Epilogue

It’s been a few months since I got back from China. Throughout the summer, I’ve been able to use journal notes, memory, and photographs to catch up on my blog, which sadly I was not able to update regularly do to the difficulty of accessing BlogSpot in China (the Great Firewall) and problems with my own computer. I’ve decided to add this entry to reflect on how I’ve readjusted to life in America and how what I learned in Harbin has influenced me since I came home.

Right away the Chinese I’d learned came in handy. After a three hour layover in Tokyo, I was on a plane back to America when one of the passengers came down sick. The airplane staff asked if anyone was bilingual in English and Chinese. I came forward and translated for the sick passenger who said that she was having heart palpitations (we had just come through some awful turbulence) and needed to lie down. They brought her to an empty seat in business class. Once she had recovered, the flight attendants came over and thanked me for translating. They even gave me a bottle of wine!

Back in New York, I found work as a tour guide on the double decker tour buses. Right away I used my Chinese skills to communicate with the bus drivers, 75% of which were Chinese. Since the job depended heavily on cooperation with the bus drivers, being able to communicate with them more easily was really helpful. For instance, if I wanted the bus to go slower so I could point out sights better or speed up in an area with fewer sights to talk about, I was able to let the driver know this. I also learned some Cantonese from the bus drivers. Mostly, I used my Mandarin to have discussions with the bus drivers while hitching rides back to Brooklyn late at night or heading to certain locations on what were called “deadheads” or empty buses sent to stops which were especially crowded at certain times of day. I learned a lot about life from those conversations, be it the bus drivers’ view on women and love, or their view on the owner of the company. We chatted about life in America, cheap tourists, tourists who tipped generously, and the weather. Later, I also did two all day private tours in Chinese, one for a family from Taiwan and another for a group of travelers from Beijing.

Since March 2010, I’ve volunteered on and off with two organizations in New York City, the Chinese Staff and Workers Association, and the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops. The organizations both operate as workers’ centers on the Lower East Side and focus on a variety of campaigns from organizing restaurant and garment factory workers to fighting gentrification and unfair development in the city. Over the past thirty years, their battles have brought them into conflict with various employers, the Triads (Chinese mafia), Mayor Bloomberg, developers, and also many other organizations. My Chinese and Spanish language skills have allowed me to volunteer regularly there and learn a lot more about New York City, especially the economic and political issues in the city. I have been deeply influenced by their philosophy, particular the organizations’ belief that the leadership for change in America will come from the super-exploited, the undocumented immigrants, women workers, and people of color as opposed to the middle class, the working class, or the well-educated. That’s not to say that the well-educated don’t have a role to play in bringing change to American society (the rezoning plan the organizations have been pushing to stop the trend of displacement in the Lower East Side was drafted by Hunter College professor Thom Angotti), but the leadership for that change will always come from those with the least to lose and fresh perspectives birthed from their experiences. For instance, immigrants have a wide perspective, because they’ve experienced life in two different countries and often bring fresh ideas. This is true not only of Latino and Chinese immigrants in New York City today, but also of immigrants throughout America history. Jewish, Italian, Russian, Polish, and Irish immigrants in America during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries were the ones who fought for rights we now take for granted.

Now I’m getting ready to go back to Yale. I know I definitely want to take at least one more semester of Chinese there and many more China-related courses. I’m excited about continuing my studies at Yale and readjusting to life in New Haven.

In the end, I’m extremely grateful to the Light Fellowship for this once in a lifetime experience.

Obstacles

One of the goals of studying abroad should be to learn how a different country works and how people from another culture see the world. Students should try to use the new perspectives they gain not only to examine the country they are staying in but also to reexamine their own nation. They should steer clear of open criticism of the country they are staying in and the people they meet. This was my attitude during my previous trips to Taiwan and to mainland China, as well as to Mali, but while in Harbin I often found myself harboring negative attitudes about the land and its people. This may be because I was in Harbin for a much longer time than I had been in Beijing in 2009. Furthermore, after having been to Taiwan, a country with a similar cultural legacy, it was harder for me to excuse annoyances as simply cultural differences between America and Asia.

My impatience with differences perhaps made my time in Harbin less enjoyable and rewarding than it could have been. I grew tired of the terrible drivers who ignored things like red lights, signaled the wrong way as they made turns or failed to signal at all, with no regard for terrified pedestrians. I grew tired of the terrible service at restaurants and stores. In grocery stores, clerks often didn’t know where items were stocked. In restaurants, waiters often got orders wrong. I grew tired too of the dishonesty of venders and the open corruption just about everywhere. Taxi cab drivers often tried to pull fast ones. On multiple occasions, I remember being harassed by train ticket scalpers trying to sell me fake or stolen tickets in plain sight of police officers. The officers didn’t care, most likely because they were taking a cut. Facebook and Youtube were blocked online by the government, but brothels and drug dealers could do business with few real impediments.

All of this was very stressful for me while in China, but maybe it helped me to gain a broader perspective on the country. China has a lot of people, and this is important for a foreigner to remember. People are often far in excess of jobs available and as a result the cost of labor is often quite cheap. The education system – especially in the countryside – is terrible and few people have good training in what they do. A massive bureaucracy tends to fan the flames of nepotism, corruption, and incompetence rather than bring the good oversight one would think a strict dictatorship could offer. Whereas in America a supermarket might have fifteen people working at a time, in China it might have thirty, all of them being paid maybe forty cents an hour with little training and no opportunity for upward mobility. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that they often do not know where things are located in the store. Waiters are also paid very little and unlike in America they are not given tips, so there is often little incentive to do a good job. Sometimes the Chinese drive to find the cheapest team possible to do a job baffles the mind, such as the crew of 4’10” subway construction workers, many middle aged women, who we saw in Dalian. They were from Guizhou, a very poor province in the southwest. Without a doubt hiring them was a lot cheaper than hiring Dalian locals. The irony is that Dalian is in the northeast with plenty of big strong young people to do construction work. But rather than hire locals, the City chose to bring in people from over four thousand kilometers away. The bad driving usually has its roots in China’s inequality. Private car owners are often relatively well off and do not care about the safety of pedestrians. Especially after seeing how bus drivers were able to manage the icy winter roads in Harbin and winding country lanes through hills, I have a lot of respect for China’s bus and truck drivers and know that China is certainly home to some of the world’s finest drivers. The bad driving of many private vehicles in the end says less about China’s drivers than it does about class tension, inequality, and entitlement in this rapidly growing country.

In the end, it’s best to be patient with dishonest street vendors, cab drivers, and others who may try to rip one off. Despite its recent economic growth, China remains a country where most people live in relative poverty. It is hard to make ends meet and many people have to work very hard to support their families and put their kids through school. As a foreigner, you stand out and invariably some people will try to rip you off. Whenever in one of those situations, I tried to think of how greenhorn Chinese immigrants are treated in America. Being overcharged a little on a souvenir pales in comparison to being paid well below minimum wage, being cheated by one’s landlord, employment agency, and snake head (human smuggler), or having one’s boss threaten to call immigration if one complains about unsafe working conditions, not to mention the host of scams someone with poor English in America will doubtlessly be confronted with, though maybe by this point no one is literally trying to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge.

CET-Harbin’s program often failed to plan reasonably around the realities of the country. They would allocate certain amounts of money to students to buy snacks for group studies on Wednesday nights or for students to go out with their roommates, but require receipts. This is China. Having to meet three layers of managers at the supermarket in order to get the receipts or getting receipts from the movie theatre or a restaurant could prove an extremely complicated affair. Most businesses in China cheat on their taxes, and as such are not used to always having receipts. Part of this is the fault of the Chinese officials whose taxes can amount to extorting as much as 30% from a small diner’s profits. For the student, the program’s requirements can prove very stressful.

At worst, obstacles and frustrations can make one’s stay abroad uncomfortable, but at best they can be used to better understand the country you visit and even your own country. During my stay in China, I learned never to make generalizations, because you always meet someone who shatters all expectations. One of those people was my roommate, who I called Brother Zhang. When speaking English or abroad, many Chinese nationals can be very nationalistic, hesitant to criticize China’s government, and defensive of a terrible regime, despite often knowing very well that much of what they are saying doesn’t match up to the facts, the Chinese feel an obligation to defend their country from outside attacks. Conversations with my roommate were a nice break from that. He felt comfortable talking about his life in China, and may have found in me the open ears of someone he could openly talk to, letting out decades of frustration and anger. He grew up growing onions in northern Jiangsu. He lost his father to lung cancer. As he explained to me, the Chinese government profits tremendously from the sale of cigarettes, which are produced and distributed by state-owned firms. “They make billions and give us cancer in return.” He had similar criticisms of China’s agricultural policies, nepotism, education system, and corruption. When it came to his views on Chinese society, he talked openly of how materialism had eroded traditional values. “Men today just want a trophy wife, women only care about a man’s car and real estate. It’s so sad, things like love and family don’t matter anymore”. Brother Zhang seemed unsure of his future in China: “An engineer here gets paid pennies. All the money goes to the boss. To get a good position, you need connections.” He was fascinated with Western ideas of meritocracy, however imperfect they are actually put into practice in America and Europe.

At one point, Brother Zhang applied for membership in the Chinese Communist Party, a necessary move for anyone hoping to boost their career. After examining his academic record and family background, his interviewers asked him to respond with all honesty if he thought China could achieve a Communist Society to which he responded, “No.” They were not pleased with his answer and said he could not join, so he changed his answer to “Yes”. They were satisfied and granted him membership. He found the whole episode hilarious.

Farewell to China

I did some more traveling after the CET Program ended. First, I traveled with the other students back to Beijing, where I stayed a few days, visiting the area where I had studied in 2009 and meeting up with Mr. Xu for dinner. I also took a trip with several other students to a portion of the Great Wall in Hebei Province.

From Beijing, I headed to Shanghai, where I spent a few days. The city was pleasant, though much more expensive than Harbin. I met up with several other CET students, including one who was doing a summer internship there. From Shanghai, I caught a train back to Beijing and a flight back to America.

One-on-One

My one-on-one class was one of the most challenging classes I took at CET Harbin. This class was the main reason I chose to study in Harbin, as it provided a real opportunity to do research in China, using Chinese language sources and with the support of a mentor. My first mentor, who I really loved, was a reporter in Harbin. Unfortunately, less than a month into the program she had to leave to take care of her mother who was struggling with terminal cancer. For another week the program’s director, Professor Ren, was my mentor until she found another teacher who was able to be my mentor until the end of the program. At first I did not like the new teacher, Professor Liu, as much as my first mentor, but over time we grew to get along really well and I made a lot of progress in the class.

My topic centered on Heilongjiang Province’s agriculture, rural development, and rural environment. I read newspaper articles on erosion and deforestation in Heilongjiang, summaries of changes China’s rural economic policy over the past 40 years, the history of migration to northeast China, corruption in rural areas, displacement, modernization, and the modern rural-urban migration. I studied all of China’s recent changes and challenges – an incredibly broad array of topics – through the narrow lens of their effects on this one province.

Heilongjiang Province is in the northeastern part of China often called Manchuria in the West. The area was sparsely populated until the 1600’s when the Manchus conquered China. They tried unsuccessfully to prevent Han migration into the northeastern part of their empire, but the Han came anyway, fleeing poverty, famine, and political unrest in northern and central China. Some came by foot and others by canoe. The migration continued well into the 20^thcentury. Today, Heilongjiang province, the northernmost part of northeastern China, is home to over forty million people.

Heilongjiang is known for its cold weather and its rich black earth, similar to the rich soils of antebellum Mississippi and the Ukraine. Its rich soil is so fertile that it feeds over 200 million Chinese with one growing season. Unlike other parts of China where the average farming family has less than one acre of land, families in Heilongjiang often have five or ten acres of rich soil. However, in recent years a combination of deforestation and excessive cultivation has caused horrific erosion, threatening a province which 16% of all Chinese rely on for food.

Starting in the late 1970’s, China began a process of de-collectivization of farmland, allowing farmers to work and manage their own plots instead of working on large communes. The process fueled rapid economic growth in the Chinese countryside in the 1980’s. However, excessive taxation, corruption, and policies aimed mostly at urban development caused rural incomes to lag throughout the 1990’s as costs of living increased. Faced with poverty and a lack of opportunities, young men and women began fleeing the countryside by the tens of millions, heading for jobs in the cities. Today, China’s farms are worked mostly by the elderly and children. Despite the new opportunities created by de-collectivization, China’s farmers remain tied to a system in which while they can manage their land, true ownership lies in the hands of the government. In practice, this means that the land is owned by local officials, who since the abolition of agricultural taxes in 2006, have been making their fortunes selling farmland out from underneath disenfranchised farmers to developers, loggers, etc. The trend has displaced tens of millions more, and has caused China’s farmland to come dangerously close to 300 million acres, the “red line” set by the government as the amount of farmland needed to feed China’s people.

In one case I read about, local officials in Heilongjiang in 1996 were inspecting a thousand acres of pristine land up for auction and decided to take the land for themselves, giving the adjacent thousand acres of farmland to the buyers. However, 48 farming families lived and worked on the adjacent land, which soon became the property of a company which later leased the land to a shady figure who wanted to rent the land out to new farmers. In 2006, he showed up and found the land already occupied by hundreds of people. He called the police and the farmers learned for the first time that the land they had grown up on and worked their whole lives had been stolen from them. Instead of the land being returned it to its proper owners and the local officials being put in jail, the farmers were driven from the land by the police, arrested, and put through a sham trial. Some fled the province; others went to jail or into hiding. Many of the youth went to the cities to work as prostitutes and petty thieves. The article was very disturbing, but reading it helped me better understand modern China and its issues.

The class culminated in two very long papers and two presentations, one before spring break and one at the end of the term. I learned a lot about Heilongjiang, vastly improved every aspect of my Chinese, and had a lot of fun working with articles and sources in Chinese.

Dandong

In early May, CET arranged a class trip to the city of Dandong. We visited the Great Wall of China’s easternmost point, saw the Yalu River and North Korea in the distance across from it, ate at a Korean restaurant, and took a trip to nearby countryside where we saw stunning views, did a little hiking, and ate at a Manchu village.

On the last night in Dandong, we had some free time, so I took two classmates to visit the parents of my former teacher and good friend Mr. Xu. We spent several hours at their farm, ate delicious food, drank unbelievable amounts of beer and liquor, and had a great time. At one point, Mr. Xu’s mother asked my classmate Melvin how old he was and upon hearing that he was twenty three, announced: “You’re a kid! No hard liquor for you! Have some beer.” At one point, we toasted in honor of their son, who’d been offered a position in Singapore. At another, Mr. Xu’s father toasted to Bin Laden’s death. Sitting on the family kang yet again, enjoying good food and their warm hospitality, I felt such a sense of joy. How wonderful that three Americans, from Boston, Rhode Island, and Brooklyn, are bonding so closely with two middle aged farmers in Manchuria.

One-on-two and Chinese Accents

While certainly not the most challenging of my four classes, my one-on-two class was easily the most fun. The class consisted mostly of memorizing dialogues and drills and going over them with a teacher and a fellow student. I worked well with my one-on-two partner, Kenny. Zou Laoshi was an excellent teacher as well. Our dialogue topics ranged from Harbin's history to the Siberian Tiger Park, and from drinking tea to China's polluted rivers. We were able to learn from each other's mistakes to improve our spoken Chinese.

I felt teachers in Harbin, especially Zou Laoshi were very willing to teach local colloquialisms and really gave me the tools I needed not only to speak very standard Mandarin, but also to understand the Northeastern accent. In contrast, teachers in Taiwan often discouraged being influenced by local accents. All of this made me think a lot about the idea of standardization in language. Mandarin, what I study, is the national language both of China and of Taiwan and was created at the turn of the last century as a National Language for the Chinese people by taking the Beijing dialect of Chinese, which is mutually intelligible with dialects spoken by over half of China, as far away as Yunnan in the Southwest and Harbin in the Northeast, modifying it, and then teaching it in schools across the country. However, each region still either has its own dialect which is mutually intelligible to Standard Mandarin, or its own completely separate dialect, in which case Mandarin will be spoken with a regional accent. In such a diverse environment of accents, how important is it for me to hone my own accent? Should I try to speak with the most standard of accents or should I adapt my accent to what I hear around me in various regions. Back in the US, particularly in New York where most Chinese are of southern stock, should I speak with a southern Chinese accent or a Beijing accent? I often thought about such questions while studying abroad and I encourage future Light Fellows to do the same. Answers may depend on what one's goals are. If someone plans to work in Taiwan and San Francisco, learning to speak Chinese with a southern accent might make the most sense. If someone wants to teach Chinese in America, learning to speak with a Beijing or Harbin accent would make the most sense.

This leads me to another thought: if I was teaching English to someone, what accent would I want them to imitate? Many people in China study the English spoken in the UK as a model of Standard English. Many people in America might consider the English spoken in the Midwest as the most standard. However, as a New Yorker, I naturally feel the English spoken in the English-speaking world's largest city and the world's economic and cultural capital should be seen as the most standard, laugh though you may about how we say the word "coffee."

Trip to Harbin Botanic Gardens with Roommate

Spring Break

Over spring break, I did a week-long trip with several other students to Dalian and Qingdao. Dalian is the southernmost city in Northeastern China (Manchuria) at the end of a penninsula west of Korea and east of Beijing. It was a Japanese colony for many decades and was one of the first cities in the Northeast to develop during the 1980's. It's often called "the Honk Kong of the North," but I think that's exaggeration. We went to the beach there, which reminded me a lot of Coney Island in my native Brooklyn, complete with the amusement rides and tourist traps. Also tried karaoke bars (not the sleazy ones), northeastern food, and even found a restaurant called "Brooklyn".

Then we went to Qingdao across the bay in Shandong province. We spent several days there enjoying the warm weather (much nicer than Harbin), clean streets (also a nice break from Harbin), Qingdao beer (not as good as Harbin beer), food, beaches, and old historic German architecture (about as impressive as Harbin's old Russian buildings). We split into two groups, one which hiked the large, imposing, and historic Tai mountain, and one which spent about hour and a half hiking the easy and relaxing Laoshan mountain. This mountain was supposed to have a waterfall, but China's worst drought in 200 years had taken its toll. I wanted to feel bad about not getting to see the waterfall, but I knew some people had lost everything in the drought.

While at the beach, I tried playing volleyball with some retirees but I was too bad at it to keep up. Two days later we were in a train station and this security guard walks up to us and says, "Hey, I remember you, you're that guy that was really bad at volleyball I played with the other day."

All in all, it was a great trip and a nice break from Harbin and schoolwork.

Classical Chinese

One of the four classes I took at CET-Harbin was Introduction to Classical Chinese. The class was challenging and taking it greatly improved my Chinese. Classical Chinese is the form of Chinese in which all Chinese literature was written from antiquity until the early 20th century when the written language was modernized and the vernacular became the language of literature. This shift made modern Chinese, the language that is actually spoken, identical to the written language. Without this shift, China would never have attained high rates of literacy, let alone any degree of modernization. However, modern China is a linguistically diverse place, with hundreds of dialects. Before the 20th century, no matter what dialect one spoke at home, everyone who was literate could read the same books. Now, written Chinese is based on Mandarin, so that all Chinese must first learn Mandarin in order to read and write. Some say this has led to the decline of many regional dialects. For a foreign student, learning classical Chinese is learning how to read everything that was written before the 20th century, including thousands of years of poetry, philosophy, and historical documents. However, classical Chinese has left such a strong legacy on the modern language that learning classical Chinese helps with everything from understanding common folk sayings and expressions to being able to read the complex vocabulary of the average Chinese newspaper. Thus, studying classical Chinese is to the student of modern Chinese what studying Latin is to the student of the modern Romance Languages. On the one hand, it allows one a connection with the distant past, while at the same time it deepens one's understanding of the modern language. That being said, Latin was replaced by the vernacular languages of Europe long before similar trends took place in China, so studying classical Chinese is necessary even to read 19th century Chinese literature. Furthermore, classical Chinese differs from modern Chinese primarily in grammar, and is still a form of the Chinese language. It is perfectly possible for a student of Chinese to learn classical Chinese within a year, while a student of English would have to spend many years of effort to truly learn Old English, let alone Latin and Greek.

My major issue with this class was that the first half of the semester we moved too fast. This made it difficult to absorb the material. For many weeks I found myself spending half of my time studying classical Chinese. Later on, the pace slowed to a more reasonable one, but had it been that way from the beginning I think it would have been easier to learn the material. I also felt the class ended up being really only about doing two things: memorizing Chinese folk sayings and translating from classical to modern Chinese. While these two activities were important, I felt the class could have been more interesting and more fun if we had done other things with our classical Chinese, such as read more poetry or even try writing in classical Chinese. I also took issue with the book, which was entirely in traditional characters. This would have been fine in and of itself, but our homework and class work was all done in simplified Chinese. So in addition to translating from classical to modern Chinese, we also had to translate from traditional to simplified Chinese. Furthermore, definitions of words in our texts given in modern Chinese did not always have an English translation, so I spent hours looking up the English translations of modern Chinese translations of our vocabulary in classical Chinese. All of this took away from time we could have used to master classical Chinese.

Nonetheless, I learned a lot in the class and the classical Chinese I learned certainly helped with my other classes.

Newspaper Reading

While I had already taken an into course on newspaper reading while studying at ICLP's program in Taiwan, I opted to take CET Harbin's introductory course on newspaper reading as well. Not only did I hope to reinforce my ability to read the newspaper in Chinese, have discussions on complex topics, and be able to write eloquently about a diverse range of subjects, I also hoped to reinforce what I was learning in my Classical Chinese course. Many of the common folk sayings and classical Chinese grammar forms I learned in that class are used commonly in the newspaper and taking the two classes simultaneously was certainly beneficial.


We read actual newspaper articles, did presentations on articles we had read on our own time, had deep discussions on everything from abortion to China's education system, and had a lot of fun. This was without a doubt my favorite class at CET-Harbin, though it was extremely challenging as the articles got very hard towards the end of the semester.

I can pick up a Chinese newspaper and read it with a dictionary and even without a dictionary I can read most of it. I strongly recommend this class to any future Light Fellows.

Old Harbin

Boxing

Two years ago, I studied Chinese at Beijing's Capital Normal University through Duke University's program. While there, I took an extracurricular class on Wushu (Chinese martial arts) offered through the program. I enjoy physical exercise, finding it both a relaxing break from rigorous study and a good way to stay healthy and energetic. Therefore, when I found out the local gym I'd joined here in Harbin offered boxing classes, I jumped at the opportunity. It would prove to be even more enjoyable and worthwhile than I expected.

Teacher Zhang is a 75 year old Harbin native, who has been boxing and teaching boxing for over 55 years. He learned from the Soviets back in the 50's before China's relationship with the Soviet Union grew cold. Although he's 75, he has the muscular build of a young man. He's a fantastic teacher, and has advice on everything from healthy living to getting out of a street fight. Some of my favorite quotes of his include "Tobacco and liquor are the enemies of the athlete," and "You'll learn fast because you're American, like Mohammad Ali." Within a few months, he taught me all the basics of the sport, including stances, defense, various strikes and rules. Not only is it fun, but I've been learning a lot of unique Chinese vocabulary, including everything from jab, cross, and roundhouse, to footwork and mouth-guard.
Sparring with the other students has also been a fun way to meet other college students and have fun.

My boxing class also encouraged me to see more of Harbin. My trip to Dacheng Street, which has a lot of sporting goods stores was an enjoyable excursion. I got to take a bus to a different part of Harbin and I was able to buy the things I needed such as boxing gloves, ankle supports, and fist wraps.

I often find Western travelers to other parts of the world are fascinated with what's different about a culture, and overlook obvious similarities. I guess this is true of all people who live outside of the culture they were born in, but usually looking a little deeper reveals similarities. In rural northern China people sleep on a large heated brick bed known as a Kang. This sure seems different from anything we have in the West, until one looks a little deeper and realizes the Kang is found throughout the world, including Eastern Europe. In Yiddish its known as a "pripichick". According to my father, my grandmother sang "On the Pripichick" to my dad, who played the song on the piano. Similar misunderstandings surround the martial arts. Kung Fu with its exotic kicks and moves and Taiji with its slow movement seem about as different from boxing as can be. Once while on a train in China, I chatted with an American who had been living here for a few months, teaching English. He talked about the Taiji class he was taking and how fascinating it was that the Chinese saw power as coming from the center of the body, a point just below the belly button, unlike Western boxing which uses the strength of the arms. Fortunately, when I first started taking boxing lessons in Harbin, I was also taking Taiji classes at the same gym.

Although, I eventually dropped the Taiji classes because of the time constraints of being a full time student, I was able to get some insight into Taiji, and from what I could tell the foundations were the same as boxing, only the ways in which that foundation manifested itself were different. In boxing, powerful punches also come from the center of the body and punches are delivered by twisting the core and shifting weight from one leg to another, motions practiced repeatedly in Taiji. When practicing the motions, the two arts really seemed to blend together in my mind. Then again, is it any surprise that there are similarities between Chinese and Western martial arts? Humans everywhere have two arms and two legs.

One of the most important lessons I've learned in boxing class was how to handle fear. Ironically, says my teacher, the more you fear getting hit in the face, the more you get hit. If you are calm, focused, and don't fear, then you can block, duck, make eye contact, and predict your opponents motions. It reminds me of the Roosevelt quote, "All we have to fear is fear itself." It's a lesson that applies to all aspects of life. Sometimes when studying Chinese, I get discouraged and fear I won't be able to learn a plethora of new vocabulary or new sentence patterns. But if I vanquish my fear and work hard, then I can learn it.

Yagou

March 12th,
Went on a great class trip today: a five hour hike through the hills around Yagou, a small country town about an hour and a half from Harbin. The scenery was lovely. Rolling hills, fallow cornfields, Heilongjiang's rich black soil peeking through the melting snow, and frost covered pine trees. Some of the highlights: a rock wall covered with prehistoric carvings, a World War 2 bunker, and a fire tower with great views but a hair-raising ascent. Some of the harder parts of the hike included hiking in the snow, dealing with the cold (though after we started walking it warmed up and even felt a little hot under my sweater), and at one point we almost lost the trail but managed to spot faint footprints from a few days before. The farmland we drove past on the trip over was truly lovely. Unlike in Liaoning where the average family has about 6 mu or one acre per family, or ultra-crowded Sichuan where some families have as little as 1 mu (1/6th of an acre a family), families in Heilongjiang average 30 mu or about 5 acres. This meant farms seemed larger here than in other places I'd been in China. At one point on the hike we passed a pig farm and I noticed a large number of dead rats in front of the gate to the complex. Plague? The work of the cute though tough guard dogs? The cold? At one point we had fun resting along the side of the path, throwing snowballs and eating lunch. We finished the hike with dinner at a restaurant back near campus.

Evening Run in Harbin in February

The most unusual sensation I got from running in negative 18 degree weather was that of my sweat beads freezing to my beard. When sweat evaporates off of skin in the summer, it cools the body. When sweat freezes on the body in sub-zero weather, it warms the body. It was a strange feeling but I have to admit it felt pretty good. Once or twice a week, either in the early morning or at night, I head out for a run in Harbin. I have to go early in the morning or at night to avoid traffic. At night, the air is cool and clear while in the morning it has the faint scent of burning coal, a residual odor of the city's nightly ritual of burning coal for warmth. The path that I run leads from the campus straight north for about two miles until I reach the Songhua River. Then its another two miles east along the historic and beautiful riverside parks until I reach the flood memorial tower at the head of Main Street (Zhongyang Dajie). The first portion of the run takes me past much of the Nangang neighborhood, then on over an overpass which crosses the main stretch of railroad tracks. From there, I pass major shopping areas, office buildings, and eventually I get to the river. What the road to the banks of the river lacks in scenery is made up for by the breathtaking beauty of the second portion of the run. Several lovely parks, including Stalin Park line the river. In the mornings, couples can be seen strolling, elderly folks can be seen doing Taiji, and one time I was surprised to see a truly remarkable sight: two middle aged women emerging from a swimming hole carved into the frozen river. Swimming in negative 18 degree wheather! In the evenings I'm usually alone, except for the occasional passing middle aged jogger. The river appears tranquil in the moonlight and up above not only is the moon visible in all its glories, but so are stars. Not tens of thousands of stars like I remember seeing during my childhood family vacations to the New Hampshire hills, but at least hundreds of stars.

Truly a sharp countrast with Beijing, where often even the sun cannot be seen. The best part of the river portion of the run is the path. Unlike the icy and difficult road to the river, once in the park, soft powdery snow crunches under my shoes. This also helps to take some of the pressure off my knees, which is good because once I reach the flood memorial tower, I have to turn around and run the four miles back to campus!

Professor Ma

During the second week of school, I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Professor Ma on the history and culture of Harbin. Professor Ma was born and raised in Harbin and has lived here for almost nine decades. He was a teacher at CET'S program for many years, was president of Harbin's Esperanto association, currently teachers an extra-curricular course at CET on Chinese cuisine, and was educated both during the Japanese occupation and after the Chinese Civil War. It was truly fascinating to hear about Harbin's history from someone who has lived here for so long.

A hundred years ago, Harbin was nothing more than a small Manchu fishing village on the Songhua river. At the time, China feared the rising power of Japan and lacked infrastructure in the northeast. Russia agreed to build railroads across the region using Russian capital and Chinese labor. Of course, Professor Ma emphasized, they did not do so out of great kindness, but rather because of the vast profits they knew they could make from the railroads. Heilongjiang is rich in coal, oil, wood, and fertile soils. With the tracks laid, Harbin grew into a major city with tens of thousands of foreigners immigrating from Russia, Poland, and other parts of Eastern Europe. In addition to these merchants, refugees, and soldiers, others came from other parts of Europe including England, Spain, France, and even less powerful nations such as Turkey and Switzerland.

The Russian soldiers who guarded the railroads were known as the "railroad protection army" which sounds like "long mustached soldiers" in Chinese. Professor Ma related one story from his childhood where he and his brother were playing too close to the tracks and were yelled at and hit by the troops. He also related an interesting story about the British consulate. One day he and his brother were playing and accidentally stumbled onto the grounds of the British consulate whereupon the Indian guards kicked them out.

The influx of foreigners meant that Harbin was one of the first Chinese cities to have movie theaters, taxi cabs, and coffee houses. In Professor Ma's words, it was a truly global city and at the time rivaled Shanghai and Guangzhou.

One of the largest enclaves of foreigners in the city before the Second World War were the city's Jews. Coming as merchants or fleeing the chaos of revolution-era Russia, Jews immigrated by the thousands to the booming rail hub and made major contributions to the city's economy. A few of the old Synagogues are still standing and one is a museum now. Way out of town he spoke of a well-preserved Jewish cemetery where the father of one of Israel's former Prime Ministers is buried.

Of all of Professor Ma's anecdotes, one of the most interesting (for a college student at least) was his description of college life under Japanese rule, which was heavily influenced by the militarized and hierarchical society of 1930's Japan. "If you were a freshman and you saw a senior, you had to salute. If a senior saw you, he could insist on you shining his shoes. If you refused, he'd hit you. It was awful, but when you got to be a senior, you could do the same to the new freshmen."

Shoulder the Frost

One of the nice parts of coming and studying Chinese in Harbin is that I get to study many local colloquialisms and am able to better grasp both the culture of modern Manchuria and that of China as a whole. One such interesting phrase in Dongbei Hua (Northeastern Accented Mandarin) is 扛冻, meaning “to shoulder the frost”. The word refers to how people in this bitterly cold region see the cold weather. The cold, oppressive, heavy, and depressing as it is, is something that is bearable, and can be carried; much the way Chinese farmers and laborers carry loads on their shoulders. I found the term fascinating and mildly comforting in its own manner. Eventually, I hope to “truly able to shoulder the frost” as they say up here.

A Small World

On the first day of orientation, I arrived in the evening to our hotel in Beijing and met several of the other students. A group of about 8 of us ended up going out to eat dinner. We managed to find a Hui (Chinese Muslim) restaurant about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. As we were eating, we introduced ourselves and I found out to my surprise that one of the students was also from New York. Not only that, but she was also from Brooklyn. To my surprise, she also turned out to be an alumna of my high school and friends with my girlfriend, who is also a ’07 alumna. Even though we grew up in the same city and went to the same high school, we ended up meeting halfway around the world, on our way to study Chinese in Harbin. What a small world!

Adventures in Central China

After leaving Chengdu, I still had about a week until orientation in Beijing, so I decided to take it slow, rolling by train and bus from city to city in central China. From Chengdu, I took a train to Xi'an and from there I took a bus to Luoyang, then another bus to Kaifeng. Finally, I caught a train back to Beijing. All three cities are former capitals of China.

I found Xi'an pollution unbearable, its tourist attractions overpriced, and much of the city rather gritty, but it was interesting to see a city with so much history. I saw the Terracotta Warriors, the Muslim quarter and great Mosque, and the Famen Temple, which is reputed to have a famous relic: one of the finger bones of the Buddha. Unfortunately, the original old and beautiful temple is overshaddowed by a gigantic new complex reminiscent of Dysney World. Entrance to the temple complex now costs 90 yuan. I talked to some of the local monks who said they had originally vigilantly opposed the commercialization of the old temple, but in the end felt they had to go along with the changes in the times. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to maintain the temple and to bring people there. As I left, the monk gave me some books.

I took classes with a professor at Yale named Kang Zhengguo, who as it turns out is from Xi'an. While there, I visited his sister, a retired English professor, and chatted with her about the city, life in America, and her brother's career.

From Xi'an I headed to Luoyang. Though it gets far less tourists than Xi'an, Luoyang was also once a capital of China. The air seemed less polluted than Xi'an and I thoroughly enjoyed Luoyang's night market, snacks, old buildings, city wall, Muslim restaurants, ancient temples, and cigars (I bought 20 for only 3 yuan). Henan province, where Luoyang is located, is one of the most populous in China and it was overwhelming to see so many people. Still, I really enjoyed the city.

From there I took a bus to Kaifeng, another ancient capital. Once the greatest city in the world, Kaifeng has been through a millenium of urban decay and now has only half a million people. Majestic pagodas and palaces of the past lie next to block after block of abandoned bombed out buildings. Once the center of China's wealth, Kaifeng is now a minor city in one of China's poorest provinces. Still, the city has enough left of its former greatness to make the visit interesting. I visited the old pagodas and palaces, saw a hospital which lies on the spot where a Synagogue stood a millenium ago, and tried delicious food. At one point I stepped into a restaurant where I met the four sisters who run it. We started chatting and I ended up talking to them for almost 10 hours, eating both lunch and dinner there. They were curious about life in America and what brought me to China, Kaifeng of all places. I learned a lot about them. The oldest sister had been in Kaifeng the longest, and had started the restaurant. Two of the middle sisters were in college and working while on winter break, and the youngest sister had just come from the countryside, excited to work there and see life in the big city. They gave me a lift home in their vehicle (a three wheeled pickup truck like contraption with a scooter engine) and we passed a night market on the way.

From Kaifeng I headed back to Beijing and orientation.