Knowing how big this world is on foot, not that it’s any smaller by motorized transportation, I’m always worried about getting lost—especially in different countries. To this effect, I always try to learn the language(s) of where I’m going, so that I’m at least able to ask for directions. To this effect, I tried to make sure I knew enough Italian when going though Italy, though hearing my accent they would always switch into English on me. And in Paris, my French, while admittedly rusty, was sufficiently fluent to get us to where we wanted to go.
So in China, I’ve been quite pleased with my Mandarin skills, because I have found that while studying abroad, my travels have improved my Mandarin just as much as my Cantonese despite the fact that in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the primary language of 95% of the population.
So going around in Beijing I recall thinking that I practiced my Mandarin a lot—and I did; however, it was very localized. It was mostly all for haggling, because I knew that there’s what I like to call an “English fee” for foreigners. When it came to the important stuff though, I found that my friend who speaks much more Mandarin with much better aptitude than me did all the talking. And it worked well—we got what we needed, and again it worked in Guilin.
Nanjing was a different case in that I was traveling in a group where I spoke the most Mandarin. I figured that it would be an experience, especially since I kept telling myself and others that I would have really had trouble going around Beijing (and again in Guilin) with my level of Mandarin.
At the train ticket counter in Shenzhen I had to buy one person a ticket to Guilin, and the guy at the ticket counter found my Mandarin so bad that he asked me if I speak English in English instead seeing that I was struggling. I didn’t even try in Cantonese because I know my Cantonese is worse and from previous experience, most of the ticket people don’t operate in Cantonese.
As foreign languages go, my speaking proficiency from highest to lowest goes: Spanish, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Japanese, and Latin. On a side note, someone asked me if I conducted a conversation in Cantonese, which I laughed at, sarcastically saying that one semester of Cantonese for Foreign Learners did me so well that I could now speak it better than Mandarin.
Needless to say, my Mandarin is still way better than my Cantonese. And because I have treated Mandarin and Cantonese as such similar languages over the years, I’ve been going through sorting out the finer points of Cantonese that I totally misunderstood before taking classes.
For example, when talking about actions, soeng2 (想) in Cantonese would correspond more to yào (要) in Mandarin whereas jiu5 (要) in Cantonese would correspond to xūyào (需要) in Mandarin, with the sets meaning to want and to need, respectively. Xiǎng (想) in Mandarin means to think.
Back at the train counter in Shenzhen, I was buying the groups tickets this time to got to Shanghai South Station (上海南火车站/上海南火車站), later taking a high-speed train to Nanjing. Unlike the other time, I was able to get through the whole process in Mandarin alone. I also understood enough to grasp that we could only buy train tickets back in Shanghai.
And at Shanghai South Station, buying tickets for my two friends went even faster and even smoother. I managed to get them two hard sleepers for the way back.
The rest of the trip went along the same lines. I managed to be understood and to understand. Since Beijing and since Chinese school when in was in elementary school, I’ve come a long way.
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Monday, December 14, 2009
Nanjing: Purple Mountain
Our first and only full day at Nanjing saw us starting out at Purple Mountain (紫金山). With Nanjing as one of the historic capitals of China, serving at times under the Ming Dynasty and under the Republic, Purple Mountain is located towards the east of the old city (as determined by city walls), and houses the mausoleums of the early Ming emperors as well as that of Sun Yat-sen.
Well, we saw both. Nanjing's public light rail system is not as developed as more major Chinese cities, though a second line is being built and more are under planning, so we took a taxi to the base of the mountain, seeing that we had no idea how to work the buses, less read the bus stop signs.
From the taxi, we walked out to the entrance gate to the mausoleum of the first Ming emperor. The entrance fee was ¥70 CNY, less 20% with student discount if you read the signs. I read the signs but my friends didn't. Going to the mausoleum was a bit of a walk, though the crisp air, albeit quite cold during the late fall/early winter, presented a change from Hong Kong, and the escape to nature presented an escape from the city.
The first Ming Emperor's tomb was large and complex. Noticeable to me is the fact that the walls were painted pink rather than the traditional red. After seeing the Forbidden City in Beijing, along with plenty of other classic Chinese architecture, the complex seemed more large than interesting.
After walking halfway through the park, we approached the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. Apparently, this is one of the few places in Mainland China where you can still see the Kuomintang symbol (white sun on blue background) so prominently displayed. I had my picture taken by the vendors. They used their digital point-and-shoots rather than the big single-lens reflex cameras that I expected.
Sun Yat-sen is something of a hero here, which is understandable if you know his role in the establishment of modern China. I've been to no fewer that four memorials dedicated to him in four different cities. The first was the Sun Yat-sen Museum here in Hong Kong that Black Castle Tours took us to the weekend between the first and second weeks of instruction here. It was his Hong Kong residence turned into a museum of his comprehensive history and the founding of the Republic of China. The second was the Sun Yat-sen Memorial in Taipei, which was a big gray building with an orange roof that paled in impressiveness in comparison with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial also in Taipei. The third was of the same name in Guangzhou. It had a large courtyard in front and a statue in his likeness, but we decided not to go inside because of the cost.
This fourth one that I went to in Nanjing was both a museum and a mausoleum. While it was not impressive like the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in Taipei was by sheer size, it was impressive in the sheer walk it took to get there. I walked at a decent pace for a good ten minutes to get through the first gate, at which point there were stairs going all the way up. Though it was a long walk up, the views from the top were impressive.
Behind the memorial to Sun Yat-sen was his coffin place into the ground with a circular viewing area around it. It's like Napoleon's tomb in Paris, except much less grand, white, and surrounded by one level of viewing instead of two.
Continuing on in the day, we headed off to the Gate of China (中华门/中華門), which was just that--a gate. It was well restored though and decked out with Ming-Dynasty flags and porcelain Ming Dynasty guards. It formed part of the old city wall of Nanjing, of which much remains.
Along the way I introduced my friends to the sugarcoated seedy red fruits that I do not know the name of. They were being sold by street vendors at the intersection one of the major universities in Nanjing. It was so good to them that they wanted more on the way back. But when we got there, we saw the guy we first bought them from running away across the street. Then we could see why. The police came and take the other street vendor's goods away from her, throwing them into the back of the truck. There was no force used and no charges pressed, just quick and clean action.
No we still wanted the fruit candy things, so we crossed the street and found the guy who had gone and hid. He went into an alley and was sticking his head out looking for the police. We waited for him to come back out with his food to sell, and we pounced on the opportunity to buy some. Apparently he was frightened, but it all turned out okay with everybody getting what they wanted.
Next was Confucius temple (夫子庙/夫子廟), which I directed us to more for the neighborhood then the actual temple, which we didn’t end up going into. In this neighborhood was most noticeably a large shopping area full of hagglers and cotton candy (which my friends insisted calling candy floss, which I imagined was sugary dental floss that dissolved in your mouth).
The area was also notable for being the regional location for the civil servant examinations back in the day. Nanjing (南京) is capital of Jiangsu (江苏/江蘇) province, which includes the notable city of Suzhou (苏州/蘇州), which I visited two years ago. Not far away is Hangzhou (杭州), another literati gathering point famous for its scenery, which I visited on the same trip in 2007. This examination center was where these gentlemen would have received their qualifications after a long examination and subsequently been inducted into the bureaucracy.
This particular Confucius Temple was not particularly well known though. Since there was an entrance fee, a statue of Confucius in the entry court was obscured by a tasteful barrier so that you can’t see inside without paying.
To end the day, and the bulk of the trip, we had dinner at Papa Johns (来到棒!约翰), which like Pizza Hut, is a lot fancier in China (and apparently much of the rest of the world) than in the United States, where it’s just pizza delivery and take-out.
Well, we saw both. Nanjing's public light rail system is not as developed as more major Chinese cities, though a second line is being built and more are under planning, so we took a taxi to the base of the mountain, seeing that we had no idea how to work the buses, less read the bus stop signs.
From the taxi, we walked out to the entrance gate to the mausoleum of the first Ming emperor. The entrance fee was ¥70 CNY, less 20% with student discount if you read the signs. I read the signs but my friends didn't. Going to the mausoleum was a bit of a walk, though the crisp air, albeit quite cold during the late fall/early winter, presented a change from Hong Kong, and the escape to nature presented an escape from the city.
The first Ming Emperor's tomb was large and complex. Noticeable to me is the fact that the walls were painted pink rather than the traditional red. After seeing the Forbidden City in Beijing, along with plenty of other classic Chinese architecture, the complex seemed more large than interesting.
After walking halfway through the park, we approached the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. Apparently, this is one of the few places in Mainland China where you can still see the Kuomintang symbol (white sun on blue background) so prominently displayed. I had my picture taken by the vendors. They used their digital point-and-shoots rather than the big single-lens reflex cameras that I expected.
Sun Yat-sen is something of a hero here, which is understandable if you know his role in the establishment of modern China. I've been to no fewer that four memorials dedicated to him in four different cities. The first was the Sun Yat-sen Museum here in Hong Kong that Black Castle Tours took us to the weekend between the first and second weeks of instruction here. It was his Hong Kong residence turned into a museum of his comprehensive history and the founding of the Republic of China. The second was the Sun Yat-sen Memorial in Taipei, which was a big gray building with an orange roof that paled in impressiveness in comparison with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial also in Taipei. The third was of the same name in Guangzhou. It had a large courtyard in front and a statue in his likeness, but we decided not to go inside because of the cost.
This fourth one that I went to in Nanjing was both a museum and a mausoleum. While it was not impressive like the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in Taipei was by sheer size, it was impressive in the sheer walk it took to get there. I walked at a decent pace for a good ten minutes to get through the first gate, at which point there were stairs going all the way up. Though it was a long walk up, the views from the top were impressive.
Behind the memorial to Sun Yat-sen was his coffin place into the ground with a circular viewing area around it. It's like Napoleon's tomb in Paris, except much less grand, white, and surrounded by one level of viewing instead of two.
Continuing on in the day, we headed off to the Gate of China (中华门/中華門), which was just that--a gate. It was well restored though and decked out with Ming-Dynasty flags and porcelain Ming Dynasty guards. It formed part of the old city wall of Nanjing, of which much remains.
Along the way I introduced my friends to the sugarcoated seedy red fruits that I do not know the name of. They were being sold by street vendors at the intersection one of the major universities in Nanjing. It was so good to them that they wanted more on the way back. But when we got there, we saw the guy we first bought them from running away across the street. Then we could see why. The police came and take the other street vendor's goods away from her, throwing them into the back of the truck. There was no force used and no charges pressed, just quick and clean action.
No we still wanted the fruit candy things, so we crossed the street and found the guy who had gone and hid. He went into an alley and was sticking his head out looking for the police. We waited for him to come back out with his food to sell, and we pounced on the opportunity to buy some. Apparently he was frightened, but it all turned out okay with everybody getting what they wanted.
Next was Confucius temple (夫子庙/夫子廟), which I directed us to more for the neighborhood then the actual temple, which we didn’t end up going into. In this neighborhood was most noticeably a large shopping area full of hagglers and cotton candy (which my friends insisted calling candy floss, which I imagined was sugary dental floss that dissolved in your mouth).
The area was also notable for being the regional location for the civil servant examinations back in the day. Nanjing (南京) is capital of Jiangsu (江苏/江蘇) province, which includes the notable city of Suzhou (苏州/蘇州), which I visited two years ago. Not far away is Hangzhou (杭州), another literati gathering point famous for its scenery, which I visited on the same trip in 2007. This examination center was where these gentlemen would have received their qualifications after a long examination and subsequently been inducted into the bureaucracy.
This particular Confucius Temple was not particularly well known though. Since there was an entrance fee, a statue of Confucius in the entry court was obscured by a tasteful barrier so that you can’t see inside without paying.
To end the day, and the bulk of the trip, we had dinner at Papa Johns (来到棒!约翰), which like Pizza Hut, is a lot fancier in China (and apparently much of the rest of the world) than in the United States, where it’s just pizza delivery and take-out.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Nanjing: 300,000 at the Gate of China
After freshening up at the hotel for a bit, it was only 3:00 PM, so we decided to get a bit of sightseeing in. The major thing that Nanjing is know for outside China is the Rape of Nanking as termed in American history textbooks, now seemingly recognized properly at the Nanjing Massacre.
To this effect, we went to the appropriate memorial, named the Memorial for Compatriots Killed in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Forces of Aggression (侵華日軍南京大屠殺遇難同胞紀念館/侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆) after eating at a western restaurant. The food was quite good, there was just too much of it, so we ended up overeating.
The whole memorial was quite somber, as it was designed. The memorial was designed on a black and charcoal gray template, with the death toll on a cross made purposefully dirty juxtaposed with walls across a gray-pebble courtyard (evocative of Zen gardens) from the museum.
One point popped into the back of my head. It probably would have just gone away if my friend didn’t say anything about it. This memorial wasn’t built over any sort of ruins. The museum had fake ruins adorning the materials about the conflict and in no way was this site more historical than the rest of Nanjing.
This friend happened to have seen some of the major holocaust sites in Germany. She said that the Nanjing Massacre Memorial lacked the same authentic feel that Dauchau concentration camp did. I could see her point, but being that most of the museums that I’ve been to in the United States have been built on nothing more than their foundations of concrete and steel, this fact didn’t irk me.
The museum was more informative than anything else. Everything stated was presented as fact, and though the words “Japanese Invaders” were used more than once (or twice), artifacts from the conflict seemed to be displayed in a very impartial manner (though at the same time it was quite clear what country you were in).
It made me realize how much about Asia, and for that matter the world outside Anglophone North America and Europe I don’t know. I construe it as a simple statement on our Eurocentric public educations. I remember that in sophomore year of high school, the state set up a curriculum based on “World History,” but with our class being European History Advanced Placement, we were going to wait until after the AP test in May to cover the rest of the world. Thought it seemed to be a daunting task, covering the rest of the world in less than a month, we failed to accomplish anything at all. Instead, we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail as well as Forrest Gump.
I do understand that in comparison with the eleven million people (six million Jews) that the Nazis killed, a simple 300,000 doesn’t seem like much by the Imperialist Japanese. The fact of the matter is though that 300,000 people make up still 300,000 lives, each one precious in its own regard.
To make matters special, whereas Germany likes to distance itself from its Nazi past, it is highly questionable whether Japan cares to do the same. Maybe 300,000 is a high estimate; “impartial” observers estimate 260,000; but Japanese historians head down to 100,000. I suppose the number isn’t important, but some Japanese officials say that all the deaths were military-related and that no war crimes occurred (being that you aren’t to target civilians nor attack when civilians are known to be present). Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided to go pay respect to the Japanese memorial honoring their fallen soldiers in the conflict.
The fact of the matter was that Japan was clearly the one that violated the well-established international law principle of territorial sovereignty, and in doing so continued to murder innocent civilians. I don’t hold anything against the Japan of today, because what’s past is the history. And though you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, I well understand many Chinese people’s anti-Japanese sentiment.
I suppose in some ways I’m a product of the whole conflict. Had Japan as well as Germany not started their courses in history in World War II, I, James Philip Jee, as I know myself would not be here today. People like to take guesses at my families’ histories. In Guilin, one American tourist decided to guess without solicitation that I have relatives who moved to the United States to build the railroads. Almost everybody assumes that having parents that are Chinese (meaning ethnicity) means that you can speak Chinese. To them it makes so much sense when I say that my mother’s from Hong Kong yet so much humor when I say my father’s from Detroit.
Because my parents didn’t meet in China, I don’t say my family’s from China, though I am proud of my Chinese heritage. In fact, my father’s never been outside of North America, so to say so would be an inaccuracy. If the conflict never started, would my mother’s parents have moved from Hangzhou? Would I have a much different set of relatives? Would I even exist? Could I be an only child?
Though my circumstances are rooted in a history so ugly, I guess I can say that thanks to my parents I have reestablished my roots in a way that they never would have predicted. In a way, I like to think that no one predicted it would come out this way.
I understand that I am one privileged individual. While I wouldn’t call myself filthy rich, I understand my circumstances well as being well, and it bothers me to see wastefulness in life and in spending.
So there is a reason I went to visit Nanjing, and it’s fitting in a way that it happened to be my last trip out of Hong Kong before my time here. Never should I forget where my past lives have been lived out, never should any one forget the horrors that we people have placed each other under.
I’ve come to appreciate my roots for my culture and my heritage for my traditions. I’ve come to respect my nation as something to subscribe to and my state as something to rely on, and though immigration regulations places restrictions where people are allowed to reside and work (which most notably means that certain places are more prosperous than others), we are all ultimately people, and the future of who we are and where we are lies nowhere else than with us.
To this effect, we went to the appropriate memorial, named the Memorial for Compatriots Killed in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Forces of Aggression (侵華日軍南京大屠殺遇難同胞紀念館/侵华日军南京大屠杀遇难同胞纪念馆) after eating at a western restaurant. The food was quite good, there was just too much of it, so we ended up overeating.
The whole memorial was quite somber, as it was designed. The memorial was designed on a black and charcoal gray template, with the death toll on a cross made purposefully dirty juxtaposed with walls across a gray-pebble courtyard (evocative of Zen gardens) from the museum.
One point popped into the back of my head. It probably would have just gone away if my friend didn’t say anything about it. This memorial wasn’t built over any sort of ruins. The museum had fake ruins adorning the materials about the conflict and in no way was this site more historical than the rest of Nanjing.
This friend happened to have seen some of the major holocaust sites in Germany. She said that the Nanjing Massacre Memorial lacked the same authentic feel that Dauchau concentration camp did. I could see her point, but being that most of the museums that I’ve been to in the United States have been built on nothing more than their foundations of concrete and steel, this fact didn’t irk me.
The museum was more informative than anything else. Everything stated was presented as fact, and though the words “Japanese Invaders” were used more than once (or twice), artifacts from the conflict seemed to be displayed in a very impartial manner (though at the same time it was quite clear what country you were in).
It made me realize how much about Asia, and for that matter the world outside Anglophone North America and Europe I don’t know. I construe it as a simple statement on our Eurocentric public educations. I remember that in sophomore year of high school, the state set up a curriculum based on “World History,” but with our class being European History Advanced Placement, we were going to wait until after the AP test in May to cover the rest of the world. Thought it seemed to be a daunting task, covering the rest of the world in less than a month, we failed to accomplish anything at all. Instead, we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail as well as Forrest Gump.
I do understand that in comparison with the eleven million people (six million Jews) that the Nazis killed, a simple 300,000 doesn’t seem like much by the Imperialist Japanese. The fact of the matter is though that 300,000 people make up still 300,000 lives, each one precious in its own regard.
To make matters special, whereas Germany likes to distance itself from its Nazi past, it is highly questionable whether Japan cares to do the same. Maybe 300,000 is a high estimate; “impartial” observers estimate 260,000; but Japanese historians head down to 100,000. I suppose the number isn’t important, but some Japanese officials say that all the deaths were military-related and that no war crimes occurred (being that you aren’t to target civilians nor attack when civilians are known to be present). Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided to go pay respect to the Japanese memorial honoring their fallen soldiers in the conflict.
The fact of the matter was that Japan was clearly the one that violated the well-established international law principle of territorial sovereignty, and in doing so continued to murder innocent civilians. I don’t hold anything against the Japan of today, because what’s past is the history. And though you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, I well understand many Chinese people’s anti-Japanese sentiment.
I suppose in some ways I’m a product of the whole conflict. Had Japan as well as Germany not started their courses in history in World War II, I, James Philip Jee, as I know myself would not be here today. People like to take guesses at my families’ histories. In Guilin, one American tourist decided to guess without solicitation that I have relatives who moved to the United States to build the railroads. Almost everybody assumes that having parents that are Chinese (meaning ethnicity) means that you can speak Chinese. To them it makes so much sense when I say that my mother’s from Hong Kong yet so much humor when I say my father’s from Detroit.
Because my parents didn’t meet in China, I don’t say my family’s from China, though I am proud of my Chinese heritage. In fact, my father’s never been outside of North America, so to say so would be an inaccuracy. If the conflict never started, would my mother’s parents have moved from Hangzhou? Would I have a much different set of relatives? Would I even exist? Could I be an only child?
Though my circumstances are rooted in a history so ugly, I guess I can say that thanks to my parents I have reestablished my roots in a way that they never would have predicted. In a way, I like to think that no one predicted it would come out this way.
I understand that I am one privileged individual. While I wouldn’t call myself filthy rich, I understand my circumstances well as being well, and it bothers me to see wastefulness in life and in spending.
So there is a reason I went to visit Nanjing, and it’s fitting in a way that it happened to be my last trip out of Hong Kong before my time here. Never should I forget where my past lives have been lived out, never should any one forget the horrors that we people have placed each other under.
I’ve come to appreciate my roots for my culture and my heritage for my traditions. I’ve come to respect my nation as something to subscribe to and my state as something to rely on, and though immigration regulations places restrictions where people are allowed to reside and work (which most notably means that certain places are more prosperous than others), we are all ultimately people, and the future of who we are and where we are lies nowhere else than with us.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Nanjing: Planes, Trains, and the Paparazzi
So my last full-fledged trip of this term started out as all the others—with transportation of course. This one required more than the others though, because as my travel buddies were aiming to save money, we opted to take trains over planes.
Nanjing is 733 miles or 1,180 kilometers from Hong Kong and would have taken two hours to fly there. As trains go, the one going from Shenzhen (Hong Kong’s Mainland border city) to its terminal at Nanjing Station would have taken twenty-five hours. In contrast, the train to Shanghai South Station would take eighteen hours and then a high-speed train to Nanjing would add on two hours from Shanghai Station via a twelve-stop metro journey. We opted for the latter.
And we couldn’t take one of the MTR through trains, which go almost non-stop to either Shanghai or Beijing from Kowloon (Hung Hom Station), because they go every other day, which for our schedule happened to fit on the wrong days.
Chinese trains are annoying. They’re decently convenient time-wise and reasonably priced. The problem is that you can’t book tickets online. I went to a travel agent (China Travel Service) and found that you have to book tickets at the stations themselves. Hong Kong’s train stations are owned and operated by the MTR Corporation, the same company that owns and operates the subway system. This means that to buy tickets in advance, you would have to truck yourself the hour and a half north to Shenzhen to buy your tickets since the rail facilities here are neither owned nor operated by the same people in Mainland China.
This trek up to Shenzhen wasn’t too appealing, and we figured we’d be able to get tickets shortly before departure, since we did the same for one person for the train to Guilin. Also, there was only one train scheduled each way each day, so we figured that ridership did not afford more than one train a day. Ultimately, we had to find our way up to Nanjing, because we’d already paid for the hotel and I’d already booked my flight back.
We were wrong on both accounts. The train was to leave at 13:29 and arrive at Shanghai South at 6:58, so early in the morning on Friday we got to Shenzhen. We went up to the counter and we were kindly informed that there were no beds left. This meant that we had to buy a seat. Fine. We had to get up to Nanjing, and a seat would do just that, so we bought our tickets and started counting down the hours until hell.
Now I know how I do with long flights. I’ve got a yearly quota for the number of flights over five hours I can handle. This train was going to be eighteen hours sitting. In comparison, my flight from San Francisco was only fourteen hours long and my flight earlier this summer from Los Angeles to Zurich was but eleven.
Well, anyways, the time came and we all got squished while queuing to get onto the train. I always thought it was pointless to squeeze onto mass transit vehicles, because if you’ve got a ticket, you’re getting on, and the vehicle isn’t going to go any sooner if you get on it first. Oh well.
The train was set up in tables. On half of the train, there were six seats in two rows of three around a four-person table. On the other half of the train, there were four seats in two rows of two. In between was an aisle just slightly bigger than that on an airplane.
Like the train to Guilin, in between the sleepers and the seats there was the dining car. While looking for it, I realized I had no idea how to call in Mandarin, so I called it a restaurant, and the staff looked at me like I was stupid. Instead, we met a businessman named Sharp that had approached us half because he was just being friendly and half because he was taking advantage of the opportunity to practice his English with us (my white friends more than me).
Eventually we got our dinner and found wandered back to our table set up. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the seats were facing in the same direction, because the guys across from us wouldn’t stop staring at us, half because my friends are white, half because I was speaking English, and entirely because we were all associating ourselves with each other.
What made the trip worse was that it just seemed to get more and more crowded. People were crowding the areas between cars as well as making use of the bathroom sinks and floors as beds. With pooper stoopers, the floor just got dirtier and dirtier, and it was pretty apparent as seen by the color what this dirt was actually made of. These people who wandered onto the train without a seat I assumed paid to stand, but took the opportunity to claim a seat when one arose. After going to the wrong side of the train (because Car No. 1 was connected at the back to Car No. 16), we found some guys in our seats. I asked them to move in Mandarin, and an older man replied to me in English “switch seats.” Without gesturing which seats to switch to, had he meant switching at all, we just waited until they got out of our seats. In the process of moving themselves and their stuff, they had to move their circular saw from under one table to another, which I thought was peculiar. We had just gone through x-ray security not fifteen minutes ago.
Needless to say, I read an entire book in one sitting (though it was only 180 pages long) in two hours and proceeded to eat two trays of Mandarin oranges and one tray of bananas that we paid ¥10 CNY in total for. After exhausting things to do (because it was difficult to pull my binder out of my bag to study) it was about time to go to sleep. We had hoped that they’d turn off or at least dim the lights after 11:00 p.m. But when 11:00 p.m. came and went, we hoped for midnight. And by the time I fell asleep it became apparent that the lights were there to stay. I got all of about five hours of sleep on that eighteen-hour train ride. One of my friends got as little as half an hour. We all decided that airplanes are much better than hard seats on Chinese trains.
We arrived at Shanghai South Station at about 7:30 a.m. but had to stay there until the ticket office opened at 8:00 a.m. to help my friends buy tickets back for later in the week. I was to leave from Nanjing by air but they were going to come back to Shanghai to scout the place out. One of them studies Mandarin but neither of them felt they had the capacity to negotiate hard-sleepers back to Shenzhen. I actually found that I did the whole thing without any effort. They got their train tickets back, and what’s better is they got hard sleepers—so the hellish ride there wouldn’t be a hellish ride back.
We ate breakfast at a place called Mister Donut in the train station. My problem with eating doughnuts is that they make me feel like a doughnut in the short term as well as in the long term.
Next up, we had to get from one train station to the other, because trains to Nanjing left from Shanghai Station, and we were currently at Shanghai South Station. This was anticipated and hence smooth. For ¥4 CNY, we went the twelve stops along Line 1 of the Shanghai Metro to Shanghai Station.
Although it was going very well, at Shanghai Station, our luck had apparently run low. We waited to buy train tickets to Nanjing at the automated machines and waited for a long time. By the time we got up to the front, the every other machine went out of order, including ours, so we were ushered a block down to the ticket office. It was packed. Luckily we got our train tickets without much ado.
Waiting turned out to be a prelude for what was to come next. Already in the eighteen-hour train, our group of three had elicited many looks from the Chinese countrymen. What are two white people doing in a Chinese long-distance train? What is that Chinese guy doing with them? Is that English they’re speaking? 我听不懂! Needless to say, I explained to a lot of people who asked that they’re Scottish and Australian. If you care, I’m American. Yes, they’re my classmates and we study in Hong Kong.
In the waiting room in Shanghai Station though, we noticed though that people were taking pictures. My friend said, “Paparazzi, twelve o’clock.” I looked. There, on one knee a guy had his camera phone out with the lens noticeably popped out, snapping away at the white people. Another guy had a full-on camera out. One of their flashes went off. I wondered if these people saved these pictures for their friends and went like “I saw white people at Shanghai Station!” I don’t think my friends got their pictures taken in Beijing, and I thought Shanghai had more tourists and non-Chinese business people and non-Chinese people in general. Like I said though, this incident was a prelude.
The train journey from Shanghai to Nanjing was about two hours in length. The modern high-speed trains of China Railway High-Speed (CRH) were a lot cleaner and a lot more streamlined than the aging conventional rail ones. The staff were friendlier as were the passengers themselves, though granted this time we were all facing the same direction. The English displayed on the message board in the cabin was a little shotty and all, but at least it was understandable—bottom line was that we weren’t there for the English.
While napping, one of the staff members picked up my friend’s camera and woke her up. He said something to the effect of she should put that camera away because people can take it while she’s sleeping, especially because there’s nothing pretty to take pictures of inside this train. Between each statement, he would say, “” to which she would nod her head. I thought that she was actually answering his questions, that she did understand what he was saying like he asked. She was just nodding yes. So here’s a lesson: like my mom’s friend said, if you don’t understand something, it works more often than not to answer in the negative. No!
After arriving in Nanjing, we had our hotel address on a piece of paper (in pinyin only, unfortunately). We got in an unregulated taxi by accident and got ripped off. For the three of us, he charged ¥200 to take us to our hotel, which wasn’t that far away. However though, he helped us through our address dilemma, since it seems that most people in China don’t read pinyin (because they read the harder characters). He drove us to one hotel, where we asked concierge where our hotel was. They didn’t know the hotel’s name (it was a Holiday Inn, but no one calls it that because it has a Chinese name), so he said he would take me to the address. I said that was great. Later, looking at a map, the hotel was super close to one of the metro stops and we could have gotten there, had we planned better, for ¥2-4 each. Oh well. Lesson learned.
Nanjing is 733 miles or 1,180 kilometers from Hong Kong and would have taken two hours to fly there. As trains go, the one going from Shenzhen (Hong Kong’s Mainland border city) to its terminal at Nanjing Station would have taken twenty-five hours. In contrast, the train to Shanghai South Station would take eighteen hours and then a high-speed train to Nanjing would add on two hours from Shanghai Station via a twelve-stop metro journey. We opted for the latter.
And we couldn’t take one of the MTR through trains, which go almost non-stop to either Shanghai or Beijing from Kowloon (Hung Hom Station), because they go every other day, which for our schedule happened to fit on the wrong days.
Chinese trains are annoying. They’re decently convenient time-wise and reasonably priced. The problem is that you can’t book tickets online. I went to a travel agent (China Travel Service) and found that you have to book tickets at the stations themselves. Hong Kong’s train stations are owned and operated by the MTR Corporation, the same company that owns and operates the subway system. This means that to buy tickets in advance, you would have to truck yourself the hour and a half north to Shenzhen to buy your tickets since the rail facilities here are neither owned nor operated by the same people in Mainland China.
This trek up to Shenzhen wasn’t too appealing, and we figured we’d be able to get tickets shortly before departure, since we did the same for one person for the train to Guilin. Also, there was only one train scheduled each way each day, so we figured that ridership did not afford more than one train a day. Ultimately, we had to find our way up to Nanjing, because we’d already paid for the hotel and I’d already booked my flight back.
We were wrong on both accounts. The train was to leave at 13:29 and arrive at Shanghai South at 6:58, so early in the morning on Friday we got to Shenzhen. We went up to the counter and we were kindly informed that there were no beds left. This meant that we had to buy a seat. Fine. We had to get up to Nanjing, and a seat would do just that, so we bought our tickets and started counting down the hours until hell.
Now I know how I do with long flights. I’ve got a yearly quota for the number of flights over five hours I can handle. This train was going to be eighteen hours sitting. In comparison, my flight from San Francisco was only fourteen hours long and my flight earlier this summer from Los Angeles to Zurich was but eleven.
Well, anyways, the time came and we all got squished while queuing to get onto the train. I always thought it was pointless to squeeze onto mass transit vehicles, because if you’ve got a ticket, you’re getting on, and the vehicle isn’t going to go any sooner if you get on it first. Oh well.
The train was set up in tables. On half of the train, there were six seats in two rows of three around a four-person table. On the other half of the train, there were four seats in two rows of two. In between was an aisle just slightly bigger than that on an airplane.
Like the train to Guilin, in between the sleepers and the seats there was the dining car. While looking for it, I realized I had no idea how to call in Mandarin, so I called it a restaurant, and the staff looked at me like I was stupid. Instead, we met a businessman named Sharp that had approached us half because he was just being friendly and half because he was taking advantage of the opportunity to practice his English with us (my white friends more than me).
Eventually we got our dinner and found wandered back to our table set up. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the seats were facing in the same direction, because the guys across from us wouldn’t stop staring at us, half because my friends are white, half because I was speaking English, and entirely because we were all associating ourselves with each other.
What made the trip worse was that it just seemed to get more and more crowded. People were crowding the areas between cars as well as making use of the bathroom sinks and floors as beds. With pooper stoopers, the floor just got dirtier and dirtier, and it was pretty apparent as seen by the color what this dirt was actually made of. These people who wandered onto the train without a seat I assumed paid to stand, but took the opportunity to claim a seat when one arose. After going to the wrong side of the train (because Car No. 1 was connected at the back to Car No. 16), we found some guys in our seats. I asked them to move in Mandarin, and an older man replied to me in English “switch seats.” Without gesturing which seats to switch to, had he meant switching at all, we just waited until they got out of our seats. In the process of moving themselves and their stuff, they had to move their circular saw from under one table to another, which I thought was peculiar. We had just gone through x-ray security not fifteen minutes ago.
Needless to say, I read an entire book in one sitting (though it was only 180 pages long) in two hours and proceeded to eat two trays of Mandarin oranges and one tray of bananas that we paid ¥10 CNY in total for. After exhausting things to do (because it was difficult to pull my binder out of my bag to study) it was about time to go to sleep. We had hoped that they’d turn off or at least dim the lights after 11:00 p.m. But when 11:00 p.m. came and went, we hoped for midnight. And by the time I fell asleep it became apparent that the lights were there to stay. I got all of about five hours of sleep on that eighteen-hour train ride. One of my friends got as little as half an hour. We all decided that airplanes are much better than hard seats on Chinese trains.
We arrived at Shanghai South Station at about 7:30 a.m. but had to stay there until the ticket office opened at 8:00 a.m. to help my friends buy tickets back for later in the week. I was to leave from Nanjing by air but they were going to come back to Shanghai to scout the place out. One of them studies Mandarin but neither of them felt they had the capacity to negotiate hard-sleepers back to Shenzhen. I actually found that I did the whole thing without any effort. They got their train tickets back, and what’s better is they got hard sleepers—so the hellish ride there wouldn’t be a hellish ride back.
We ate breakfast at a place called Mister Donut in the train station. My problem with eating doughnuts is that they make me feel like a doughnut in the short term as well as in the long term.
Next up, we had to get from one train station to the other, because trains to Nanjing left from Shanghai Station, and we were currently at Shanghai South Station. This was anticipated and hence smooth. For ¥4 CNY, we went the twelve stops along Line 1 of the Shanghai Metro to Shanghai Station.
Although it was going very well, at Shanghai Station, our luck had apparently run low. We waited to buy train tickets to Nanjing at the automated machines and waited for a long time. By the time we got up to the front, the every other machine went out of order, including ours, so we were ushered a block down to the ticket office. It was packed. Luckily we got our train tickets without much ado.
Waiting turned out to be a prelude for what was to come next. Already in the eighteen-hour train, our group of three had elicited many looks from the Chinese countrymen. What are two white people doing in a Chinese long-distance train? What is that Chinese guy doing with them? Is that English they’re speaking? 我听不懂! Needless to say, I explained to a lot of people who asked that they’re Scottish and Australian. If you care, I’m American. Yes, they’re my classmates and we study in Hong Kong.
In the waiting room in Shanghai Station though, we noticed though that people were taking pictures. My friend said, “Paparazzi, twelve o’clock.” I looked. There, on one knee a guy had his camera phone out with the lens noticeably popped out, snapping away at the white people. Another guy had a full-on camera out. One of their flashes went off. I wondered if these people saved these pictures for their friends and went like “I saw white people at Shanghai Station!” I don’t think my friends got their pictures taken in Beijing, and I thought Shanghai had more tourists and non-Chinese business people and non-Chinese people in general. Like I said though, this incident was a prelude.
The train journey from Shanghai to Nanjing was about two hours in length. The modern high-speed trains of China Railway High-Speed (CRH) were a lot cleaner and a lot more streamlined than the aging conventional rail ones. The staff were friendlier as were the passengers themselves, though granted this time we were all facing the same direction. The English displayed on the message board in the cabin was a little shotty and all, but at least it was understandable—bottom line was that we weren’t there for the English.
While napping, one of the staff members picked up my friend’s camera and woke her up. He said something to the effect of she should put that camera away because people can take it while she’s sleeping, especially because there’s nothing pretty to take pictures of inside this train. Between each statement, he would say, “” to which she would nod her head. I thought that she was actually answering his questions, that she did understand what he was saying like he asked. She was just nodding yes. So here’s a lesson: like my mom’s friend said, if you don’t understand something, it works more often than not to answer in the negative. No!
After arriving in Nanjing, we had our hotel address on a piece of paper (in pinyin only, unfortunately). We got in an unregulated taxi by accident and got ripped off. For the three of us, he charged ¥200 to take us to our hotel, which wasn’t that far away. However though, he helped us through our address dilemma, since it seems that most people in China don’t read pinyin (because they read the harder characters). He drove us to one hotel, where we asked concierge where our hotel was. They didn’t know the hotel’s name (it was a Holiday Inn, but no one calls it that because it has a Chinese name), so he said he would take me to the address. I said that was great. Later, looking at a map, the hotel was super close to one of the metro stops and we could have gotten there, had we planned better, for ¥2-4 each. Oh well. Lesson learned.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Germans All Have Blond Hair and Blue Eyes
I guess I just can’t shake it off. Most incidents are minor and not worth mentioning, except perhaps in larger contexts, because a constituency is made of its smallest parts, right? At this point, I don’t plan to exempt myself from this observation, because I know I do it too—I just wish it would all stop.
I guess the basis of this whole thing starts from a simple rule of thumb in English class in high school—never make absolute statements in essay writing. I’ve learned a long time ago now that applies to speaking now, because almost all absolutes are wrong, if even by the smallest degree. I’ve just learned that if all people believe the same absolute, it’s fake truth wills out against the real truth—which I guess is to be expected, since as records are reflections of events and not the events themselves, what’s “true” is largely up to interpretation, whatever the truth may be.
I’m guessing that this post is just going to amount to episodes of logical fallacies and the sense I’ve made of them.
The Germans
I once said to my group of friends here, something something something “is like saying that everyone in Germany has blond hair and blue eyes—it’s just not true.” Now, I’ve seen the statistics and I’ve seen it for myself (meaning I’ve been to Germany), but the fact that even though a vast majority of Germans have blond hair and blue eyes, the fact of the matter is that not all of them do, even if you only include ethnic Germans in Germany. I’ve met plenty of people from Germany who don’t have blue eyes and plenty more who don’t have blond hair.
My logic was lost on them though, as it often seems that 95% equals 100%, but any one who’s studied any form of science (natural or social) would tell you that it’s not the same, however damn close it is.
My statement got the reply, “Well have you ever been to Germany? Because I’m always surprised by the sheer number of blond-haired, blue-eyed people there”—to which I said yes, and that it’s still not all, to which I was rebutted, “Yeah but it’s a lot”—and I to that I said that yes, there are a lot, but it is still not all, and that’s the bottom line. And though I was ultimately right in logic, my statement got rejected because the falsity of notion and not the logic was what was agreed to.
In the Middle of China
Fine. On the train to Guilin, this guy started a conversation in Mandarin with me and the three other people in my group. I was the one with the highest proficiency (with two being nil), so I did most of the talking. They all said where they were from (Scotland, Australia, and Norway), and I said I was from the United States, using it as an excuse for my lack of proficiency. I am well aware that I’m noticeably of Chinese decent (though many perceive my attitude of that fact as meaning that I’m ashamed of my past or that I’ve got false notions about my appearance—both of which are false), so the guy pressed further at me. I asked the others what I should tell him.
One friend said that I should say that my family’s from China. I told her that’s not true (because to me that would imply that my parents met in China and moved to the United States, which isn’t true, with one parent never having been outside of North America and the other speaking better English than Chinese). By that logic though, I should have asked my Australian friend whether she would say that her family is from Britain, since her father’s from there and that overall she could trace her entire ancestry back to the Isles, because I’m pretty sure she would have said no.
American Dad
It seems funny to me that no matter how much things are illogical, the most superficial aspects of something just make up for the rest, even if it makes something more illogical.
Just a couple days ago, I got asked where my father is from since I always say that I’m trying to learn Cantonese, partly so that I can use it back home with my mother, who’s originally from Hong Kong, having left the Crown Colony at the age of eleven. I said Michigan, which is the complete truth.
Though I ultimately understand, I’ve always wondered why I get such a variety of reactions when I say my dad’s from Detroit. The fact of the matter is that that’s the truth. It’s where he was born and where he spent the first half of his childhood (the other half being in Chicago). He’s got those annoying double negatives to prove his difference in dialect.
So my friend asked me just a few days ago where my dad was from. I said Michigan, which elicited surprise. I was kind of taken aback. I wasn’t offended, but I was surprised, because I spend a lot of time with this friend and I’m sure I’d told her before. She had it in her head for some reason that my dad’s from Hong Kong like my mom is. I said that if that were the case, my Chinese would likely be much better—native even, if not at least near.
The Locals
The time I went to dinner with my floor here, I got local students asking how I could possibly American. After all, I look Chinese. To that I tried to say that why can’t you be both, or why can’t you be one in certain aspects and the other in other aspects? Unfortunately, I couldn’t convey that, nor could I convey my surprise that those students have never heard of populations that are not homogenous. (Hong Kong is 95% Han Chinese whereas the United States is less than 70% non-Hispanic white with California coming in at less than 50% non-Hispanic white.)
The Disconnect of the Upper Echelons
What’s the funniest is who knows what. Earlier this week, I walked into the Finance office to apply for my caution money back (a $350 HKD deposit) now that the semester is coming to an end. I asked for the proper forms not knowing what I needed, and though I’m 華人, I got the form for exchange students. The secretary for the office had heard my foreignness in my accent and judged my origin based on that rather than my skin color, so to speak. This feat would not have seemed so impressive had the pro-vice-chancellor on Monday not said what she said.
As I said earlier, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Amy Tsui came in to speak at the last lecture of Hong Kong and the World. I’ve got my opinions of school administrators, most of which along the theme of being disconnected and haughty (though not overtly arrogant). She of all people is someone you would expect to get this straight, having done her Ph.D. (in linguistics) in the United Kingdom.
Seeing our class of forty in attendance, she noticed the two white people in the lecture hall and referred to them as the “two foreigners in the class,” (though there were about ten of us), without thinking that maybe some of us happen to be of Chinese decent. Of all people, I would have expected her to understand well that culture, like language, is passed down through socialization and isn’t dictated in our genes. (Unlike the many people back home, including some of the people closest to me, who overtly believe that I am more comfortable around people who look like me rather than the people in my hometown—composition: 85% white).
I guess it just goes to show that those at the uppermost echelons of society are often the most ignorant whereas those of us who have our feet firmly planted on the ground—the ones who interact with everyday people—really know what’s going on.
Add It All Up
The bottom line is that I hold none of the above statements against the people who uttered them. This is because I’m well aware that as much as I try to monitor myself and bring myself back down to logic, I still fall victim to the same forces.
So the base line is that I really dislike when people hate that they are expected, especially in public situations, to be politically correct all the time. All that means is that you ultimately don’t care about anyone else (in feelings, emotions, situations, etc.), even if you think you are just joking. It gets worse when such is followed by a request not to judge, and I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that I already will have.
Just try and try hard, that’s all I can and do hope for.
I guess the basis of this whole thing starts from a simple rule of thumb in English class in high school—never make absolute statements in essay writing. I’ve learned a long time ago now that applies to speaking now, because almost all absolutes are wrong, if even by the smallest degree. I’ve just learned that if all people believe the same absolute, it’s fake truth wills out against the real truth—which I guess is to be expected, since as records are reflections of events and not the events themselves, what’s “true” is largely up to interpretation, whatever the truth may be.
I’m guessing that this post is just going to amount to episodes of logical fallacies and the sense I’ve made of them.
The Germans
I once said to my group of friends here, something something something “is like saying that everyone in Germany has blond hair and blue eyes—it’s just not true.” Now, I’ve seen the statistics and I’ve seen it for myself (meaning I’ve been to Germany), but the fact that even though a vast majority of Germans have blond hair and blue eyes, the fact of the matter is that not all of them do, even if you only include ethnic Germans in Germany. I’ve met plenty of people from Germany who don’t have blue eyes and plenty more who don’t have blond hair.
My logic was lost on them though, as it often seems that 95% equals 100%, but any one who’s studied any form of science (natural or social) would tell you that it’s not the same, however damn close it is.
My statement got the reply, “Well have you ever been to Germany? Because I’m always surprised by the sheer number of blond-haired, blue-eyed people there”—to which I said yes, and that it’s still not all, to which I was rebutted, “Yeah but it’s a lot”—and I to that I said that yes, there are a lot, but it is still not all, and that’s the bottom line. And though I was ultimately right in logic, my statement got rejected because the falsity of notion and not the logic was what was agreed to.
In the Middle of China
Fine. On the train to Guilin, this guy started a conversation in Mandarin with me and the three other people in my group. I was the one with the highest proficiency (with two being nil), so I did most of the talking. They all said where they were from (Scotland, Australia, and Norway), and I said I was from the United States, using it as an excuse for my lack of proficiency. I am well aware that I’m noticeably of Chinese decent (though many perceive my attitude of that fact as meaning that I’m ashamed of my past or that I’ve got false notions about my appearance—both of which are false), so the guy pressed further at me. I asked the others what I should tell him.
One friend said that I should say that my family’s from China. I told her that’s not true (because to me that would imply that my parents met in China and moved to the United States, which isn’t true, with one parent never having been outside of North America and the other speaking better English than Chinese). By that logic though, I should have asked my Australian friend whether she would say that her family is from Britain, since her father’s from there and that overall she could trace her entire ancestry back to the Isles, because I’m pretty sure she would have said no.
American Dad
It seems funny to me that no matter how much things are illogical, the most superficial aspects of something just make up for the rest, even if it makes something more illogical.
Just a couple days ago, I got asked where my father is from since I always say that I’m trying to learn Cantonese, partly so that I can use it back home with my mother, who’s originally from Hong Kong, having left the Crown Colony at the age of eleven. I said Michigan, which is the complete truth.
Though I ultimately understand, I’ve always wondered why I get such a variety of reactions when I say my dad’s from Detroit. The fact of the matter is that that’s the truth. It’s where he was born and where he spent the first half of his childhood (the other half being in Chicago). He’s got those annoying double negatives to prove his difference in dialect.
So my friend asked me just a few days ago where my dad was from. I said Michigan, which elicited surprise. I was kind of taken aback. I wasn’t offended, but I was surprised, because I spend a lot of time with this friend and I’m sure I’d told her before. She had it in her head for some reason that my dad’s from Hong Kong like my mom is. I said that if that were the case, my Chinese would likely be much better—native even, if not at least near.
The Locals
The time I went to dinner with my floor here, I got local students asking how I could possibly American. After all, I look Chinese. To that I tried to say that why can’t you be both, or why can’t you be one in certain aspects and the other in other aspects? Unfortunately, I couldn’t convey that, nor could I convey my surprise that those students have never heard of populations that are not homogenous. (Hong Kong is 95% Han Chinese whereas the United States is less than 70% non-Hispanic white with California coming in at less than 50% non-Hispanic white.)
The Disconnect of the Upper Echelons
What’s the funniest is who knows what. Earlier this week, I walked into the Finance office to apply for my caution money back (a $350 HKD deposit) now that the semester is coming to an end. I asked for the proper forms not knowing what I needed, and though I’m 華人, I got the form for exchange students. The secretary for the office had heard my foreignness in my accent and judged my origin based on that rather than my skin color, so to speak. This feat would not have seemed so impressive had the pro-vice-chancellor on Monday not said what she said.
As I said earlier, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Amy Tsui came in to speak at the last lecture of Hong Kong and the World. I’ve got my opinions of school administrators, most of which along the theme of being disconnected and haughty (though not overtly arrogant). She of all people is someone you would expect to get this straight, having done her Ph.D. (in linguistics) in the United Kingdom.
Seeing our class of forty in attendance, she noticed the two white people in the lecture hall and referred to them as the “two foreigners in the class,” (though there were about ten of us), without thinking that maybe some of us happen to be of Chinese decent. Of all people, I would have expected her to understand well that culture, like language, is passed down through socialization and isn’t dictated in our genes. (Unlike the many people back home, including some of the people closest to me, who overtly believe that I am more comfortable around people who look like me rather than the people in my hometown—composition: 85% white).
I guess it just goes to show that those at the uppermost echelons of society are often the most ignorant whereas those of us who have our feet firmly planted on the ground—the ones who interact with everyday people—really know what’s going on.
Add It All Up
The bottom line is that I hold none of the above statements against the people who uttered them. This is because I’m well aware that as much as I try to monitor myself and bring myself back down to logic, I still fall victim to the same forces.
So the base line is that I really dislike when people hate that they are expected, especially in public situations, to be politically correct all the time. All that means is that you ultimately don’t care about anyone else (in feelings, emotions, situations, etc.), even if you think you are just joking. It gets worse when such is followed by a request not to judge, and I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that I already will have.
Just try and try hard, that’s all I can and do hope for.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Class Roundup: Asian Art History
Introduction to Arts of Asia: Past and Present (coded FINE1008) was my first and only class to end thus far. I took the final this past Monday and now have but to wait and see what I get in the class. This class roundup serial is for me to conclude my posts about the classes that I’m taking here. It’s odd in a way that everything’s ending. I’ve echoed this before and I will still talk about it later in more detail, but I feel like I’m just not ready to go back yet.
This class was comprised of three assessments apart from general participation in tutorials and attendance at lectures. (I didn’t miss a single class or tutorial for this class). The three assessments consisted of two medium-sized papers and one final examination.
The two term papers were different for me. It was a challenge in that I’d never written a paper for any humanities subject before. Writing for political science, much is quantitatively based, more so at UCSD than at HKU (where we seem to be more on the philosophical side of things), I was constantly unsure of whether what I was doing was right. Furthermore, I wondered whether what I was doing was wrong.
The first paper, we had to choose any one object from either the HKU Art Museum, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, or Sotheby’s art auction house. Not really opting for traveling, I chose a Buddhist statue in the university’s art gallery. It was of Weitou, guardian of the Dharma (named Skanda in Sanskrit). The statue was gilt wood, but I could find hardly anything on Weitou or wood gilding. I was forced to deduce more than I was comfortable with and rely heavily on my own opinions and observations without having published scholars to back me up. When it was all said and done, I got an A-, which considering that she said she doesn’t grade easy, was a relief.
The second paper, we had a choice between two tasks. The first was do create a piece of art ourselves using the techniques talked about in class. This had to be accompanied by a paper describing your own work, telling why and how you used certain techniques. And I preferred to do this assignment. However, seeing that I had about a week to do this assignment (which is no time by my anti-procrastination standards), along with the fact that I had no idea where to get the resources to paint, I felt pressured to do the second task.
The second task was to compare two particular handscrolls, one a copy of the other. My thesis was something to the effect of the techniques used in the copy bring more meaning to its basis in the original. I got a B+ on it.
As for the final, the jury (of one member) is still out. I won’t likely find out my grades until January at the earliest, late March at the latest. All things considered though, I felt I did reasonably well.
It was organized into three parts: image identification, unfamiliar object identification, and short essay.
Image identification consisted of four pictures of works we studied in class. To each we were to place with applicable names and titles as well as a general time frame. In addition, we were to describe the significance of the presented works and analyze their importance, preferably with a sociohistoric emphasis.
To study for this, I printed out all the images from the Fine Arts Interactive Visual Archive (or FAIVA for short), and took extensive notes on them in lecture and in tutorial, as well as on the side, like information on the time period in general and background information on the author and such. As a rough estimate, there were between thirty and forty images that I went through over and over.
Out of the four of them, I probably did a bang-up job on like two and a half of them. The other one and a half I believe I knew enough to earn most of the points.
For the second part, we were to be presented with a (replica) ancient Chinese object. In all honesty, the only reasonable object that she would have given us was an ancient Daoist vessel—and it was.
For this, we had to describe the technique behind making it (basically bronze into a clay mold) and its significance. I figure I did pretty well. I had a lot to say about it, especially because she talked about it extensively in the last tutorial (and I took extensive notes which I studied over).
The last part was a short essay question. We were given the topics beforehand—to describe the function, significance, and perception of a place of leisure either in Ming China or Japan. I went over the Ming Garden, since the professor reviewed that one as well the day before in tutorial.
I have reason to believe that I did decently well in the class. Hopefully I got at least a B+, which they say will round up a third to an A- when grades transfer back to UCSD.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
This class was comprised of three assessments apart from general participation in tutorials and attendance at lectures. (I didn’t miss a single class or tutorial for this class). The three assessments consisted of two medium-sized papers and one final examination.
The two term papers were different for me. It was a challenge in that I’d never written a paper for any humanities subject before. Writing for political science, much is quantitatively based, more so at UCSD than at HKU (where we seem to be more on the philosophical side of things), I was constantly unsure of whether what I was doing was right. Furthermore, I wondered whether what I was doing was wrong.
The first paper, we had to choose any one object from either the HKU Art Museum, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, or Sotheby’s art auction house. Not really opting for traveling, I chose a Buddhist statue in the university’s art gallery. It was of Weitou, guardian of the Dharma (named Skanda in Sanskrit). The statue was gilt wood, but I could find hardly anything on Weitou or wood gilding. I was forced to deduce more than I was comfortable with and rely heavily on my own opinions and observations without having published scholars to back me up. When it was all said and done, I got an A-, which considering that she said she doesn’t grade easy, was a relief.
The second paper, we had a choice between two tasks. The first was do create a piece of art ourselves using the techniques talked about in class. This had to be accompanied by a paper describing your own work, telling why and how you used certain techniques. And I preferred to do this assignment. However, seeing that I had about a week to do this assignment (which is no time by my anti-procrastination standards), along with the fact that I had no idea where to get the resources to paint, I felt pressured to do the second task.
The second task was to compare two particular handscrolls, one a copy of the other. My thesis was something to the effect of the techniques used in the copy bring more meaning to its basis in the original. I got a B+ on it.
As for the final, the jury (of one member) is still out. I won’t likely find out my grades until January at the earliest, late March at the latest. All things considered though, I felt I did reasonably well.
It was organized into three parts: image identification, unfamiliar object identification, and short essay.
Image identification consisted of four pictures of works we studied in class. To each we were to place with applicable names and titles as well as a general time frame. In addition, we were to describe the significance of the presented works and analyze their importance, preferably with a sociohistoric emphasis.
To study for this, I printed out all the images from the Fine Arts Interactive Visual Archive (or FAIVA for short), and took extensive notes on them in lecture and in tutorial, as well as on the side, like information on the time period in general and background information on the author and such. As a rough estimate, there were between thirty and forty images that I went through over and over.
Out of the four of them, I probably did a bang-up job on like two and a half of them. The other one and a half I believe I knew enough to earn most of the points.
For the second part, we were to be presented with a (replica) ancient Chinese object. In all honesty, the only reasonable object that she would have given us was an ancient Daoist vessel—and it was.
For this, we had to describe the technique behind making it (basically bronze into a clay mold) and its significance. I figure I did pretty well. I had a lot to say about it, especially because she talked about it extensively in the last tutorial (and I took extensive notes which I studied over).
The last part was a short essay question. We were given the topics beforehand—to describe the function, significance, and perception of a place of leisure either in Ming China or Japan. I went over the Ming Garden, since the professor reviewed that one as well the day before in tutorial.
I have reason to believe that I did decently well in the class. Hopefully I got at least a B+, which they say will round up a third to an A- when grades transfer back to UCSD.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Currency, Coins, and Octopus
I opened my draw a while ago to find some (not much) American money. It was just lying there, having not been touched in quite a while. I picked and thought that they were just funny—funny shaped, funny colored, funny everything. They seemed awfully long in comparison to their width and way too green for their own good. It made me realize that though I’ve been here only for three months, it’s been enough to make me reevaluate my norms and see that I’ve not really talked about money here in Hong Kong.
By money, I don’t mean business. There’s enough of that here. I mean the nuts and bolts. I mean the greenbacks and the buckaroonies. I remember my first week here, I found myself with a wallet full of coins. I thought it was ridiculous how many coins I was carrying and when I emptied it out on my desk, I found about $60 HKD worth.
The funny thing is that they only divide the dollar into tenths here, so in theory I should be getting less change here than back in the States, being that back there we divide the dollar into cents. Yeah, here they divide it into cents as well, but the smallest coin is worth ten cents. Prices quoted in cents get rounded to tenths and in Cantonese, they would actually count ten cents as one unit (一毫), or one ten-cent unit.
I actually went running around my early days here calling ten-cent pieces dimes, because that’s what you’d call it back in the States. Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters are what’s in common circulation, right? Here, in coins there are ten-cent, twenty-cent, fifty-cent, dollar, two-dollar, five-dollar, and ten-dollar pieces. On a quick side note, I learned that talking about coins in American terms is not understood properly by other English speakers. They would say ten-piece instead of a dime, for example, and though words such as nickel can be figured out if you sit down for long enough, I’ve more than once gotten blank stares at my coin calling. But back onto everything else.
So there’s a funny collaboration of reasons for why I end up with more change here than back home. For instance, one USD is equal to almost eight HKD (fixed) here, so in some funny way, maybe the fact that I have to pay more in raw numbers combined with the fact that coins have higher raw face value here gives me that increase. I think though that the main reason is that back home, I hardly deal with notes and coins.
I deal with credit cards. Swiping for things is the easiest way back home. Most places have it integrated into the system, and for many purchases under like ten dollars or something, they’ve stopped asking you to sign the receipt. Here, I’ve seen people use credit cards. It takes forever. There are very few if any registers here that have integrated credit card capabilities. Clerks have to do it through the separate machine and enter the dollar amount separately, and the receipts print out funny. They look like sheets off the pads waiters write on at restaurants. In short, it’s not worth it here to use a credit card.
However, the Octopus card is in vogue instead—and it’s here to stay. It’s really quite a good system. It’s in essence a debit card without a signed contract. You can store up to $1000 HKD on the card and deposit money at a plethora of locales. You’re also allowed to go negative up to $35 HKD in one transaction, so if you’ve forgotten, chances are it’s not a big deal. It’s taken everywhere as well. Except for the taxicabs, I’ve hardly seen a place that takes money but not Octopus Cards.
The name is a different issue though. In Cantonese, the name is 八達通, which means something along the lines of “eight arrivals card.” The name was chosen during a competition, and has good vibes with eight being an auspicious number and all in Chinese. However, the only connection between the Cantonese name and the English name is that the first word in the Cantonese name is eight, and octopi have eight legs (or tentacles or whatever).
I guess I’ve got money on my mind though because I’m on a mission to collect coins for my brother’s currency collection. So a lot of non-Europeans don’t know this, but the Euro, while legal tender in the Eurozone, is minted by the individual countries. I’m not sure about the bills, but the coins at least (one-cent, two-cent, five-cent, ten-cent, twenty-cent, fifty-cent, euro, two-euro) are all produced by the individual countries and as such have state symbols that allow the currency to maintain national identity in the face of universality. These coins float all around the Eurozone, so while we were in France and Italy this past summer, he tried to collect as many as he could (a daunting task).
So I’m collecting for him. So far, I’ve got a full set of Thai Baht and some Chinese Yuan (though I think he might already have a set of that). I’m also trying to get a set of the modern Hong Kong Dollar coins (with the bauhinia flower) as well as a set of the pre-handover coins (with Queen Elisabeth II). My roommate who goes to Macau a lot has retrieved me most of the Macau Pataca. In addition, I’m trying to squeeze other currencies out of my fellow exchange students. In short, my little brother should be happy.
Back on to term paper writing!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
By money, I don’t mean business. There’s enough of that here. I mean the nuts and bolts. I mean the greenbacks and the buckaroonies. I remember my first week here, I found myself with a wallet full of coins. I thought it was ridiculous how many coins I was carrying and when I emptied it out on my desk, I found about $60 HKD worth.
The funny thing is that they only divide the dollar into tenths here, so in theory I should be getting less change here than back in the States, being that back there we divide the dollar into cents. Yeah, here they divide it into cents as well, but the smallest coin is worth ten cents. Prices quoted in cents get rounded to tenths and in Cantonese, they would actually count ten cents as one unit (一毫), or one ten-cent unit.
I actually went running around my early days here calling ten-cent pieces dimes, because that’s what you’d call it back in the States. Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters are what’s in common circulation, right? Here, in coins there are ten-cent, twenty-cent, fifty-cent, dollar, two-dollar, five-dollar, and ten-dollar pieces. On a quick side note, I learned that talking about coins in American terms is not understood properly by other English speakers. They would say ten-piece instead of a dime, for example, and though words such as nickel can be figured out if you sit down for long enough, I’ve more than once gotten blank stares at my coin calling. But back onto everything else.
So there’s a funny collaboration of reasons for why I end up with more change here than back home. For instance, one USD is equal to almost eight HKD (fixed) here, so in some funny way, maybe the fact that I have to pay more in raw numbers combined with the fact that coins have higher raw face value here gives me that increase. I think though that the main reason is that back home, I hardly deal with notes and coins.
I deal with credit cards. Swiping for things is the easiest way back home. Most places have it integrated into the system, and for many purchases under like ten dollars or something, they’ve stopped asking you to sign the receipt. Here, I’ve seen people use credit cards. It takes forever. There are very few if any registers here that have integrated credit card capabilities. Clerks have to do it through the separate machine and enter the dollar amount separately, and the receipts print out funny. They look like sheets off the pads waiters write on at restaurants. In short, it’s not worth it here to use a credit card.
However, the Octopus card is in vogue instead—and it’s here to stay. It’s really quite a good system. It’s in essence a debit card without a signed contract. You can store up to $1000 HKD on the card and deposit money at a plethora of locales. You’re also allowed to go negative up to $35 HKD in one transaction, so if you’ve forgotten, chances are it’s not a big deal. It’s taken everywhere as well. Except for the taxicabs, I’ve hardly seen a place that takes money but not Octopus Cards.
The name is a different issue though. In Cantonese, the name is 八達通, which means something along the lines of “eight arrivals card.” The name was chosen during a competition, and has good vibes with eight being an auspicious number and all in Chinese. However, the only connection between the Cantonese name and the English name is that the first word in the Cantonese name is eight, and octopi have eight legs (or tentacles or whatever).
I guess I’ve got money on my mind though because I’m on a mission to collect coins for my brother’s currency collection. So a lot of non-Europeans don’t know this, but the Euro, while legal tender in the Eurozone, is minted by the individual countries. I’m not sure about the bills, but the coins at least (one-cent, two-cent, five-cent, ten-cent, twenty-cent, fifty-cent, euro, two-euro) are all produced by the individual countries and as such have state symbols that allow the currency to maintain national identity in the face of universality. These coins float all around the Eurozone, so while we were in France and Italy this past summer, he tried to collect as many as he could (a daunting task).
So I’m collecting for him. So far, I’ve got a full set of Thai Baht and some Chinese Yuan (though I think he might already have a set of that). I’m also trying to get a set of the modern Hong Kong Dollar coins (with the bauhinia flower) as well as a set of the pre-handover coins (with Queen Elisabeth II). My roommate who goes to Macau a lot has retrieved me most of the Macau Pataca. In addition, I’m trying to squeeze other currencies out of my fellow exchange students. In short, my little brother should be happy.
Back on to term paper writing!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The Prince and the Pauper
I am now convinced that nationality is so fickle and so fake. While I still see merit people identifying themselves with their country, which individuals a country identifies itself with is another story.
In no way would the People’s Republic of China grant me citizenship and or nationality (two distinct concepts in United States law). For one, my parents’ parents were the ones with Chinese nationality and since those born outside China who receive a different nationality upon birth are not entitled to Chinese nationality, there was no way I could become a member of another country—or so I thought.
Dual nationality or citizenship though can be a messy thing if you don’t fully know what you’re doing. Countries like the United States levy taxes on all their citizens regardless of what country the money is earned in. Countries like Singapore have conscripted military service that can more often than not put other citizenships into danger.
If you enter one country on one passport, you may not be afforded another state’s consular services guaranteed by another passport. If you’re from certain countries, you don’t need visas to certain countries. For countries with exit customs, you cannot leave if you never entered. It’s all very artificial.
It’s great for me, though, because as an American I can easily get into most countries and since the United States has relations with most countries, it’s easy to get consular assistance if need be.
I’ve got a friend here who’s originally from China, born in Taishan, Guangdong, to Chinese parents. As such he was afforded Chinese nationality and enjoyed it even after immigrating to the United States. This last year though he decided to become an American citizen, having met all the criteria for a while but finally doing it to make it easier to apply for EAP (the same UC program that’s facilitating my study abroad).
After the tests and oaths, he became a naturalized United States citizen. As part of the oath, one renounces all other allegiances, citizenships, and nationalities prior to becoming American, which in reality is not enforced. As such, the United States, as of late, has recognized dual nationality.
My friend went after that though to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco as he was advised to in order to tell them of his new nationality. There, he was asked to present his Chinese passport. In front of him, the clerk cut off the corner of the identification data page (I’d imagine dramatically). Forwardly, his Chinese passport had just been invalidated. I believe personally that he had then effectively renounced Chinese nationality. I imagine that the clerk had also documented this in some form of a Chinese national database.
I know for Americans, you have to present your old passport when you apply for a renewal. So for though he says it’s really quite easy to get a passport in China, if it’s anything like in the United States, they verify and verify that you are qualified to receive that passport. So if it’s anything like in the United States, he’s not easily getting another Chinese passport.
My friend seemed to me to have fallen to nationality laws. I myself had also fallen to nationality laws, except in my case, they were applied to me in theory before I was even born. There was no way I could become naturalized as a Chinese national without giving up my United States citizenship—or so I thought.
I have no intentions of naturalizing myself as a Chinese national—mainly because, I found out just a week ago that I’ve been one my whole life and just never knew it. It’s not like this was due to some secret my parents had been keeping from me until I was exactly seven thousand, eighty-five years days after birth.
And this is how it worked. My mother was born in British Hong Kong to Chinese parents. As such, she had British National Overseas citizenship (that does not transfer to one’s offspring). Upon naturalizing herself as an American citizen well before I was born and as such well before the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China, she probably didn’t see any reason to maintain her BNO status.
When Hong Kong became part of China again, all BNOs of Chinese descent became Chinese nationals. Under terms of the one country, two systems framework, Hong Kong was permitted to keep its own immigration controls. As such, rules regarding who has the right to live and work in Hong Kong (right of abode) were established. It fits in with Chinese nationality as such:
The first clause states that all Chinese nationals born in Hong Kong SAR are Hong Kong permanent residents with right of abode. All Chinese nationals living documented in Hong Kong for seven years are eligible for permanent residency and right of abode. Chinese nationals born to either of the above also become Hong Kong permanent residents with the right of abode. I’m going to stop there, but more provisions exist for non-Chinese nationals as well for permanent residency and right of abode as well.
I read these clauses over and over, in addition to the laws regarding what is makes a Chinese national to see if I was eligible. I guess many would ask why I would care to have another nationality. Dual nationality is messy and can create problems when you’re not careful. But then again there are plenty of dual nationals in the world and in the United States, so would it really be so bad to have it?
So since Hong Kong controls its own immigration, many of its people are Chinese nationals. In a misnomer of a term, Hong Kong nationality, Hong Kong controls Hong Kong Chinese nationality separately from Mainland China as well. In Hong Kong, and not in China, there are provisions for Chinese nationals by descent that allow for dual nationality when that Chinese national is given another nationality upon birth. As such, I am eligible for Hong Kong Chinese citizenship. As I also found out Hong Kong and the United States have special provisions allowing dual Hong Kong Chinese-American nationals access U.S. consular services and protection, even when entering as a Hong Kong Chinese national.
I figure that having the protection of two governments can’t be a bad thing, and if say, one country or the other were to implode, without legal issues there would be another place to live. In addition, if I ever want to work in Hong Kong, it would be my right to move here and do so. And if in the farther future I would ever want to move to China to work, it would be a lot easier (as a Hong Kong Chinese national) to do so.
As for conflict between the two nationalities, I would always have to pay taxes to the U.S. government. But as far as I know, Hong Kong does not have similar tax laws. In addition, nationality is one thing that’s easy to renounce. If someone doesn’t want to be part of a country, it would not benefit that country to force that person to stay a part, so if it ever becomes more of a disadvantage than an advantage to be a dual national, it would not be difficult to go into the local Chinese consulate and renounce my nationality.
The process by which I would substantiate my claims of permanent residency with an appropriate Hong Kong Identification Card is a different story, and it’s a convoluted process, something I hope to start in a few years.
What strikes me though is that my being a Chinese national is still so foreign to me. Still, I would call myself an American long before Chinese. Whereas I was born, raised, and educated in California, the first time I stepped foot in China was in 2007, when I was 17 years old.
It’s so fictitious the fact that I’m Chinese in this regard—and it’s all because of luck. If my mother had been born anywhere in China instead of Hong Kong, I would have no chance of being a Chinese national.
On the other hand, my friend who spent the first ten years of his life in China, and is, as such, much more culturally Chinese than me, has less rights than I do. It’s easier to go from Hong Kong or Macau (being the other special administrative region) to Mainland China than the other way around. Whereas I have recently discovered my right to live and work in Hong Kong, though this is the first time I’ve ever been to the south of China, he, despite having grown up partly near here, has no such rights, and would need to live here for seven full years before being given the same permanent residency that I, when the paperwork gets pushed through, have the potential to enjoy. And even if he were to live here for seven years, it would not be as an American, and as such not covered by the second clause of Hong Kong immigration law.
On the macro level, rules are rules, and laws are there for a reason. Hong Kong would be flooded with Mainland Chinese if there were greater freedom of movement in China. This would create plenty of problems, as Hong Kong has very little usable land without additional flattening and reclaiming.
On the micro level, why should I, never having even been outside North America, let alone to China until I was nearly an adult, have the right to live and work in Hong Kong when people who are from China, just over the border, have to make much more effort to get a permit to first go to China, then live there for seven years before being allowed to stay for good.
My friend wants to move to and work in Hong Kong much more than I want to, and he’s have to get a visa to do so.
Is it really fair? I was lucky enough to be born into it. My friend was not.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
In no way would the People’s Republic of China grant me citizenship and or nationality (two distinct concepts in United States law). For one, my parents’ parents were the ones with Chinese nationality and since those born outside China who receive a different nationality upon birth are not entitled to Chinese nationality, there was no way I could become a member of another country—or so I thought.
Dual nationality or citizenship though can be a messy thing if you don’t fully know what you’re doing. Countries like the United States levy taxes on all their citizens regardless of what country the money is earned in. Countries like Singapore have conscripted military service that can more often than not put other citizenships into danger.
If you enter one country on one passport, you may not be afforded another state’s consular services guaranteed by another passport. If you’re from certain countries, you don’t need visas to certain countries. For countries with exit customs, you cannot leave if you never entered. It’s all very artificial.
It’s great for me, though, because as an American I can easily get into most countries and since the United States has relations with most countries, it’s easy to get consular assistance if need be.
I’ve got a friend here who’s originally from China, born in Taishan, Guangdong, to Chinese parents. As such he was afforded Chinese nationality and enjoyed it even after immigrating to the United States. This last year though he decided to become an American citizen, having met all the criteria for a while but finally doing it to make it easier to apply for EAP (the same UC program that’s facilitating my study abroad).
After the tests and oaths, he became a naturalized United States citizen. As part of the oath, one renounces all other allegiances, citizenships, and nationalities prior to becoming American, which in reality is not enforced. As such, the United States, as of late, has recognized dual nationality.
My friend went after that though to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco as he was advised to in order to tell them of his new nationality. There, he was asked to present his Chinese passport. In front of him, the clerk cut off the corner of the identification data page (I’d imagine dramatically). Forwardly, his Chinese passport had just been invalidated. I believe personally that he had then effectively renounced Chinese nationality. I imagine that the clerk had also documented this in some form of a Chinese national database.
I know for Americans, you have to present your old passport when you apply for a renewal. So for though he says it’s really quite easy to get a passport in China, if it’s anything like in the United States, they verify and verify that you are qualified to receive that passport. So if it’s anything like in the United States, he’s not easily getting another Chinese passport.
My friend seemed to me to have fallen to nationality laws. I myself had also fallen to nationality laws, except in my case, they were applied to me in theory before I was even born. There was no way I could become naturalized as a Chinese national without giving up my United States citizenship—or so I thought.
I have no intentions of naturalizing myself as a Chinese national—mainly because, I found out just a week ago that I’ve been one my whole life and just never knew it. It’s not like this was due to some secret my parents had been keeping from me until I was exactly seven thousand, eighty-five years days after birth.
And this is how it worked. My mother was born in British Hong Kong to Chinese parents. As such, she had British National Overseas citizenship (that does not transfer to one’s offspring). Upon naturalizing herself as an American citizen well before I was born and as such well before the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China, she probably didn’t see any reason to maintain her BNO status.
When Hong Kong became part of China again, all BNOs of Chinese descent became Chinese nationals. Under terms of the one country, two systems framework, Hong Kong was permitted to keep its own immigration controls. As such, rules regarding who has the right to live and work in Hong Kong (right of abode) were established. It fits in with Chinese nationality as such:
The first clause states that all Chinese nationals born in Hong Kong SAR are Hong Kong permanent residents with right of abode. All Chinese nationals living documented in Hong Kong for seven years are eligible for permanent residency and right of abode. Chinese nationals born to either of the above also become Hong Kong permanent residents with the right of abode. I’m going to stop there, but more provisions exist for non-Chinese nationals as well for permanent residency and right of abode as well.
I read these clauses over and over, in addition to the laws regarding what is makes a Chinese national to see if I was eligible. I guess many would ask why I would care to have another nationality. Dual nationality is messy and can create problems when you’re not careful. But then again there are plenty of dual nationals in the world and in the United States, so would it really be so bad to have it?
So since Hong Kong controls its own immigration, many of its people are Chinese nationals. In a misnomer of a term, Hong Kong nationality, Hong Kong controls Hong Kong Chinese nationality separately from Mainland China as well. In Hong Kong, and not in China, there are provisions for Chinese nationals by descent that allow for dual nationality when that Chinese national is given another nationality upon birth. As such, I am eligible for Hong Kong Chinese citizenship. As I also found out Hong Kong and the United States have special provisions allowing dual Hong Kong Chinese-American nationals access U.S. consular services and protection, even when entering as a Hong Kong Chinese national.
I figure that having the protection of two governments can’t be a bad thing, and if say, one country or the other were to implode, without legal issues there would be another place to live. In addition, if I ever want to work in Hong Kong, it would be my right to move here and do so. And if in the farther future I would ever want to move to China to work, it would be a lot easier (as a Hong Kong Chinese national) to do so.
As for conflict between the two nationalities, I would always have to pay taxes to the U.S. government. But as far as I know, Hong Kong does not have similar tax laws. In addition, nationality is one thing that’s easy to renounce. If someone doesn’t want to be part of a country, it would not benefit that country to force that person to stay a part, so if it ever becomes more of a disadvantage than an advantage to be a dual national, it would not be difficult to go into the local Chinese consulate and renounce my nationality.
The process by which I would substantiate my claims of permanent residency with an appropriate Hong Kong Identification Card is a different story, and it’s a convoluted process, something I hope to start in a few years.
What strikes me though is that my being a Chinese national is still so foreign to me. Still, I would call myself an American long before Chinese. Whereas I was born, raised, and educated in California, the first time I stepped foot in China was in 2007, when I was 17 years old.
It’s so fictitious the fact that I’m Chinese in this regard—and it’s all because of luck. If my mother had been born anywhere in China instead of Hong Kong, I would have no chance of being a Chinese national.
On the other hand, my friend who spent the first ten years of his life in China, and is, as such, much more culturally Chinese than me, has less rights than I do. It’s easier to go from Hong Kong or Macau (being the other special administrative region) to Mainland China than the other way around. Whereas I have recently discovered my right to live and work in Hong Kong, though this is the first time I’ve ever been to the south of China, he, despite having grown up partly near here, has no such rights, and would need to live here for seven full years before being given the same permanent residency that I, when the paperwork gets pushed through, have the potential to enjoy. And even if he were to live here for seven years, it would not be as an American, and as such not covered by the second clause of Hong Kong immigration law.
On the macro level, rules are rules, and laws are there for a reason. Hong Kong would be flooded with Mainland Chinese if there were greater freedom of movement in China. This would create plenty of problems, as Hong Kong has very little usable land without additional flattening and reclaiming.
On the micro level, why should I, never having even been outside North America, let alone to China until I was nearly an adult, have the right to live and work in Hong Kong when people who are from China, just over the border, have to make much more effort to get a permit to first go to China, then live there for seven years before being allowed to stay for good.
My friend wants to move to and work in Hong Kong much more than I want to, and he’s have to get a visa to do so.
Is it really fair? I was lucky enough to be born into it. My friend was not.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Fame
The last time I traveled to Shenzhen, it was poorly orchestrated and we didn't end up seeing that much. I wanted to go back. So the Monday before last, I hoped on the MTR East Rail Line and did just that. With the tickets costing less than $10 USD each way, I figured it would definitely be worth it to go back and check out the place better since last time we ran out of daylight to fully see the place.
Just as a refresher, Shenzhen is the Special Economic Zone (city) in Mainland China that borders Hong Kong to the north. As I remembered through this trip there, Shenzhen is a very new city, set up to take advantage of Hong Kong's special status. My aunt and uncle recounted to me months ago how it used to be a nice, relatively quiet place until its designation as a SEZ in 1980. At that time the city boomed as the mountains were gutted to reclaim the sea. Today, Shenzhen serves as a reminder to how fast development can occur in China. Though it lacks the same level of recognition of Hong Kong, it has at least one million more residents (officially) than Hong Kong.
Admittedly, this trip to Shenzhen was not entirely about sightseeing. I needed a haircut. My uncle told me that it cost him more to cut his hair at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Clearwater Bay, Kowloon than at the local barber in Fremont, California. From this, and in addition to asking my friends here how much they cut their hair for in Hong Kong, I figured it might be worth it to venture out into Mainland China, hereonout in the post referred to as China.
China is known for being cheaper than Hong Kong, as most people would presume. As I would find out later on, some parts are (way) cheaper than others--but that's for later. Shenzhen is famous for its massages--so I figured why not put the two together and and make an experience out of it. As I would later calculate, the haircut and massage (which were inseparable services) plus the round-trip journey on the MTR cost just a little more than a simple haircut in Hong Kong--so I justified this extra expense (less than $5 USD) in the experience to be beheld, or in my case relaxed. A friend of mine felt the same way, so I didn't go alone.
After a couple hours in Hong Kong (bus and subway), we got up to Shenzhen before 11:00 a.m. and proceeded into China. Border control was standard and expected, though this last passing gave me just four pages left in my passport for visas and entry/exit stamps (out of the original fourteen).
Right on the other side sits Shenzhen's main train station, so to prepare for Guilin the coming weekend, we bought tickets to lessen what had to be done later, as well as to save our seats (or in our case beds) in both directions. A friend of mine asked for them in Mandarin, which I later found out I had a lot of trouble doing, but more on that later.
After that we got food and headed off to get our hair cut. The particular place that we went to had to services available: haircut plus Thai massage, and haircut plus Chinese massage. The Thai-style one was longer in duration and more expensive at ¥50 CNY while the Chinese-style one was ¥40 CNY. Not being a huge fan of massages, viewing them more as painful than relaxing, I went for the Chinese-style one and my friend went for the Thai-style one.
I swear they washed my hair at least three times (because I lost count). When that was said and done they wrapped a towel around my head and proceeded to give me the massage. Parts were painful and others were soothing, though in the end I can't say I felt calmer or anything like that. While my masseuse was massaging my left arm, she received a phone call and ended up distracted, massaging that one arm for like ten minutes. Because of the lack of barbers (or for my elitist friends "hair-stylists"), I was told I was going to have to wait for a while before getting my hair cut, so they recommended I just upgrade to the Thai one, so I did--hey, it's all part of the experience, right?
When it was time, I sat in the chair and watched as my hair fell to the floor. As this was the first time cutting my hair since I left California, there was plenty being removed to go around. For the first time in months I could feel the air hovering around my now naked ears. The thing is though that the barber was cutting my hair kind of funny. I felt like it was becoming a mushroom.
In my primary- and secondary-school days, I would hate having my hair cut, and as a result it would grow out. While most wouldn't really care, because it would just get long, my hair happens to be really quite thick, and as such, it would grow more out than down. No matter what style haircut I would get, it would always become mushroom-shaped.
And now my hair was being cut mushroom-shaped.Though I write as if I was doing all the communication, I wasn't. My friend was helping me communicate all the way through alternation between Mandarin and Cantonese that was making my head turn round as I was being asked where I was from and proceeded by something to the effect of "you're Chinese descent." So in this process, My friend helped me ask the barber to make it smaller, and slowly it became so. When he thought it was done, I was sent back to the bed-sink complex for a rinse-off. He then cut it shorter, which required another rinse-off.
After that, to my surprise, he began spiking my hair. Sometimes I push up the front, but that was the only day that I've ever walked around in public with a head full of spiked hair, but whatever. I experienced first-hand what Shenzhen is famous for.
We finished off that day by doing some more sightseeing (which was highly uneventful) followed by street food (which was highly delicious and incredibly cheap). On the journey back to Hong Kong Island, I looked through my passport and realized just how extensively I've traveled. Before coming, I thought I might not even be allowed to exit the SAR without being able to come back to resume my studies as a student based on the wording of my immigration visa. Now all the entrances and exits (plus my Chinese visa) have filled up my pages, and now I have no choice but to say "yes" when people ask, "Are you well traveled?".
Back to my passport, it was advised that some states don't let you into the country without at least four empty passport pages. So this morning, I went to the United States Consulate-General here in Hong Kong and got additional pages added to my passport. They fit kind of funny, but they get the job done.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Just as a refresher, Shenzhen is the Special Economic Zone (city) in Mainland China that borders Hong Kong to the north. As I remembered through this trip there, Shenzhen is a very new city, set up to take advantage of Hong Kong's special status. My aunt and uncle recounted to me months ago how it used to be a nice, relatively quiet place until its designation as a SEZ in 1980. At that time the city boomed as the mountains were gutted to reclaim the sea. Today, Shenzhen serves as a reminder to how fast development can occur in China. Though it lacks the same level of recognition of Hong Kong, it has at least one million more residents (officially) than Hong Kong.
Admittedly, this trip to Shenzhen was not entirely about sightseeing. I needed a haircut. My uncle told me that it cost him more to cut his hair at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Clearwater Bay, Kowloon than at the local barber in Fremont, California. From this, and in addition to asking my friends here how much they cut their hair for in Hong Kong, I figured it might be worth it to venture out into Mainland China, hereonout in the post referred to as China.
China is known for being cheaper than Hong Kong, as most people would presume. As I would find out later on, some parts are (way) cheaper than others--but that's for later. Shenzhen is famous for its massages--so I figured why not put the two together and and make an experience out of it. As I would later calculate, the haircut and massage (which were inseparable services) plus the round-trip journey on the MTR cost just a little more than a simple haircut in Hong Kong--so I justified this extra expense (less than $5 USD) in the experience to be beheld, or in my case relaxed. A friend of mine felt the same way, so I didn't go alone.
After a couple hours in Hong Kong (bus and subway), we got up to Shenzhen before 11:00 a.m. and proceeded into China. Border control was standard and expected, though this last passing gave me just four pages left in my passport for visas and entry/exit stamps (out of the original fourteen).
Right on the other side sits Shenzhen's main train station, so to prepare for Guilin the coming weekend, we bought tickets to lessen what had to be done later, as well as to save our seats (or in our case beds) in both directions. A friend of mine asked for them in Mandarin, which I later found out I had a lot of trouble doing, but more on that later.
After that we got food and headed off to get our hair cut. The particular place that we went to had to services available: haircut plus Thai massage, and haircut plus Chinese massage. The Thai-style one was longer in duration and more expensive at ¥50 CNY while the Chinese-style one was ¥40 CNY. Not being a huge fan of massages, viewing them more as painful than relaxing, I went for the Chinese-style one and my friend went for the Thai-style one.
I swear they washed my hair at least three times (because I lost count). When that was said and done they wrapped a towel around my head and proceeded to give me the massage. Parts were painful and others were soothing, though in the end I can't say I felt calmer or anything like that. While my masseuse was massaging my left arm, she received a phone call and ended up distracted, massaging that one arm for like ten minutes. Because of the lack of barbers (or for my elitist friends "hair-stylists"), I was told I was going to have to wait for a while before getting my hair cut, so they recommended I just upgrade to the Thai one, so I did--hey, it's all part of the experience, right?
When it was time, I sat in the chair and watched as my hair fell to the floor. As this was the first time cutting my hair since I left California, there was plenty being removed to go around. For the first time in months I could feel the air hovering around my now naked ears. The thing is though that the barber was cutting my hair kind of funny. I felt like it was becoming a mushroom.
In my primary- and secondary-school days, I would hate having my hair cut, and as a result it would grow out. While most wouldn't really care, because it would just get long, my hair happens to be really quite thick, and as such, it would grow more out than down. No matter what style haircut I would get, it would always become mushroom-shaped.
And now my hair was being cut mushroom-shaped.Though I write as if I was doing all the communication, I wasn't. My friend was helping me communicate all the way through alternation between Mandarin and Cantonese that was making my head turn round as I was being asked where I was from and proceeded by something to the effect of "you're Chinese descent." So in this process, My friend helped me ask the barber to make it smaller, and slowly it became so. When he thought it was done, I was sent back to the bed-sink complex for a rinse-off. He then cut it shorter, which required another rinse-off.
After that, to my surprise, he began spiking my hair. Sometimes I push up the front, but that was the only day that I've ever walked around in public with a head full of spiked hair, but whatever. I experienced first-hand what Shenzhen is famous for.
We finished off that day by doing some more sightseeing (which was highly uneventful) followed by street food (which was highly delicious and incredibly cheap). On the journey back to Hong Kong Island, I looked through my passport and realized just how extensively I've traveled. Before coming, I thought I might not even be allowed to exit the SAR without being able to come back to resume my studies as a student based on the wording of my immigration visa. Now all the entrances and exits (plus my Chinese visa) have filled up my pages, and now I have no choice but to say "yes" when people ask, "Are you well traveled?".
Back to my passport, it was advised that some states don't let you into the country without at least four empty passport pages. So this morning, I went to the United States Consulate-General here in Hong Kong and got additional pages added to my passport. They fit kind of funny, but they get the job done.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Hong Kong
For Hong Kong and the World, I have the same professor as the one who recognized me by this blog in Humanity in Globalization. Now that I know he recognizes me, I’ll admit that it is a little frightening to go to (either class), though of course I do. As a matter of fact, actually, I have not even been late to a class yet, much less been absent from a lecture or a tutorial. This is not to say that I’ve never known a professor who lectures a class I'm in before. It’s happened before—the only difference is that I became acquainted with that professor through contact face-to-face so to speak, not through this cyber world, which I’ll admit I do not feel the safest in—but enough of that.
As I write this blog, I’m wrapping up from my term paper of sorts for this class and currently taking a break. This assignment for this class is not long at all—about 800 to 1,000 words as a guideline—but as the syllabus says, “don’t let the length of this assignment lull you into complacency.” So much to the delight of people who care about my academic well being (namely my parents and myself), I’m almost done with this paper, a full week before it’s due.
Not that this is a hard paper—as the professor is a (former) journalist now doing consultant work, he assigned us to write an editorial of sorts. Never in my formal academic education in English classes had I properly taught how to write an editorial. But for me, that’s okay, because I was part of the Journalism class throughout my four years in high school, culminating in my being editor-in-chief for the monthly publication.
In Beginning Journalism, we were told the basics of how to write well-structured, concise-yet-adequately-descriptive piece, later specifying the specifics of news writing, opinion-editorial, sports, feature, etc. So, while I never became the best of the best while I was in that class, I definitely became a good writer in self-development after high school.
Part of it was the fact that my high school actually had a good writing program. When I arrived at UCSD, I found that many people had no idea how to form a thesis and that many more could not make their papers flow smoothly in both the stylistic and logical senses. (Though I have no idea how my blog posts read since I don’t take the time any more to go read them over again before publishing. I like to say that it makes it more real, since a lot of what I write is in stream-of-consciousness, but ultimately, when, and not if, I read this entire endeavor again, I might have to reevaluate that past statement.)
Editorials have never been my high point though, and in the syllabus, the lecturer expressly states that the paper should read like an editorial and not a research paper. Cool; not a problem—I went to latimes.com and read a few to get me back in editorial writing mode, and the style flew back in.
The topic of the editorial itself is up to us. The criteria are that it has to be about Hong Kong and that it has to be about Hong Kong in the world. Fair enough. So far in class, we’ve only been talking about Hong Kong’s role in the world mostly in economic terms and less in political terms. Weekly topics range over several aspects of Hong Kong, each one being put into terms of Hong Kong’s economic future and viability into the future or Hong Kong’s relations with world sovereigns, including China.
Because of this weighting, guest speakers for the class have been businessmen except for two members of the Hong Kong Government Legislative Council, one of whom a (former) journalist. All have been very insightful, though the businessmen not so much into political matters. All were prompted about what makes Hong Kong special, to which they answered our weekly topic, like Rule of Law or Free Flow of Information slash Freedom of Speech. They were also all asked about Hong Kong’s future, to which they replied positively and almost whole-heartedly optimistic. The problem is that big CEOs are paid to be optimistic—it keeps their share prices up.
Needless to say, I did my topic on Hong Kong’s viability economically as Asia’s World City in the light of growing Chinese cities and an increasingly favorable climate as contrasted with Hong Kong’s disadvantages. I make my case for Hong Kong needing more creative industries, sponsored by the government if need be, to create a identity for Hong Kong that goes beyond former British Colony and international financial center.
But more about my term paper later. Right now I have to send a birthday card to my brother so that it’ll get there before next Wednesday. Tomorrow I get to go to the United States Consulate-General in Hong Kong to add more visa/entry/exit pages, since I’m running low and planning to travel several more times before I fly back home right before Christmas.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
As I write this blog, I’m wrapping up from my term paper of sorts for this class and currently taking a break. This assignment for this class is not long at all—about 800 to 1,000 words as a guideline—but as the syllabus says, “don’t let the length of this assignment lull you into complacency.” So much to the delight of people who care about my academic well being (namely my parents and myself), I’m almost done with this paper, a full week before it’s due.
Not that this is a hard paper—as the professor is a (former) journalist now doing consultant work, he assigned us to write an editorial of sorts. Never in my formal academic education in English classes had I properly taught how to write an editorial. But for me, that’s okay, because I was part of the Journalism class throughout my four years in high school, culminating in my being editor-in-chief for the monthly publication.
In Beginning Journalism, we were told the basics of how to write well-structured, concise-yet-adequately-descriptive piece, later specifying the specifics of news writing, opinion-editorial, sports, feature, etc. So, while I never became the best of the best while I was in that class, I definitely became a good writer in self-development after high school.
Part of it was the fact that my high school actually had a good writing program. When I arrived at UCSD, I found that many people had no idea how to form a thesis and that many more could not make their papers flow smoothly in both the stylistic and logical senses. (Though I have no idea how my blog posts read since I don’t take the time any more to go read them over again before publishing. I like to say that it makes it more real, since a lot of what I write is in stream-of-consciousness, but ultimately, when, and not if, I read this entire endeavor again, I might have to reevaluate that past statement.)
Editorials have never been my high point though, and in the syllabus, the lecturer expressly states that the paper should read like an editorial and not a research paper. Cool; not a problem—I went to latimes.com and read a few to get me back in editorial writing mode, and the style flew back in.
The topic of the editorial itself is up to us. The criteria are that it has to be about Hong Kong and that it has to be about Hong Kong in the world. Fair enough. So far in class, we’ve only been talking about Hong Kong’s role in the world mostly in economic terms and less in political terms. Weekly topics range over several aspects of Hong Kong, each one being put into terms of Hong Kong’s economic future and viability into the future or Hong Kong’s relations with world sovereigns, including China.
Because of this weighting, guest speakers for the class have been businessmen except for two members of the Hong Kong Government Legislative Council, one of whom a (former) journalist. All have been very insightful, though the businessmen not so much into political matters. All were prompted about what makes Hong Kong special, to which they answered our weekly topic, like Rule of Law or Free Flow of Information slash Freedom of Speech. They were also all asked about Hong Kong’s future, to which they replied positively and almost whole-heartedly optimistic. The problem is that big CEOs are paid to be optimistic—it keeps their share prices up.
Needless to say, I did my topic on Hong Kong’s viability economically as Asia’s World City in the light of growing Chinese cities and an increasingly favorable climate as contrasted with Hong Kong’s disadvantages. I make my case for Hong Kong needing more creative industries, sponsored by the government if need be, to create a identity for Hong Kong that goes beyond former British Colony and international financial center.
But more about my term paper later. Right now I have to send a birthday card to my brother so that it’ll get there before next Wednesday. Tomorrow I get to go to the United States Consulate-General in Hong Kong to add more visa/entry/exit pages, since I’m running low and planning to travel several more times before I fly back home right before Christmas.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
A Question of Balance
I don’t think I’ve been this busy since I pulled fifteen-hour days in high school. Last year at UCSD I had so much free time. I was able see all the latest episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, 30 Rock, Worst Week, and the Big Bang Theory. In addition, I watched all eight seasons of Scrubs and started from the beginning of How I Met Your Mother. This fall semester, I can’t remember when the last time I watched a television show was.
Here I’m busy, and for the first time in a long time, it’s not all about studying, I suppose. Back in high school, I did plenty of extracurricular activities, most of which not academic, most of which in the hopes of getting into a top-tier university. Now having been going to UCSD, I’ve realized that the way my life has been set out for me and the way that my cards have been dealt has been for the better.
To start, I believed and still do that the biggest part of getting a college education is the studying and the classes. After all, that’s what tuition pays for. Employers care more about your degree more than how much fun you have in the process. That’s not to say they don’t care about other things like work experience (and study abroad).
Needless to say, I am studying abroad at the moment and loving it. I still think that I’m here first and foremost to study, since, after all, if I wanted to go traveling I would take a leave of absence from school and go abroad without studying. And in this sense, there’s something to be said about travelling with obligations.
Something that few seem to talk about regarding studying abroad is the fact that while most students go traveling, they also have to make sure they’ve got their affairs in order so that they can go traveling. I myself have my work lined up for me. I know when I have to do it by so that it’ll get submitted appropriately and I realize that even though I don’t want to work, sometimes I have to.
My parents would be proud if I ever asked them their opinion.
By late September, I had only been out of Hong Kong once—to Macau for an overnight trip. My mother wanted to make sure I went traveling to as many East Asian places as possible, since, as she put it, it would be cheaper to do it from here in Hong Kong than back home in California.
So what was I doing the first month here? Unlike now, I had little work to actually do. I used both hands to count how many weeks until the end of the semester. I went around Hong Kong. Granted, I haven’t really explored New Territories much, but as for the Harbour vicinity, I know it like the back of my hand. I’ve seen most everything on the Island side and I could rattle off bus numbers to take to get to where you need to go and back.
So starting in Reading Week, I went to Beijing. I could tell that my mother wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was going back to a place I’d already been to, but I think it turned out to be a really good experience. The other weekend I went off to Taipei and as with any other city, there were things that I expected and more that I didn’t. Last weekend I went back to Shenzhen and got my hair cut (with a “Thai” massage for a very good price). This weekend I’m planning on going to Guilin and have bought sleeper train tickets already. After that I’m planning on going to Thailand; and though unscheduled, I’d like to go to Singapore and Japan before I leave.
Also in the last two weeks, I had two midterm examinations, submitted two papers, and made three presentations. Before Reading Week, I went had one as well. Still to go I have two papers (one research and one op-ed) and another presentation, not to mention six finals to deal with. And before the worrying begins, all the grades that I’ve gotten back thus far have been As (or at least A minuses). Oh and of course I’ve got this blog, which I’ve really dedicated myself to if I do say so myself, which I’ve added nearly 20,000 words to in the last two weeks in fifteen posts. (Check my total word count below.)
It’s a lot, but I’m dealing with it fine through good coordination and a decent planning. In some ways, how my travel plans in conjunction with studying necessities turned out was bad. When I barely had any work, I did local sightseeing—easy and convenient. As the semester has been progressing, my workload has been increasing, as been my traveling, and consequently my blog writing.
All I can say is it’s all part of the experience I guess.
On the other hand, a friend of mine’s roommate managed to do practically the reverse of what I did. Starting early, she went everywhere every weekend. Before class started, she started with Cambodia, Thailand, and if I remember correctly Vietnam. The first few weekends she was gone to places like Borneo, Malaysia, and Singapore. Now though, she’s staying in Hong Kong and doesn’t believe she’ll be going anywhere else (until at least after finals) now that her workload has picked up noticeably.
In some ways, her scheduling was better. She and I both managed to see much of the same stuff. She managed to fit it with her workload much better than I did. On the other hand (not that I think even half of the time that my life works out better), when I arrived in Hong Kong, I had more immediate priorities. I was in a foreign environment and I really had a need to get used to my new surroundings before I could go venturing off to other countries. In some ways, my friends and I know more about Hong Kong than my friend’s roommate does. We probably have seen more of Hong Kong as well.
So whose plan turned out to be better? I don’t know; my internal jury is still out, and I don’t think it’ll ever be back in. I guess it really doesn’t matter.
All I know is that I’m swamped. After school every day, I find myself in the medical library (it’s less crowded and closer to Lee Hysan Hall) studying and planning, writing and reading. Right now, I’m going to get back to studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Here I’m busy, and for the first time in a long time, it’s not all about studying, I suppose. Back in high school, I did plenty of extracurricular activities, most of which not academic, most of which in the hopes of getting into a top-tier university. Now having been going to UCSD, I’ve realized that the way my life has been set out for me and the way that my cards have been dealt has been for the better.
To start, I believed and still do that the biggest part of getting a college education is the studying and the classes. After all, that’s what tuition pays for. Employers care more about your degree more than how much fun you have in the process. That’s not to say they don’t care about other things like work experience (and study abroad).
Needless to say, I am studying abroad at the moment and loving it. I still think that I’m here first and foremost to study, since, after all, if I wanted to go traveling I would take a leave of absence from school and go abroad without studying. And in this sense, there’s something to be said about travelling with obligations.
Something that few seem to talk about regarding studying abroad is the fact that while most students go traveling, they also have to make sure they’ve got their affairs in order so that they can go traveling. I myself have my work lined up for me. I know when I have to do it by so that it’ll get submitted appropriately and I realize that even though I don’t want to work, sometimes I have to.
My parents would be proud if I ever asked them their opinion.
By late September, I had only been out of Hong Kong once—to Macau for an overnight trip. My mother wanted to make sure I went traveling to as many East Asian places as possible, since, as she put it, it would be cheaper to do it from here in Hong Kong than back home in California.
So what was I doing the first month here? Unlike now, I had little work to actually do. I used both hands to count how many weeks until the end of the semester. I went around Hong Kong. Granted, I haven’t really explored New Territories much, but as for the Harbour vicinity, I know it like the back of my hand. I’ve seen most everything on the Island side and I could rattle off bus numbers to take to get to where you need to go and back.
So starting in Reading Week, I went to Beijing. I could tell that my mother wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was going back to a place I’d already been to, but I think it turned out to be a really good experience. The other weekend I went off to Taipei and as with any other city, there were things that I expected and more that I didn’t. Last weekend I went back to Shenzhen and got my hair cut (with a “Thai” massage for a very good price). This weekend I’m planning on going to Guilin and have bought sleeper train tickets already. After that I’m planning on going to Thailand; and though unscheduled, I’d like to go to Singapore and Japan before I leave.
Also in the last two weeks, I had two midterm examinations, submitted two papers, and made three presentations. Before Reading Week, I went had one as well. Still to go I have two papers (one research and one op-ed) and another presentation, not to mention six finals to deal with. And before the worrying begins, all the grades that I’ve gotten back thus far have been As (or at least A minuses). Oh and of course I’ve got this blog, which I’ve really dedicated myself to if I do say so myself, which I’ve added nearly 20,000 words to in the last two weeks in fifteen posts. (Check my total word count below.)
It’s a lot, but I’m dealing with it fine through good coordination and a decent planning. In some ways, how my travel plans in conjunction with studying necessities turned out was bad. When I barely had any work, I did local sightseeing—easy and convenient. As the semester has been progressing, my workload has been increasing, as been my traveling, and consequently my blog writing.
All I can say is it’s all part of the experience I guess.
On the other hand, a friend of mine’s roommate managed to do practically the reverse of what I did. Starting early, she went everywhere every weekend. Before class started, she started with Cambodia, Thailand, and if I remember correctly Vietnam. The first few weekends she was gone to places like Borneo, Malaysia, and Singapore. Now though, she’s staying in Hong Kong and doesn’t believe she’ll be going anywhere else (until at least after finals) now that her workload has picked up noticeably.
In some ways, her scheduling was better. She and I both managed to see much of the same stuff. She managed to fit it with her workload much better than I did. On the other hand (not that I think even half of the time that my life works out better), when I arrived in Hong Kong, I had more immediate priorities. I was in a foreign environment and I really had a need to get used to my new surroundings before I could go venturing off to other countries. In some ways, my friends and I know more about Hong Kong than my friend’s roommate does. We probably have seen more of Hong Kong as well.
So whose plan turned out to be better? I don’t know; my internal jury is still out, and I don’t think it’ll ever be back in. I guess it really doesn’t matter.
All I know is that I’m swamped. After school every day, I find myself in the medical library (it’s less crowded and closer to Lee Hysan Hall) studying and planning, writing and reading. Right now, I’m going to get back to studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Beijing: Legacy of the Past
So it took me about two weeks to kind of finish talking about my latest trip to Beijing. This will kind of be my last published post on the matter. I don’t know how many avid readers I have (hopefully a handful), but I’ve been told, as has a fellow friend a blogger, that these (study abroad) blogs seem impersonal and all. I would like to say that, considering that a good chunk of the world could read this if they want to, I feel I’m being as personal as I can be without putting my public life (if such exists) on the burner. Like I’ve said before, I write first and foremost for myself. I care what other people think, and I have published it so that friends, family, and anyone interested can read about my adventures and comment, but I hold the reigns and I hold the pen, so some posts I write and put in the desk drawer. This is my open journal.
Beijing is undoubtedly a well-endowed city culturally. Similar to Italy, it has so much history in such an accessible area. Different from Italy, locals appreciate tourism and choose not to correct your English. In case you don’t remember, go back to my Roman Holiday. Unlike in Italy, where priceless paintings in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence were suffering from the same heat and humidity as outside, in China, they understand that they have stuff worth protecting and do so protecting it.
Take the Temple of Heaven. It’s an iconic symbol of Beijing. I actually bought a Temple of Heaven snow globe for a friend of mine--well actually I opted for the Great Wall snow globe, but you get the point. When I went there a few years ago, I didn’t realize that it was actually in the middle of a giant park of the same name. Not only do they keep the Temple of Heaven in tip top shape, the park is a local hotspot for everything Chinese. There were several erhu players, plenty of taichi practitioners, and some dancing going on. It was recreational area for the city with plenty of open space, creating a positive atmosphere for tourists and locals trying to unwind alike.
Even when it’s corny, it’s apparent that Beijing appreciates its tourism. We went to this “famous” production of “The History of Kung Fu” at Red Theater near the Temple of Heaven, which was really good. Though it was apparent the production was more about dancing and less about fighting, it was still really well coordinated and visually stimulating. The corny part was the fact that the dialogue was all in recorded English. The actors themselves mouthed along happily as the Chinese translation played along the caption screen above the stage. And though I didn’t follow some of the story line because about four actors played the main character, it was all good fun.
Lastly, to show that I did do something new in Beijing, I visited Lama Temple, which in Chinese is Yonghe Gong (雍和宮). It was touted as a compilation of Buddhist arches in Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchurian styles. It was nice looking, but for the size and because of the fact that we’d already seen so many temples, the impression was just average.
Sorry, not much of a conclusion to the Beijing posts! Onward and upward—Taipei’s coming up!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Beijing is undoubtedly a well-endowed city culturally. Similar to Italy, it has so much history in such an accessible area. Different from Italy, locals appreciate tourism and choose not to correct your English. In case you don’t remember, go back to my Roman Holiday. Unlike in Italy, where priceless paintings in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence were suffering from the same heat and humidity as outside, in China, they understand that they have stuff worth protecting and do so protecting it.
Take the Temple of Heaven. It’s an iconic symbol of Beijing. I actually bought a Temple of Heaven snow globe for a friend of mine--well actually I opted for the Great Wall snow globe, but you get the point. When I went there a few years ago, I didn’t realize that it was actually in the middle of a giant park of the same name. Not only do they keep the Temple of Heaven in tip top shape, the park is a local hotspot for everything Chinese. There were several erhu players, plenty of taichi practitioners, and some dancing going on. It was recreational area for the city with plenty of open space, creating a positive atmosphere for tourists and locals trying to unwind alike.
Even when it’s corny, it’s apparent that Beijing appreciates its tourism. We went to this “famous” production of “The History of Kung Fu” at Red Theater near the Temple of Heaven, which was really good. Though it was apparent the production was more about dancing and less about fighting, it was still really well coordinated and visually stimulating. The corny part was the fact that the dialogue was all in recorded English. The actors themselves mouthed along happily as the Chinese translation played along the caption screen above the stage. And though I didn’t follow some of the story line because about four actors played the main character, it was all good fun.
Lastly, to show that I did do something new in Beijing, I visited Lama Temple, which in Chinese is Yonghe Gong (雍和宮). It was touted as a compilation of Buddhist arches in Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchurian styles. It was nice looking, but for the size and because of the fact that we’d already seen so many temples, the impression was just average.
Sorry, not much of a conclusion to the Beijing posts! Onward and upward—Taipei’s coming up!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Point of No Return
Two months in I stand; two months in I see. Like a ship halfway to its destination, I know I have so much behind me now and yet there’s so much in front of me as well. In a way it’s misleading. I don’t really want to go back at the moment. I look forward to my return, just not this December, not in two months. However, in no way am I home scot-free. My experience here still has the very real possibility of being a naufraga in the same way that I don’t know if I’ll still be alive tomorrow. It requires constant maintenance, and more often than not, it’s an uphill battle.
I arrived August 21, confused, dazed, and fresh off a thirteen-hour flight without sleep. My passport was then used just a few times. Upon entering the country, I was given a student entry stamp on the page opposite my student visa. The square, black stamp looked to take up most of the page to my surprise. The airport gave false impressions of Hong Kong—not false as in better or worse, but false as in different. Getting off the train on Hong Kong Island, I was greeted with lots of noise, winding roads, and my first experience seeing traffic move on the left.
With time, I adjusted. The sweltering heat and humidity lessened slightly as my tolerance increased. The bus system that once confused me became manageable and I could successfully ask to get off the minibus in Cantonese—a skill than increased to requesting stops in specific locations. I found where the better food is and how to deal with copious amounts of rice.
I guess you could say that I’ve now plateaued culturally. While there still is room to grow, there will always be, and I will continue to progress, just slower. As I went from being nervous, I can now say I’m quite the opposite. Whereas at first I missed home and was counting down the days to go back, I find myself now trying to maximize the rest of my time here. I’ve lost count and already I want to do this again somewhere else next fall semester, money and time permitting, of course.
So where am I to go from here? I’ve not yet reached the top of the mountain, though I’ve been to the Peak twice. My finals schedule is starting to shape up, though I don’t care for it to end. With my eyes perpetually towards the future, I’ve decided to take the time to enjoy the present.
To this effect, I’ve begun a project that won’t be done until the end of the year. The idea hatched as I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for my Introduction to the Arts of Asia class to research for a paper. The topic was hand scrolls, which have an aesthetic to them that requires observation beyond that of any western painting I’ve seen.
To read a hand scroll properly, you roll it open section by section, right to left. At several meters long, each tends to tell a story, accompanied often by deeper meaning. Many are accompanied with poetry, but the use of motifs and themes allow the artist to tell the story in an abstract fashion. By story, I mean journey, and there is usually a path in the scroll guiding the reader’s eyes through this journey.
For this art paper, we were to observe Qiu Ying’s 清明商河图 or “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as it is usually translated. We were to compare this Ming Dynasty scroll to Zhang Zeduan’s original of the same name, which was painted during the Song Dynasty. I won’t get into the specifics, though it is clear that Qiu Ying’s is not merely a copy of Zhang Zeduan’s.
To aid my paper, I bought a scaled reprint of the hand scroll at the museum’s bookstore, realizing later that it was in postcard format—fifteen postcards to be exact. Later I realized that this painting, divided into sections by the creases into postcards, being a journey, could be parallel to my journey here.
So I decided to cut apart this scroll replica into the postcards that were on the reverse. Sending them all back to my home in California, I addressed them as such, and stamped them all. As a representation of my journey here in Hong Kong, I’m sending them off from fifteen different post boxes, noting the location and its significance, as well as the date and time at which I sent it.
When I get back home, hopefully all fifteen will have arrived. At that point, I’m going to reattach them back together. This scroll reprint, in postcard/booklet format will then show the journey to the city center of Kaifeng on the front and my journey to Hong Kong on the back.
There are now four weeks of instruction left, so with deadlines looming and a push for more travels to look forward to, I shall resume my studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I arrived August 21, confused, dazed, and fresh off a thirteen-hour flight without sleep. My passport was then used just a few times. Upon entering the country, I was given a student entry stamp on the page opposite my student visa. The square, black stamp looked to take up most of the page to my surprise. The airport gave false impressions of Hong Kong—not false as in better or worse, but false as in different. Getting off the train on Hong Kong Island, I was greeted with lots of noise, winding roads, and my first experience seeing traffic move on the left.
With time, I adjusted. The sweltering heat and humidity lessened slightly as my tolerance increased. The bus system that once confused me became manageable and I could successfully ask to get off the minibus in Cantonese—a skill than increased to requesting stops in specific locations. I found where the better food is and how to deal with copious amounts of rice.
I guess you could say that I’ve now plateaued culturally. While there still is room to grow, there will always be, and I will continue to progress, just slower. As I went from being nervous, I can now say I’m quite the opposite. Whereas at first I missed home and was counting down the days to go back, I find myself now trying to maximize the rest of my time here. I’ve lost count and already I want to do this again somewhere else next fall semester, money and time permitting, of course.
So where am I to go from here? I’ve not yet reached the top of the mountain, though I’ve been to the Peak twice. My finals schedule is starting to shape up, though I don’t care for it to end. With my eyes perpetually towards the future, I’ve decided to take the time to enjoy the present.
To this effect, I’ve begun a project that won’t be done until the end of the year. The idea hatched as I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for my Introduction to the Arts of Asia class to research for a paper. The topic was hand scrolls, which have an aesthetic to them that requires observation beyond that of any western painting I’ve seen.
To read a hand scroll properly, you roll it open section by section, right to left. At several meters long, each tends to tell a story, accompanied often by deeper meaning. Many are accompanied with poetry, but the use of motifs and themes allow the artist to tell the story in an abstract fashion. By story, I mean journey, and there is usually a path in the scroll guiding the reader’s eyes through this journey.
For this art paper, we were to observe Qiu Ying’s 清明商河图 or “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” as it is usually translated. We were to compare this Ming Dynasty scroll to Zhang Zeduan’s original of the same name, which was painted during the Song Dynasty. I won’t get into the specifics, though it is clear that Qiu Ying’s is not merely a copy of Zhang Zeduan’s.
To aid my paper, I bought a scaled reprint of the hand scroll at the museum’s bookstore, realizing later that it was in postcard format—fifteen postcards to be exact. Later I realized that this painting, divided into sections by the creases into postcards, being a journey, could be parallel to my journey here.
So I decided to cut apart this scroll replica into the postcards that were on the reverse. Sending them all back to my home in California, I addressed them as such, and stamped them all. As a representation of my journey here in Hong Kong, I’m sending them off from fifteen different post boxes, noting the location and its significance, as well as the date and time at which I sent it.
When I get back home, hopefully all fifteen will have arrived. At that point, I’m going to reattach them back together. This scroll reprint, in postcard/booklet format will then show the journey to the city center of Kaifeng on the front and my journey to Hong Kong on the back.
There are now four weeks of instruction left, so with deadlines looming and a push for more travels to look forward to, I shall resume my studying.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Beijing: Culture in a Land without Speech
I’d like to start by saying that I love Hong Kong. It’s become something of a home to me though I’ve only been here for a few months, and as I’ve explained, as much as I’d like to extend into to next semester, I just can’t. Yes, I’ve said my fair share of bad things about Hong Kong, but in my defense, I feel I’ve said some good things as well, and I voiced my criticisms in a respective way with reasons stated. So as a basis for comments voiced thus far on a particular blog post, I still have no regrets in coming to Hong Kong over many other choices of places to study.
In less crude terms, I’ve described many aspects of Hong Kong to be quite hollow. Hong Kong’s culture seems to be the lack of, and in a sense, the business and international finance aspect of Hong Kong is really the culture in and of itself. In many ways I’ve seen an identity problem here, as people acknowledge their British past before claiming to be part of the People’s Republic of China, even in the purely state sense.
So over reading week, I traveled to a city that seems more than proud to call itself Chinese. I’d been there before two years ago, but now, I got to see the nation’s capital in a new light, from a new perspective, having studying in Hong Kong for a while now, seeing how the locals view China and how they view their position in the world.
Probably a month ago now, we had Margaret Ng, a politician, as a guest speaker in my Hong Kong and the World class. At one point, she broke out to explicitly address the local students. “You are not any more special than Mainland Chinese students. Nothing about you having grown up here in Hong Kong makes you superior to students coming out of China.” She went on to say that they were smart and skilled, hinting at their English skills even being better than Hong Kong students. (No surprise there.)
On another note, in California (and probably in the United States), we value highly well roundedness in studies and a balance in life between work and fun. Likewise, majoring in music causes no overt criticism in saying that a major in neuroscience is just better. In the States, it’s about money, but it’s also about interest for most. “Do what you love,” everyone likes to say.
Do I think most Hong Kong students love business and finance? No. Could I be wrong, not likely, but at the same time very much so. Students here seem to lack interest in the arts or life as an academic and it seems like the few that don’t lack find better more conducive environments to their interests outside of Hong Kong.
In my Hong Kong and the World class again, they mention that businesses seeking to enter Asia, and especially China, go through Hong Kong because of the rule of law and free flow of information (which we would call freedom of speech back home). It seems though that for a people that have free speech, they don’t use it. In no way does that mean it should be taken away, but the fact that there is little visible political activism here (I’ve personally only heard whispers), while possibly a cultural thing, means that people here take a lot for granted and expect their business environment to stay open without much maintenance in that arena.
And I find myself more often an observer than an activist, but I think this lack of well-rounded interest, should it not change, may lead to the fall of Hong Kong. And of course it may not, and if I’m wrong, the more power to them. But thinking about their freedom of speech makes you think about places that don’t have it to the full extent that we do in the United States or in Hong Kong.
Take China, where I went to, where the Internet is censored and Tiananmen Square is supposedly monitored for unrest by PLA soldiers dressed as civilians. My friend, in searching for a particular bar in the hotel room, was blocked by the government and he lost Internet privileges to access Google for at least fifteen minutes as punishment.
Beijing just clicked as a city that’s on the right track to something. Yeah, the people spit (indoors too, sometimes) and horns honk as traffic breaks ranks, but the thing is that there’s more to Beijing than just business, or anything else for that manner. I’ve always heard that Beijing is China’s political center and Shanghai its economic, but the thing is that there’s so much more going on that just politics in Beijing.
There are sports and arts highly expressed around the city. Music blasts out of some shops, and Mandarin-language music in much higher quantity than just American music. In Hong Kong, the only places with music open at night and serve mostly tourists and expats looking for a good time. Street food so prominent around Beijing (though ultimately a way to make money) serves to ground the city and give it character, whereas in Hong Kong, non-locals struggle to find good street food, which is noticeably less common here than elsewhere as many people have moved onto restaurants and such.
It seems that to me, as well as my friends, all the little things that made the place more human and less business affected the environment. Beijing just turned into something that I wanted to keep exploring and keep experiencing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
In less crude terms, I’ve described many aspects of Hong Kong to be quite hollow. Hong Kong’s culture seems to be the lack of, and in a sense, the business and international finance aspect of Hong Kong is really the culture in and of itself. In many ways I’ve seen an identity problem here, as people acknowledge their British past before claiming to be part of the People’s Republic of China, even in the purely state sense.
So over reading week, I traveled to a city that seems more than proud to call itself Chinese. I’d been there before two years ago, but now, I got to see the nation’s capital in a new light, from a new perspective, having studying in Hong Kong for a while now, seeing how the locals view China and how they view their position in the world.
Probably a month ago now, we had Margaret Ng, a politician, as a guest speaker in my Hong Kong and the World class. At one point, she broke out to explicitly address the local students. “You are not any more special than Mainland Chinese students. Nothing about you having grown up here in Hong Kong makes you superior to students coming out of China.” She went on to say that they were smart and skilled, hinting at their English skills even being better than Hong Kong students. (No surprise there.)
On another note, in California (and probably in the United States), we value highly well roundedness in studies and a balance in life between work and fun. Likewise, majoring in music causes no overt criticism in saying that a major in neuroscience is just better. In the States, it’s about money, but it’s also about interest for most. “Do what you love,” everyone likes to say.
Do I think most Hong Kong students love business and finance? No. Could I be wrong, not likely, but at the same time very much so. Students here seem to lack interest in the arts or life as an academic and it seems like the few that don’t lack find better more conducive environments to their interests outside of Hong Kong.
In my Hong Kong and the World class again, they mention that businesses seeking to enter Asia, and especially China, go through Hong Kong because of the rule of law and free flow of information (which we would call freedom of speech back home). It seems though that for a people that have free speech, they don’t use it. In no way does that mean it should be taken away, but the fact that there is little visible political activism here (I’ve personally only heard whispers), while possibly a cultural thing, means that people here take a lot for granted and expect their business environment to stay open without much maintenance in that arena.
And I find myself more often an observer than an activist, but I think this lack of well-rounded interest, should it not change, may lead to the fall of Hong Kong. And of course it may not, and if I’m wrong, the more power to them. But thinking about their freedom of speech makes you think about places that don’t have it to the full extent that we do in the United States or in Hong Kong.
Take China, where I went to, where the Internet is censored and Tiananmen Square is supposedly monitored for unrest by PLA soldiers dressed as civilians. My friend, in searching for a particular bar in the hotel room, was blocked by the government and he lost Internet privileges to access Google for at least fifteen minutes as punishment.
Beijing just clicked as a city that’s on the right track to something. Yeah, the people spit (indoors too, sometimes) and horns honk as traffic breaks ranks, but the thing is that there’s more to Beijing than just business, or anything else for that manner. I’ve always heard that Beijing is China’s political center and Shanghai its economic, but the thing is that there’s so much more going on that just politics in Beijing.
There are sports and arts highly expressed around the city. Music blasts out of some shops, and Mandarin-language music in much higher quantity than just American music. In Hong Kong, the only places with music open at night and serve mostly tourists and expats looking for a good time. Street food so prominent around Beijing (though ultimately a way to make money) serves to ground the city and give it character, whereas in Hong Kong, non-locals struggle to find good street food, which is noticeably less common here than elsewhere as many people have moved onto restaurants and such.
It seems that to me, as well as my friends, all the little things that made the place more human and less business affected the environment. Beijing just turned into something that I wanted to keep exploring and keep experiencing.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Please Don't Touch
To satisfy my non-western fine arts class for my Eleanor Roosevelt College general education requirements, I thought what better place to take such a class than outside the west? I thought it was a good idea; it was actually one suggested to us by our college at UCSD. And it really was a good idea—just not in the way I imagined.
I had a highly romanticized vision of what taking a non-western fine arts class in a non-western country, so to speak, was going to be like. I couldn’t really say what I expected, but this class was definitely not it. All that can be said is that I’m probably getting more out of such a class here than I would back home.
I actually don’t mean to go negative, because I genuinely like the class (though I had to go to the art museum across the harbor early yesterday to look at a handscroll for a research paper due Friday). Ultimately, it’s an art history class, so it is research and text based with a lot of critical analysis (though thankfully in a socio-historical setting).
So far, we’ve talked about Indian, Chinese, and Japanese Buddhism art, as well as Chinese Folk Religion art such as the banners used in funeral processions (yeah, I forgot the academic name). For Indian Buddhism, we went into stupas and depictions of the Buddha, how we know that the figure is a Buddha, and so on. Regarding Japanese Buddhism, we went over architecture and the implications on art that Buddhism and Shintoism had in their meeting and mixing. For Chinese art we covered works commissioned by emperors as well as handscrolls and aspects of calligraphy.
There were these two weeks where we had a real hands-on application for the class that seems to have pretty much served as the highlight of the class. For one lecture, we met at the Hong Kong Museum of Art where the professor meticulously went over several pieces related to the focus of the class. For one tutorial we got to practice Chinese calligraphy and painting with the same brush (which turns out is much, much harder than it looks). For another tutorial, we went to the art museum on campus where the curator set up a room for us where we got to see some of the more ancient stuff up close and actually get to handle some of the less expensive ceramic pieces.
Besides the papers and the memorization of particular artists names as well as identification of particular pieces, the class is shaping up to be a really good choice.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I had a highly romanticized vision of what taking a non-western fine arts class in a non-western country, so to speak, was going to be like. I couldn’t really say what I expected, but this class was definitely not it. All that can be said is that I’m probably getting more out of such a class here than I would back home.
I actually don’t mean to go negative, because I genuinely like the class (though I had to go to the art museum across the harbor early yesterday to look at a handscroll for a research paper due Friday). Ultimately, it’s an art history class, so it is research and text based with a lot of critical analysis (though thankfully in a socio-historical setting).
So far, we’ve talked about Indian, Chinese, and Japanese Buddhism art, as well as Chinese Folk Religion art such as the banners used in funeral processions (yeah, I forgot the academic name). For Indian Buddhism, we went into stupas and depictions of the Buddha, how we know that the figure is a Buddha, and so on. Regarding Japanese Buddhism, we went over architecture and the implications on art that Buddhism and Shintoism had in their meeting and mixing. For Chinese art we covered works commissioned by emperors as well as handscrolls and aspects of calligraphy.
There were these two weeks where we had a real hands-on application for the class that seems to have pretty much served as the highlight of the class. For one lecture, we met at the Hong Kong Museum of Art where the professor meticulously went over several pieces related to the focus of the class. For one tutorial we got to practice Chinese calligraphy and painting with the same brush (which turns out is much, much harder than it looks). For another tutorial, we went to the art museum on campus where the curator set up a room for us where we got to see some of the more ancient stuff up close and actually get to handle some of the less expensive ceramic pieces.
Besides the papers and the memorization of particular artists names as well as identification of particular pieces, the class is shaping up to be a really good choice.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Beijing: A Question of Scale
Going back to Beijing and when we arrived, the gigantic airport was imposing but not impressive. As we scuttled through the terminal in an attempt to leave the airport it was noticeably empty. Don’t get me wrong; empty airports are good airports, and any day I’d take a flight in or out of the closer and smaller Burbank Airport over the larger and more crowded Los Angeles International Airport.
Designed and built by the same company that did my one of my favorite airports, Hong Kong International Airport, it shared much of the same features. The airport was noticeably efficient—we got our luggage quickly and lines at immigration were relatively short.
It’s architectural merits were there, with large and simple imposing columns with red being the main color of the place (with a slotted white ceiling). I personally didn’t like it looked, and from a glance it was evident that the terminal, built in preparation for the Olympics, was designed to impress. With a big country comes a polished capital airport. I could feel the might of China above my shoulders.
In contrast, flying into Washington Dulles Airport (which I’ve done once), I can’t say I felt the same. The airport was dingy and if I remember correctly we had to do an avoidance maneuver before landing which required us to ascend, loop around, and descend again. The terminals, while not shabby, were in no way impressive. It was designed for utility and though I have no idea how efficient it is, no one had in mind the wish to make an architectural statement or anything.
And therein lies one of the biggest changes I saw in Beijing in going back after two years. Starting at the way-too-big airport and ending at the way-to-big airport (where we spent hours bored because of a lack of decent coffee and a surplus of closed stores), Beijing was noticeably more secure than just a few years ago, and whereas some would cite Communism and extreme maintenance of the peace as the reasons behind this very apparent security, I, having been there before the Olympics, can say that this is not the way it’s always been.
After the Olympics and also due recently to National Day, security has been ever higher. Whereas I’ve met people who couldn’t point to China on the map (as they tried), now China’s has the world’s attention. I guess with great fame comes great responsibility. With China’s human rights record in question and the recent ethnic conflict in the west, China understands that it has enemies and understands that it has more real threats than before.
Two years ago, we went through airports in a snap. We walked through metal detectors without hesitation and even if one us beeped, rarely were we asked to stand for wand-waving or what have you. Mind you, that trip two years ago sent my family and I through four Chinese airports.
This time around, on leaving from Beijing, I beeped the metal detector because they didn’t require belts to be removed. Fine, whatever. A female officer did the whole wand-waving business and then proceeded to frisk me thoroughly. Through exit immigration, the officer alternated his focus between my passport picture and my face about five times. A friend of mine got whisked into a side room for potential questioning because her British passport looked suspicious somehow, though she was let go after six officers eyed it with a magnifying scope.
And that’s not the only place security is tight. China knows about domestic terrorism as well, don’t worry. The entire subway line, which expanded from two lines before the Olympics to God knows how many now and expanding still, has security personnel with x-rays to have you scan bags before entering the system. China’s vigilant and it shows.
But not everything was bigger this time. For one I would like to make a point now validated to me because of this trip. If you can do it, explore and sightsee yourself rather than with a tour group.
Two years ago, my family and I went to China in a tour group. It was super convenient. They loaded us onto a bus and shuttled us around and provided us with food for a real decent price. The thing is though, going to new places is not all about sightseeing, I’m convinced.
Yeah, I still see the sights and then some like the average tourist. The thing is though that when you get whisked away in a tour bus, you lose the opportunity to see real life—something that really doesn’t take more time to see.
This time around, we rode the subway to get to most places. We took a tour bus with Mainland Chinese people to see the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. In addition to the subway, we had to take a bus to see the Summer Palace.
Just being on the subway, you get to see the people. Mixing in with the locals and commuting with the businessmen, you really see some of the more innate aspects of culture—what is different and what is the same. I can’t even begin to describe how much I learned about Beijing this time around than the last time.
One thing that we did that was way off the tourist path though, I’m glad we did. The hotel was just a few subway stops away from the Temple of Heaven, so we decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the subway. Along the way walking back alongside the main road, we peered into a side street. Feeling in the mood to explore, we ventured back into there. It was like a street full of vendors catering to locals. There were home supply storefronts as well as a guy selling lamb skewers to mention just a few. Walking even further we walked by the home fronts in one of the many hutong not mentioned or marked on maps. There was nothing the average tourist would want to see, but in my opinion it was all part of the experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Designed and built by the same company that did my one of my favorite airports, Hong Kong International Airport, it shared much of the same features. The airport was noticeably efficient—we got our luggage quickly and lines at immigration were relatively short.
It’s architectural merits were there, with large and simple imposing columns with red being the main color of the place (with a slotted white ceiling). I personally didn’t like it looked, and from a glance it was evident that the terminal, built in preparation for the Olympics, was designed to impress. With a big country comes a polished capital airport. I could feel the might of China above my shoulders.
In contrast, flying into Washington Dulles Airport (which I’ve done once), I can’t say I felt the same. The airport was dingy and if I remember correctly we had to do an avoidance maneuver before landing which required us to ascend, loop around, and descend again. The terminals, while not shabby, were in no way impressive. It was designed for utility and though I have no idea how efficient it is, no one had in mind the wish to make an architectural statement or anything.
And therein lies one of the biggest changes I saw in Beijing in going back after two years. Starting at the way-too-big airport and ending at the way-to-big airport (where we spent hours bored because of a lack of decent coffee and a surplus of closed stores), Beijing was noticeably more secure than just a few years ago, and whereas some would cite Communism and extreme maintenance of the peace as the reasons behind this very apparent security, I, having been there before the Olympics, can say that this is not the way it’s always been.
After the Olympics and also due recently to National Day, security has been ever higher. Whereas I’ve met people who couldn’t point to China on the map (as they tried), now China’s has the world’s attention. I guess with great fame comes great responsibility. With China’s human rights record in question and the recent ethnic conflict in the west, China understands that it has enemies and understands that it has more real threats than before.
Two years ago, we went through airports in a snap. We walked through metal detectors without hesitation and even if one us beeped, rarely were we asked to stand for wand-waving or what have you. Mind you, that trip two years ago sent my family and I through four Chinese airports.
This time around, on leaving from Beijing, I beeped the metal detector because they didn’t require belts to be removed. Fine, whatever. A female officer did the whole wand-waving business and then proceeded to frisk me thoroughly. Through exit immigration, the officer alternated his focus between my passport picture and my face about five times. A friend of mine got whisked into a side room for potential questioning because her British passport looked suspicious somehow, though she was let go after six officers eyed it with a magnifying scope.
And that’s not the only place security is tight. China knows about domestic terrorism as well, don’t worry. The entire subway line, which expanded from two lines before the Olympics to God knows how many now and expanding still, has security personnel with x-rays to have you scan bags before entering the system. China’s vigilant and it shows.
But not everything was bigger this time. For one I would like to make a point now validated to me because of this trip. If you can do it, explore and sightsee yourself rather than with a tour group.
Two years ago, my family and I went to China in a tour group. It was super convenient. They loaded us onto a bus and shuttled us around and provided us with food for a real decent price. The thing is though, going to new places is not all about sightseeing, I’m convinced.
Yeah, I still see the sights and then some like the average tourist. The thing is though that when you get whisked away in a tour bus, you lose the opportunity to see real life—something that really doesn’t take more time to see.
This time around, we rode the subway to get to most places. We took a tour bus with Mainland Chinese people to see the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. In addition to the subway, we had to take a bus to see the Summer Palace.
Just being on the subway, you get to see the people. Mixing in with the locals and commuting with the businessmen, you really see some of the more innate aspects of culture—what is different and what is the same. I can’t even begin to describe how much I learned about Beijing this time around than the last time.
One thing that we did that was way off the tourist path though, I’m glad we did. The hotel was just a few subway stops away from the Temple of Heaven, so we decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the subway. Along the way walking back alongside the main road, we peered into a side street. Feeling in the mood to explore, we ventured back into there. It was like a street full of vendors catering to locals. There were home supply storefronts as well as a guy selling lamb skewers to mention just a few. Walking even further we walked by the home fronts in one of the many hutong not mentioned or marked on maps. There was nothing the average tourist would want to see, but in my opinion it was all part of the experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Beijing: Ten Percent Annually
We ended Tuesday at the Olympic Village. Basically, it was an impressive site for an impressive country. Well, what do I mean by impressive? For one, the Beijing Olympics were massive. With everything involved, including the actual events and the trademark stadium involved, there was also the fact that Beijing’s bid including massively upgrading their mass-transit system and that most of the sports venues had to be built from the ground up.
For those who don’t remember, the games ended up costing somewhere along the lines of $47 billion USD. The opening ceremony alone, directed by the renowned Zhang Yimou, cost about $300 million USD. With China’s reemergence onto the world scene, the Olympic Village shows all the money put into it.
For one, the grounds are huge. The commonly-called Bird’s Nest that served as the centerpiece of the Olympics and was used to hold many events. The architecture is astounding and bold, with the seemingly crisscrossed beams making their way over the functional part of the stadium. Much like the Coliseum in Rome, the events held inside were as impressive as the façade on the outside.
Across the massive plaza there sits the Cube, which is groundbreaking in its own right. Serving the aquatic events, the building’s frame is filled in with filled, custom-cut plastic sacs and lit on select nights to a variety of colors, the least of which being blue, of course.
The subway system is now world-class and still growing. All but a few of the sites that my friends and I saw we got there by the subway system. It’s clean and efficient, and the voice speaks English in addition to Mandarin (albeit with the most annoying way of saying the [æ] in “trANsfer”).
The second reason I feel China is one impressive country is the sheer economic growth they’ve been experiencing—and it most definitely shows. Before the economic slump, the nation’s economy was growing at over 10% a year, year after year. Now, it’s probably under 10% but still positive, largely because China’s stimulus package was so effective.
When I visited in 2007, we flew into one of the two old terminals of Beijing Capital Airport. They were dingy and dirty and as soon as we walked outside, the rampant pollution permeated every piece of clothing you were wearing and burned the back wall of your pharynx.
Yeah, Beijing is still polluted, but whatever they’ve been doing, it’s been making the air cleaner. Of course, doing so was one of their promises in their Olympic bid, but for a metropolitan population of twelve million, it’s no easy (or small) task.
Most of the days we were there, the air was remarkably crisp and seemingly clean. At the south side of Tiananmen Square in the morning you could see all the way across to the north side and the entrance to the Forbidden City and Mao Zedong’s portrait. At the Summer Palace, it was easy to see the life of luxury and relaxation that the emperors lived in as the wind brushed against your face and the water splashed against the shoreline.
Just two years ago, the weather at the Summer Palace was horrific. After seeing the water in that lake, we decided never to eat fish from China again. Though still polluted, that water has definitely improved; and looking back and pictures from my last time in Beijing, where there were dead plants there are now thriving lilies.
In the Forbidden City, much of which covered by scaffolding being restored for the Olympics, now shone in the clean air. Once temple once rumored to have good views of the Forbidden City you could now see from the Forbidden City. The funny thing that I noticed though was that not all of the intricate painted surfaces were restored. While some were left put all together, others were restored only on the front—the areas that show up in pictures. Much of the roof undersides were left showing their age.
Going through the Forbidden City though, one had to think that on this massive scale how many people were displaced. Going through the Olympic Village as well, how many hutong were demolished and how many people were displaced?
A hutong (胡同) is a more traditional aspect of Beijing. It’s a neighborhood comprise of interlinked buildings house many families, and as of recent, have been disappearing to skyscrapers and more monumental structures. There was a time in Beijing when there was the palace, which was surrounded by hutong. Now, you have to into backstreets to find them. The ones that aren’t in the alleys have had to find their niche (usually alcohol) in some way.
Two years ago, the hutong that our tour group showed us was interesting to say the least. It was rundown and needed a bit of revitalizing. Coming back two years later (and on accident to this particular area), it’s now the bar district. It all came back to me when we crossed this one small bridge over the main canal. In one fell swoop it all came pouring back in. I have no idea what it was called back then, but it was probably named the same thing as now—Houhai (后海).
Just a few years ago, these storefronts were just storefronts. Now they were relatively well-appointed bars with music blasting out of their seams. I’m not going to assert that the change was bad, but it’ll at least say that it was different.
And back to the Great Wall. I visited it two years ago because that’s just one of the things you have to do in Beijing. Back then it was impressive, though the pollution came all the way out there.
And so it turns out that we went to the same section of the Great Wall that I went to two years ago. Badaling (八达岭) is one of the most popular tourist spots on the Great Wall, and when I went there in 2007, there was a dirt parking lot in front of the wall with vendors nearby. For a price, you could dress up as a Manchurian emperor and pretend to be coming through the gate to Ming China.
Today, the wall itself remains the same. The environment changed. Of course, it’s now fall and the leaves were a different shade. It was windy and the air was crisp and clean rather than hot and humid.
I basically had another Houhai moment. I was standing right in front of the Badaling gate and it all came back again. The unpaved parking lot and ground peddler shops was now an elegantly-tiled, well-arbored plaza with a memorial-style retaining wall commemorating the Great Wall. The retaining wall was covered with a bronze relief of a Ming general in the foreground and a mock outline of the Great Wall in the background. The actual Great Wall had flags on the watchtowers with the character 明, as in Ming dynasty.
This makes me wonder, how does the People’s Republic of China view its past? Most people would agree that the Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of history in many regards. Does the fact that they’ve refurbished the Great Wall to suggest the Ming Dynasty show that they venerate the past, or do they do it just for tourism? I can tell you most of my friends didn’t know what the 明 on the flags meant.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
For those who don’t remember, the games ended up costing somewhere along the lines of $47 billion USD. The opening ceremony alone, directed by the renowned Zhang Yimou, cost about $300 million USD. With China’s reemergence onto the world scene, the Olympic Village shows all the money put into it.
For one, the grounds are huge. The commonly-called Bird’s Nest that served as the centerpiece of the Olympics and was used to hold many events. The architecture is astounding and bold, with the seemingly crisscrossed beams making their way over the functional part of the stadium. Much like the Coliseum in Rome, the events held inside were as impressive as the façade on the outside.
Across the massive plaza there sits the Cube, which is groundbreaking in its own right. Serving the aquatic events, the building’s frame is filled in with filled, custom-cut plastic sacs and lit on select nights to a variety of colors, the least of which being blue, of course.
The subway system is now world-class and still growing. All but a few of the sites that my friends and I saw we got there by the subway system. It’s clean and efficient, and the voice speaks English in addition to Mandarin (albeit with the most annoying way of saying the [æ] in “trANsfer”).
The second reason I feel China is one impressive country is the sheer economic growth they’ve been experiencing—and it most definitely shows. Before the economic slump, the nation’s economy was growing at over 10% a year, year after year. Now, it’s probably under 10% but still positive, largely because China’s stimulus package was so effective.
When I visited in 2007, we flew into one of the two old terminals of Beijing Capital Airport. They were dingy and dirty and as soon as we walked outside, the rampant pollution permeated every piece of clothing you were wearing and burned the back wall of your pharynx.
Yeah, Beijing is still polluted, but whatever they’ve been doing, it’s been making the air cleaner. Of course, doing so was one of their promises in their Olympic bid, but for a metropolitan population of twelve million, it’s no easy (or small) task.
Most of the days we were there, the air was remarkably crisp and seemingly clean. At the south side of Tiananmen Square in the morning you could see all the way across to the north side and the entrance to the Forbidden City and Mao Zedong’s portrait. At the Summer Palace, it was easy to see the life of luxury and relaxation that the emperors lived in as the wind brushed against your face and the water splashed against the shoreline.
Just two years ago, the weather at the Summer Palace was horrific. After seeing the water in that lake, we decided never to eat fish from China again. Though still polluted, that water has definitely improved; and looking back and pictures from my last time in Beijing, where there were dead plants there are now thriving lilies.
In the Forbidden City, much of which covered by scaffolding being restored for the Olympics, now shone in the clean air. Once temple once rumored to have good views of the Forbidden City you could now see from the Forbidden City. The funny thing that I noticed though was that not all of the intricate painted surfaces were restored. While some were left put all together, others were restored only on the front—the areas that show up in pictures. Much of the roof undersides were left showing their age.
Going through the Forbidden City though, one had to think that on this massive scale how many people were displaced. Going through the Olympic Village as well, how many hutong were demolished and how many people were displaced?
A hutong (胡同) is a more traditional aspect of Beijing. It’s a neighborhood comprise of interlinked buildings house many families, and as of recent, have been disappearing to skyscrapers and more monumental structures. There was a time in Beijing when there was the palace, which was surrounded by hutong. Now, you have to into backstreets to find them. The ones that aren’t in the alleys have had to find their niche (usually alcohol) in some way.
Two years ago, the hutong that our tour group showed us was interesting to say the least. It was rundown and needed a bit of revitalizing. Coming back two years later (and on accident to this particular area), it’s now the bar district. It all came back to me when we crossed this one small bridge over the main canal. In one fell swoop it all came pouring back in. I have no idea what it was called back then, but it was probably named the same thing as now—Houhai (后海).
Just a few years ago, these storefronts were just storefronts. Now they were relatively well-appointed bars with music blasting out of their seams. I’m not going to assert that the change was bad, but it’ll at least say that it was different.
And back to the Great Wall. I visited it two years ago because that’s just one of the things you have to do in Beijing. Back then it was impressive, though the pollution came all the way out there.
And so it turns out that we went to the same section of the Great Wall that I went to two years ago. Badaling (八达岭) is one of the most popular tourist spots on the Great Wall, and when I went there in 2007, there was a dirt parking lot in front of the wall with vendors nearby. For a price, you could dress up as a Manchurian emperor and pretend to be coming through the gate to Ming China.
Today, the wall itself remains the same. The environment changed. Of course, it’s now fall and the leaves were a different shade. It was windy and the air was crisp and clean rather than hot and humid.
I basically had another Houhai moment. I was standing right in front of the Badaling gate and it all came back again. The unpaved parking lot and ground peddler shops was now an elegantly-tiled, well-arbored plaza with a memorial-style retaining wall commemorating the Great Wall. The retaining wall was covered with a bronze relief of a Ming general in the foreground and a mock outline of the Great Wall in the background. The actual Great Wall had flags on the watchtowers with the character 明, as in Ming dynasty.
This makes me wonder, how does the People’s Republic of China view its past? Most people would agree that the Cultural Revolution led to the destruction of history in many regards. Does the fact that they’ve refurbished the Great Wall to suggest the Ming Dynasty show that they venerate the past, or do they do it just for tourism? I can tell you most of my friends didn’t know what the 明 on the flags meant.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
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