Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

Economic crisis? Only with my egg pancake

I eat this on most mornings; probably my favorite thing to eat in all of Xi'an. It's called a Jianbing Guozi, ????, and its a flour pancake mixed with an egg, and then wrapped in these crisp layers of what is fried bread. Kind of looks like its some kind of Chinese burrito.

Anyways, this is usually my breakfast, and I'll eat two in a day if I can. I go buy them from a local street vendor near my apartment. The woman there makes them on the spot, standing behind a cart that's wheeled by a bicycle. On the cart is a black stove, a cylinder of black metal, covered with a flat top, where she grills the pancake.

Business for my local street vendor hasn't been that well. Most of her customers are students from my university. And so during the last few weeks I saw her, she'd always complain to me that business was bad.

But now with school having started again, I asked, “How was business?" expecting her answer to be positive.

"Bad" she said. "Really?" I said. Then she told me why.

"I think its because of the economic crisis," she said. "Not very many people have been buying even with school back in. I just have to soldier on."

I got my two egg pancakes and then left, paying a little more than 25 cents American for each of them. Even by Chinese standards, where food costs far less (I can get a a bowl of beef noodle soup for 75 cents) one egg pancake is pretty cheap. Could the economic crisis be really threatening my local street vendor?

If it weren't for the Internet I probably wouldn't even know an economic crisis was going on. Sure I overhear chit-chat from strangers and the Chinese news has been following it, but my city of Xi'an doesn't seem like its been affected by global recession at all.

Yesterday I went to a newly opened mall here, and on a Friday night, and most of the high-end restaurants there were packed. At the Diary Queen inside, people had to wait in line for a table and to order their frosted blizzards.

I'm perhaps even more sheltered from the economic downturn since I'm in the education industry. Even with jobs shrinking in China by the millions, people still need to learn and get degrees.

People sometimes tell me that I left America at the perfect time. I can't even imagine what's happening back in my home state of Oregon, where unemployment is already in double digits. If I stayed in America, I'm sure I'd have an incredibly difficult time trying to find a job in the already ailing journalism industry.

Oh well. In the meantime, I'm thinking of buying three egg pancakes the next time I visit my local street vendor.

Dead Poet’s Society

After living through this excessively long winter break, I will start my job as a teacher again. I think back to all things I encountered last semester; the good and the bad, and also the extremely disappointing.

The good: There were so many good things, many of which often revolved around the kindness of my students. One of the best was on Christmas Day. A group of about a dozen students had dinner with me and they all give me gifts, which I hadn't expected. Among a few of the presents, I now I have a stuffed-animal tiger that's also a picture frame, along with an egg-shaped flute I have no idea how to play.

The bad: There was quite of bit that too, all centered on the feeling that I was fighting this impossible battle in trying to teach my students. The infrequent class times, the bored and blank faces of my students, the absent signs of improvement. The way some students don't ever seem to take notes, or bring a pen and paper to class. The way some students don't do homework or don't come to class. Sigh...

The crappy: Cheating. This was the most disappointing. On a few occasions, a few students wanted to cheat on a final test. But the worst part, was that they wanted me to help them cheat. Apparently, a few teachers at the school have even been complicit in this. My expectations of my students dropped to the ground after that; truly Chinese education is rampant with its problems. (I've been meaning to write more this, but I've been strapped for time.)

A small part of me cringes thinking of what might happen this semester. So recently I watched the movie The Dead Poet's Society, hoping to get some inspiration. The story is basically about a teacher, played be Robin Williams, who inspires his students to make their lives extraordinary and "seize the day."

After watching the movie I then thought about my own situation. A few days ago my school told me what I was going to teach. They gave me no textbook like they did last semester, but instead gave me packets of tests. Basically I was instructed to teach my students how to prepare for the CET-4, a standardized English test they have in China that all college students must pass.

Sigh. Teaching to the test. Great.

There's a scene in The Dead Poet's Society, where Robin Williams is talking to the school principal about teaching his students to become "free thinkers." The principal shakes his head and says just prepare them for college and then leaves.

I thought about that as I looked at all the packets of tests I was given. The Dead Poet's Society is just a movie, and maybe even a bit phony and corny at times. But I thought, I want to be a teacher who makes sure my students know how to use the language, and not just know how to pass some test. Though my students can read and write fine, so many of them have trouble speaking and stringing sentences together. Language is meant to be used, that's why we learn it.

But things are different here. My students are required to take English, so it often feels like most of them could care less. One would think laboring all night to try and make class more interesting and effective, would come with some results. But no, not really. That's crappy thing about the job: a teacher can only do so much, the rest is up to the students.

I've been thinking though, if I had a choice over whether to teach my students how to use the English language or making sure that they could pass the CET-4 standardized test, I'd pick the latter. Passing the CET-4 will allow them to graduate college, and if they pass the CET-6, a harder test, well, they can maybe get a good job.

Oh well, either way I'll be helping my students. But it's kind of sad.

Recently I spoke with one my students. Her English is very good, and I sometimes worry she's not learning anything in my class. A few months ago she took the CET-6 test. I encouraged her, and told her she'd do fine. But a few days ago I asked her if she had passed it. And unfortunately, she said no.

It sucks. A student who knows how to use English probably better than any of my other students and she can't pass this test. She can tell you what products in a store are a "rip-off", what certain trends in America have been pretty "hot" as of late, and how a certain character in Pride and Prejudice is a slut, but still according to a test, it doesn't much matter.

Upon learning of her test result, I felt guilty that I hadn't prepared her enough for the CET-6. But I hope this semester I can help her prepare for it even better. Yea, I wish being idealistic actually worked more.

A protest?

I wish. Although it kind of was.

Yesterday I was walking near one of the entrances of the college that I work at. At the front gate I noticed a throng of people, maybe around 60 or 70, mainly middle-aged.

My first thought was that maybe some little spectacle just happened. Chinese people like to gather and watch whenever something public happens. Once near my apartment I watched as a few dozen people surrounded a family that was loudly arguing among themselves. In Shanghai, I saw a group of people crowd around a drunken man, who had keeled over and was being lifted by his friend.

This, however, seemed different. As I joined the throng of people, I heard few words from the those near me, and sensed that they were tensely waiting for something. On the other side of the gate, was a group of school security officers, huddled together, but happily chatting. One officer carried a camera.

Then I heard some words that immediately revealed something to me. "They haven't released them yet," someone kept saying. "They haven't released them."

Was someone being held prisoner?

I asked a man next to me what was happening and found out, indeed, something intense was unfolding.

Apparently, the people I was standing amongst had all bought apartments from a business that worked at the school. They had signed the contract for them, but they were upset the business was guaranteeing them certain rights and benefits. They came here today to express their discontent.

The large gathering outside the school's front gate had early on brought the police, resulting in small scuffle. But things had subsided and representatives from the dissatisfied apartment tenants were now speaking with the business.

"It probably won't result in anything," the man I was speaking too said. "But we do this first, then we will get a lawyer."

After waiting for maybe twenty minutes, the gathering of people then dispersed, their leaders looking frustrated as they left from the school gates. Their leaders had been "released."

The event wasn't too action-packed. Reminded me a bit of my days as a reporter and covering city meetings, where residents would protest against some development project. But this was China, so the event had far more interest, even as little happened.

I've been hoping to see a protest in this country. They happen by the tens of thousands each year all across China. Yet no one but the foreign press covers them. And the local Chinese government often will use force to quell public displays of dissent. Hopefully I'll see a more bona-fide one, and have a camera the next time.

One thing I did notice was even though China has improved dramatically in these past 6 months, I still couldn't totally understand all the details behind why these people were upset with their apartments. It seems I need to study more vocabulary related to real estate and law.