The lives of those who have lived in China through the past seventy years are very interesting to me. They were alive to see the birth of a nation. Their parents and grandparents talked around the dinner table about the emperors and the fall of a dynasty. They have seen their nation go from a weak one that was abused by western nations to one that all the western nations look to for help when dealing with troublesome locals such as North Korea and Burma.
My wife's grandparents are such people. Her grandfather was a child living in the countryside near Changchun City when Mao Zedong came and besieged it, starving out the Japanese occupiers. He remembers Japanese soldiers, intent on winning the hearts of the Chinese in the northern occupied regions, giving him and other Chinese children candy: one piece of candy for speaking one word or phrase in Japanese, two pieces for two words or a longer phrase.
For a long time I had been wanting to see Grandparent's old memorabilia. Finally, during the recent vacation, they showed us their old pictures. Grandma sat and mended an old quilt and talked about her memories while my wife and I looked at the pictures.
The earliest pictures are from the 1950s when Grandparents were in their 20s. There were only three or four pictures going back that early. One of them was a formal portrait of Grandfather’s father. He wore a dark blue or charcoal colored traditional Chinese shirt (Tangzhuang) that buttoned up all the way to the top and had no collar. He looked like your stereotypical old Chinese man with his thin white goatee.
He was a landowner in the old days before “landowner” was a bad word in China and was pretty well off. However, almost all of his wealth was in the form of land rather than money. After the revolution landlords were denounced and their lands were redistributed, so he and his family lost most of their possessions. If he had had his wealth in cash, he would have possibly been able to keep it. Some landlords were very clever before the revolution and, seeing that the future leaders would be Marxist, sold all their lands and stored up the cash. After the revolution, these former landlords could keep all their wealth and go around denouncing other landlords with the rest of the people.
While my wife and I were talking about her grandfather’s family, her grandmother looked up from her mending and said smiling that her husband’s class status had put her through a lot of trouble. She was born to a poor family in the countryside, but then she married a son of a landowner. After the revolution, she wanted to join the party, but they suspected her, because she was married to someone who belonged to the landlord class. She said that she went through twenty years of observation and testing before they finally let her join the party.
I guess she did pretty well for herself in the party when she finally got to join. She was a party leader of some kind in her workplace. There were a couple pictures of her sitting behind a speaker, who was speaking at some sort of party function in the factory. There was another picture of her at work, where she assembled an electrical component for cars. On the wall behind her was a large picture of Chairman Mao inscribed with an exhortation to work hard for the sake of society.
From looking at the photo album I could guess the family’s favorite vacation destination: Beijing. There were four or five pictures of various family members standing in front of Tiananmen, the red gate over which the painting of Mao Zedong hangs. The earliest Tiananmen pictures were from 1958(?), and in them you can see that the name of the country is written in traditional Chinese characters rather than the newer simplified characters. There were also pictures from the 1970s of the Summer Palace and the Beijing train station. The old Beijing train station was a beautiful building. It had had two clock towers on either side of the front entrance. Above the doors, framed in a large arched window, was a big painting of Mao Zedong.
There was a variety of settings, but not a variety of clothing. Almost everyone wore dark blue or green or grey Mao suits. Several people wore green military hats with a red star on the front. Everyone wore dark colors. This was the patriotic way.
In fact, the whole album exuded patriotism. Right beside the photo of Uncle So-and-so was a photo of Chairman Mao sitting at his desk with a calligraphy brush in his hand. It was as if he was one of the members of the family.
Commonly the pictures were developed with Chinese writing on the front that told the date of the picture and/or a description of the picture. Sometimes the description reflected the political fervor of the time. One picture of Grandfather and two of his friends said, “A Revolutionary Friendship.” Another interesting one was a baby picture of my wife’s aunt. The baby wore a white dress and a big metallic medallion with the chairman’s face on it. To the side of the picture it had three sentences going from top to bottom. They said something like, “Forever support Mao Zedong. Forever follow Mao Zedong thought. Forever fight for the revolution.”
Next time I go to Grandparents house I'll have to ask Grandpa if he still has his badge from when he was a policeman for the Communists. Or better yet, ask Grandpa's brother if he still has his badge from when he was a policeman for the Nationalists.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Breakfast
This week my wife and I went to visit her mother and grandparents. We just relaxed and talked most of the time. And ate. Whenever we go to grandparents house we eat a ton of good food.
For breakfast today there were 12 different dishes on the table.
This was not an unusual breakfast. This was a typical kind of breakfast for us to eat at Grandparents' house. I'm used to this kind of breakfast now, but I still remember in the early days when I first came here how I was shocked at the breakfast fare.
It was a lot of work for Grandma to put out this big spread, but it wasn't as much as you might think. These were all leftovers from supper the night before. Almost always when I have eaten breakfast with any Chinese family, they simply warm up the leftovers from supper and eat those in the morning. Americans usually have the idea that breakfast must be something sweet, or if it's not sweet, it needs to be an omelet and sausage. Chinese people however don't have this idea. They don't tend to put their nose up at even a spicy dish in the morning.
For breakfast today there were 12 different dishes on the table.
- 1st there was some roast rabbit. Delicious.
- 2nd there was a big bowl of little bitty shrimp. Each little crustacean was about one centimeter long. You eat them tail, shell, legs, tentacles and all.
- 3rd some soybean sauce. Very strong tasting and salty. Tasty, but it smells distinctly like socks.
- 4th hot pepper condiment-like dish.
- 5th Pickled duck eggs. Very salty. These are a condiment too.
- 6th cooked bean sprouts
- 7th an enormous fish.
- 8th a basket full of different kinds of small cakes.
- 9th a mushroom dish with wuhuarou. Wuhuarou is a thick cut of meat that includes a little meat at one end, a bunch of fat in the middle and skin at the other end.
- 10th garlic eggplant. Eaten as a condiment.
- 11th fermented bean curd. Eaten as a condiment.
- 12th something. I couldn't tell what it was.
This was not an unusual breakfast. This was a typical kind of breakfast for us to eat at Grandparents' house. I'm used to this kind of breakfast now, but I still remember in the early days when I first came here how I was shocked at the breakfast fare.
It was a lot of work for Grandma to put out this big spread, but it wasn't as much as you might think. These were all leftovers from supper the night before. Almost always when I have eaten breakfast with any Chinese family, they simply warm up the leftovers from supper and eat those in the morning. Americans usually have the idea that breakfast must be something sweet, or if it's not sweet, it needs to be an omelet and sausage. Chinese people however don't have this idea. They don't tend to put their nose up at even a spicy dish in the morning.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
October Break
Now I have started my October break. The first few weeks of school have been busy. My teaching has gone really well. I feel like I am finally coming through in my teaching. As an oral English teacher I have always done pretty well at getting the students to talk about things in English in a fun environment, but I haven't always done really well at introducing content (such as grammar or vocabulary) followed by appropriate activities to illustrate or to practice the new material. In the past my activities were a little bit random.
My wife is now in her first year of teaching. She is really a natural teacher (unlike me). She has done a great job. The students like her. She and I share some freshman classes, so they were really surprised that their English teacher is married to their oral English teacher.
I promised last post that I would tell you about my Long March. It is appropriate that I tell you about my Long March right before the October first holiday, since that is the national day of China. This summer I decided I wanted to take a long walk with a couple friends along the side of the only river in town. The city has done a great job of building parks on each side of it the whole way through town, so I wanted to explore it. Also, it had been too long since I had just taken a day and walked. Back home in the Blue Ridge I would regularly go backpacking and hiking, but since moving to China three years ago, I have had only one chance to put on my boots and wend through mountain trails. I sorely missed it.
Taking an urban hike, viewing the design of men, is, of course, not the same as taking a hike out in the woods and enjoying the pure design of creation. However, it is not so different as I had thought. After hiking for several hours across town, I really felt that feeling that a hiker gets that cannot really be described but only felt. That feeling is something like freedom, but more than that because it draws one's heart up beyond the world that one is walking through to an attitude of worship. I don't think I'm the only one who gets this feeling, because I often read atheists that very condescendingly say, "When I stand on a mountain and view the stars, I get a feeling of transcendence, so I can understand how theists get off wrong." Though it was an urban hike, there were plenty of trees and grass and there was the sky and, of course, the river. That helped provide a little reprieve from city life.
There was one great benefit of taking an urban hike. After the first half of the hike, my friends and I sauntered into a nice coffee shop and took our beverages in style. When you are doing an urban hike, you don't bring a bunch of little baggies of Kool-aid to pour into your water bottle. No, you bring Starbucks coupons. After that we slurped down some delicious noodles at a restaurant nearby. On this hike, there were no freeze dried meals or cans of sardines. There was no need to light a stove and trim the flame and burn ones fingers. We dined in luxury.
It was interesting to see the whole town from south to north. Most of the area that the river runs through is not highly developed. There is only one place that is a really valuable business district. The weird thing is that one of the nicest parts of the river park was within walking distance of only a big smoke belching factory. (Of course, one could say that the whole city is within walking distance as we proved by our seven hour walk. And after all, how far is a walking distance? Does a distance cease being a walking distance at a particular number of meters? And the next millimeter over would be considered beyond a walking distance?) The park is uniformly nice through most of the city. However it was old and unimproved in the far north of the city. As we walked in the north part, some cleaning ladies tried to tell us that we should turn around and walk south because the park was not very nice in the north, and we tried to tell them that we had already seen the south of the river walk and didn't want to go that way.
A great highlight of the journey was to be able to spend the day with my new friends J and D. We talked about all sorts of things, especially about philosophy, literature and history. D parted from us at the halfway point to do some work at his home, but J continued with me all the way to where the sidewalk ends. To get back home the two of us had to climb over a fence to get onto a dam, cross the river and then climb over another fence to get off of the dam. Then we had to pull out a city map and walk a distance to find a city bus, the only city bus, actually, in that part of the outskirts of town. Before boarding the rusty old bus, we walked into a snack store and bought a couple soft drinks that are so cheap (1 RMB/600 ml) that they are sold only in the countryside. After the bus ride, we boarded the most advanced form of transportation in our city, a subway/elevated train, to go to the south of town again. Standing there on the train, we (or at least I) felt so superior. Those around us had not felt the distance they were traveling. They hadn't made the earth turn under their feet. They had just zipped here and there on buses or taxis. Or actually maybe some of them had travelled there on their own power and seen the world walk by them in all its beauty. Maybe they had felt that freedom and sense of worship that we had felt.
Having hopped off the subway/elevated train, we still had a ten minute walk from the station to our houses. If I remember right, I think we rewarded ourselves with a little ice cream or something before going inside. For such a memorable trip it would have been appropriate to have kept a memento from it. J brought back the soft drink bottle and still has it sitting on his cabinet shelf beside his precious books as a monument to our Long March. But I have nothing. Not even pictures, as I had leant my camera to someone.
That's ok. If I had kept something then I would have had to throw it away someday. But I didn't, and I won't.
My wife is now in her first year of teaching. She is really a natural teacher (unlike me). She has done a great job. The students like her. She and I share some freshman classes, so they were really surprised that their English teacher is married to their oral English teacher.
I promised last post that I would tell you about my Long March. It is appropriate that I tell you about my Long March right before the October first holiday, since that is the national day of China. This summer I decided I wanted to take a long walk with a couple friends along the side of the only river in town. The city has done a great job of building parks on each side of it the whole way through town, so I wanted to explore it. Also, it had been too long since I had just taken a day and walked. Back home in the Blue Ridge I would regularly go backpacking and hiking, but since moving to China three years ago, I have had only one chance to put on my boots and wend through mountain trails. I sorely missed it.
Taking an urban hike, viewing the design of men, is, of course, not the same as taking a hike out in the woods and enjoying the pure design of creation. However, it is not so different as I had thought. After hiking for several hours across town, I really felt that feeling that a hiker gets that cannot really be described but only felt. That feeling is something like freedom, but more than that because it draws one's heart up beyond the world that one is walking through to an attitude of worship. I don't think I'm the only one who gets this feeling, because I often read atheists that very condescendingly say, "When I stand on a mountain and view the stars, I get a feeling of transcendence, so I can understand how theists get off wrong." Though it was an urban hike, there were plenty of trees and grass and there was the sky and, of course, the river. That helped provide a little reprieve from city life.
There was one great benefit of taking an urban hike. After the first half of the hike, my friends and I sauntered into a nice coffee shop and took our beverages in style. When you are doing an urban hike, you don't bring a bunch of little baggies of Kool-aid to pour into your water bottle. No, you bring Starbucks coupons. After that we slurped down some delicious noodles at a restaurant nearby. On this hike, there were no freeze dried meals or cans of sardines. There was no need to light a stove and trim the flame and burn ones fingers. We dined in luxury.
It was interesting to see the whole town from south to north. Most of the area that the river runs through is not highly developed. There is only one place that is a really valuable business district. The weird thing is that one of the nicest parts of the river park was within walking distance of only a big smoke belching factory. (Of course, one could say that the whole city is within walking distance as we proved by our seven hour walk. And after all, how far is a walking distance? Does a distance cease being a walking distance at a particular number of meters? And the next millimeter over would be considered beyond a walking distance?) The park is uniformly nice through most of the city. However it was old and unimproved in the far north of the city. As we walked in the north part, some cleaning ladies tried to tell us that we should turn around and walk south because the park was not very nice in the north, and we tried to tell them that we had already seen the south of the river walk and didn't want to go that way.
A great highlight of the journey was to be able to spend the day with my new friends J and D. We talked about all sorts of things, especially about philosophy, literature and history. D parted from us at the halfway point to do some work at his home, but J continued with me all the way to where the sidewalk ends. To get back home the two of us had to climb over a fence to get onto a dam, cross the river and then climb over another fence to get off of the dam. Then we had to pull out a city map and walk a distance to find a city bus, the only city bus, actually, in that part of the outskirts of town. Before boarding the rusty old bus, we walked into a snack store and bought a couple soft drinks that are so cheap (1 RMB/600 ml) that they are sold only in the countryside. After the bus ride, we boarded the most advanced form of transportation in our city, a subway/elevated train, to go to the south of town again. Standing there on the train, we (or at least I) felt so superior. Those around us had not felt the distance they were traveling. They hadn't made the earth turn under their feet. They had just zipped here and there on buses or taxis. Or actually maybe some of them had travelled there on their own power and seen the world walk by them in all its beauty. Maybe they had felt that freedom and sense of worship that we had felt.
Having hopped off the subway/elevated train, we still had a ten minute walk from the station to our houses. If I remember right, I think we rewarded ourselves with a little ice cream or something before going inside. For such a memorable trip it would have been appropriate to have kept a memento from it. J brought back the soft drink bottle and still has it sitting on his cabinet shelf beside his precious books as a monument to our Long March. But I have nothing. Not even pictures, as I had leant my camera to someone.
That's ok. If I had kept something then I would have had to throw it away someday. But I didn't, and I won't.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Summertime
Hey folks,
If any of you are still reading my blog, I'm really surprised. I haven't written anything here for so long. In fact, I haven't written anything for a long time. I started this blog back during my last vacation from school. At the time I felt like if I didn't write something I would burst, so I started the blog as a kind of release valve. Well, now in my summer vacation I really don't feel like writing anything, and what's more, I really don't feel like reading anything either. This is really weird because for me to not want to read is like a fish not wanting to swim.
I am reading something however. In the mornings I get up and brew a cup of Pu'er tea or Chinese black tea and read The Training of the Twelve by A.B. Bruce. It is a good book. It's kind of like a commentary. I also have been reading a book called 普洱茶. I say I am reading the book, but it is a Chinese book and I can't really read Chinese very well. Since it takes me about thirty minutes to read one sentence, it is probably more accurate for me to say that I am reading the first paragraph of the book. The book is about Pu'er tea, my current favorite brew.
Later sometime I'll tell you all about my summer and my long march and my favorite tea. But for now I'll go to bed.
If any of you are still reading my blog, I'm really surprised. I haven't written anything here for so long. In fact, I haven't written anything for a long time. I started this blog back during my last vacation from school. At the time I felt like if I didn't write something I would burst, so I started the blog as a kind of release valve. Well, now in my summer vacation I really don't feel like writing anything, and what's more, I really don't feel like reading anything either. This is really weird because for me to not want to read is like a fish not wanting to swim.
I am reading something however. In the mornings I get up and brew a cup of Pu'er tea or Chinese black tea and read The Training of the Twelve by A.B. Bruce. It is a good book. It's kind of like a commentary. I also have been reading a book called 普洱茶. I say I am reading the book, but it is a Chinese book and I can't really read Chinese very well. Since it takes me about thirty minutes to read one sentence, it is probably more accurate for me to say that I am reading the first paragraph of the book. The book is about Pu'er tea, my current favorite brew.
Later sometime I'll tell you all about my summer and my long march and my favorite tea. But for now I'll go to bed.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Strange Place for a Carrier
As you may know, this nation is debating the merits of adding an aircraft carrier to its naval fleet. Some say that carriers are good for power projection, and thus this nation doesn't need one since it doesn't express an interest in projecting its power overseas.
What you may not know is that it already has a carrier. However, I don't think that it would do much good at power protection given the size of the body of water in which it is found.
Why this carrier is here, I don't know. It is probably just for training or gaming or whatnot. According to what I heard it was built near Shanghai. However, I got this from an internet discussion group, so who knows how accurate the information or even the picture itself is.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Finished Paper
My wife finished her paper yesterday and gave it to her adviser. The adviser will read it and give suggestions. Then we will go back to work on it to prepare the final draft.
I've noticed in this that my wife is one of the most patient people I know. I thought I was really patient, but I noticed lately that she doesn't get flustered about things easily. As the dead lines were looking more and more deadly, she seemed positively unconcerned. She just plugged away at it. Once we made a mistake, deleting a little portion of the paper, and whereas I just about went over the top, she was just as collected as can be.
Today I met with a couple of students for lunch. My wife had been planning to come with me and meet them too, but she was really tired after doing her paper. She stayed home and slept until who knows when. She deserved it because she had worked hard.
I've noticed in this that my wife is one of the most patient people I know. I thought I was really patient, but I noticed lately that she doesn't get flustered about things easily. As the dead lines were looking more and more deadly, she seemed positively unconcerned. She just plugged away at it. Once we made a mistake, deleting a little portion of the paper, and whereas I just about went over the top, she was just as collected as can be.
Today I met with a couple of students for lunch. My wife had been planning to come with me and meet them too, but she was really tired after doing her paper. She stayed home and slept until who knows when. She deserved it because she had worked hard.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Thanks to One and All
I read something by Douglas Wilson the other day that made me smile. He wrote about things he was thankful in the form of a Hebrew poetic convention. He said, "For two things I give thanks, and for three I am extremely grateful. First, I am very thankful for the godly character of my wife and family. Second, I am grateful for the integrity of my friends and co-laborers . . . . But third, after careful consideration of the subject, I have to say that I am profoundly grateful for the caliber of my enemies."
Lately, I've been busy with teaching and my wife is busy writing her graduate paper. We have been staying up late together recently while she works on her paper, but unfortunately I don't have the luxury of sleeping in. So, needless to say, I'm getting cranky. I should go to bed and just let her work, but I just don't like going to bed all by my lonesome. It has been about a year after all since I was a loner like our luchadore friend Nacho. And even then I didn't really agree with his estimation of single life ("It's the best!").
By the way, it has been about a year. Last week was an anniversary for my wife and me. I surprised her with a gift and stuff. It was a good anniversary, but it was kindof overshadowed by a looming dead line of my wife's paper. That isn't too bad that we couldn't have a big celebration because last week was only one of our anniversaries. We have more than one actually because of Chinese tradition. It is the next anniversary that is the most important for us.
If you want to know why we have more than one wedding anniversary, you can look at my "This n'that" entry of February 10, and that should make it clear.
Lately, I've been busy with teaching and my wife is busy writing her graduate paper. We have been staying up late together recently while she works on her paper, but unfortunately I don't have the luxury of sleeping in. So, needless to say, I'm getting cranky. I should go to bed and just let her work, but I just don't like going to bed all by my lonesome. It has been about a year after all since I was a loner like our luchadore friend Nacho. And even then I didn't really agree with his estimation of single life ("It's the best!").
By the way, it has been about a year. Last week was an anniversary for my wife and me. I surprised her with a gift and stuff. It was a good anniversary, but it was kindof overshadowed by a looming dead line of my wife's paper. That isn't too bad that we couldn't have a big celebration because last week was only one of our anniversaries. We have more than one actually because of Chinese tradition. It is the next anniversary that is the most important for us.
If you want to know why we have more than one wedding anniversary, you can look at my "This n'that" entry of February 10, and that should make it clear.
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