particular story from the first village that I think appropriately portrays village life. It also happens to be a narrative essay I wrote for English. Enjoy!
Embracing the Shit
The wooden baskets swung wildly from their perches on a wooden pole held behind my neck. They carried a unpleasant but somehow familiar odor that brought back memories of animal filled stables and trampled straw. As they hung on either side of my head, I looked ahead on the path at my short and scrawny village father who was taking me to do field work with him. While my feet clumsily fumbled for grip like a novice tightrope walker on the narrow rice patty divider, he moved with ease and balance without any stumbling at all. He had not told me what we were going to be doing so when I saw the baskets I assumed that we would be going to his fields to pick vegetables or fruit. We came around a corner and my host father pointed ahead to indicate our final destination. All that was there was a large, dopey cow, and a heaping pile of its excrement. I gulped and realized as I looked at the rolling hills of crap, that it was going to be a very long day.
As we approached, a musty and putrid smell burned from my nostrils down to the back of my throat testing my gag reflexes. A chaotic combination of brown feces and yellow straw was compiled before us, and though the piles did not reach about our waists, the knowledge I would have to carry it all out made them seem like mountains. When we arrived my host father took the baskets from the pole ends and filled them brimming with the rancid concoction and then replaced them on the pole ends. The new weight made my knees buckle and my shoulders shake. I was about to open my mouth to say it was too heavy, but then my host father, a man who could not have weighed 10 pounds more that I did, effortlessly picked up his doubly heavy baskets.
Those same rice patty ridges that had given me trouble with empty baskets became absolutely treacherous a I swung to and from with the new weight on my shoulders. Again my host father walked easily ahead of me and turned occasionally to make sure I had not fallen off a ridge. The area was silent except for the gentle trickle of a creek, a breeze rustling the trees and my heavy panting giving away my struggle. My host father seemed to realize I was having trouble, so to distract me he started talking. Though his mandarin was heavily accented and difficult to comprehend, I understood most of what he was trying to say. He told me he had just gotten back from doing small jobs in a city Guandong province, but since the economy had started to fall apart it was back to the village and hauling cow manure. Since being back he had done the same tedious manual labour every day to support his wife and 2 month old baby. And when he wasn’t carrying the manure to the fields, my host dad was knee deep in thick swamp-like muck plowing his fields.
I walked behind him as he spoke and noticed the deep color of his skin. It was as dark as earth beneath our feet and spoke for the hours he had spent laboring under the sun. Though thin, tough muscles and veins as thick as snakes wound around his body. My host father’s entire appearance testified for the fact that he worked to live. So while he walked ahead of me with ease telling me an over view of his daily chores, I struggled behind him in amazement. What I could barely manage for 3 hrs, my wiry host father did every day for 6 or 7 hrs. While I cursed under my breath at the huge load hanging from my shoulders, he seemed to move breezily ahead as if he had forgotten he even was carrying anything.
When I got back to the village, I collapsed. I looked as if I had just showered I was so covered in sweat, and my clothing reeked of manure. My host father laughed and thanked me for my help though I am sure I was more a liability than asset. As he silently brought over a big metal basin for us to wash our filthy hands in, I thought about what I had gotten out of the day. Of course I had learned that cow manure is actually very heavy and leaves clothing smelling atrocious. I had learned that rice patties are very slippery and not fun to walk along. I had learned that carrying baskets across your shoulders on a pole leaves bruises. But most importantly I learned about the daily struggles villagers go through to make ends meet. They smile, pick up their loads of cow shit, and walk on.
I hope you liked it!
Until Next Time
Julia
Song of the Week
Snowflakes by Just Jack v.The Cure
So after traveling around Yunnan for 3 weeks we all came back tanned and smiling to Beijing. From there, everyday we peeled off another layer of clothing as Beijing's winter faded. We watched green shoots creep up tree branches and then one day, sometime in early April, there was an absolute explosion of pink and white. A certain type of tree actually released chunks of white fluff that balled together to create fist sized snowy balls. When I first saw it from my window my first reaction was that winter had returned and the nice weather was just a cruel joke. Thankfully the temperature has since held above 70 degrees every day.
After a week or two of enjoying the nice spring weather, it was off to travel again! We took an overnight train from Beijing to Guizhou and spent about a week there. In Guizhou, we spent most of our time in villages. There is one particular story from the first village that I think appropriately portrays village life. It also happens to be a narrative essay I wrote for English. Enjoy!
Embracing the Shit
The wooden baskets swung wildly from their perches on a wooden pole held behind my neck. They carried a unpleasant but somehow familiar odor that brought back memories of animal filled stables and trampled straw. As they hung on either side of my head, I looked ahead on the path at my short and scrawny village father who was taking me to do field work with him. While my feet clumsily fumbled for grip like a novice tightrope walker on the narrow rice patty divider, he moved with ease and balance without any stumbling at all. He had not told me what we were going to be doing so when I saw the baskets I assumed that we would be going to his fields to pick vegetables or fruit. We came around a corner and my host father pointed ahead to indicate our final destination. All that was there was a large, dopey cow, and a heaping pile of its excrement. I gulped and realized as I looked at the rolling hills of crap, that it was going to be a very long day.
As we approached, a musty and putrid smell burned from my nostrils down to the back of my throat testing my gag reflexes. A chaotic combination of brown feces and yellow straw was compiled before us, and though the piles did not reach about our waists, the knowledge I would have to carry it all out made them seem like mountains. When we arrived my host father took the baskets from the pole ends and filled them brimming with the rancid concoction and then replaced them on the pole ends. The new weight made my knees buckle and my shoulders shake. I was about to open my mouth to say it was too heavy, but then my host father, a man who could not have weighed 10 pounds more that I did, effortlessly picked up his doubly heavy baskets.
Those same rice patty ridges that had given me trouble with empty baskets became absolutely treacherous a I swung to and from with the new weight on my shoulders. Again my host father walked easily ahead of me and turned occasionally to make sure I had not fallen off a ridge. The area was silent except for the gentle trickle of a creek, a breeze rustling the trees and my heavy panting giving away my struggle. My host father seemed to realize I was having trouble, so to distract me he started talking. Though his mandarin was heavily accented and difficult to comprehend, I understood most of what he was trying to say. He told me he had just gotten back from doing small jobs in a city Guandong province, but since the economy had started to fall apart it was back to the village and hauling cow manure. Since being back he had done the same tedious manual labour every day to support his wife and 2 month old baby. And when he wasn’t carrying the manure to the fields, my host dad was knee deep in thick swamp-like muck plowing his fields.
I walked behind him as he spoke and noticed the deep color of his skin. It was as dark as earth beneath our feet and spoke for the hours he had spent laboring under the sun. Though thin, tough muscles and veins as thick as snakes wound around his body. My host father’s entire appearance testified for the fact that he worked to live. So while he walked ahead of me with ease telling me an over view of his daily chores, I struggled behind him in amazement. What I could barely manage for 3 hrs, my wiry host father did every day for 6 or 7 hrs. While I cursed under my breath at the huge load hanging from my shoulders, he seemed to move breezily ahead as if he had forgotten he even was carrying anything.
When I got back to the village, I collapsed. I looked as if I had just showered I was so covered in sweat, and my clothing reeked of manure. My host father laughed and thanked me for my help though I am sure I was more a liability than asset. As he silently brought over a big metal basin for us to wash our filthy hands in, I thought about what I had gotten out of the day. Of course I had learned that cow manure is actually very heavy and leaves clothing smelling atrocious. I had learned that rice patties are very slippery and not fun to walk along. I had learned that carrying baskets across your shoulders on a pole leaves bruises. But most importantly I learned about the daily struggles villagers go through to make ends meet. They smile, pick up their loads of cow shit, and walk on.
I hope you liked it!
Until Next Time
Julia
Song of the Week
Snowflakes by Just Jack v.The Cure
Friday, April 3, 2009
Yunnan Part 2!
Sorry for the delay!
I left you with my village friend Lily waving me off. From there SYA drove for what seemed like years through the treacherous and narrow strips of road winding through the rice patties. Lots of dramamine and bathroom breaks later, we made it to the next village. There we interacted with the locals and rose in the morning to a lively market filled with anything you could think of. We set off from the market and hiked into the next village to follow a similar routine. It was incredible, but to be honest I remember those few days as a blur of villagers faces, roosters and cows calling out to wake us int he early morning, and markets. Lots of markets. We also hiked through some absolutely stunning rice patties. The blinding sun glinted off of the shallow murky pools of rice seedlings as the 50 of us tottered on narrow paths, careful not to fall and destroy the farmers precious livelihood. On one particular hike we watched the colors of the sky change from daytime to sunset not by looking up at the sky but by looking at our feet in the patties around us.
After our days in the rice patties and villages, we entered the final, and most memorable, leg of our trip. The 50 of us arrived in JingHong, the capital of a very tropical part of Yunnan called Xishuangbanna. Jinghong is not a big city, but it is full of energy and people in constant swirls of motion. We spent most of the day time attending class with high school kids from the town and making friends. There are many conversations and stories with my JingHong friends, but I think the best way to give you a glimpse into there lives is to post a history essay I wrote about my time there. We were assigned a 7 pg research and travel paper for our Yunnan trip and I decided to focus on the students from JingHong and their preparation for the Gaokao. The Gaokao is the Chinese equivalent of the SAT and it has quite a bit of controversy surrounding it. The whole concept is explained better in the essay but its a bit long so I apologize.
Hope you enjoy!
Gao Kao, A Test With Lot of Questions to Answer For
The two Chinese girls hesitantly touched the forks and knives, giggling nervously. The girl to the right, Wang Yu (王玉), clutched her fork like a spear and bravely stuck it into the leafy sea of a greek salad. With everyone watching, she delicately placed it in her mouth and chewed. “How is it?” I asked. Wang Yu answered, “Really delicious!,” politely, but didn’t touch the salad again the whole night.
Several of my SYA classmates and I had invited our new friends from Yunnan’s Jing Hong Number 11 Public High School to come with us to have dinner so they could try western food for the first time. The two girls sat across from us, looking rather uncomfortable in their own home town, and picked skittishly at the pizza, pasta, salad, and ice cream we had ordered to try to give them as an introduction to American style pigging out. As they put miniscule bites into their mouths to try and please us, we started talking about school. They hesitantly answered questions about their favorite teachers, subjects, and classmates, but getting them to talk and feel comfortable with us was like pulling teeth. Then I brought up a subject that I hoped would spark some conversation. I asked them what they thought about the time consuming, fiercely competitive burden that all Chinese high schoolers must face when getting ready for life after high school. Looks that one might see on the face of a torture victim during a particularly brutal beating crossed both of their faces and they groaned. I asked them what they thought about the Gao Kao (高考).
The Gao Kao is the Chinese standardized college entrance exam for all people looking to attend college. Every year in June, roughly 9 million people sit this test for 3 rigorous days trying to remember every speck of information they ever were taught in high school. Before finding out their scores, test takers have to blindly write down the colleges they wish to attend and hope their scores qualify them. The test consists of the three mandatory subjects, Chinese literature, Mathematics and the choice of a foreign language between English, Japanese, and French though English is most commonly chosen. From there, students either take three science based tests or three humanities based tests. This split is determined by the choice all high school students take in their 2nd year of high school to become a li ke (理科), math and science focused, or a wen ke (文科), humanities focused, student. The two girls we were having dinner with that night were both wen ke students in their second year of high school. As wen ke students, along with the 3 mandatory subjects, they would also have to take history, geography, and politics tests. Li ke students, in contrast, would have to take physics, chemistry and biology tests. 1
As soon as I asked the question about how they felt about the Gao Kao the girls, so quiet just moments before, began to chatter animatedly. Even with over a year to go before the test, said that all their free time was taken up studying and preparing. In school the Gao Kao and its importance is shoved down their throats, and when they get home their parents tell them how important the test is and shove it down their throats even more. In contrast with the American college entrance exam equivalent, the SAT, for which almost all preparation is done at home with little connection to high school classes, in China, high school education is directly aimed at prepping students to get high scores on the Gao Kao. When I asked one of our new friends when they started preparing for the Gao Kao, she laughed and said she has basically been preparing since she could remember. At a young age, the importance of getting high grades was stressed so she could get into a good middle school. Then, most of middle school was spent prepping to take the high school entrance exam to try to get into a good high school, which could lead to superior teachers and preparation to get a higher Gao Kao score.
After hearing all of this, I was a little bit confused. Why all this pressure and preparation for a test? Of course as a high school student getting ready to apply to college myself, I understood the pressure of getting into college, but the amount of pressure and preparation the students spent obsessing over this test, lost me. With the SAT and other American college entrance exam equivalents, a students ability to get into college is directly affected by a students exam scores, but that does not mean a low test score will mean no chance at attending a good college. In the US, colleges look at grades from high school years, activities and passions the student has been involved in, teacher recommendations, and essays written by the students. Colleges look at SAT scores, and they are important, but generally not the determining factor for whether a student is accepted or not. When I tried to explain this to our Chinese friends and asked why the test was so important in China, they explained to me the reason the Gao Kao ruled the lives of almost all adolescents.
In China, as afore mentioned, to apply to colleges student write down the colleges they want to go to before finding out their scores. The college receives the scores of the student and accepts or rejects them based on the score. There is no essay, interview, or recommendation. It is the score and the score alone that matters. Student wait their entire academic careers to take the test, and either they get into a college they wrote down on the list, or they don’t and they either have to retake the test the following year or start working straight out of high school.
After hearing that college acceptance was based entirely on 3 days of testing in June, I asked Wang Yu if she was nervous to take it. Wang Yu looked down at her plate of uneaten french fries and sighed. She told me, of course she was nervous. This test determined what college she would get into and from that what kind of job she would get. The test would essentially determine what her career path would be, how much she would be paid and how her life would be. However, she told me as she braved a small smile, she knew she was being prepared as best as was possible and being nervous didn’t help anything.
The dark interior of the internet cafe was quiet aside from the chattering sound of clicking keys. The boy I was standing behind watching over his shoulder as he blew up a strange purple alien on the screen, let out a grunt of accomplishment as he ascended to the next level. I had asked my new friend Zhang Jun (张竣) to take me to his favorite place in Jing Hong and thus ended up about 2 blocks from the school at a seedy little internet cafe. After watching him blow up 4 more aliens and move on to the 5 level, he was shot down, and a game over sign lit up the screen. Dejected, Zhang Jun consented when I suggested we go to the fruit drink place next door to talk. He sat across from me, moodily stirring his strawberry slushy while I tried to get him to talk about his family and school. After several futile minutes, I used the same tactic I had with my two Chinese friends the night before. I asked him how he felt about the Gao Kao. Zhang Jun looked up from his drink and smiled. He told me that there wasn’t anything to think about the Gao Kao, it is a Chinese xiguan (习惯) or custom, and whatever problems it might have, it isn’t going anywhere soon.
In fact what Zhang Jun said does hold truth. Ever since around 200 BC2, Chinese has had the history of standardized examinations to determine work and rank in society. For about 2000 years, China used the Civil Service Exam and though each dynasty put its own spin on the exam, the basic test remained the same. Similar to the Gao Kao, test takers who had been prepped virtually since birth would sit the test for several days, and instead of trying to get into colleges, these test takers tried to qualify to become the intellectual elite that ruled the country. While the Civil Service Exam and the Gao Kao are different in name with one deciding a possible government position and one deciding college acceptance, the basic idea is the same. Both tests essentially decide what kind of life the test taker will lead. Civil Service Examines who did well on the test would rise to become the gentry and upper class of society. Those who passed became the citizens with high paying jobs and comfortable lives, and they could easily support their families. However, those who did not do well had little future ahead of them and often had to go back to working in the countryside or doing low paying jobs in cities. With the Gao Kao, much is the same. Those students who take the test and ace it, get into the country’s best Universities and have the opportunity to become the countries elite. However, for those who do not test well and do not come from families with money that can help support them, it is often back to the countryside or to their small towns to work in low paying jobs. Moreover, for both of these tests, family pressure to do well is a huge incentive to get high scores on both tests. With the Civil Service Exam, families would prep their children virtually from the time they were born to do well on the exams. When a child did well on the exams, it meant that he would rise to a high position with a high salary and easily be able to take care of his parents. Ever since 1979 and the implementation of the 1-child policy, this phenomenon of parental pressure has intensified. Now parents in the countryside with no really stability to fall back on when they retire, are completely reliant on their child to support them. With only one child with the potential to take care of them in the future, parents unload huge amount of pressure on their children to ace the test.
After hearing some of this from Zhang Jun, I asked him if he felt pressure from his parents. Luckily for Zhang Jun, because he is from a small village, the Chinese government allowed his family to have two children so he has one older sister already in college which takes some of the pressure off. However, he told me that some of his classmates are not so fortunate. He said that some of his peers parents do anything they can to boost their child’s Gao Kao grade whether it is biking them to school to save them energy they can use to study, or making sure that have absolutely no chores to do to interfere with their studies. The idea of a ride to school and no chores may seem appealing, but in reality it is nothing more than a completely controlled life with no freedom and parents doing all but breathe for their children. Zhang Jun said that he worries that while his classmates might get excellent scores on the Gao Kao, they have never had to so much as open a box of cereal themselves and perhaps will not be able to take care of themselves once into their top choice universities.
Furthermore, Zhang Jun said that he sometimes does not agree with what his teacher teaches him or has a differing opinion of politics, but because all learning is for the Gao Kao, his opinion does not matter. The path to a high Gao Kao score is narrow and those who stray from the path do not succeed. This could also create problems for China in the future. While they might be creating a country that can perfectly solve the most complicated calculus or identify an independent clause’s positioning in a foreign language, the Gao Kao puts almost no emphasis on creativity or individual thinking. This rote learning snuffing out imagination, and the intensive pressure on students that sometimes debilitates them in the future is a commonly acknowledged fact by Chinese people, Zhang Jun told me. Many people, some of his teachers included, think that something has to be done. However, he does not believe the test will change any time soon. “The Chinese people care about one thing above all.” Zhang Jun said in chinese and paused to pick up his cup and dump the rest of its pink contents down his throat. “It has to be fair. The Gao Kao has problems, but it’s the only way to keep it fair.”
After the Communist Party came to power in 1949, provinces and territories began to hold college entrance education. However, in 1966 with the start of the Cultural Revolution, all colleges were closed and examinations were halted. Although some colleges were reopened during the first years of the 1970’s, it was not until 1977, under the command of Deng Xiao Ping, that examinations restarted. From there, the Gao Kao of today was born.3 Because of the Cultural Revolution, millions of people lost their chance for higher education. Deng Xiao Ping created the Gao Kao as a fair way to measure national talent and to give those who missed their opportunity to go to college another chance. People all across China were given the same test, on the same day, with a completely equal playing field. This concept of equality and fairness is what continues to attract the Chinese people to the Gao Kao. However, today some students and parents are questioning how fair the Gao Kao really is.
Li Xiao Mei’s (李晓梅) thoughtful eyes flashed with unexpected anger from behind their pink rims. Her small, tanned hands gripped the chopsticks she was holding with a fiery vengeance. “Bu gong ping!” (不公平!) She declared that it wasn’t fair like a preacher trying to make a convert of me. I had just asked Li Xiao Mei what she thought of the Gao Kao and had gotten an explosive reaction. At first I could not understand her reaction. Why was she calling a test renowned and praised for being one of the most egalitarian tests available today not fair? However, after she calmed down for a moment, Li Xiao Mei explained to me her reasoning for finding the Gao Kao unfair. 30 minutes of intense conversation later, even my blood began to boil at the completely apparent unfair advantages available to some students.
Li Xiao Mei started by saying that it is her dream to go to Beijing University, the most elite university in China. She has dreams of leaving her little village town in Yunnan to see the thriving city of Beijing and being taught law by China’s brightest professors. She said that if she was a Beijing native, her current practice scores indicate that she would do well enough on the real test to attend Beijing University。 However, because she is from Yunnan her scores would have to be up to 70 or 80 points higher to be anywhere within the acceptance range.
This rule is true of all provinces. A student applying to a college outside of his or her own province must achieve a significantly higher score than if that student lived in the province the college was located. Colleges all have requirements to fill a certain number of accepted spots for residents of the province and this gives residents of that province a distinct advantage. This means that students from provinces without famous or high tier colleges have to work much harder to score high enough to get into a college that will bring them good work in the future. This rule seems to directly take away from the ‘fairness’ the Gao Kao is praised for. How is it fair that a student from an affluent family living in Shanghai has a better chance that a student from poor family in a small village in Anhui to get into a top tier school like Tsinghua University? This practice of changing score ranges for the local province seems to give a noticeable advantage to those living in provinces with big cities. In China, the best colleges are primarily based in Shanghai and Beijing. While there are colleges in all of the provinces, and many of them good, no other province has colleges up to Shanghai and Beijing’s standard. This means that being born into a family in Beijing or Shanghai automatically gives a student the upper hand in getting into a good school.
This is not the only discrepancy that calls into question the fairness of the Gao Kao. Li Xiao Mei explained to me that many of her classmates also have a unique advantage. Her school is located in Yunnan province, the most culturally diverse province in China. Half of her friends are Dai or Hanni ethinic minorities and because of their minority status, they are awarded an extra 20 points to their Gao Kao scores. The Gao Kao gives out many such concession points. Whether to ethnic minorities or to people with family origins in Taiwan, many different groups of people receive these 20 extra points which is a huge edge over the rest of their competition. These extra points many seem perfectly fair to those who benefit from them, but to students like Li Xiao Mei they are just another reason to sneer at the unfairness of the system which is their only way to a successful future.
While these issues may seem to take away from the legitimacy of the test, the progress that the test has created in educating China’s population cannot be ignored. In 1977, the first year college entrance examinations restarted, roughly 4% or test takers enrolled in college. Today test taker’s enrollment rates are up to 57%, a huge distance to come in just over 30 years. This test, while considered by some to be unfair, overly concerned with rote learning with little emphasis creativity, and an incredible stress creator for students, has put the Chinese people into college in a reasonably orderly way. Although faulty and in need of serious revision, the Gao Kao helps almost 10 million students every year go to college.4 Wang Yu and Zhang Jun both found issue with different aspects of the test, but they admitted, the Gao Kao is the only system China has right now that works and they would just have to do their best to ace it.
Li Xiao Mei looked at me dead in the eye once more. “It just isn’t fair. THe whole system needs to be fixed, but no one knows how to. I hate it!” She said in her heavily accented Chinese with a volume that wasn’t entirely appropriate for the small restaurant we were sitting in. Her chopsticks quivered in her trembling hand. Then suddenly she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “But saying I hate it won’t make it go away. Complaining doesn’t make it any less real. We just have to work hard until June and get through it. I just hope that all this work for one test is worth it in the end. ”
Until Next Time!
Julia
Song of the Week: Situations by Jack Johnson
I left you with my village friend Lily waving me off. From there SYA drove for what seemed like years through the treacherous and narrow strips of road winding through the rice patties. Lots of dramamine and bathroom breaks later, we made it to the next village. There we interacted with the locals and rose in the morning to a lively market filled with anything you could think of. We set off from the market and hiked into the next village to follow a similar routine. It was incredible, but to be honest I remember those few days as a blur of villagers faces, roosters and cows calling out to wake us int he early morning, and markets. Lots of markets. We also hiked through some absolutely stunning rice patties. The blinding sun glinted off of the shallow murky pools of rice seedlings as the 50 of us tottered on narrow paths, careful not to fall and destroy the farmers precious livelihood. On one particular hike we watched the colors of the sky change from daytime to sunset not by looking up at the sky but by looking at our feet in the patties around us.
After our days in the rice patties and villages, we entered the final, and most memorable, leg of our trip. The 50 of us arrived in JingHong, the capital of a very tropical part of Yunnan called Xishuangbanna. Jinghong is not a big city, but it is full of energy and people in constant swirls of motion. We spent most of the day time attending class with high school kids from the town and making friends. There are many conversations and stories with my JingHong friends, but I think the best way to give you a glimpse into there lives is to post a history essay I wrote about my time there. We were assigned a 7 pg research and travel paper for our Yunnan trip and I decided to focus on the students from JingHong and their preparation for the Gaokao. The Gaokao is the Chinese equivalent of the SAT and it has quite a bit of controversy surrounding it. The whole concept is explained better in the essay but its a bit long so I apologize.
Hope you enjoy!
Gao Kao, A Test With Lot of Questions to Answer For
The two Chinese girls hesitantly touched the forks and knives, giggling nervously. The girl to the right, Wang Yu (王玉), clutched her fork like a spear and bravely stuck it into the leafy sea of a greek salad. With everyone watching, she delicately placed it in her mouth and chewed. “How is it?” I asked. Wang Yu answered, “Really delicious!,” politely, but didn’t touch the salad again the whole night.
Several of my SYA classmates and I had invited our new friends from Yunnan’s Jing Hong Number 11 Public High School to come with us to have dinner so they could try western food for the first time. The two girls sat across from us, looking rather uncomfortable in their own home town, and picked skittishly at the pizza, pasta, salad, and ice cream we had ordered to try to give them as an introduction to American style pigging out. As they put miniscule bites into their mouths to try and please us, we started talking about school. They hesitantly answered questions about their favorite teachers, subjects, and classmates, but getting them to talk and feel comfortable with us was like pulling teeth. Then I brought up a subject that I hoped would spark some conversation. I asked them what they thought about the time consuming, fiercely competitive burden that all Chinese high schoolers must face when getting ready for life after high school. Looks that one might see on the face of a torture victim during a particularly brutal beating crossed both of their faces and they groaned. I asked them what they thought about the Gao Kao (高考).
The Gao Kao is the Chinese standardized college entrance exam for all people looking to attend college. Every year in June, roughly 9 million people sit this test for 3 rigorous days trying to remember every speck of information they ever were taught in high school. Before finding out their scores, test takers have to blindly write down the colleges they wish to attend and hope their scores qualify them. The test consists of the three mandatory subjects, Chinese literature, Mathematics and the choice of a foreign language between English, Japanese, and French though English is most commonly chosen. From there, students either take three science based tests or three humanities based tests. This split is determined by the choice all high school students take in their 2nd year of high school to become a li ke (理科), math and science focused, or a wen ke (文科), humanities focused, student. The two girls we were having dinner with that night were both wen ke students in their second year of high school. As wen ke students, along with the 3 mandatory subjects, they would also have to take history, geography, and politics tests. Li ke students, in contrast, would have to take physics, chemistry and biology tests. 1
As soon as I asked the question about how they felt about the Gao Kao the girls, so quiet just moments before, began to chatter animatedly. Even with over a year to go before the test, said that all their free time was taken up studying and preparing. In school the Gao Kao and its importance is shoved down their throats, and when they get home their parents tell them how important the test is and shove it down their throats even more. In contrast with the American college entrance exam equivalent, the SAT, for which almost all preparation is done at home with little connection to high school classes, in China, high school education is directly aimed at prepping students to get high scores on the Gao Kao. When I asked one of our new friends when they started preparing for the Gao Kao, she laughed and said she has basically been preparing since she could remember. At a young age, the importance of getting high grades was stressed so she could get into a good middle school. Then, most of middle school was spent prepping to take the high school entrance exam to try to get into a good high school, which could lead to superior teachers and preparation to get a higher Gao Kao score.
After hearing all of this, I was a little bit confused. Why all this pressure and preparation for a test? Of course as a high school student getting ready to apply to college myself, I understood the pressure of getting into college, but the amount of pressure and preparation the students spent obsessing over this test, lost me. With the SAT and other American college entrance exam equivalents, a students ability to get into college is directly affected by a students exam scores, but that does not mean a low test score will mean no chance at attending a good college. In the US, colleges look at grades from high school years, activities and passions the student has been involved in, teacher recommendations, and essays written by the students. Colleges look at SAT scores, and they are important, but generally not the determining factor for whether a student is accepted or not. When I tried to explain this to our Chinese friends and asked why the test was so important in China, they explained to me the reason the Gao Kao ruled the lives of almost all adolescents.
In China, as afore mentioned, to apply to colleges student write down the colleges they want to go to before finding out their scores. The college receives the scores of the student and accepts or rejects them based on the score. There is no essay, interview, or recommendation. It is the score and the score alone that matters. Student wait their entire academic careers to take the test, and either they get into a college they wrote down on the list, or they don’t and they either have to retake the test the following year or start working straight out of high school.
After hearing that college acceptance was based entirely on 3 days of testing in June, I asked Wang Yu if she was nervous to take it. Wang Yu looked down at her plate of uneaten french fries and sighed. She told me, of course she was nervous. This test determined what college she would get into and from that what kind of job she would get. The test would essentially determine what her career path would be, how much she would be paid and how her life would be. However, she told me as she braved a small smile, she knew she was being prepared as best as was possible and being nervous didn’t help anything.
The dark interior of the internet cafe was quiet aside from the chattering sound of clicking keys. The boy I was standing behind watching over his shoulder as he blew up a strange purple alien on the screen, let out a grunt of accomplishment as he ascended to the next level. I had asked my new friend Zhang Jun (张竣) to take me to his favorite place in Jing Hong and thus ended up about 2 blocks from the school at a seedy little internet cafe. After watching him blow up 4 more aliens and move on to the 5 level, he was shot down, and a game over sign lit up the screen. Dejected, Zhang Jun consented when I suggested we go to the fruit drink place next door to talk. He sat across from me, moodily stirring his strawberry slushy while I tried to get him to talk about his family and school. After several futile minutes, I used the same tactic I had with my two Chinese friends the night before. I asked him how he felt about the Gao Kao. Zhang Jun looked up from his drink and smiled. He told me that there wasn’t anything to think about the Gao Kao, it is a Chinese xiguan (习惯) or custom, and whatever problems it might have, it isn’t going anywhere soon.
In fact what Zhang Jun said does hold truth. Ever since around 200 BC2, Chinese has had the history of standardized examinations to determine work and rank in society. For about 2000 years, China used the Civil Service Exam and though each dynasty put its own spin on the exam, the basic test remained the same. Similar to the Gao Kao, test takers who had been prepped virtually since birth would sit the test for several days, and instead of trying to get into colleges, these test takers tried to qualify to become the intellectual elite that ruled the country. While the Civil Service Exam and the Gao Kao are different in name with one deciding a possible government position and one deciding college acceptance, the basic idea is the same. Both tests essentially decide what kind of life the test taker will lead. Civil Service Examines who did well on the test would rise to become the gentry and upper class of society. Those who passed became the citizens with high paying jobs and comfortable lives, and they could easily support their families. However, those who did not do well had little future ahead of them and often had to go back to working in the countryside or doing low paying jobs in cities. With the Gao Kao, much is the same. Those students who take the test and ace it, get into the country’s best Universities and have the opportunity to become the countries elite. However, for those who do not test well and do not come from families with money that can help support them, it is often back to the countryside or to their small towns to work in low paying jobs. Moreover, for both of these tests, family pressure to do well is a huge incentive to get high scores on both tests. With the Civil Service Exam, families would prep their children virtually from the time they were born to do well on the exams. When a child did well on the exams, it meant that he would rise to a high position with a high salary and easily be able to take care of his parents. Ever since 1979 and the implementation of the 1-child policy, this phenomenon of parental pressure has intensified. Now parents in the countryside with no really stability to fall back on when they retire, are completely reliant on their child to support them. With only one child with the potential to take care of them in the future, parents unload huge amount of pressure on their children to ace the test.
After hearing some of this from Zhang Jun, I asked him if he felt pressure from his parents. Luckily for Zhang Jun, because he is from a small village, the Chinese government allowed his family to have two children so he has one older sister already in college which takes some of the pressure off. However, he told me that some of his classmates are not so fortunate. He said that some of his peers parents do anything they can to boost their child’s Gao Kao grade whether it is biking them to school to save them energy they can use to study, or making sure that have absolutely no chores to do to interfere with their studies. The idea of a ride to school and no chores may seem appealing, but in reality it is nothing more than a completely controlled life with no freedom and parents doing all but breathe for their children. Zhang Jun said that he worries that while his classmates might get excellent scores on the Gao Kao, they have never had to so much as open a box of cereal themselves and perhaps will not be able to take care of themselves once into their top choice universities.
Furthermore, Zhang Jun said that he sometimes does not agree with what his teacher teaches him or has a differing opinion of politics, but because all learning is for the Gao Kao, his opinion does not matter. The path to a high Gao Kao score is narrow and those who stray from the path do not succeed. This could also create problems for China in the future. While they might be creating a country that can perfectly solve the most complicated calculus or identify an independent clause’s positioning in a foreign language, the Gao Kao puts almost no emphasis on creativity or individual thinking. This rote learning snuffing out imagination, and the intensive pressure on students that sometimes debilitates them in the future is a commonly acknowledged fact by Chinese people, Zhang Jun told me. Many people, some of his teachers included, think that something has to be done. However, he does not believe the test will change any time soon. “The Chinese people care about one thing above all.” Zhang Jun said in chinese and paused to pick up his cup and dump the rest of its pink contents down his throat. “It has to be fair. The Gao Kao has problems, but it’s the only way to keep it fair.”
After the Communist Party came to power in 1949, provinces and territories began to hold college entrance education. However, in 1966 with the start of the Cultural Revolution, all colleges were closed and examinations were halted. Although some colleges were reopened during the first years of the 1970’s, it was not until 1977, under the command of Deng Xiao Ping, that examinations restarted. From there, the Gao Kao of today was born.3 Because of the Cultural Revolution, millions of people lost their chance for higher education. Deng Xiao Ping created the Gao Kao as a fair way to measure national talent and to give those who missed their opportunity to go to college another chance. People all across China were given the same test, on the same day, with a completely equal playing field. This concept of equality and fairness is what continues to attract the Chinese people to the Gao Kao. However, today some students and parents are questioning how fair the Gao Kao really is.
Li Xiao Mei’s (李晓梅) thoughtful eyes flashed with unexpected anger from behind their pink rims. Her small, tanned hands gripped the chopsticks she was holding with a fiery vengeance. “Bu gong ping!” (不公平!) She declared that it wasn’t fair like a preacher trying to make a convert of me. I had just asked Li Xiao Mei what she thought of the Gao Kao and had gotten an explosive reaction. At first I could not understand her reaction. Why was she calling a test renowned and praised for being one of the most egalitarian tests available today not fair? However, after she calmed down for a moment, Li Xiao Mei explained to me her reasoning for finding the Gao Kao unfair. 30 minutes of intense conversation later, even my blood began to boil at the completely apparent unfair advantages available to some students.
Li Xiao Mei started by saying that it is her dream to go to Beijing University, the most elite university in China. She has dreams of leaving her little village town in Yunnan to see the thriving city of Beijing and being taught law by China’s brightest professors. She said that if she was a Beijing native, her current practice scores indicate that she would do well enough on the real test to attend Beijing University。 However, because she is from Yunnan her scores would have to be up to 70 or 80 points higher to be anywhere within the acceptance range.
This rule is true of all provinces. A student applying to a college outside of his or her own province must achieve a significantly higher score than if that student lived in the province the college was located. Colleges all have requirements to fill a certain number of accepted spots for residents of the province and this gives residents of that province a distinct advantage. This means that students from provinces without famous or high tier colleges have to work much harder to score high enough to get into a college that will bring them good work in the future. This rule seems to directly take away from the ‘fairness’ the Gao Kao is praised for. How is it fair that a student from an affluent family living in Shanghai has a better chance that a student from poor family in a small village in Anhui to get into a top tier school like Tsinghua University? This practice of changing score ranges for the local province seems to give a noticeable advantage to those living in provinces with big cities. In China, the best colleges are primarily based in Shanghai and Beijing. While there are colleges in all of the provinces, and many of them good, no other province has colleges up to Shanghai and Beijing’s standard. This means that being born into a family in Beijing or Shanghai automatically gives a student the upper hand in getting into a good school.
This is not the only discrepancy that calls into question the fairness of the Gao Kao. Li Xiao Mei explained to me that many of her classmates also have a unique advantage. Her school is located in Yunnan province, the most culturally diverse province in China. Half of her friends are Dai or Hanni ethinic minorities and because of their minority status, they are awarded an extra 20 points to their Gao Kao scores. The Gao Kao gives out many such concession points. Whether to ethnic minorities or to people with family origins in Taiwan, many different groups of people receive these 20 extra points which is a huge edge over the rest of their competition. These extra points many seem perfectly fair to those who benefit from them, but to students like Li Xiao Mei they are just another reason to sneer at the unfairness of the system which is their only way to a successful future.
While these issues may seem to take away from the legitimacy of the test, the progress that the test has created in educating China’s population cannot be ignored. In 1977, the first year college entrance examinations restarted, roughly 4% or test takers enrolled in college. Today test taker’s enrollment rates are up to 57%, a huge distance to come in just over 30 years. This test, while considered by some to be unfair, overly concerned with rote learning with little emphasis creativity, and an incredible stress creator for students, has put the Chinese people into college in a reasonably orderly way. Although faulty and in need of serious revision, the Gao Kao helps almost 10 million students every year go to college.4 Wang Yu and Zhang Jun both found issue with different aspects of the test, but they admitted, the Gao Kao is the only system China has right now that works and they would just have to do their best to ace it.
Li Xiao Mei looked at me dead in the eye once more. “It just isn’t fair. THe whole system needs to be fixed, but no one knows how to. I hate it!” She said in her heavily accented Chinese with a volume that wasn’t entirely appropriate for the small restaurant we were sitting in. Her chopsticks quivered in her trembling hand. Then suddenly she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “But saying I hate it won’t make it go away. Complaining doesn’t make it any less real. We just have to work hard until June and get through it. I just hope that all this work for one test is worth it in the end. ”
Until Next Time!
Julia
Song of the Week: Situations by Jack Johnson
Monday, March 16, 2009
Yunnan Travels, Part 1
Even though I arrived back in Beijing three weeks ago, the memories from my February travels are still fresh in my mind. Because the trip was so long (3 weeks) and so much happened, I'm going to tell you about a few of the more interesting aspects. Moreover, because so many interesting things happened and right now life is incredibly busy, I'm going to split up the Yunnan trip post into a few parts.
First, for a little bit of background, SYA took all 50 of us to Yunnan, China's large, southern province. Yunnan has a very different feel than other places I have visited in China, mostly owing to the huge percentage of ethnic minorities living in this region. Also, the terrain in Yunnan varies from wide grass lands to towering mountains. We spent most of our time in the tropical and rainforest section of the province.
Our group started out in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to find our Beijing heavy winter jackets and furry mittens completely useless. The weather was stunning and we spent a day exploring the city's temples and pagodas on our own.
From Kunming, we traveled to a small village famous for its special 'dragon dance'. As soon as we got off of the bus a small troupe of dancers and musicians greeted us with a performance. Their costumes were deep, rich colors with intricate stitching and designs, and the dancers clothing had small silver bells attached that dinged wildly with their swirling movements. Not far from the performers stood a small group of little children torn between watching their mothers and aunts dance and looking at the bizarre group of scraggly American teenagers. After putting our stuff away in our very basic accommodations, we went back to the main square to find the group of children waiting. One girl, slightly older than the rest, looked at me in the eye and smiled as she bravely walked my way. Lily, as I later named her, became my tour guide for the day.
Lily, 10 years old, took my friend and I through every nook and cranny in her village. First we visited her grandmother's home and watched as the family prepared dinner. Because the village was primarily non-Han Chinese, the older generations, such as Lily's grandmother did not speak Chinese but rather their own complicated language. After visiting the house, she, took us to a look out point where a farmer was packing radishes onto a truck. She went up to him, said something, and the man handed over his foot long scythe to the 10 year old... After a moment of panic, I relaxed as Lily picked up a giant radish and artfully carved off the skin. She gave both my friend and I our own foot long radishes which we munched on as the tour continued.
From there we were led down the dirt path through the small rundown houses to a large and completely deserted group of buildings. All of the doors were barred and it was slient. Lily grabbed my hand and giggled as she dove into one of the narrow alleys. My friend tore after us and we were completely alone with the sound of our laughter echoing eerily. I later found out that the building was a deserted smoke house to make tobacco.
Lily took us all through her town. We saw the houses of her friends and family, and she was especially proud to show us her family's land. Her family owned a good portion of land on which they grew a variety of vegetables ranging from lettuce to plum trees. There was such pride in her voice when she explained what everything was and that she had helped her family plant them.
I have such a strong mental picture of leaving the village, looking on the villagers from my seat on the bus and seeing Lily's smiling face. The little girl waving to me from below had given me the best glimpse into village life I could ever get.
Expect the next section up soon!
Until then,
Julia
Song of the Week: Colors By: Amos Lee
First, for a little bit of background, SYA took all 50 of us to Yunnan, China's large, southern province. Yunnan has a very different feel than other places I have visited in China, mostly owing to the huge percentage of ethnic minorities living in this region. Also, the terrain in Yunnan varies from wide grass lands to towering mountains. We spent most of our time in the tropical and rainforest section of the province.
Our group started out in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to find our Beijing heavy winter jackets and furry mittens completely useless. The weather was stunning and we spent a day exploring the city's temples and pagodas on our own.
From Kunming, we traveled to a small village famous for its special 'dragon dance'. As soon as we got off of the bus a small troupe of dancers and musicians greeted us with a performance. Their costumes were deep, rich colors with intricate stitching and designs, and the dancers clothing had small silver bells attached that dinged wildly with their swirling movements. Not far from the performers stood a small group of little children torn between watching their mothers and aunts dance and looking at the bizarre group of scraggly American teenagers. After putting our stuff away in our very basic accommodations, we went back to the main square to find the group of children waiting. One girl, slightly older than the rest, looked at me in the eye and smiled as she bravely walked my way. Lily, as I later named her, became my tour guide for the day.
Lily, 10 years old, took my friend and I through every nook and cranny in her village. First we visited her grandmother's home and watched as the family prepared dinner. Because the village was primarily non-Han Chinese, the older generations, such as Lily's grandmother did not speak Chinese but rather their own complicated language. After visiting the house, she, took us to a look out point where a farmer was packing radishes onto a truck. She went up to him, said something, and the man handed over his foot long scythe to the 10 year old... After a moment of panic, I relaxed as Lily picked up a giant radish and artfully carved off the skin. She gave both my friend and I our own foot long radishes which we munched on as the tour continued.
From there we were led down the dirt path through the small rundown houses to a large and completely deserted group of buildings. All of the doors were barred and it was slient. Lily grabbed my hand and giggled as she dove into one of the narrow alleys. My friend tore after us and we were completely alone with the sound of our laughter echoing eerily. I later found out that the building was a deserted smoke house to make tobacco.
Lily took us all through her town. We saw the houses of her friends and family, and she was especially proud to show us her family's land. Her family owned a good portion of land on which they grew a variety of vegetables ranging from lettuce to plum trees. There was such pride in her voice when she explained what everything was and that she had helped her family plant them.
I have such a strong mental picture of leaving the village, looking on the villagers from my seat on the bus and seeing Lily's smiling face. The little girl waving to me from below had given me the best glimpse into village life I could ever get.
Expect the next section up soon!
Until then,
Julia
Song of the Week: Colors By: Amos Lee
Sunday, February 22, 2009
KA-BOOOM
I'm back! Tonight is the last night of my one month hiatus from school, work and the real world. The past month has been a blur of exploding fireworks, steaming 饺子 (dumplings), glittering rice patties, and swaying palm trees. I did not know it was possible to experience and see so much in one month. Let me go back in time to 8 am., Sunday, the 25th of January.
'KAAA-BOOOOM!!!' **THWACK** The bang of an explosion sent me sitting up straight in bed. Well, I would have been sitting up straight if it wasn't for the wooden board supporting the bunk bed above me that I collided into with extreme force. "@#$%! OWW!" However, my cries were interrupted with more bangs, and I quicky panicked. Someone was setting off bombs somewhere very close to my hutong. I got up expecting to find my host sister Wang Qian fully awake and equally worried. Instead she rubbed her eyes and rolled over.
"王芊？" （Wang Qian）
"Mmmmhhh..."
"是什么?" （What is that？）
"放炮。” （Fireworks。）
And then I remembered. That Sunday marked the beginning of the Chinese New Years or 春节, arguably the most important holiday in China. A holiday known for eating dumplings until they come out your ears, watching marathon celebration/singing/dancing performances on tv, spending time with family, and setting off fireworks at ALL hours of the day.
This year was 牛年( The Year of the Cow) and my family spent the majority of it at my Laolao's house (maternal grandmother).
We set off mid-afternoon on Sunday to her apartment on the outskirts of Beijing where we would stay for 3 nights. When we opened the door a combination of steam, sweat and smoke greeted us. Her overheated, midsized apartment was crammed full with gaggles of relatives- the men smoking and playing cards, the women in assembly line form making mass quantities of food, and the children running around causing mahem. This was all just the start of the partying chaos. :)
After settling in and eating a huge dinner, the sunlight started to fade outside my baba pulled out a giant plastic bag. He beckoned all the kids to come outside with him and when we arrived outside the sound of more explosions reached our ears. Everywhere people were setting off fireworks, and my baba opened up the bag to pull out dozens of varying sizes and colors of fireworks. The bangs made it impossible to hear what anyone was saying, but my baba beckoned me over and gave me a match. He then pointed at the whisp of rope leading to a rather large firework. Gulp. I lit it and ran for my life in the opposite direction. KAABOOOM. My firework mixed in with the bangs of the hundreds of other fireworks going off in Beijing and a red spark shot up into the night sky. After lighting off that one, I choose to just watch the spectacular light show above me. The blinding lights and deafening noises were exciting and overwhelming. While we went back inside at just past 12:30, the party outside raged on until 3 or 4am and restarted at about 7 am.
The next several days were spent much the same way. Eat, play cards, light off fireworks. I enjoyed spending time with my host family and chatting with relatives, and occasionally escaped for long walks along the exploding streets. Going for a walk outside during the Chinese New Years is like going for a walk through a war zone. Everywhere you turn there are explosions and people ducking for cover, and you have to be very careful where you walk. Car alarms go off and the sky is constantly being lit up. However, instead of the crumbing buildings and the deserted streets of war, the only evidence of disturbances are the omnipresent scatterings of ripped red paper littered on the streets and a lingering smell of smoke. I have honestly never seen anything like Chinese New Years celebrations and it completely puts any American holiday celebration to shame.
After three days at my laolao's, Wang Qian, my baba and I headed home (my mama stayed an extra couple of days with her family) and I started to prepare for my next adventure.
Unfortunately, it's starting to get late and I want to do the next section of my adventure justice. I promise it will be posted before the week is out!
Until Next Time,
Julia Loughlin
Song of the Week:
Maps By: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
'KAAA-BOOOOM!!!' **THWACK** The bang of an explosion sent me sitting up straight in bed. Well, I would have been sitting up straight if it wasn't for the wooden board supporting the bunk bed above me that I collided into with extreme force. "@#$%! OWW!" However, my cries were interrupted with more bangs, and I quicky panicked. Someone was setting off bombs somewhere very close to my hutong. I got up expecting to find my host sister Wang Qian fully awake and equally worried. Instead she rubbed her eyes and rolled over.
"王芊？" （Wang Qian）
"Mmmmhhh..."
"是什么?" （What is that？）
"放炮。” （Fireworks。）
And then I remembered. That Sunday marked the beginning of the Chinese New Years or 春节, arguably the most important holiday in China. A holiday known for eating dumplings until they come out your ears, watching marathon celebration/singing/dancing performances on tv, spending time with family, and setting off fireworks at ALL hours of the day.
This year was 牛年( The Year of the Cow) and my family spent the majority of it at my Laolao's house (maternal grandmother).
We set off mid-afternoon on Sunday to her apartment on the outskirts of Beijing where we would stay for 3 nights. When we opened the door a combination of steam, sweat and smoke greeted us. Her overheated, midsized apartment was crammed full with gaggles of relatives- the men smoking and playing cards, the women in assembly line form making mass quantities of food, and the children running around causing mahem. This was all just the start of the partying chaos. :)
After settling in and eating a huge dinner, the sunlight started to fade outside my baba pulled out a giant plastic bag. He beckoned all the kids to come outside with him and when we arrived outside the sound of more explosions reached our ears. Everywhere people were setting off fireworks, and my baba opened up the bag to pull out dozens of varying sizes and colors of fireworks. The bangs made it impossible to hear what anyone was saying, but my baba beckoned me over and gave me a match. He then pointed at the whisp of rope leading to a rather large firework. Gulp. I lit it and ran for my life in the opposite direction. KAABOOOM. My firework mixed in with the bangs of the hundreds of other fireworks going off in Beijing and a red spark shot up into the night sky. After lighting off that one, I choose to just watch the spectacular light show above me. The blinding lights and deafening noises were exciting and overwhelming. While we went back inside at just past 12:30, the party outside raged on until 3 or 4am and restarted at about 7 am.
The next several days were spent much the same way. Eat, play cards, light off fireworks. I enjoyed spending time with my host family and chatting with relatives, and occasionally escaped for long walks along the exploding streets. Going for a walk outside during the Chinese New Years is like going for a walk through a war zone. Everywhere you turn there are explosions and people ducking for cover, and you have to be very careful where you walk. Car alarms go off and the sky is constantly being lit up. However, instead of the crumbing buildings and the deserted streets of war, the only evidence of disturbances are the omnipresent scatterings of ripped red paper littered on the streets and a lingering smell of smoke. I have honestly never seen anything like Chinese New Years celebrations and it completely puts any American holiday celebration to shame.
After three days at my laolao's, Wang Qian, my baba and I headed home (my mama stayed an extra couple of days with her family) and I started to prepare for my next adventure.
Unfortunately, it's starting to get late and I want to do the next section of my adventure justice. I promise it will be posted before the week is out!
Until Next Time,
Julia Loughlin
Song of the Week:
Maps By: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Family Adventures
It seems I am incapable of producing a blog post with any regularity. I have excuses, but you don't want to hear them, so I will spare you :).
Even though it has been about a 2 weeks since arriving back in Beijing after two wonderful weeks of travel with my family, the memories are still fresh in my mind.
The week before my family I arrived I was itching to see them. I counted down the day, 7,6,5.... and so on until Friday afternoon I got an email from my dad, "We are in Beijing!" My family, who I had not seen and had missed so badly for 4 months was finally in my reaches. I raced home to my hutong near where my parents hotel was. I found my mom sitting in hotel lobby waiting, fighting off her jet lag while my father and brother had succumbed to it and fallen into bed. To be able to hug my family and actually see them for the first time in so long, not just as fuzzy pictures on my computer screen, is a feeling I can't really describe. After the happy reunion and a SYA Christmas Party, the trip really began.
We all arose bright and early (to my brother's extreme dismay) and headed off to the Great Wall with my good friend, Stephanie, and her family. After enjoying several hours strolling the Wall's tumultuous hills, we headed off to the Ming tombs, several burial sites of emperors long gone. We had a tour guide, and it was a wonderful feeling to hear her tell my family little bits about Chinese culture and then, having already studied most of them, elaborate and teach them what I have been learning about.
After a long day, we headed home to have dinner with my host family and when we arrived I discovered that my mama had prepared nothing short of a feast. There must have been 8 or 9 dishes of various dofu's, meat's, vegetables and all sort of CHinese cuisine. Having already prepared my family for this possibility, they tried a little bit of everything and kept up a constant stream of praise for my mama's cooking. It was a little funny to watch them struggle with their chopsticks, but after several dropped mouthfuls into laps and onto the floor, they got the hang of it. After I thought they might all burst from so much food, my mama, who did not eat anything but watched and piled things on their plates, said, "现在我们吃饺子。“ Translation- Now come the dumplings.
Uhoh. My mama made a grand total of 4 trips into the kitchen to bring out 2 bowls of lamb jiaozi, 2 bowls of vegetable jiaozi, and a bowl of beef jiaozi. I thought my family might start to cry when they saw the 2nd round of food, but if they just smiled and polietly stuffed as many dumplings into their mouths as possible in between the cries of, "UMMM! Delicious!" and "The best Chinese food I've ever eaten!" I would like to make special note of the real hero of the night, my brother. As a 6'1" kid with not an ounce of fat on his bones, his plate was immediately the target of my mama's heavy scooping spoon. He ate more food than any human being, Chinese or otherwise, I have ever seen. Though generally a picky eater and absolutely allergic to anything healthy or vegetarian Esq, he put down more dofu, radish, and spinach than I though humanely possible. I was so proud of all of them, but him in particular for his enthusiasm and wonderful attitude around my Chinese family. Beyond proving themselves competition worthy eaters, my family communicated with my family beautifully. Though they had help from Wang Qian, and myself, my family basically held their own and covered issues from the one child policy to what Americans really think of Bush (lots of laughs on that one...). To watch my two families not only accept each other and get to know each other, but also have a wonderful time in each others company made me realize how incredibly lucky I am. Most people are lucky to have one solid, loving and caring family, but I have two.
After several days in Beijing, showing my parents my favorite places and introducing them to some of my friends, we were off. First stop, Lijiang, a relatively well known city in Yunnan. Lijiang is beautiful and we spent most of our time in parks and in the old town. Here are a few pictures that will probably do I better job than I will of showing you Lijiang.
Then after a VERY long 7 hour car ride, we arrived in Zhongdian, or Shangrila as it was renamed a few years ago. Zhongdian, also in Yunnan province, is the sight of a huge Lama Temple that houses near 700 monks. This area was a former Tibetan territory and when we visited this culture was extremely apparent in the atmosphere of the place. Everywhere we went the people were dressed in very traditional and colorful Tibetan grab and the architecture or the homes was like no Han Chinese home I have seen before. Cows, pigs and yaks roamed the gravel paths and monks ranging any where from 10 to 60 strolled solemnly through the giant temple. The temple itself is a giant edifice set on a hill with a long line of steps leading to the main entrance. Inside there are many giant brass and silver prayer wheels and colorful murals depicting the scripture's stories on the walls. Unfortunately, not pictures were allowed inside of the temple but here are a few from the area.
It was beautiful and wonderful to see such a starkly different part of China.
From there we headed to Shanghai. Shanghai and Beijing are often compared and judged against each other, leaving Beijing to be the "Washington DC" of China while Shanghai is the "Manhattan". This comparison held up and Shanghai truly is a cosmopolitan and international city. But because of its extreme similarities to New York and London, it wasn't nearly as interesting as the other places we visited. Besides that, the weather was absolutely atrocious and this was our view from the bund, the most famous sight in Shanghai.
Rather anti-climactic, but the shopping was fabulous :).
We all left Shanghai ready for something other than a huge bustling city and found ourselves in Hangzhou, our last stop on the trip. Famed for having been called the most beautiful place in China by Marco Polo, Hangzhou is a city of 7 million set near a giant lake resort area. It is the most beautiful place I have thus seen in China and there was a certain magic to the way the sun sparkled on the lake and the willow trees dipped their branches low to skim the surface. We stayed on the outskirts of the city, and other than visiting a temple and garden, my family spent our last days together for the next 5 months strolling over ancient marble bridges and watching birds scoop low to hover above the vast lake. One night my mom, dad and I went to see a performance Hangzhou is famous for. I was afraid it was going to be a giant tourist trap, and perhaps it was a little bit seeing as the audience was almost entirely comprised of foreigners, but it was most tastefully done tourist trap I have ever experienced. Disney World/Land should take notes. The show started at 8 and it was outdoors on bleachers on the edge of the lake. Suddenly the lake lit up and a beautiful score began to play. From the middle of the lake rose a figure, and he seemed to float on the water. The show was the folk lore of the town and a sad love story intertwined and preformed entirely on platforms just below the waters surface. There were drums and a fantastic light show that not only lit up the small section of the lake we sat near, but a huge area. It was the best set for a show I have ever seen. To give you an idea of the scale of this performance, I found out afterwards that the staging and lights were done by the same man who helped to direct the Olympics opening ceremony. In short, it was awesome.
After several days of relaxing and enjoying each others company, my family flew on to Hong Kong and then home and I flew on to my home. It was hard to see them go, but I feel better knowing that they have seen how I live now and that they know I am happy :).
Well, its late and I have the SAT this Saturday... *gulp*...
Study time!
Until Next Time,
Julia Loughlin
Song of the Week
I Miss You by: Incubus
Even though it has been about a 2 weeks since arriving back in Beijing after two wonderful weeks of travel with my family, the memories are still fresh in my mind.
The week before my family I arrived I was itching to see them. I counted down the day, 7,6,5.... and so on until Friday afternoon I got an email from my dad, "We are in Beijing!" My family, who I had not seen and had missed so badly for 4 months was finally in my reaches. I raced home to my hutong near where my parents hotel was. I found my mom sitting in hotel lobby waiting, fighting off her jet lag while my father and brother had succumbed to it and fallen into bed. To be able to hug my family and actually see them for the first time in so long, not just as fuzzy pictures on my computer screen, is a feeling I can't really describe. After the happy reunion and a SYA Christmas Party, the trip really began.
We all arose bright and early (to my brother's extreme dismay) and headed off to the Great Wall with my good friend, Stephanie, and her family. After enjoying several hours strolling the Wall's tumultuous hills, we headed off to the Ming tombs, several burial sites of emperors long gone. We had a tour guide, and it was a wonderful feeling to hear her tell my family little bits about Chinese culture and then, having already studied most of them, elaborate and teach them what I have been learning about.
After a long day, we headed home to have dinner with my host family and when we arrived I discovered that my mama had prepared nothing short of a feast. There must have been 8 or 9 dishes of various dofu's, meat's, vegetables and all sort of CHinese cuisine. Having already prepared my family for this possibility, they tried a little bit of everything and kept up a constant stream of praise for my mama's cooking. It was a little funny to watch them struggle with their chopsticks, but after several dropped mouthfuls into laps and onto the floor, they got the hang of it. After I thought they might all burst from so much food, my mama, who did not eat anything but watched and piled things on their plates, said, "现在我们吃饺子。“ Translation- Now come the dumplings.
Uhoh. My mama made a grand total of 4 trips into the kitchen to bring out 2 bowls of lamb jiaozi, 2 bowls of vegetable jiaozi, and a bowl of beef jiaozi. I thought my family might start to cry when they saw the 2nd round of food, but if they just smiled and polietly stuffed as many dumplings into their mouths as possible in between the cries of, "UMMM! Delicious!" and "The best Chinese food I've ever eaten!" I would like to make special note of the real hero of the night, my brother. As a 6'1" kid with not an ounce of fat on his bones, his plate was immediately the target of my mama's heavy scooping spoon. He ate more food than any human being, Chinese or otherwise, I have ever seen. Though generally a picky eater and absolutely allergic to anything healthy or vegetarian Esq, he put down more dofu, radish, and spinach than I though humanely possible. I was so proud of all of them, but him in particular for his enthusiasm and wonderful attitude around my Chinese family. Beyond proving themselves competition worthy eaters, my family communicated with my family beautifully. Though they had help from Wang Qian, and myself, my family basically held their own and covered issues from the one child policy to what Americans really think of Bush (lots of laughs on that one...). To watch my two families not only accept each other and get to know each other, but also have a wonderful time in each others company made me realize how incredibly lucky I am. Most people are lucky to have one solid, loving and caring family, but I have two.
After several days in Beijing, showing my parents my favorite places and introducing them to some of my friends, we were off. First stop, Lijiang, a relatively well known city in Yunnan. Lijiang is beautiful and we spent most of our time in parks and in the old town. Here are a few pictures that will probably do I better job than I will of showing you Lijiang.
Then after a VERY long 7 hour car ride, we arrived in Zhongdian, or Shangrila as it was renamed a few years ago. Zhongdian, also in Yunnan province, is the sight of a huge Lama Temple that houses near 700 monks. This area was a former Tibetan territory and when we visited this culture was extremely apparent in the atmosphere of the place. Everywhere we went the people were dressed in very traditional and colorful Tibetan grab and the architecture or the homes was like no Han Chinese home I have seen before. Cows, pigs and yaks roamed the gravel paths and monks ranging any where from 10 to 60 strolled solemnly through the giant temple. The temple itself is a giant edifice set on a hill with a long line of steps leading to the main entrance. Inside there are many giant brass and silver prayer wheels and colorful murals depicting the scripture's stories on the walls. Unfortunately, not pictures were allowed inside of the temple but here are a few from the area.
It was beautiful and wonderful to see such a starkly different part of China.
From there we headed to Shanghai. Shanghai and Beijing are often compared and judged against each other, leaving Beijing to be the "Washington DC" of China while Shanghai is the "Manhattan". This comparison held up and Shanghai truly is a cosmopolitan and international city. But because of its extreme similarities to New York and London, it wasn't nearly as interesting as the other places we visited. Besides that, the weather was absolutely atrocious and this was our view from the bund, the most famous sight in Shanghai.
Rather anti-climactic, but the shopping was fabulous :).
We all left Shanghai ready for something other than a huge bustling city and found ourselves in Hangzhou, our last stop on the trip. Famed for having been called the most beautiful place in China by Marco Polo, Hangzhou is a city of 7 million set near a giant lake resort area. It is the most beautiful place I have thus seen in China and there was a certain magic to the way the sun sparkled on the lake and the willow trees dipped their branches low to skim the surface. We stayed on the outskirts of the city, and other than visiting a temple and garden, my family spent our last days together for the next 5 months strolling over ancient marble bridges and watching birds scoop low to hover above the vast lake. One night my mom, dad and I went to see a performance Hangzhou is famous for. I was afraid it was going to be a giant tourist trap, and perhaps it was a little bit seeing as the audience was almost entirely comprised of foreigners, but it was most tastefully done tourist trap I have ever experienced. Disney World/Land should take notes. The show started at 8 and it was outdoors on bleachers on the edge of the lake. Suddenly the lake lit up and a beautiful score began to play. From the middle of the lake rose a figure, and he seemed to float on the water. The show was the folk lore of the town and a sad love story intertwined and preformed entirely on platforms just below the waters surface. There were drums and a fantastic light show that not only lit up the small section of the lake we sat near, but a huge area. It was the best set for a show I have ever seen. To give you an idea of the scale of this performance, I found out afterwards that the staging and lights were done by the same man who helped to direct the Olympics opening ceremony. In short, it was awesome.
After several days of relaxing and enjoying each others company, my family flew on to Hong Kong and then home and I flew on to my home. It was hard to see them go, but I feel better knowing that they have seen how I live now and that they know I am happy :).
Well, its late and I have the SAT this Saturday... *gulp*...
Study time!
Until Next Time,
Julia Loughlin
Song of the Week
I Miss You by: Incubus
Friday, January 2, 2009
A Taste of Hutong Life
Sorry for the extreme delay in post! I just returned from a two week vacation with my real family through Beijing, Lijiang, Shangrila, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. It was an absolutely wonderful trip and seeing my family was amazing. I was happy to see them in good health and humor, and loved watching them explore the city I now call home. I have a very long blog in the works because there is much to say about our travels through China, but first I'd like to post another English essay I wrote shortly before my winter break. In English we read an essay from the book Wild Grass by Ian Johnson about the destruction of historic hutongs for new real estate developments. Then our English teacher assigned us to go on a scavenger hunt through the city visiting some of the sights mentioned in the essay and talking with current hutong residents. We then had to pick one of the items on the list that we had completed and write about it. As a hutong dweller, I had many interviews with the people living around me to find out more about what they thought of hutong life. Hope you like it!
The deep rattling sucking noise of phlegm climbing up a throat like a locomotive chugging out of a tunnel. Then the pronounced, heavy spit into a sink. It is so loud it sounds as if it were happening in the room, even though I know it is occurring just outside the hutong's paper thin walls. I used to shudder every time I heard it but today I don't even look up from my Chinese homework. Half way through writing the next character my sliding door is thrown wide open. At the door way stands my 7 year old mischievous neighbor with an impish grin spread across his face. Today he has donned a stained cartoon Spider man t-shirt, but has forgotten the bottom half of the outfit. He takes one look at me, laughs, and runs back into my family's living room where my host parents sit apparently oblivious to the intrusion. After being ignored for several seconds he takes off, giggling, back to his own section of the hutong.
When my English teacher assigned our class a scavenger hunt to find various hutong locations in Beijing, I was ready to learn more about the fast disappearing edifices. After having read Wild Grass by Ian Johnson in class, and hearing his views on the government's destruction of hutongs, our mission was to find some of the oldest hutongs in Beijing, see some of the new real-estate developments that have replaced destroyed hutongs, and talk to residents of the ancient courtyard homes. Half of the locations on the list were in my backyard, the closest being Ju'er Hutong, an ancient alley about 3 minutes from my home. I scouted out most of the locations on the list and found it very interesting, however, it was the conversations with hutong residents that were most informative and enlightening.
My host father sits across from me on a cracked pink plastic lawn chair. I ask him what he thinks of living in a hutong. He looks at me thoughtfully for a moment from behind his wire rimmed spectacles, his fingers laced on his lap. He tells me that he has lived in hutongs his whole life. Even today, his mother lives in the hutong he grew up in, not far from the one he owns now which means he can see his 70 year old mother everyday. My host father's eyes have a glint of nostalgia as he recounts his memories of growing up in a hutong. He tells me of his childhood adventures ice skating on the Hou Hai lake, just a 5 minute walk from his home, and playing tag with his siblings through the snaking alley ways. He admits, life was simple and there wasn’t a lot of space, but that there was an incredible sense of community between all the hutong dwellers. Today, this sense of community is still a main reason my host father likes hutong life. "I know every single person in this hutong," he tells me proudly. Moreover, he says that this kind of community is the perfect atmosphere to raise a child in. His own daughter, Wang Qian, now grown up and away at college, grew up in a safe and kid friendly environment. All of the other hutong residents looked out for her when necessary and because the neighborhood was very quiet with few cars daring to wedge their way through the narrow alley, there were no worries when she wanted to play in the street.
When I ask my host father if he finds living in a hutong comfortable, his eye brows knit tightly. He concedes that it isn't very big and some hutongs are not in good condition, but that his hutong has every thing his family needed. There is hot water, enough room for Wang Qian to have her own bedroom, and a sizable living room. Moreover, when I ask him what he thinks about living in an apartment in comparison to living in a hutong, I find out that he actually owns a 3 bedroom apartment in Beijing, but rents it out because he doesn't find it as comfortable.
Wang Qian sits on the faded white sofa with her laptop in her hands, her Ipod to her left, and a brand box set collection of Gossip Girl DVDs to her right. She glances past me at the shiny flat screen screen TV on which a group of game show contestants try to jump from Styrofoam block to swinging rope over a pool of water. Splash, a contest falls and Wang Qian’s focus jumps back to me. “What about hutongs?” I repeated my question of whether or not she liked living in a hutong. A familiar thoughtful look crosses her face. She tells me that it was where she had grown up and made her friends. She admits it’s not a fancy, new apartment, but it has what she needs, being most importantly wireless Internet and central heating. She adds that living in a hutong means you live in some of the best and most central locations in Beijing. Behai Park, Jingshan Park, Hou Hai, Wangfujin, and the Forbidden city are all at her fingertips, and if that means living in slightly cramped quarters rather than a modern apartment, she’d take it.
Living in a hutong means noise, interruptions, and sometimes not as much privacy as you would like. I’ve lost count of the times my little monster of a neighor has run into my hutong just to throw the sliding door open. I can’t remember how many times the dog that lives next door has followed me into my house just to beg for dinner scraps. And I certainly know that I have heard that same neighbor hack leughies every morning without fail, but I love it. Based on my scavenger hunt assignment to have conversations with hutong residents, I learned that many of them feel the same way I do about hutong life. Yes, sometimes we have to sacrifice a little bit of personal space and be patient with the peole we live in such close quarters with, but the reward is the incredible sense of community only a hutong can offer.
The deep rattling sucking noise of phlegm climbing up a throat like a locomotive chugging out of a tunnel. Then the pronounced, heavy spit into a sink. It is so loud it sounds as if it were happening in the room, even though I know it is occurring just outside the hutong's paper thin walls. I used to shudder every time I heard it but today I don't even look up from my Chinese homework. Half way through writing the next character my sliding door is thrown wide open. At the door way stands my 7 year old mischievous neighbor with an impish grin spread across his face. Today he has donned a stained cartoon Spider man t-shirt, but has forgotten the bottom half of the outfit. He takes one look at me, laughs, and runs back into my family's living room where my host parents sit apparently oblivious to the intrusion. After being ignored for several seconds he takes off, giggling, back to his own section of the hutong.
When my English teacher assigned our class a scavenger hunt to find various hutong locations in Beijing, I was ready to learn more about the fast disappearing edifices. After having read Wild Grass by Ian Johnson in class, and hearing his views on the government's destruction of hutongs, our mission was to find some of the oldest hutongs in Beijing, see some of the new real-estate developments that have replaced destroyed hutongs, and talk to residents of the ancient courtyard homes. Half of the locations on the list were in my backyard, the closest being Ju'er Hutong, an ancient alley about 3 minutes from my home. I scouted out most of the locations on the list and found it very interesting, however, it was the conversations with hutong residents that were most informative and enlightening.
My host father sits across from me on a cracked pink plastic lawn chair. I ask him what he thinks of living in a hutong. He looks at me thoughtfully for a moment from behind his wire rimmed spectacles, his fingers laced on his lap. He tells me that he has lived in hutongs his whole life. Even today, his mother lives in the hutong he grew up in, not far from the one he owns now which means he can see his 70 year old mother everyday. My host father's eyes have a glint of nostalgia as he recounts his memories of growing up in a hutong. He tells me of his childhood adventures ice skating on the Hou Hai lake, just a 5 minute walk from his home, and playing tag with his siblings through the snaking alley ways. He admits, life was simple and there wasn’t a lot of space, but that there was an incredible sense of community between all the hutong dwellers. Today, this sense of community is still a main reason my host father likes hutong life. "I know every single person in this hutong," he tells me proudly. Moreover, he says that this kind of community is the perfect atmosphere to raise a child in. His own daughter, Wang Qian, now grown up and away at college, grew up in a safe and kid friendly environment. All of the other hutong residents looked out for her when necessary and because the neighborhood was very quiet with few cars daring to wedge their way through the narrow alley, there were no worries when she wanted to play in the street.
When I ask my host father if he finds living in a hutong comfortable, his eye brows knit tightly. He concedes that it isn't very big and some hutongs are not in good condition, but that his hutong has every thing his family needed. There is hot water, enough room for Wang Qian to have her own bedroom, and a sizable living room. Moreover, when I ask him what he thinks about living in an apartment in comparison to living in a hutong, I find out that he actually owns a 3 bedroom apartment in Beijing, but rents it out because he doesn't find it as comfortable.
Wang Qian sits on the faded white sofa with her laptop in her hands, her Ipod to her left, and a brand box set collection of Gossip Girl DVDs to her right. She glances past me at the shiny flat screen screen TV on which a group of game show contestants try to jump from Styrofoam block to swinging rope over a pool of water. Splash, a contest falls and Wang Qian’s focus jumps back to me. “What about hutongs?” I repeated my question of whether or not she liked living in a hutong. A familiar thoughtful look crosses her face. She tells me that it was where she had grown up and made her friends. She admits it’s not a fancy, new apartment, but it has what she needs, being most importantly wireless Internet and central heating. She adds that living in a hutong means you live in some of the best and most central locations in Beijing. Behai Park, Jingshan Park, Hou Hai, Wangfujin, and the Forbidden city are all at her fingertips, and if that means living in slightly cramped quarters rather than a modern apartment, she’d take it.
Living in a hutong means noise, interruptions, and sometimes not as much privacy as you would like. I’ve lost count of the times my little monster of a neighor has run into my hutong just to throw the sliding door open. I can’t remember how many times the dog that lives next door has followed me into my house just to beg for dinner scraps. And I certainly know that I have heard that same neighbor hack leughies every morning without fail, but I love it. Based on my scavenger hunt assignment to have conversations with hutong residents, I learned that many of them feel the same way I do about hutong life. Yes, sometimes we have to sacrifice a little bit of personal space and be patient with the peole we live in such close quarters with, but the reward is the incredible sense of community only a hutong can offer.
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