Archive | March, 2011

Breaking News from CNN: Chinese Use Internet

30 Mar

Shocking. Just shocking. Thank you CNN for unraveling the mystery and revealing that Chinese people have computers! And not only that. They use the Internet! And not only that, they actually don’t seem to really give a shit about the firewall. Oh, the humanity!

So CNN has been on a week-long blitzkrieg of the Internet in China. It must have been disappointing as the week wore on and producers started realizing they didn’t have a story.

I assume CNN presumed there would be this big undercurrent of angry netizens who are in this protracted slugfest with easily-painted overlord censors. But as these reports hint at, the number of Chinese netizens continues to explode, e-commerce is thriving, and in many ways Chinese websites have surpassed US competitors.

Shocking Revelation #1: Most Chinese citizens are not looking to overthrow their government. Think of it this way. You’re a kid. You’ve wanted to go to Disney World your entire life. Grew up watching the cartoons, the movies. Had the shirt. Had the hat. One day, your parents finally take you. And the next thing you know, you’re inside the park, next in line for Space Mountain, and some guy comes up to you. Hey kid, Mickey Mouse is one bad dude, he says. How about you get out of line (pun intended), kick Mickey in the shin, and burn his house down?

Shocking Revelation #2: Ah, Earth to Matil, Chinese love their cellphones. A good portion of my Chinese friends only use their phones to go online. And they’re always on. Keep in mind, I’d be hiking through some tea fields in the middle of nowhere, and the old man walking the water buffalo next to me starts blowing up– “Ga ga oooh la la…” Boom. Pulls out the new iPhone before its even released in the States, and screams, “喂!” (=wei = hello)!

Shocking Revelation #3: CNN may be surprised how much information is actually available online. There’s a lot out there not containing the buzzwords in this redundant story: Empty Chair, sex, protest, jasmine, Tengbiao, Hillary, Huntsman.

This also reminds me of something a friend and former university instructor said during a poli-sci class. Now, like most things from my college days, I forget the specifics. But he was either telling us a) netizens are 99.9% useless morons, or b) the New York Times isn’t a great source for following politics. Either way, a bunch of students got all riled up over it. Apparently, they went home and sent him some ugly emails about dissing the net and the NYT. The next class, he pulled up the homepage, where it lists the “Most Viewed” and “Most E-mailed” stories of the week. Number one in both: Fat Kid Numa Numa Dance.

Shocking Revelation #4: Major foreign companies and many individual foreigners are clients of high-powered VPNs and have no issue surfing the Internet. None. Ever.

Shocking Revelation #5: There are a huge number of free VPNs that can be easily downloaded in any Chinese city. Eventually, particularly around political events, your free VPN might be discovered by censors and rendered ineffective. But if you have the extra 20 minutes, you can find a new one.

Shocking Revelation #6: While Chinese websites may have stolen a lot of the IPR to create look-alike Chinese versions of popular US sites, many of those are now outperforming the original. I actually miss some of the websites I had grown accustomed to using in China. Top of the list might be Qunar.com a travel site far better than Expedia or any crap hosted in the States. In fact…

Shocking Revelation #7: People can live without Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter. The two sites that suck to have blocked are Gmail and Wikipedia. Besides those two, I never had a problem finding information on other sites. It’s funny that the land of democracy and free market competition is so stunned that more than one form of a company exists. Baidu, Renren, Douban, QQ, Weibo, Qunar. They’re legit.

Shocking Revelation #8: A lot of things blocked in the Chinese language are not blocked in English, and vice versa.

Shocking Revelation #9: Many sensitive web pages actually still load. It is only when you stay on them for a while that the next click may lead to a connection disruption.

Shocking Revelation #10: You can still download porn.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How Kids Should Act in the US, China & Taiwan

29 Mar

This was the certificate of merit given out to the top student in my class last semester. It reads: "Arhiehbement Dertificate."

I stumbled upon this Ministry of Tofu post about elementary school discipline codes a few days ago. The original post had garnered so much attention on microblogs in China that it was eventually picked up by Sina. It laid out the contrast as follows:

Disciplines of a U.S. elementary school

1. Always refer to a teacher by title and last name.
2. Get to class on time or a little earlier.
3. Raise your hand when you want to ask a question.
4. You may speak to the teacher from your desk while you are seated.
5. When you are absent, you must make up the work you have missed. Ask either the teacher or a classmate for the work.
6. If you expect to be away from school because of an emergency, tell your teacher in advance and ask for the work you will miss.
7. All assignments you hand in must be your own work.
8. Never cheat on a test.
9. If you are having difficulty with a class, schedule an appointment to see the teacher for help. The teacher will be glad to help you.
10.Students must bring a note for a parent explaining any absence or tardiness.
11.The only acceptable excuse for absence is personal illness, a death in the family, or a religious holiday. It is illegal to stay home from school for any other.
12.When a teacher asks a question and does not name a particular student to answer it, anyone who knows the answer should raise one hand.

Chinese disciplines for elementary school students

1, Have deep love for your motherland, for the people, and for the Communist Party of China.
2, Abide by laws and rules. Improve understanding of laws. Abide by school rules and disciplines. Act in line with social morality.
3, Have passion for sciences. Work hard on study. Think diligently and have a questioning mind. Be fond of exploration. Participate vigorously in activities that build social experience and/or are beneficial.
4, Love life. Protect yourself. Do physical exercises. Pay attention to hygiene.
5, Respect and love yourself. Be confident and strong. Keep civilized and healthy living habits.
6, Engage in labor. Be frugal and pristine. Depend on yourself to do things you are capable of.
7, Be filial to your parents. Respect your teacher. Be polite to others.
8, Have deep love for the group you are in. United with your classmates. Help one another. Care about others.
9, Be honest and trustworthy. Match your words with your deeds. Correct your mistakes once you are aware of it. Be responsible.
10, Love nature. Take good care of you living environment.
Loved it. But the China version doesn’t ring true here in Taiwan. So, I jotted down some quick ideas for my own code of conduct in Taiwan buxibans.
Code of Conduct for Taiwan Buxibans
1. Students should always call the teacher “Teacher”, as in sentences like, “Yesterday, I didn’t see Teacher.”
2. If a student knows an answer to a question, scream out for attention, i.e. “Teacher meeeeeeeeeeee!”
3. If that student does not get the teacher’s attention, he or she should continue to call out “Teacher… teacher… teacher.. teacherrrrrrr” and so on, forever.
4. Food should always be served cold.
5. Water should always be hot.
6. Tiger balm should be applied to all skin irritations.
7. Students cannot receive a grade lower than 80 on any homework, assignment, or test, even if it is unfinished or all wrong.
8. If a student doesn’t understand something, move on to the next, more advanced lesson.
9. Parents are always the best judge of how smart their child is.
10. Test scores are always the best judge of how good the school is.
Did I miss anything, fellow Taiwan buxibaners?

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What education should be all about and isn’t in Taiwan & China

29 Mar

From TED Talks - Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script — give students video lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

First of all, that video is amazing. It’s such a simple idea, but I agree with Gates that this software is revolutionary. It reminded me of how, if I were to open a language learning school, my school would be fundamentally different than what is currently offered here in Taiwan or China.

I never cease to wonder why schools here do not capitalize on multimedia education. Whenever I ask a student what he did over the weekend, the answers are always the same: played Wii, played computer games, or watched TV.

Yet, every language school I have ever worked at is still a pen-and-paper, out of the textbook school. Just doesn’t make sense. Capitalize on what these kids are interested in, and the results will improve exponentially. Allow teachers to be facilitators and moderators, not corrections officers (as one fellow colleague recently commented).

And the same thing goes for when I was an instructor in Xiamen University’s International Journalism program. I had to beg my faculty dean for a computer classroom to have access to breaking news and Microsoft Word. Even after finagling the schedule around to make it work, half of the computers could never connect online. Useless.

It just doesn’t make sense. A small investment in the necessary tools of 21st century education is not a waste of capital, as many of Taiwan’s money-making buxibans envision it. It’s not a short-term gimmick.

Imagine, a young elementary student walks in to his normal elementary school class. Almost all of his classmates will have gone to a nearby buxiban the evening before. Except, today, they all look like hell and he has a big ol’ smile on his face.

Kid #1: “Why are you so happy?” they ask.

Kid #2: “My new buxiban is awesome! For the first 10-15 minutes of every class, we watch an English cartoon. Then we take a break to talk about what is happening, what we like about it, and what we think is going to happen next. We write down a couple of important vocab words and phrases, then we get to watch the second half. After, we hop online and compete in games that focus on the themes, vocab, and grammar from the video. We can keep track of our progress, earn points, and even play at home! What did you do at your school?”

Kid #1: “We wrote each vocabulary word ten times, then threw a sticky ball at the white board for half an hour.”

Kid #2: winning.

Kid #1: going home to tell his parents he wants to change schools.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My whiny letter to my cousin looking for life advice

29 Mar

Ari is the oldest cousin of our clan (17 in all on my dad’s side). I’ve pretty much been emulating his life since he taught me about Double Dragon in 1988, Paula Abdul in ’89, MC Hammer in ’90, and Michigan’s Fab 5 in ’91. I can’t really remember what he taught me was cool in ’92, but he made up for it big in ’93 when he introduced me to the Wu-tang Clan and Snoop Doggy Dogg. As a country boy from NH, learning these things from your big cousin in Boston immediately made you the cool kid in school. I owe him a lot.

To this day, his advice has a major impact on my decisions. But, living in Quito, Ecuador, I don’t get to sit down with him as much as I would like. I just dropped him this email, and I realize I might as well put it out there to everyone.

Yo,

…Being back in Taiwan has been pretty, er, shaky. On the one hand, I am loving it. It’s a great island, and life is good. But on the other, I just can’t help but feel I have taken a huge step back. And rightly so. I mean, I had a lot going for me in China… a viable career with a great new opportunity on the horizon, and I fucked the pooch. Whatever. I am over that part of it. But what I can’t stand is feeling like I am in neutral. I am working to try to feel a constant forward momentum each day. Reading. Studying. Living. Just trying to stay in motion, so as not to let the ill-at-ease feeling sink in.
A large number of my sleepless nights stem form this feeling, pushed by my upbringing, my father’s genes, and bullshit American social elitism, that I should have accomplished more in my life, i.e. a career. I’m 28 now. Just turned. And part of me feels like that’s already too damn old to not be set up in something, taking an active part in building something of my own.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my life. I enjoy mine much more than others do theirs. But I feel like I need to take the next step.
So, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that no matter which of the career interests I choose to pursue, I am going to need to head back to school. Now, in the process of narrowing down my interests and my realistic options, I find myself in this Tetris of decision making.
I love teaching. Not so much English in cram schools, but education as an institution of life. A part of me feels that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. There are emerging master’s programs in sustainable education that focus on better teaching students about being stewards to their environment, etc, etc. Plus, knowing a bit of your experience and some of my other certified teacher friends’ at international schools, I think it is a lifestyle I would enjoy.
On the other hand, I can’t help but feel that teachers always get fucked. I can’t help but think I would be better off pursuing a master’s outside of education, still in the sustainable development/policy/education area. This way, I would leave the door open to jobs in government, NGOs, and green business. But, having done a fair amount of volunteering in green NGOs, I know that what is really needed is better marketing, e-commerce, and scientific research ability. I’m terrified that whatever degree I choose will tip too heavily in the way of theory and not enough practical skills.
On top of that, based on the type of career I envision for myself, I am never going to be making the money to pay off extensive student loan debt. So, I have to do all this on the cheap. And fast. Because either way, I don’t want to be going to some low-level school whose name doesn’t carry any cred in the industry. That would be useless. And, I don’t want to be going to school for two years, and come out 31 with a ton of debt and school as my most recent experience.
Sorry to sound like a whiny bitch, I am. But I want to put these questions to you: In regards to your own decision-making process for grad school, would you do it all again? What would you do differently? Are you satisfied with your experience teaching in international schools? Would you recommend it? …..And what the fuck am I doing with my life?
That last one would be really helpful.
My love, cous.
-J

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Why Chinese “Hate” Japan

27 Mar

A stuffed toy is seen amidst rubble in Kesennuma March 17 (c/o Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters). I recommend looking at more amazing, moving photos on http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

When I was teaching at Xiamen University, I assigned students to present a current event and analyze the news coverage. One brave student chose to discuss the anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre and how some editorials were calling for “forgiving but not forgetting” the brutality of the Japanese soldiers.

I remember one young student, in particular, standing up to confront the presenter. Her comment went something like this, “If I am doing business with someone from Japan in the future, I will look that person in the eye and smile. But in my heart, I will never stop hating him.”

Similar comments and counter arguments stirred up quite a debate in class. It was enlightening, as I shifted from a moderator to a witness of this candid discussion. But I couldn’t help coming back to that one comment and just feeling an overwhelming sense of despair.

In my time in China, particularly in Shanghai, I was blown away by Chinese contempt towards Japanese. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. We Americans like to rib Canadians, English, and French, but it is rather good-natured. The palpable distrust and dislike of Japanese in Chinese is much more intense.

As I came to understand slightly more about the reasoning behind this conflict, it was most often contextualized around the Rape of Nanking and how Chinese education placed a strong emphasis on this in school. Indeed, a fair part of Chinese education teaches students about “the century of humiliation” when China was bullied by outsiders. It has, to a notable extent, fueled modern Chinese patriotism and the desire for a stronger China, i.e. military.

Today, I came across Jeremiah Jenne’s blog about Chinese history in relation to modern events. He has a couple of posts on there about Chinese reactions to the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, a complex culture issue. Here are a couple of very interesting points:

It’s tempting to reduce the history of Japan/China relations to the horrific events of the Second World War, but the Sino-Japanese relationship goes back much further than that, and has long been characterized by a mixture of envy and antipathy.

He goes on to give a fairly brief rundown of the relationship over the last century, particularly the late 19th century. He concludes:

As I read and hear Chinese reactions to the tragic events in Japan, I am reminded of this complex legacy.  Some people wish to donate money and supplies to help in the relief effort, others wonder why “poor Chinese” need to help rich Japan.  There are those comments, linked to in Yajun’s post, expressing a mixture of admiration and wonder at the “disciplined” nature of Japanese society, and not so subtly pointing out how China (once again) “fails” to measure up to Japan according to ever shifting standards of modernity and development.  And of course, there are the shrill voices of bleating nationalist sheep taking perverse pleasure in Japanese suffering.  (Though lest China be singled out in this regard, it’s wise to recall that “Pearl Harbor” was a trending topic on Twitter over the weekend.)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 76 other followers

%d bloggers like this: