“My Life In…”

I met up with a good friend the other day, who had just returned from a trip to China. We spoke about the effect that life in China has on foreigners. She described a family of missionaries who have grown arrogant and condescending towards to Chinese people over the course of years spent living in Beijing.

I know what she meant. I’ve seen this effect amongst the diplomat and corporate families of Beijing, as well as the English teacher population, and it’s not pretty. Even exchange students aren’t immune from it (though it’s manifested more as a type of solipsism). I guess it’s a bit like what a colonialist attitude would have been like. Brendan wrote a good post years ago which mentioned that people in Shunyi would describe a trip to inner Beijing as “going to China”.

It got me thinking, how do different countries affect expatriates in different ways (compare China with, say, Italy)? How do different countries draw different types of people? And obviously you can then try to spot similarities within expatriate communities of whichever country you live in.

What I think happens is that if the expatriate community is sufficiently small, the members start to construct a reality in which they take on roles in some television drama or film. You can often see this in play if you observe the international students at your university cafeteria; the interpersonal dynamics are not real, but modeled and acted out.

In some ways it might be a healthy change from the anomie which affects us when we live in big cities, likely in far larger populations than our brain is equipped to deal with. But it turns ugly when it results in the local population of a country being treated as no more than authentic looking extras in some Hollywood production.

It's Not the Size That Counts...

...it's how you use it.

It seems like every day I have to read about how China is or is going to be the worlds largest whatever. Largest economy. Largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Largest collection of genius I.Qs. Largest buyer of cars. Largest internet user base. Largest collection of elite university professors. Largest space station. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Firstly, there is just far too much uncertainty in this world for any of these predictions to be reliable. I was just reading about the halting problem the other day (not there, but in Seth Lloyd's book). Likewise here, the only way we'll know what's going to happen is by waiting and seeing. I was watching Working Girl yesterday - great movie by the way- and a running theme through it was corporate takeover by Japanese firms. Yeah. I think Daikyo's had its day.

And yet every day we have to hear some whimpering politician talking about China taking its "rightful place", "ruling the world", that its "China's century". The repetition of these bromides really tries one's patience. Even if I was to put some faith in these predictions, I think to myself, who does this really affect? And what should we make of this?

Well, take things as they already are. China has a much bigger GDP than, say, Norway. It has bigger everything, probably.

But where would you rather be a local citizen? Oslo or Shanghai? I mean born and raised, not the expat lifestyle.

Listening to my Norwegian friends talk about growing up, and comparing it with what my Shanghainese friends tell me, at this stage Oslo sounds like a better choice. It might not be that way in the future- maybe Shanghai will be the envy of the world with regard to quality of life. Norway was very poor in the past. But my point here is that being the biggest really isn't something that would affect my decision in the slightest.

Looking Back On It

Blindness is an excellent film, I went to see it on Tuesday. It was only showing at the Portside cinema, which meant an hour on the ferry. I got on at five in the afternoon, which must be the perfect time for riding ferries, with no glare, a slight breeze, and sky of shifting colours. I looked back out onto the river and had time to think about the workshop in Suzhou.

***

The middle of an undergraduate semester doesn't seem like an obvious time to be travelling to China, but the majority of my trips there are in fact mid-semester. I've always been nervous when going on sponsored trips, worrying about whether I'm qualified or whether I'll know anyone there. The last two trips- Grandad Wen's delegation, and Hanyu Qiao- ended up being far cooler than I had imagined would be possible, and a good number of my friends are people I met through those trips. So, though harboring self-doubt as always, this time I also had some feeling that it would be worth the worrying.

And it really was.

***

I had an early start, waking up before four am for the Brisbane to Sydney, then Sydney to Shanghai flight. I was on the same flight as Australian author Julia Leigh, who was going to have her novel The Hunter translated into Chinese. Julia was the first person I met involved with the workshop, and she was totally cool and very friendly. Our flight was delayed for an hour or so because of some torrential rain, during which time I asked lots of questions about the process of creative writing. On the plane I watched In Bruges which I really liked, and two other films which clearly didn't have much of an effect on me since I can't remember them. Oh, one was a Chinese film called Mi Guo, apparently called Lost, Indulgence in English which sounds a bit too similar to Lust, Caution in my view, Lost and Caution going together and Lust, Indulgence also quite similar.

***

As we walked out to the arrival hall in Shanghai there was a driver with a Penguin sign waiting for us, which was damn cool. To get off the plane and have a people-mover reader with driver and tea and water inside, that's the best way to arrive in Shanghai. I think it was about two hours drive to the hotel in Suzhou, the first time I've done that drive at night. There were nice rural houses along the way with candles burning in the yards. We arrived exhausted at about eleven, which is one in the morning on Australian time, which meant I think twenty one hours after I had woken up. You'd think I'd have gone straight to sleep but after I had put my bags down I felt a surge of excitement at being back in China, and the airline food hadn't sat that well, so I hit the street nearby to get a late-night meal. After a bit of walking I found a Sichuan restaurant where I sat by the window with a novel, ate Kung-Pao Chicken and Tomato-Egg Soup and rice, and the waiter came over and chatted to me about why I was in Suzhou and so on. It was nice to be there for a reason. Some North-Eastern guys were head-rollingly drunk at the table nearby, and given the naming arrangements of "Second Brother" and so on I got the feeling they might be hoodlums. I hoped so anyway. There was much swearing. I went back at one am China time and slept well.

***

I had been told that I had to register downstairs between 10 and 4, and I woke up at seven with a lot of energy. I had a good breakfast of congee and warm soymilk, and went out to see what the city was like. There was a wonderful street just nearby, a Historical Street in fact.

It was really lively when I walked down it mid-morning, in search of a phone-card. I walked the length of the historic street without finding any of the newspaper-phone-beverage-internet-sage carts so common outside the fourth ring road in Beijing. After I crossed a busy road I spoke to an approachable looking guy who had kittens in with the eggs he was selling.

He pointed me in the right direction where I spoke to a woman who had one phone-card left. I wanted another one for Julia so I went off walking in the opposite direction and found an official China Mobile store. It's actually less convenient buying the legitimate phone-cards, and I sat there as people argued about whether my drivers license was acceptable to use as identification.
I had some dumplings for an early lunch, and the place was packed. When I got back to the hotel, registration had opened. As I signed my name I saw two familiar names- Brendan and Jim, from Beijing. Then on the elevator up I met Nicky, who contributes to Paper Republic, and whose posts I've always enjoyed. The world suddenly felt much smaller and friendlier.

I spent the remaining hours before the opening ceremonies reading my excerpt of Wang Gang's The Curse of Forbes (which I would actually say as "The Forbes Curse" but that's just me). After some confusion I found the room where I had to be, meeting Duncan along the way, a very funny and friendly guy with a BBC voice. The talks kicked off with simultaneous interpreting, followed by dinner, followed by readings from the authors. All very cool, and the Chinese authors in particular were very entertaining not just in their readings but in what they said preceding. By this stage I'd met fellow Australian Paul, as well as Alice and Skye. I knew by now that it was going to be an awesome week.

***

We tried different paces in the translation sessions. For the first day we didn't get past the first two sentences. Eric had told me that there'd be a lot of discussion- argument, even- over how to express a sentence, but I didn't realise it would be to that extent. Such talks were invaluable though, to revealing the limitless ways a sentence could be understood and expressed. We later split up into groups, which was faster, though we still had to explain our choices, which is something you don't often do when you're translating by yourself. There was a great session on film subtitling- I ended up having breakfast with the director of the documentary the next morning- and my group managed to slip some Northern English phrases into the clip. Oh aye.
In the evenings we'd head down the historic street to the Bookworm cafe, which had a pretty good selection of beers. I think we drank them out of Boddingtons and Leffe.

***

And so the week- days translating fiction, interspersed with buffet lunches and dinners, and drinks in the evening by the canal- went, and I look back at it, and it has an odd temporal distortion. It doesn't quite feel like a week, but more like a montage in a film. It's rare when a period of time is composed solely of curiosity, friends, learning, relaxation, but that's what the week was.

Off Again

I'm lucky enough to be traveling to China again on Saturday. I'll be attending the Penguin Publishing Chinese-English Literary Translation workshop for a week in Suzhou.

I've only ever been in Suzhou for a day-trip before, so I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like. More than anything, though, I'm looking forward to meeting and learning from some fantastic, experienced translators.

Awesome

I went to use Adsotrans recently and was surprised to find something entirely new, something entirely awesome.

Popup Chinese.

That post I wrote about Adsotrans is still valid- the website has that sweet web 2.0 dictionary. But they're also now producing podcasts. These podcasts have a real personality to them and they're totally Beijing-centric. They have a brilliant, eclectic range of content up so far, ranging from KTV to literature. I don't really listen to language-podcasts for Chinese much anymore, I've been sticking to the Chinese news podcasts from the ABC and BBC recently. But this is definitely the most impressive podcast I've ever heard. It's often really hard to strike a balance between practical and fun. These guys have found it.

有话好好说 - Keep Cool - Film Review

I've got a blurry view of Zhang Yimou.  I can't quite figure out what his style is, and I'm not sure whether he's a good director who occasionally makes crap films, or a crap director who occasionally makes good films.  The truth is probably just too complex for a simple view like either of those to hold.

I haven't seen his films in any chronological order, and that doesn't help.  I first saw Hero and 'Surrounded' (aka House of Flying Daggers); fun, anodyne f ilms lacking much substance.  Then I saw Happy Times, which I really liked.  It had a soul and a sense of humour.  Then I saw Raise the Red Lantern, which was burningly haunting.  

And then I saw 'City of Golden Armour', aka 'Curse of the Golden Flower', aka 'Curse of the Golden Breasts'.  

Keep Cool is probably closest to Happy Times, which is to say, it's one of Zhang's films which I really liked.  The pace and feel of the film is almost reminscent of early Wong Kar-Wai films like Chungking Express and Fallen Angels.  This is probably because of the on-location shooting, and the largely handheld, constantly dancing cinematography.  

And in the same way that Chungking Express seems, to me at least, to capture something of Hong Kong, Keep Cool is quite an accurate depiction of Beijing.  The dialogue is chock-full of Beijing dialect (or rather, they speak in Beijing dialect throughout the whole film), our main character played by Jiang Wen (from Green Tea) is somewhat of a hooligan, and it relies on the distinctly Beijing sense of humour, or at least North Eastern brand of humour.  The scene with Zhao Benshan (who was also in Happy Times) reading poetry outside the apartment is particularly hilarious.

With any luck, Zhang's next film will be more along these lines, and not some epic, craptacular.

Beijing, Hong Kong and Brisbane Days

I did leave my camera in my hotel room in Hong Kong, but thanks to the awesome staff of The Cosmopolitan (now officially the best hotel ever, as far as I'm concerned), I'm now back in possession of my camera. Thanks guys!

Finally I can put up the quick photo journey I've been wanting to do for a while.

The first view is that from my Beijing apartment. This was the morning of my last day in Beijing. It wasn't raining.



This, by contrast, is the view out of the hotel window, on my first morning in Hong Kong.


And this is the view out of the flat I'm staying at in Brisbane. It rained this afternoon.

Such Hospitality

I've just read a rather extreme example of 'hospitality' in the Three Kingdoms, and thought I'd give a quick, rough translation. There's actually an odd sort of moral ambiguity here (even, or especially, in the Chinese, I think), and I wonder about the significance of this little part of the story. The plight of women in the Han dynasty was certainly pretty horrid. As always any corrections are welcome.

一日，到一家投宿，其家一少年出拜，问其姓名，乃猎户刘安也。当下刘安闻豫州牧至，欲寻野味供食，一时不能得，乃杀其妻以食之。玄值曰：“此何肉也？”安曰：“乃狼肉也。”玄德不疑，乃饱食了一顿，天晚就宿。至晓将去，往后院取马，忽见一妇人杀于厨下，臂上肉已都割去。玄德惊问，方知昨夜食者，乃其妻之肉也。玄德不胜伤感，洒泪上马。刘安告玄德曰：“本欲相随使君，因老母在堂，未敢远行。”玄德称谢而别…

One day, Liu Bei went to stay overnight at a house and was met by the young man living there, a hunter named Liu An. Upon learning that Liu Bei was governor of Yu, Liu An wanted to provide a meaty meal for all; unable to find any meat, he killed his wife and cooked her.

“What kind of meat is this?” asked Liu Bei.

“It’s wolf,” replied Liu An. Thus satisfied, Liu Bei went on to eat until he was full, and then stayed the night. At dawn, Liu Bei went behind the house to get his horse, when suddenly he saw the corpse of a woman inside the kitchen, with the flesh on her arms scraped away. Liu Bei, shocked, asked Liu An, and only then found out that last night’s meat had been that of his wife. Liu Bei was so moved he couldn’t help crying as he mounted his horse.

“I’d love to come along, but while Mum’s alive I don’t dare venture out far,” said Liu An.

Liu Bei thanked him and left…

Junkie

I must be building up a tolerance. 250 grams used to last days. Now I'm doing 500 grams in an evening yet still thirst for more.

My name's Cooper, and I'm a strawb addict. Perhaps it was not eating a single strawb for a whole year, or perhaps this winter has produced a particularly fine, juicy, succulent bunch of strawbs. Either way, I'm hooked. It's probably the best thing about being in Brisbane right now.

So the word for strawberry in Chinese, 草莓 caomei, is literally straw berry. This is a bit much to be sheer coincidence, so I figured that strawberries probably aren't native to China. Seeking a China-centric answer, I looked up Chinese Wikipedia. I found out in Cantonese it is 士多啤梨, which I found out is pronounced sih do be leih, a transliteration from the English without meaning, as such, but does finish with the character for pear.

It was a good way to learn a bunch of words I'd never learn otherwise (which I'll probably forget in a few hours, but if I look up enough entries on fruit after a while...I'll be fluent in er, fruity language...ba-doom-tish). Apparently the part we eat is not actually strawberry fruit, but a part of the outer floral envelope created after the pollen has disseminated. The real strawberries are the little yellow things covering the surface of the strawberry. Or something like that.

I need another hit, but my supply is running low...

BBC Chinese Unblocked - Translated Comments

The BBC's Chinese website is, apparently, now unblocked in mainland China. I was browsing through the interactive section of the website and found a comments section with the title: BBC Chinese Unblocked - Your Experiences.

Anyway, I'm just taking a break from the reading I'm doing for university, and thought I'd give my shot at translating some of the comments- original post first, followed by translation. I might return and do some more later:

BBC 又在搞他那臭名昭著的小把戏了：花钱雇佣中国的小贱民（或称被雇佣的网上反华分子）来此污染中国人的大脑 了！西方搞数十年的对国民的洗脑很成功啊，倒是中国共产党半途而废啦，不过我们是中国人，不会听你继续骗人 和攻击中国，因为你BBC只有一个目的，就是让中国变得衰弱，你英国白人殖民者可心理平衡也可继续瓜分中国 ！做梦吧你。

F--KBBC F--KBBC BEIJING 中国

The BBC is up to it's notorious filthy tricks yet again: Hiring the underclass of China (or you might say 'the hired online Sinophobes') to come and pollute the brains of the Chinese! The West's decades long brainwashing of the citizens has really succeeded, whereas the Communist Party gave up half way through, but we're Chinese, we won't listen as you continue to deceive and attack China, because the BBC only has one goal, which is to weaken China, it doesn't bother you white British colonizers to keep carving up China! You're dreaming, you are.

F--KBBC F--KBBC BEIJING, CHINA

中国什么时候才能文明? 才能理性?
愚昧地抵制别人,到最后只能是自己被全世界孤立!!!

80后 北京

When will China finally be civilized? Finally be rational? The ignorant boycotting of others will only lead to being isolated by the world.

Post-80's Beijing

开放言论与思想是文明的基础。中国不仅需要经济发展，也需要政治进步。希望这种开禁是长期的，不是暂时的。

PLA China

Freedom of speech and thought are the foundations of civilization. China doesn't just need economic development, it also needs political progress. I hope this kind of unblocking is long term, not temporary.

PLA China

开通BBC，实在太高兴了，不过这肯定是中共的应景之举，奥运一过，就不会如此。中共独裁专制政党什么丧心 病狂的事都能做得出来！不过“解封”一天也好啊！

求实　 江苏

The BBC is opened up, I'm over the moon, but this tactic is definitely a temporary one from the CCP, after the Olympics, it won't be like this. No tactic is too depraved for that CCP dictatorship! But one day of 'unblockage' is still good!
Truth Seeker Jiangsu

能从中国国内浏览BBC网，网速很快!感觉很好。这种开放很有意义!看到你们让人马上想起你们的祖先来我国 贩卖鸦片烟,火烧圆明园的事了!但愿你们不要象你们父辈那样在网上放毒,来毒害我们!

林则徐 北京

Browing the BBC from inside China, the connection is really fast! Feels good. This type of easing of control is really significant! Seeing you lot reminds me of the fact that your ancestors came to our country peddling opium, and burned down the old Summer Palace! But I hope you lot aren't so like your forefathers that you'd spread poisonous ideas on the internet to harm us!

Lin Ze Xu Beijing (note: Wenlin has a listing for Lin Ze Xu 1785-1850, 'a Canton viceroy who tried to halt the opium trade')


-----------
PS: I couldn't figure out a good way of translating: 解封 unblock in the context as it was used here, thus we have 'unblockage'.

Shanghai Gloaming

There was a really good documentary on SBS just now, called Shanghai Gloaming. It was made by FLY Films, and follows the photographer Greg Girad around the more interesting areas of Shanghai. My favourite thing to do in Shanghai is to stroll through the northern Bund area, and I was lucky enough on one of my trips to visit a friend's old home in the area. It was built in the shikumen style (石库门), and it was fascinating taking a look inside.

The documentary was made in 2005, and gives quite a gloomy outlook as to the future of these unique architectural styles, suggesting that they're going to be torn down in the near future. That's probably true, though there's still plenty standing today, so it's still worth exploring. I didn't have my camera then, but in any event there's better examples of it at Greg Girad's website. In particular, in the places section, see photo #3 "North Bund Rooftops".

I also saw that Girad has done some good work capturing the Walled City which used to exist in Kowloon.

To Sinicize the Games

Before going to China, I'd never put much thought into what it meant to localize a video game. Now I see why this process would be costly and lengthy. It means, in this context, to subtitle or dub over all the text in a video game. English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese- these languages seem to be prime for localization teams, probably because of the video game playing populaces of nations speaking those languages.

In China, I found that many games were not localized. A game might have a Chinese package, and a Chinese name, but the game itself was entirely in English more often than not. I suspect this is why the majority of video game magazines at the newsagents were of the 'strategy guide' variety, which is fancy way of saying "how to beat this game step by step."

One game which is localized, or Sinicized rather, is World of Warcraft, and it's now a massive source of income for Blizzard (which should be Blizzard Activision now, for budding stock traders). It's probably not a coincidence that it's a game which can't be pirated. It can only be played with an account kept on official servers, so there seems to be no way of getting it for free. Apart from WoW, Chinese gamers are relatively ignored; I'm not even sure if games made within China, such as the recent Splinter Cell game by Ubisoft Shanghai, get Sinicized.

What's interesting though is that Chinese netizens have taken the matter into their own hands, and release 汉化 (han4 hua4, 'Sinicized') versions of the games for free on the internet. It's probably the case that because of the rampant media piracy in China, the software developers/publishers/distributers don't feel it's worth the investment to Sinicize their products. But the lack of official Chinese language software is no doubt part of the problem now, and those in charge would be better off with a carrot rather than a stick approach to solving it.

And on top of that, I'd like to add, that playing video games in Chinese is one of my favourite ways of learning the language. There's nothing like having to solve an interactive puzzle in Chinese. Anyway, enough nerd-speak for now...

Brisbane is a Taiwanese Mecca

My friend once told me that Brisbane has the largest Taiwanese population in Australia. I haven't bothered to veryify that, but it's plausible enough. The Chinese department at my university is almost entirely run by that rogue state. Some of the best Chinese restaurants in Brisbane are located in the suburb of Sunnybank, where lots of Taiwanese reside. And in my Three Kingdoms class, I've had my first taste of a truly 'dia' accented Chinese in a while(嗲, dia is third tone, for budding Sinophones out there).

If you haven't heard of this word, I'll offer now my understanding of it. Wenlin gives the translation 'childish, coy'. The 'dia' accent occurs when a young woman (or not so young) speaks as though imitating a four year old girl. Some people find it infuriating, but I just find it strange. Well, strange and maybe a bit annoying. And whilst it's sort of spreading throughout mainland China, Taiwan is apparently the place to get a fix of it. Or Brisbane, for that matter.

I was having a coffee with friends this evening in South Bank and there was a pair of girls behind us speaking some weird dialect, which at times sounded like Shanghainese, but I'm pretty sure wasn't. They certainly had that dia way of speaking though. Weirder still, was going to the bathroom and seeing a guy dressed up as Robin. As in, Batman and Robin. He was leaning on the sink bench, furiously scribbling down notes in a book. I left without saying a word. I guess that doesn't relate to Taiwan, but I had to mention it; it was just too strange not to.

Anyway, I haven't been to Taiwan before, but sometimes feel like I might be living in Taiwan-town. More investigation is needed.

In The Deep End (And A Request)

It's about 2 am and I'm taking a break from some reading I need to get done for university. Stuff I need to get done before the first lecture begins. Not light reading, I'm afraid; more like, the hardest reading I've ever put myself through. I'm only doing one Chinese course this semester but I think it's more than enough: Reading the Three Kingdoms. You may know this as a really long historical novel, and the basis for many martial arts films, including that one recently with Andy Lau and Sammo Hung. And you'd be right. Other than that I've got some philosophy of science courses, but that's another flavour of quark.

It's hard reading for a few reasons, the first being the language used. Sure, I've read (and I'm reading) sections from The Art of War, The Dao De Jing, and the Zhuangzi, which show Classical Chinese in varying difficulties. But they all come with a modern Chinese translation, so an English example would be that it's kind of like reading Shakespeare with each paragraph paraphrased by Hemingway. Because of that modern translation, I'm able to get through relatively painlessly in those otherwise difficult works.

However, whilst the language in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is more...colloquial?... (people with proper knowledge of Chinese linguistics will hate me for my ignorance!)..the problem is the version I'm reading has no modern translation. Oh sure, it has an English translation, but it sucks. There's been a few times when I've gone to the English to try and check my understanding, only to find that very section hasn't even found its way into the translation. Nice. I put the lack of a modern translation down to the fact that it almost is modern in some ways, it just uses a totally different set of words (no doubt I'll sound like a twit when I start using these archaic words in conversation). I'm reading it online -for free, at the recommendation of our lecturer- so I can use Wenlin to help me read it.

This is a double edged sword. There are times when Wenlin (or the ABC dictionary, I guess) will recognize as a phrase something which isn't supposed to be a phrase, or will try to translate something which would be better given as a Chinese synonym (like 就是 for 乃). It can be quite confusing, though it's not really the fault of the software, just a limitation. The result is I sort of alternate between reading on my laptop and checking the English definitions for the unknown words, then consulting my portable electronic Chinese-Chinese dictionary for stuff that makes no sense in Wenlin.

So my request is thus: Some smart software engineer should design an addon for Wenlin which adds in a Chinese-Chinese dictionary (but keeping the pinyin). Or, if anyone knows of software like that, let me know.

I've calculated I'll have to read something like 2 chapters a day if I'm to finish on time. The novel is very enjoyable and I'd be lying to say I'm not drawn in, which is quite a feat given the amount of frigging about I have to do with said dictionaries.

The other life-jacket in this deep end is that we're allowed to do the assessment for the subject in English. The lectures though, I'm told, are in Chinese. I'm not sure if it's irony, but I'm sure there's something odd about taking on harder Chinese courses in Australia than in China.

Being Back

I've been back exactly a week now. It's both good and bad, and strange and familiar. I was right about appreciating the weather: Cairns in winter is like a Romantic poet's realization of the ideal summer. This was really pronounced when my family and I went up to the tablelands (Yungaburra, specifically) for an overnight at a bed and breakfast (Eden House, specifically) last week. It was a Great Leap away from Beijing, in the best way. Eden House may do the best hot chocolate in the world; a slight tipple of cognac and lots of melted, really good chocolate, it's worth taking the trip up just to taste it, and see chocolate congeal on the edge of your glass whilst you're drinking. Just superb. I've never had a more peaceful night's sleep, nor had thicker slices of bacon for breakfast.

Then on the weekend we went up to Palm Cove, which, along with Yungaburra, is just about the best place to cure 'China Syndrome' that I can think of (nod to Paul). Without sounding like a singles advertisement, I enjoyed long walks on the beach, good wines, delectable cuisine (Nunu's may be the best restaurant I've ever been to, hot chocolates aside), and lying around reading Spence's "To Change China" (more on that another time) it was all just what I needed. These things make it good to be back.

"Pretty soon it'll feel like you never left" said one of Mum's friends.

I dunno about that. My last few days in China were quite memorable. Everyone in the apartment left a few days before my flight to Hong Kong, and I wasn't quite ready. So for a few lonesome days I had the city (and the apartment) to myself. I had the farewell dinners, looked at some places for the last time, even visited Stone Boat for the first time, which I loved. Then I had to get the apartment ready for the landlord and bond collection, which was a whole lot easier than I'd thought, thankfully. I was afraid she'd get annoyed about things like massive scratches along her wall (my bad, with a stray suitcase), or massive amounts of dust (that's the crappy air), or food stains (two males of university student age, ok?), but it turned out she was just concerned that we might have tried to steal her television sets or her air conditioners. Right.

That bond collection was at 8am of the 4th of July, the same day as my graduation ceremony, at 9am, and my flight to Hong Kong at 1.30pm. So I arrived at the ceremony hall (the literal Chinese name for which is the "Study Dilligently Hall"), with my luggage and a giants helping of anxiety. After an hour of pleasantries and official-babble on behalf of the various heads of department, I was able to get my certificate, say all the goodbyes, and then grab a cab to the airport.

After what seems now to be an obligatory delay at the Beijing airport of 2 hours, at terminal 3 (very impressive terminal that one), I was off and out of the smog. And I arrived into a Hong Kong clearer than I'd ever remembered seeing it.
I'd put up photos but I can't find my camera; I think I left it in the hotel room in Hong Kong. It's a shame because I took two great photos contrasting the difference in pollution between the two cities.

Anyway, the best way I can describe it is as follows:
It was like all of Beijing had been some drawn as a sketchy background in an early black and white cartoon, whilst in Hong Kong the sky, the grass, the mountains and the ocean were all rendered in stunning 3D colour, like Toy Story or Finding Nemo. It actually seemed too colourful at first.

I had the best time in Hong Kong, as I always do, caught up with some very good friends, and then all-too-soon had to take the train back to the airport for an 18 hour hell-haul back to Cairns, via Brisbane, via Singapore.

And now I'm happy to be comfortable for the time being, though university begins exactly one week from now.

What I'll Miss and What I Won't

I'm leaving Beijing on Friday, and going back to Australia on Monday. I thought now would be a good time to explain what's going through my mind. Most importantly, what will I miss, and won't I miss?

I'll miss my friends most of all. Some of my friends are Australians studying in China, and they're returning back too, so that's not so bad. On the other hand, some of my friends are Chinese uni students, and it's doubtful that they'll be heading to Australia any time soon. So it'll probably be a while till I get to see them again. It's a good thing we have email.

I'll miss walking into a bookstore and getting almost dizzy with all the books I haven't read, and want to read. Ditto for DVD shopping...

I've always enjoyed walking down the street and feeling surrounded by historical archicture, down to the street itself, and walking down a Hutong to get a delicious meal. And I'm really going to miss those jiabingr, they are the breakfast of champions....

It'll be a shame not to be surrounded by the melodious and often slightly humourous banter of Beijingers, and I'll miss all the funny, peculiar phrases exclusive to the Beijing topolect. And joining with Beijingers in insulting the various non-Beijing speakers of Mandarin and their girly pronounciation.

And there is just a certain feeling you get in Beijing, of being in the midst of something great, exciting and important. That will be sorely missed; I suspect it'll make seem Brisbane seem positively dull.

However, I won't miss having to use a proxy browser to read the BBC news. I won't miss an hours commute necessary to go and buy some deoderent. I won't miss blowing my nose and leaving behind a black streak of coal dust. I won't miss the endless advertising for the Olympics, and 'staunch unity'.
I won't miss having the power cut in my apartment without warning, the internet cut without reason, or the hot water in the shower not working without turning on three other taps.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say I'm looking forward to being able to see clear, all the way to the horizon, every day. Hopefully that won't get old too soon, but in any event, I'll be back sooner rather than later, no doubt. That's the natural result of a degree in philosophy and Chinese; those philosophy jobs are just too hard to come by. The real question is, which city in China, or the Chinese diaspora, will I go to next?

A Problematic Education

It's almost exam time, and I'm in a bad mood about that, which is nothing new. What is new is that I know exactly what is wrong with this batch of exams, or more broadly, the system they're a part of. Perhaps if I recount what I'll be tested on, the reader may begin to deduce a pattern.

My exams are for newspaper reading (where we have yet to read an actual newspaper), focused reading (where we read about pandas and compassion and disabilities), oral Chinese (where we talk about repairing bikes, ordering food, and virus protection software), 'reading' reading (where we read selected opinion pieces from newspaper textbooks), listening (where we are tested on 5-10 second dialogue snippets filled with peculiar oddities from the Beijing topolect, and 5-10 minute vignettes about ordering virus protection software, repairing pandas, and compassionate disabilities), and audio-visual class (where we will be tested on 5-10 minute dialogues from films, with a focus on the Beijing topolect).

My biggest complaint is that preparing and passing the above exams is extremely time-consuming, and yet seems to produce very little advancement in language profiency. I think that's most likely because the context is so boring that it's rather forgettable, ba-doom-tish.
On the other hand when I'm just reading BBC articles, Lao She's Cat Country, The True Story of Ah Q, video game magazines, and so on, I find that I'm able to recall all the new stuff I learn without really having to review the stuff. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that the reviewing happens naturally.

My conclusion, reached at after a year studying in China, is that I'm never taking any more specialised 'language classes', be it in Australia or overseas. I was discussing all this with my friend Plato this evening and in the process, I showed him some of the articles I'd written for class. He checked them with great interest, and noted that many of the 'corrections' made by my teacher were in fact unnecessary; I'd written something in an idiomatic, natural way, only to have it simplified or made into something unnatural. Furthermore, I showed Plato our textbooks and he was disgusted with the fact that they were in fact full of grammatical errors or improper usage of words.

So I ask the question, what the hell is up with the 'Chinese for Foreigners' education system in China? Who writes these things, what are their qualifications, and what are their real goals? This is probably overly paranoid of me, but I partly suspect the more official programs (such as the universities) don't really want their foreign students to get too proficient, especially in the more political vocabulary. After all, an incisive critical essay can be quite effective.

Though, they shouldn't worry about that with me, not just yet anyway. I've got about all the literay finesse in Chinese of a steroid-raging lemur attempting the 8 legged essay in the midst of a mardi gras parade. Or something like that. And, as the comments in a recent philosophy essay I just recieved pointed out, my English writing skills aren't that good either.

Ah well, always good to be humbled and what not.

Fireworks Because...

There's been fireworks going all evening, and I'm not really sure why.

I was doing some leisurely browsing of China blogs, though, and came across something interesting at the Granite Studio.

According to the article (which is according to a report from Tianjin), this might be an attempt to scare away evil spirits. That's pretty likely, since fireworks are usually employed for that reason in China.

I'll hopefully remember to ask a Chinese friend about this in the coming days.

New Sinology

There's a really good article which Laurie put me onto, called "On New Sinology", by Geremie Barme.

There are two parts that really stood out for me which I'd like to point out:

'New Sinology' can thus also be described as an unrelenting attentiveness to Sinophone ways of speaking, writing, and seeing, and to the different forces that have shaped the evolution of Sinophone texts and images, as well as Sinophone ways of sense-making. Textually, the interests of a New Sinology range from the specificities of canonical and authoritative formulations in both the classical language (or rather the languages of the pre-dynastic and dynastic eras) and the modern vernacular to the many inventive bylines that have emerged more recently in our media-saturated times.

And,

Indeed, if we fail to insist on linguistic competence in Chinese as a necessary requirement for precise and rigorous engagement with Sinophone texts and images, our students may ultimately fail to make their own sense of what it means to be studying China.

That's so true. Without that competence, we're just restricted to whatever is available in translation, which by nature is going to be a bit behind the times.

In another sense, I suppose the New Sinology contrasts the 'Old' type insofar as there were guys who could read classical texts and produce scholarly translations- which is extremely impressive, especially given the resources of the times- but wouldn't be able to sit down and watch a film.

Ma Jiang

I saw another film by Edward Yang called Ma Jiang. On the DVD I have it also gives the English name as Couples, but I'm not sure if that's right.

The last film of his I saw was A One and a Two, which I really liked. Ma Jiang is quite a different film- certainly a much more disturbing film- but also well worth seeing.

One of the odd things about the film is the performances by the foreign actors. It's not that they're poorly acted roles, but rather just a bit odd. The easiest way to describe it might be as though they delivered the lines as though they were acting in a David Lynch or Peter Greenaway film; very deliberately, very slowly. I'm not sure if it was intentional on behalf of the director, but the result is the film takes on a sort of surreal quality.

It turns out to be a good mixture though, especially since the film starts off relatively innocently and slowly twists and descends.

I'll have to keep my eye out for more Edward Yang films, especially one he did with Christopher Doyle, That Day on the Beach.