Though I am confident I did well in Hong Kong and the World, in no way did it end on the same high note that Humanity did. On the other hand, it was my last final, meaning that I was then done with the semester—a fact that I now feel was bittersweet at best.
This final was organized much in the same way as my other finals here at HKU. Given the entire two-hour slot, there were two essays to write with a good selection of prompts. There are hardly any questions asked during the final because the prompts are all approved my other professors, often at other universities, as well as by the university (the department specifically if I remember correctly).
As such, all my finals except this one went by quietly. There were pens righting and the professor staring down students to mitigate the likelihood of cheating, as well as flustered students working all the way up to when time is called. This one was different though in that it was in the Lindsay Rider Sports Centre.
This Lindsay Rider Sports Centre I’d never heard of before. The only sports centers I knew of were the Stanley Ho Sports Centre which I believe is near the Sassoon Road/ Medical School Campus, and the Flora Ho Sports Centre, which I would see on the bus ride to school every day.
So not knowing where this Lindsay Rider Sports Centre was, I figured I’d ask the tutor, and what better time to ask the tutor than during the last tutorial, when the tutor was soliciting questions about the final. So I raised my hand and asked the question, “Where exactly is the Lindsay Rider Sports Centre?” Many people in the twenty-five-person tutorial laughed. Who was I to ask such a stupid question, right?
Well the tutor answered me. I was to go to the Flora Ho Sports Centre and follow the signs, because the two sports centers happened to be connected. Those people in the tutorial that had just laughed at me then took down notes for where they were supposed to go for the final—they were just to principled to ask themselves and just too polite to not laugh at my question.
I showed up on time—though it was more like forty-five minutes early, since I didn’t want to be late and had but a rough idea of where the venue was exactly. I found some people to talk to, friends even (though more like a person and a friend, respectively), so it wasn’t too bad of a wait.
The examination room turned out to be a sizeable gymnasium. It was cold (apparently low 60s are like piercing icicles to me now) and had noisy ventilation that served little to no purpose, seeing that it was freezing. With such a big examination room, it was no surprise that we were sharing the venue with two other classes. It was more of a surprise to me that we were sharing the gym with two math classes, especially after my annoyance during the test.
The clocks started at 9:30 a.m. and I got to work. My hands were freezing but I did my best to warm them up, mostly by starting to write my examination. Almost immediately, they had to make an announcement for one of the math classes. It was to fix a mistake in the answer choices, which, seeing that it was a math final, was understandable. Whatever, back to work.
All of ten minutes later, the other math class had a correction to announce. Unfortunately, this time I was in the middle of my train of thought, and that little statement (after being repeated twice lasting a few minutes) derailed it. I stared down one of the many people administering the examination to voice my frustration.
Unfortunately, this happened throughout the first hour and a half, and I just so happen to be used to silence during written exams, and the exam was only two hours long. Needless to say I didn’t churn out my best piece of work ever. More than likely I will formally complain to the university, knowing that it won’t do anything for me myself.
Oh well, I’m sure I passed. Other assessments for the class included an eight hundred- to one thousand-word editorial-style term paper about a particular subject in Hong Kong. I won’t go into that since I have previously. Other assessments were tutorial participation and lecture participation, which I’m sure I did fine on.
Showing posts with label HKU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HKU. Show all posts
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Psyched to Go Back
It’s quite sad to see this whole experience ending with me seeing my newfound friends one by one. In some ways, it seems just yesterday when we were all introducing ourselves adamantly to each other. Eagerly we traveled together as strangers and in the process quickly became friends. In some ways it was just yesterday—just four months ago. Was it enough time? I’d rather not think about that—I just have to keep telling myself that it had to end eventually.
I began packing up my things several weeks ago, yet today, the day before I leave, I still have items to stow, drawers that I don’t want to empty, last meals with friends that I wish were just meals. It had to end at some point, but in no way is this the conclusion to this blog, nor this chapter in my life.
Though it seems like we’ve moved beyond this, as Rhinesmith would point out, I’m now at stage seven. But I think that in his little analysis, either he got something slightly wrong or it doesn’t quite apply to exchange students in particular. Stage seven points out return anxiety, and honestly, I don’t think my anxiety levels are at a high right now. Quite the opposite, I’m not eager to return home.
It’s not that I’ve become adverse to home or anything. I love constant weather at livable temperatures as any friend of mine could quickly tell you. I love driving and speaking English as a part of every aspect of every day of my life. No matter where I go and how far I go, I will forever hold California in the very center of my heart, even if there’s nothing left for me to go back to.
I’ve realized that there is more now though to the world I suppose, as corny as it sounds, and I really want to see just how far away the edge of the planet is. I guess I’ve got my future to accomplish this, and accomplish this I will.
I am blessed and I understand that, because I know that while my life is not perfect and never will be, so many doors have been opened up to me. By chance or by higher power, so quickly and so definitely I have found my place in the absence of such a place. I regret ever having thought the world was against me, however long ago that was, and shall never feel that way again.
I am not psyched to go back. As much as I know that the longer I stay away, the more I will end up missing my home seven thousand miles away, I really want to stay here—stay studying here, stay traveling from here, stay experiencing other lives from here. But alas I cannot.
Due to the wisdom of past me, I decided not to file the proper paperwork to pre-approve my extension at the University of Hong Kong all the way to May. I understand why and I assumed that I would have an easier time accepting this preemptive decision on my past counterpart’s part.
Right now I’m not accepting it. Right now I feel like it wasn’t so necessary for me to graduate college in the three-year manner that I am. I know that until I finish my education (as if it’s ever done) I will flip back and forth between whether it was the right decision to plan my graduation so early.
I sit at my desk this last night of mine in Hong Kong at nineteen years of age—not yet two decades old, not yet old enough to ask for a beer on the airplane back to the United States. Who am I to do this at this age? I’m the youngest of the exchange students I know here, by as little as a few months to as much as six years. I understand that my mind is pliable, that I’m not in my own yet, that I may still have an inch in height to grow.
But on the other hand, not to sound old, but I know that my youth is closing up on me. For a good year and a half, I could read in cars without getting sick. I could stay on boats for hours on end and not feel the least bit nauseous. As silly as it sounds, I know times are changing. I know that my glasses are getting thicker, unevenly on different axes; I know that reading—even a bit—on a moving vehicle will get my head rolling for hours; I know that as much as I try, as hard as I try, certain things just aren’t so easy to learn anymore. And as much as I know not to let the future take all the brownies, I know that there’s only so much I can do—mind over matter only works to a certain extent.
This last night in Hong Kong is adding up to be a sentimental one. The number of friends still here I need not one hand to count. The number of hours until my plane leaves Hong Kong as I write this sentence stands at thirteen.
I finally got to taking the Star Ferry Night Harbour Tour and it was amazing. They circled Hong Kong as I took two hundred pictures with my new Nikon D90 camera. I got a good night as it wasn’t too hazy, and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing this skyline for quite some time.
As much as I know I'm coming back one day, someday, I also know that it’s going to be far in the future—I might have a different passport; I might have multiple passports.
But for now I’m moving back to the University of California, San Diego. Good old UCSD in the bubble that is La Jolla, California. I’ve already got my accommodation sorted and I know I’m moving in the day before classes start. I’ve already begun buying books for classes and filed plenty of paperwork to re-matriculate.
I’m set to continue with my life. I’ve laid my provisions out as I have since the end of middle school. I’ve kept watch on my own deadlines and made sure I’ve never been late on anything since I was twelve. The time to move on is now, and though the road has been paved for me by me, I know that not only am I going to be apprehensive getting on that asphalt for the first time in a long time, but also I’m not so sure I’m going to be emotionally ready for it. But as they say (though not usually in this context), life moves on.
I began packing up my things several weeks ago, yet today, the day before I leave, I still have items to stow, drawers that I don’t want to empty, last meals with friends that I wish were just meals. It had to end at some point, but in no way is this the conclusion to this blog, nor this chapter in my life.
Though it seems like we’ve moved beyond this, as Rhinesmith would point out, I’m now at stage seven. But I think that in his little analysis, either he got something slightly wrong or it doesn’t quite apply to exchange students in particular. Stage seven points out return anxiety, and honestly, I don’t think my anxiety levels are at a high right now. Quite the opposite, I’m not eager to return home.
It’s not that I’ve become adverse to home or anything. I love constant weather at livable temperatures as any friend of mine could quickly tell you. I love driving and speaking English as a part of every aspect of every day of my life. No matter where I go and how far I go, I will forever hold California in the very center of my heart, even if there’s nothing left for me to go back to.
I’ve realized that there is more now though to the world I suppose, as corny as it sounds, and I really want to see just how far away the edge of the planet is. I guess I’ve got my future to accomplish this, and accomplish this I will.
I am blessed and I understand that, because I know that while my life is not perfect and never will be, so many doors have been opened up to me. By chance or by higher power, so quickly and so definitely I have found my place in the absence of such a place. I regret ever having thought the world was against me, however long ago that was, and shall never feel that way again.
I am not psyched to go back. As much as I know that the longer I stay away, the more I will end up missing my home seven thousand miles away, I really want to stay here—stay studying here, stay traveling from here, stay experiencing other lives from here. But alas I cannot.
Due to the wisdom of past me, I decided not to file the proper paperwork to pre-approve my extension at the University of Hong Kong all the way to May. I understand why and I assumed that I would have an easier time accepting this preemptive decision on my past counterpart’s part.
Right now I’m not accepting it. Right now I feel like it wasn’t so necessary for me to graduate college in the three-year manner that I am. I know that until I finish my education (as if it’s ever done) I will flip back and forth between whether it was the right decision to plan my graduation so early.
I sit at my desk this last night of mine in Hong Kong at nineteen years of age—not yet two decades old, not yet old enough to ask for a beer on the airplane back to the United States. Who am I to do this at this age? I’m the youngest of the exchange students I know here, by as little as a few months to as much as six years. I understand that my mind is pliable, that I’m not in my own yet, that I may still have an inch in height to grow.
But on the other hand, not to sound old, but I know that my youth is closing up on me. For a good year and a half, I could read in cars without getting sick. I could stay on boats for hours on end and not feel the least bit nauseous. As silly as it sounds, I know times are changing. I know that my glasses are getting thicker, unevenly on different axes; I know that reading—even a bit—on a moving vehicle will get my head rolling for hours; I know that as much as I try, as hard as I try, certain things just aren’t so easy to learn anymore. And as much as I know not to let the future take all the brownies, I know that there’s only so much I can do—mind over matter only works to a certain extent.
This last night in Hong Kong is adding up to be a sentimental one. The number of friends still here I need not one hand to count. The number of hours until my plane leaves Hong Kong as I write this sentence stands at thirteen.
I finally got to taking the Star Ferry Night Harbour Tour and it was amazing. They circled Hong Kong as I took two hundred pictures with my new Nikon D90 camera. I got a good night as it wasn’t too hazy, and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing this skyline for quite some time.
As much as I know I'm coming back one day, someday, I also know that it’s going to be far in the future—I might have a different passport; I might have multiple passports.
But for now I’m moving back to the University of California, San Diego. Good old UCSD in the bubble that is La Jolla, California. I’ve already got my accommodation sorted and I know I’m moving in the day before classes start. I’ve already begun buying books for classes and filed plenty of paperwork to re-matriculate.
I’m set to continue with my life. I’ve laid my provisions out as I have since the end of middle school. I’ve kept watch on my own deadlines and made sure I’ve never been late on anything since I was twelve. The time to move on is now, and though the road has been paved for me by me, I know that not only am I going to be apprehensive getting on that asphalt for the first time in a long time, but also I’m not so sure I’m going to be emotionally ready for it. But as they say (though not usually in this context), life moves on.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Class Roundup: Humanity
Humanity in Globalization ended on a high note in all regards. The final I felt I did quite well on, having used the entire two hours to compose two solid essays. There is one service here at HKU where you can pull up old examinations from previous terms, but being that the first time this class was taught, this particular resource became more approximate than anything else. For part of the course content, our professor said to look up exams from a different class, Human Security, to get a good idea of what that will look like. Some questions were almost exactly, if not entirely, word for word the same.
To study, I went over all the readings (again) as well as my class notes. Being that most of the lectures were guest speakers, my notes were kind of sparse and largely irrelevant. However, for the optional review session, the professor gave us a thorough outline of the class with which we could structure our studying better.
Besides the final examination, there were also the term research paper, which I did on language rights and language evolution in the wake of globalization, as well as participation grades in lectures (based mostly on attendance) and tutorials.
For the last two tutorials, we did a role-playing exercise called Zanda. Zanda is a multinational state with a president who bombs tribal people to get them off their well-endowed mining lands, which the government has leased to a multinational corporation. Yanda is a neighboring country that has national security on its mind with the instability of Zanda yet supplies rebel armies with weapons. Wanda also borders Zanda and has had an influx of tribal people coming in as refugees. Queensland is the ex-colonial government that owned Zanda up until recently.
We got roles from tutor, ranging from nurse with multiplex relationships to heads of state and United Nations officials, along with NGO leaders, journalists, and the head of that multinational mining company. I was given the role of President of Wanda.
The whole exercise was quite amusing, with us debating for our interests and attempting to reach solutions. The problem was that we had no idea if we were allowed to reach solutions, meaning that we had no idea how much action we could take or if we were just talking.
The funny thing is that we were told that we were allowed to bring up Zanda as an example for our final examination. I thought it was funny to use such a frivolous activity as evidence for such an examination. Needless to say, I didn’t use it at all. Instead I referred to readings and guest speakers. Anyways, Zanda was mainly done to show how much work it is to reach consensus and get action done on such levels. I think that most of us already understood this concept though, seeing that not much gets done on the macro level on a day-to-day basis in the world.
The class ended on a positive note in all regards because my little dispute with Globalpost.com has been resolved. To refresh, they republished this blog by automated means consistently and without permission. To make things more irksome, they in no way acknowledged the fact that they did not own my content, claiming copyright over absolutely everything on their site. And on the monetary side of things, they were ostensibly making money off of my original work. After persistently emailing their blog coordinator for about a month, informing them of my position, they finally got back to me.
They apologized profusely, saying that they thought they got permission from all the authors of the blogs they copied onto their website to do so and that mine just fell through the cracks. They also said that if I would like, they would keep my posts on their website, praising my writing, lol. Maybe if they had said it the other way around, that they would like to publish my posts on their website for whatever reason, I would have gotten off my high horse and granted it.
One more final to go now!
To study, I went over all the readings (again) as well as my class notes. Being that most of the lectures were guest speakers, my notes were kind of sparse and largely irrelevant. However, for the optional review session, the professor gave us a thorough outline of the class with which we could structure our studying better.
Besides the final examination, there were also the term research paper, which I did on language rights and language evolution in the wake of globalization, as well as participation grades in lectures (based mostly on attendance) and tutorials.
For the last two tutorials, we did a role-playing exercise called Zanda. Zanda is a multinational state with a president who bombs tribal people to get them off their well-endowed mining lands, which the government has leased to a multinational corporation. Yanda is a neighboring country that has national security on its mind with the instability of Zanda yet supplies rebel armies with weapons. Wanda also borders Zanda and has had an influx of tribal people coming in as refugees. Queensland is the ex-colonial government that owned Zanda up until recently.
We got roles from tutor, ranging from nurse with multiplex relationships to heads of state and United Nations officials, along with NGO leaders, journalists, and the head of that multinational mining company. I was given the role of President of Wanda.
The whole exercise was quite amusing, with us debating for our interests and attempting to reach solutions. The problem was that we had no idea if we were allowed to reach solutions, meaning that we had no idea how much action we could take or if we were just talking.
The funny thing is that we were told that we were allowed to bring up Zanda as an example for our final examination. I thought it was funny to use such a frivolous activity as evidence for such an examination. Needless to say, I didn’t use it at all. Instead I referred to readings and guest speakers. Anyways, Zanda was mainly done to show how much work it is to reach consensus and get action done on such levels. I think that most of us already understood this concept though, seeing that not much gets done on the macro level on a day-to-day basis in the world.
The class ended on a positive note in all regards because my little dispute with Globalpost.com has been resolved. To refresh, they republished this blog by automated means consistently and without permission. To make things more irksome, they in no way acknowledged the fact that they did not own my content, claiming copyright over absolutely everything on their site. And on the monetary side of things, they were ostensibly making money off of my original work. After persistently emailing their blog coordinator for about a month, informing them of my position, they finally got back to me.
They apologized profusely, saying that they thought they got permission from all the authors of the blogs they copied onto their website to do so and that mine just fell through the cracks. They also said that if I would like, they would keep my posts on their website, praising my writing, lol. Maybe if they had said it the other way around, that they would like to publish my posts on their website for whatever reason, I would have gotten off my high horse and granted it.
One more final to go now!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Chicken Feet, Shrimp Heads, and an Open Mind
I suppose if you grew up with it, it wouldn’t be so odd. In some ways, I guess I’m a picky eater. Studying abroad though and seeing how other international students deal with these differences allows me to better see how I fall into line. I can now say that I’m more open than others to different foods, though I admit there is some stuff that I would rather not go near.
A few weeks ago, my group of friends and I went to Queen Mary across the street. Yeah, it’s a hospital, but compared to Bayview Restaurant in the basement of Lee Hysan Hall, the canteen of Queen Mary Hospital is absolutely gourmet. Oh, and we get discounts there because Queen Mary also happens to be the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (HKU Med School).
I’m a bit partial to the barbecue pork with rice that they have. When I go days without it, I begin missing it, and then when I order it, I realize that I don’t really care for it. I always ask for less rice (in Cantonese, of course), so instead of getting three portions of rice, I get about two (which I still don’t finish). That meal all comes out at like $16-17 HKD, which is like two bucks USD, so it’s well worth it. This meal also comes with a few stalks of Gai Lan (芥蘭/芥兰), which I used to mistaken for Bak Choy (白菜) until I was reminded that the vegetable before us is stalky, whereas Bak Choy grows in the same leafy manner as cabbage.
Now, I don’t eat Gai Lan at home, though I’ve seen it sold at the Chinese supermarkets. When I’m with my family, we tend to more often go along the lines of broccoli, Napa cabbage, and cauliflower. (Mom and Dad, if you guys are reading this I like the first two better than the third.) Here though, Gai Lan’s nickname “Chinese broccoli” becomes apparent as it’s served as the main vegetable to go with any meal that comes with a vegetable.
If you thought my mix-up was bad, my friend from northern Europe couldn’t tell what the vegetable was, so instead of assuming it was a vegetable he had never seen before, he decided that they must cook their vegetables funny here to get it to look that way and taste so different. I took it upon myself to set this logic straight and inform him clearly that this is a different vegetable.
At a different time, last week to be precise, I was having dim sum with my Cantonese classmates. In addition to this being a prime opportunity to practice our Cantonese, we also used it to try new foods. As such, we ordered chicken feet. (Unlike in the old days and at Chinatowns, most dim sum places in Hong Kong have you order food off a menu rather than pointing and choosing off of the 點心車/点心车 dim sum carts). At our table of ten, we ordered to share, splitting the bill evenly in the end.
Well, the food came and I made my stomach happy with the regulars like Haa Gau (蝦餃/虾饺) and Siu Mai (燒賣/烧卖) as well as the crowd-pleasing Cha Siu Bau (叉燒包). We went ahead and tried Taro Dumplings (芋頭角/芋头角) and Taro Cake (芋頭糕/芋头糕) , but when the Chicken Feet (鳳爪/凤爪) came out (literally Phoenix Claws), I couldn’t try it. I would have tried, but my stomach was well full, and trying new food, especially something I wasn’t sure whether or not would sit well, wasn’t a good idea. That was my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
By the others though, I was told that it’s basically just skin and fat, so I didn’t feel I was missing out on much. One of my friends at the table though was a seasoned chicken feet consumer. She could put the whole foot in her mouth and get all the edible parts off without hands, pushing the bones to one side of her mouth and when it was all said and consumed, she would spit out the foot bones onto her plate. It was impressive if not a little off-putting.
The one thing that just completely makes me feel sick is shrimp with heads and shells still on. I can de-shell them without making a fuss, but I dislike doing it while I’m eating.
I was informed though at a meal in Temple Street (廟街/庙街) near Mongkok (旺角) that they don’t de-shell because the shrimp are fresh (in addition to the fact that it’s a lot of work to peel shrimp). They quite literally pull the critters out of the tanks linking their storefronts and put them into boiling liquid. This means that they’re super fresh and that there’s no time to de-shell them.
Most people don’t eat the shell. A friend of mine who’s originally from Taishan, Guangdong, (台山, 廣東/广东) told me that you only eat the shell if it’s deep-fried. That way the shell is crunchy and enjoyable rather than fishy and unbearable. I tried it, and though it wasn’t fishy, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea either.
At this fresh seafood restaurant, I witnessed something I doubt I’ll ever see again. He and another friend could and would put the entire cooked shrimp in their mouth and de-shell and de-head it within their mouths, spitting out the refuse politely onto their plates. It was starting to say the least, though most impressive. Never will you find me putting a shrimp head into my mouth.
The bottom line is that I don’t try everything, nor am I really expected to. I think that what’s really important is to maintain an open mind about different foods. This means that even if you don’t try it, you at least shouldn’t talk about it subjectively with objective terms. Better yet, don’t show any disgust that you may be harboring.
Balut (毛蛋 in Chinese) is a Southeast Asian delicacy that National Geographic taught me about. Over the years, I have found that many of my friends enjoy this food, and though I’ve never tried it, I maintain my doubts as to whether I’d actually like it personally.
For those who don’t know, Balut is a fertilized, partially developed duck egg. If I remember correctly, they boil the egg right before parts of the body such as the bill harden, yet it’s not like a hardboiled egg either. It’s runny, and it’s eaten fetus, yolk and all.
A friend of mine here whose parents are from Vietnam likes Balut a lot. On one episode of Fear Factor, contestants had to eat some as part of a competition and she said that she should have been there, because she totally would have won that competition.
Another friend raised ethical concerns about eating a fetus, which I thought were not necessarily irrelevant but rather illogical. I think that the only people who can argue against eating Balut are those who eat neither eggs nor meat, in which case they could say that eating such is unethical. The difference to me between eating an animal or a fetus of the same animal deals nothing with ethics. (In that sense, you can’t argue that you don’t eat human babies for that would imply that you’re a cannibal) I’ve seen how factories keep chickens cooped up in their own waste, lacking the space to turn around, and how pigs get their teeth removed from them forcefully and obviously without anesthetic when they are still young.
Though I’m not to keen on eating fetuses, I see little moral dilemma in the issue. Instead, I personally have concerns about whether I would like the texture of the item, seeing as it’s a whole undeveloped animal with extras.
A few weeks ago, my group of friends and I went to Queen Mary across the street. Yeah, it’s a hospital, but compared to Bayview Restaurant in the basement of Lee Hysan Hall, the canteen of Queen Mary Hospital is absolutely gourmet. Oh, and we get discounts there because Queen Mary also happens to be the teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (HKU Med School).
I’m a bit partial to the barbecue pork with rice that they have. When I go days without it, I begin missing it, and then when I order it, I realize that I don’t really care for it. I always ask for less rice (in Cantonese, of course), so instead of getting three portions of rice, I get about two (which I still don’t finish). That meal all comes out at like $16-17 HKD, which is like two bucks USD, so it’s well worth it. This meal also comes with a few stalks of Gai Lan (芥蘭/芥兰), which I used to mistaken for Bak Choy (白菜) until I was reminded that the vegetable before us is stalky, whereas Bak Choy grows in the same leafy manner as cabbage.
Now, I don’t eat Gai Lan at home, though I’ve seen it sold at the Chinese supermarkets. When I’m with my family, we tend to more often go along the lines of broccoli, Napa cabbage, and cauliflower. (Mom and Dad, if you guys are reading this I like the first two better than the third.) Here though, Gai Lan’s nickname “Chinese broccoli” becomes apparent as it’s served as the main vegetable to go with any meal that comes with a vegetable.
If you thought my mix-up was bad, my friend from northern Europe couldn’t tell what the vegetable was, so instead of assuming it was a vegetable he had never seen before, he decided that they must cook their vegetables funny here to get it to look that way and taste so different. I took it upon myself to set this logic straight and inform him clearly that this is a different vegetable.
At a different time, last week to be precise, I was having dim sum with my Cantonese classmates. In addition to this being a prime opportunity to practice our Cantonese, we also used it to try new foods. As such, we ordered chicken feet. (Unlike in the old days and at Chinatowns, most dim sum places in Hong Kong have you order food off a menu rather than pointing and choosing off of the 點心車/点心车 dim sum carts). At our table of ten, we ordered to share, splitting the bill evenly in the end.
Well, the food came and I made my stomach happy with the regulars like Haa Gau (蝦餃/虾饺) and Siu Mai (燒賣/烧卖) as well as the crowd-pleasing Cha Siu Bau (叉燒包). We went ahead and tried Taro Dumplings (芋頭角/芋头角) and Taro Cake (芋頭糕/芋头糕) , but when the Chicken Feet (鳳爪/凤爪) came out (literally Phoenix Claws), I couldn’t try it. I would have tried, but my stomach was well full, and trying new food, especially something I wasn’t sure whether or not would sit well, wasn’t a good idea. That was my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
By the others though, I was told that it’s basically just skin and fat, so I didn’t feel I was missing out on much. One of my friends at the table though was a seasoned chicken feet consumer. She could put the whole foot in her mouth and get all the edible parts off without hands, pushing the bones to one side of her mouth and when it was all said and consumed, she would spit out the foot bones onto her plate. It was impressive if not a little off-putting.
The one thing that just completely makes me feel sick is shrimp with heads and shells still on. I can de-shell them without making a fuss, but I dislike doing it while I’m eating.
I was informed though at a meal in Temple Street (廟街/庙街) near Mongkok (旺角) that they don’t de-shell because the shrimp are fresh (in addition to the fact that it’s a lot of work to peel shrimp). They quite literally pull the critters out of the tanks linking their storefronts and put them into boiling liquid. This means that they’re super fresh and that there’s no time to de-shell them.
Most people don’t eat the shell. A friend of mine who’s originally from Taishan, Guangdong, (台山, 廣東/广东) told me that you only eat the shell if it’s deep-fried. That way the shell is crunchy and enjoyable rather than fishy and unbearable. I tried it, and though it wasn’t fishy, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea either.
At this fresh seafood restaurant, I witnessed something I doubt I’ll ever see again. He and another friend could and would put the entire cooked shrimp in their mouth and de-shell and de-head it within their mouths, spitting out the refuse politely onto their plates. It was starting to say the least, though most impressive. Never will you find me putting a shrimp head into my mouth.
The bottom line is that I don’t try everything, nor am I really expected to. I think that what’s really important is to maintain an open mind about different foods. This means that even if you don’t try it, you at least shouldn’t talk about it subjectively with objective terms. Better yet, don’t show any disgust that you may be harboring.
Balut (毛蛋 in Chinese) is a Southeast Asian delicacy that National Geographic taught me about. Over the years, I have found that many of my friends enjoy this food, and though I’ve never tried it, I maintain my doubts as to whether I’d actually like it personally.
For those who don’t know, Balut is a fertilized, partially developed duck egg. If I remember correctly, they boil the egg right before parts of the body such as the bill harden, yet it’s not like a hardboiled egg either. It’s runny, and it’s eaten fetus, yolk and all.
A friend of mine here whose parents are from Vietnam likes Balut a lot. On one episode of Fear Factor, contestants had to eat some as part of a competition and she said that she should have been there, because she totally would have won that competition.
Another friend raised ethical concerns about eating a fetus, which I thought were not necessarily irrelevant but rather illogical. I think that the only people who can argue against eating Balut are those who eat neither eggs nor meat, in which case they could say that eating such is unethical. The difference to me between eating an animal or a fetus of the same animal deals nothing with ethics. (In that sense, you can’t argue that you don’t eat human babies for that would imply that you’re a cannibal) I’ve seen how factories keep chickens cooped up in their own waste, lacking the space to turn around, and how pigs get their teeth removed from them forcefully and obviously without anesthetic when they are still young.
Though I’m not to keen on eating fetuses, I see little moral dilemma in the issue. Instead, I personally have concerns about whether I would like the texture of the item, seeing as it’s a whole undeveloped animal with extras.
Class Roundup: Chinese Society
Traditional Chinese Society ended yesterday, with my first final during finals week(s) and my fourth final overall. Being my first one during finals it was officiated in an authoritarian manner that I’m only used to for standardized tests. The professor had the exams on our desks when we came in then read verbatim off of an instruction sheet provided to him by the university. I know that it was provided to him because he laughed when he read aloud that you are allowed to have calculators out (since the only number we dealt with was the number of souls that a person has).
Out our class of twelve, I was given seat number twelve. For the large classroom, we were all squished onto the left side rather than spread out over the room, as would have been sensible from an administrator’s standpoint.
After we were read out loud the directions, the professor, who already had us down by name, seeing that he taught all the tutorials and the class was really small, had to verify all of our identities by means of our student identification cards.
I didn’t think the final examination was too hard. To study, I did all the readings again and went over our class discussions of the topics—both those online and those in the classroom. He specifically said not to stress specific details—so I didn’t.
We were given seven questions based on various topics that we covered in class and we had two hours to answer two of those questions in an extended in-class essay format. And I feel I answered those two questions well and completely, despite the fact that I was the first to finish. (I usually finish somewhere in the middle, though the fact that I finished first may be because I was the only native English speaker in the class.) We’ll see how I did.
Other assessments for this class included the weekly journal, online discussions, and project.
The weekly journal entries only had to be two hundred words long each, and I usually went past that. Many of my classmates, realizing that you can’t really say much in two hundred words went well over four times that. This blog has already added up to over one hundred thousand words, so I’ll attest to the fact that you can’t say much in two hundred words. We were to write on the topic of traditional Chinese society that we were covering that week. Whereas other classmates treated the entries as anthropological research assignments, I did less of that and instead had personal reflections on the topics. Often, I would through in the line or two about how I feel we’re exoticizing the subject too much, but I’ve talked about that a lot already.
The online discussions I contributed to more often than not. Some people had contributions several times a week. It was also apparent that some people had not contributed once to the discussions. I always tried to interact with other students on these online discussions rather than only summarizing articles as was prevalent at the beginning of the semester.
I can’t remember if I talked about the term project, but it consisted of a two thousand-word (field) research paper accompanied by a presentation to be made during tutorial. On the syllabus, it said that it was due week seven. To that effect, I got it done before the week seven tutorial, ready to present. I was the only one in the tutorial that had anything to show, not that the professor was expecting it. That week he decided to schedule in everybody’s presentations, and when it came to me, I asked if I could do it that day, since it was already done. He (reluctantly) said yes and I got it over with—meaning that I unintentionally lectured for forty minutes.
My topic was on the (Christian) religious beliefs of HKU students. My sample size was small, as he only required about ten interviews. Overall, my results fell in line with Hong Kong SAR statistics. I noted that I didn’t encounter as many self-described Christians as I imagined. My professor made the note (that I didn’t see) that the number of self-described Buddhists was higher at HKU than in Hong Kong SAR statistics. I felt that my report was well-researched and well-written.
On a different note about the same class, I’m planning on petitioning to have this course qualify for my minor in the Study of Religion for my degree back at UCSD. The undergraduate advisor told me I couldn’t because nothing in the syllabus mentioned directly “religion,” so I had to rebut by saying that religion in the modern, scholarly sense ultimately refers to one’s overall view on the world and what things are significant and how those things are significant. In addition, there is a class called “Chinese Society” at UCSD that has the same course description as the course I was about to take, and it happens to fulfill the requirement without petition. She then forwarded my request for preapproval to the director or the program, who decided that I did have a case and that I did receive preapproval. So hopefully everything falls in line.
Out our class of twelve, I was given seat number twelve. For the large classroom, we were all squished onto the left side rather than spread out over the room, as would have been sensible from an administrator’s standpoint.
After we were read out loud the directions, the professor, who already had us down by name, seeing that he taught all the tutorials and the class was really small, had to verify all of our identities by means of our student identification cards.
I didn’t think the final examination was too hard. To study, I did all the readings again and went over our class discussions of the topics—both those online and those in the classroom. He specifically said not to stress specific details—so I didn’t.
We were given seven questions based on various topics that we covered in class and we had two hours to answer two of those questions in an extended in-class essay format. And I feel I answered those two questions well and completely, despite the fact that I was the first to finish. (I usually finish somewhere in the middle, though the fact that I finished first may be because I was the only native English speaker in the class.) We’ll see how I did.
Other assessments for this class included the weekly journal, online discussions, and project.
The weekly journal entries only had to be two hundred words long each, and I usually went past that. Many of my classmates, realizing that you can’t really say much in two hundred words went well over four times that. This blog has already added up to over one hundred thousand words, so I’ll attest to the fact that you can’t say much in two hundred words. We were to write on the topic of traditional Chinese society that we were covering that week. Whereas other classmates treated the entries as anthropological research assignments, I did less of that and instead had personal reflections on the topics. Often, I would through in the line or two about how I feel we’re exoticizing the subject too much, but I’ve talked about that a lot already.
The online discussions I contributed to more often than not. Some people had contributions several times a week. It was also apparent that some people had not contributed once to the discussions. I always tried to interact with other students on these online discussions rather than only summarizing articles as was prevalent at the beginning of the semester.
I can’t remember if I talked about the term project, but it consisted of a two thousand-word (field) research paper accompanied by a presentation to be made during tutorial. On the syllabus, it said that it was due week seven. To that effect, I got it done before the week seven tutorial, ready to present. I was the only one in the tutorial that had anything to show, not that the professor was expecting it. That week he decided to schedule in everybody’s presentations, and when it came to me, I asked if I could do it that day, since it was already done. He (reluctantly) said yes and I got it over with—meaning that I unintentionally lectured for forty minutes.
My topic was on the (Christian) religious beliefs of HKU students. My sample size was small, as he only required about ten interviews. Overall, my results fell in line with Hong Kong SAR statistics. I noted that I didn’t encounter as many self-described Christians as I imagined. My professor made the note (that I didn’t see) that the number of self-described Buddhists was higher at HKU than in Hong Kong SAR statistics. I felt that my report was well-researched and well-written.
On a different note about the same class, I’m planning on petitioning to have this course qualify for my minor in the Study of Religion for my degree back at UCSD. The undergraduate advisor told me I couldn’t because nothing in the syllabus mentioned directly “religion,” so I had to rebut by saying that religion in the modern, scholarly sense ultimately refers to one’s overall view on the world and what things are significant and how those things are significant. In addition, there is a class called “Chinese Society” at UCSD that has the same course description as the course I was about to take, and it happens to fulfill the requirement without petition. She then forwarded my request for preapproval to the director or the program, who decided that I did have a case and that I did receive preapproval. So hopefully everything falls in line.
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.
To Love Your University
“What class are you going to?” asked one of my friends, a fellow political science major.
“I’m going to my fine arts class,” I casually replied.
“Why do you take an arts class? Are you taking it for fun?”
“Well, yes and no. I have to take it to graduate, but I also enjoy it,” I said truthfully.
“Why would you have to take an arts class? You study political science,” he said.
“Yeah, and it’s part of my general education requirements.”
“That seems errr, stupid.”
You know, as education systems go, I’ve come to the knowledge that I like and prefer mine. Though I’m sure that many, many people back home would argue this point with me, the fact that the vast majority of university students in the United States receive liberal arts educations is a competitive advantage as critical thought goes as well as important to that development of critical thought.
Now, as I can foresee, there are two points of contention that can arise from this: first that most all higher education in the United States can be called liberal arts and second that it is actually something positive and advantageous in the long run.
Let me first define liberal arts as I see fit. I understand full well that in the United States, liberal arts on the layperson’s level almost always refers to the liberal arts colleges (not universities, because they don’t confer graduate degrees), wherein professors teach small classes and instead of researching, professors just teach. As such, liberal arts colleges tend to be small themselves. They pride themselves on learning for the sake of knowledge and having knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which I can and do fully believe in.
That’s where I’m going to break it off. Though a liberal arts college teaches liberal arts, not all institutions that teach liberal arts are liberal arts colleges—in fact, the whole higher education set up of the United States is based on the liberal arts education and continues to become more and more so—and I like it.
So what exactly is a liberal arts education? In my understanding, the result is that you get a well-rounded knowledge base upon which to draw from, but what is most important is that you come up with well-rounded (profound and thoughtful) opinions and decisions, based on the fact that nothing in the world it of itself with nothing else. Philosophically speaking, the liberal arts education gives students a real-world education with the ability to analyze relations better than say someone who went to a vocational school, which trains you only for your job.
And that’s the alternative, or one of the alternatives. Vocational school in the United States refers to professions that require more technical skill over critical thought. Don’t get me wrong, because I believe that people who go to vocational school and people who hold jobs of any sort make the world go round, but vocational school is for the nitty gritty professions, like those of mechanics and plumbers.
So where do the rest of us fit in? Well, we get well-rounded educations. This means that we have general education requirements and often areas of specialization (on top of majors). In addition, general education requirements are often done in the first two years, which means that the breadth of disciplines that a student is exposed to can help him or her decide what to major in. And before you say, well, doesn’t everybody have general education requirements?, that’s a no.
As I understand, here at HKU, there are hardly any general education requirements as we would understand in the United States. They have one broad set of classes labeled “GE: General Education” but notices that the word “requirements” is left off. GEs are not required it appears. In that sense, the university curriculum (in addition to the primary and secondary school curriculums) are based heavily on the English.
In this sense, you are forced into specialization soon after you enter university, which I find bizarre. To start, their major curriculums are three years, whereas in the United States the typical time to graduate with a bachelor’s degree is supposed to be four years.
And that’s not specialization in just major—it’s more like career. Take a look at professional degrees in the United States—most are graduate degrees that require an undergraduate degree to apply for. Architecture, as one of the few fields left whose professional degree is undergraduate, might become a graduate degree soon. I recently read an article that the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards was investigating making it so, much in the same way law was made a doctorate back in the day.
Lawyers are doctors too (at least in the United States). Since the late nineteenth century, you have to earn a Juris Doctor (JD) degree to be eligible to take the bar in any state and thereby become licensed to practice. This means that you have to first get an undergraduate degree, and then go to law school for six semesters.
In England, as I understand, as well as many historically English-ruled countries, law is firmly an undergraduate (albeit professional) degree. Straight out of high school, English students can (if so accepted) go straight into law. After for studying for three years in a classroom and a doing year of practical (the substitute for the American bar), you become a fully qualified lawyer. Similarly, medical students study for five years as undergraduates (four in the United States), and then do their practical for however many years. Because of this, both physicians and lawyers start out younger in England than in the United States.
Some would say “Yay! More money for retirement!” but I think that if you spent so many fewer years on education, you’re inherently less educated than someone whose spent more. It’s like child prodigies who end up graduating college at the age of 13. They may have the same practical knowledge as a 21-year-old of the same qualifications, but do they really have an equal amount of life experience that truly enhances your education? I think not.
On a related note, in the last lecture of my Hong Kong and the World class, we had the pro-vice-chancellor of the university at our disposal as a guest speaker, and the main topic of the discussion was the education reform currently underway in Hong Kong.
As a background note, secondary education is becoming one year shorter and university education is becoming one year longer (in a timed manner). This means that in fall 2012, the nine universities of Hong Kong will be taking in two classes (for two different curriculums), or a 40% increase in students over the previous term and the previous year. The universities are all expanding their campuses as able to accommodate this increase.
Current university students overall seem to be pretty apathetic, since it’s not immediately affecting them. But in any situation like this one, students who have opinions tend to harbor strong feelings.
I love my university, and I appreciate what is being done for me. I wish that more often more people would be appreciative just of the air around them. I love my university, but besides reasons of gratitude, I couldn’t tell you why. The university isn’t a person, but a group of people, so I suppose my love would be for the environment, for (the majority of) the people.
In our last Hong Kong and the World class, one local student expressed a very strong dislike (or at least severely neutral) opinion of the University of Hong Kong. Now, HKU isn’t my university per say (though I registered with the alumni office at their request), but I see no reason not to love it. Though it is structured differently than UCSD, I can firmly see that a university is a university. I’m not so sure she can quantify her lack of affection for HKU either, much in the same way that I cannot quantify my affection for UCSD.
There are plenty of UCSD students who hate UCSD, but they tend to back up their feelings or opinions based on the liberal arts classes that they are forced to take, Making of the Modern World that one day I hope they will appreciate having taken.
In all honesty, I can’t really fully appreciate that student’s lack of affection for the university. Though I never asked her personally, she said to the pro-vice-chancellor that she believes her workload is far to heavy. (Although I have been here for only one semester, I can say that my full course load is producing far less work that I’ve had back at UCSD.)
So there’s haters everywhere I suppose, and it doesn’t matter whose grass your on. I think though that the ultimate reason why I love my university is that I’m an appreciative, positive person who tries to see everything and tries to see everything with an open mind.
And let the statement never disappear that many UCSD professors notice the difference in writing and critical thought in papers from Eleanor Roosevelt College students.
In the development of the person, it would appear that time is more important than money.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
“I’m going to my fine arts class,” I casually replied.
“Why do you take an arts class? Are you taking it for fun?”
“Well, yes and no. I have to take it to graduate, but I also enjoy it,” I said truthfully.
“Why would you have to take an arts class? You study political science,” he said.
“Yeah, and it’s part of my general education requirements.”
“That seems errr, stupid.”
You know, as education systems go, I’ve come to the knowledge that I like and prefer mine. Though I’m sure that many, many people back home would argue this point with me, the fact that the vast majority of university students in the United States receive liberal arts educations is a competitive advantage as critical thought goes as well as important to that development of critical thought.
Now, as I can foresee, there are two points of contention that can arise from this: first that most all higher education in the United States can be called liberal arts and second that it is actually something positive and advantageous in the long run.
Let me first define liberal arts as I see fit. I understand full well that in the United States, liberal arts on the layperson’s level almost always refers to the liberal arts colleges (not universities, because they don’t confer graduate degrees), wherein professors teach small classes and instead of researching, professors just teach. As such, liberal arts colleges tend to be small themselves. They pride themselves on learning for the sake of knowledge and having knowledge for the sake of knowledge, which I can and do fully believe in.
That’s where I’m going to break it off. Though a liberal arts college teaches liberal arts, not all institutions that teach liberal arts are liberal arts colleges—in fact, the whole higher education set up of the United States is based on the liberal arts education and continues to become more and more so—and I like it.
So what exactly is a liberal arts education? In my understanding, the result is that you get a well-rounded knowledge base upon which to draw from, but what is most important is that you come up with well-rounded (profound and thoughtful) opinions and decisions, based on the fact that nothing in the world it of itself with nothing else. Philosophically speaking, the liberal arts education gives students a real-world education with the ability to analyze relations better than say someone who went to a vocational school, which trains you only for your job.
And that’s the alternative, or one of the alternatives. Vocational school in the United States refers to professions that require more technical skill over critical thought. Don’t get me wrong, because I believe that people who go to vocational school and people who hold jobs of any sort make the world go round, but vocational school is for the nitty gritty professions, like those of mechanics and plumbers.
So where do the rest of us fit in? Well, we get well-rounded educations. This means that we have general education requirements and often areas of specialization (on top of majors). In addition, general education requirements are often done in the first two years, which means that the breadth of disciplines that a student is exposed to can help him or her decide what to major in. And before you say, well, doesn’t everybody have general education requirements?, that’s a no.
As I understand, here at HKU, there are hardly any general education requirements as we would understand in the United States. They have one broad set of classes labeled “GE: General Education” but notices that the word “requirements” is left off. GEs are not required it appears. In that sense, the university curriculum (in addition to the primary and secondary school curriculums) are based heavily on the English.
In this sense, you are forced into specialization soon after you enter university, which I find bizarre. To start, their major curriculums are three years, whereas in the United States the typical time to graduate with a bachelor’s degree is supposed to be four years.
And that’s not specialization in just major—it’s more like career. Take a look at professional degrees in the United States—most are graduate degrees that require an undergraduate degree to apply for. Architecture, as one of the few fields left whose professional degree is undergraduate, might become a graduate degree soon. I recently read an article that the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards was investigating making it so, much in the same way law was made a doctorate back in the day.
Lawyers are doctors too (at least in the United States). Since the late nineteenth century, you have to earn a Juris Doctor (JD) degree to be eligible to take the bar in any state and thereby become licensed to practice. This means that you have to first get an undergraduate degree, and then go to law school for six semesters.
In England, as I understand, as well as many historically English-ruled countries, law is firmly an undergraduate (albeit professional) degree. Straight out of high school, English students can (if so accepted) go straight into law. After for studying for three years in a classroom and a doing year of practical (the substitute for the American bar), you become a fully qualified lawyer. Similarly, medical students study for five years as undergraduates (four in the United States), and then do their practical for however many years. Because of this, both physicians and lawyers start out younger in England than in the United States.
Some would say “Yay! More money for retirement!” but I think that if you spent so many fewer years on education, you’re inherently less educated than someone whose spent more. It’s like child prodigies who end up graduating college at the age of 13. They may have the same practical knowledge as a 21-year-old of the same qualifications, but do they really have an equal amount of life experience that truly enhances your education? I think not.
On a related note, in the last lecture of my Hong Kong and the World class, we had the pro-vice-chancellor of the university at our disposal as a guest speaker, and the main topic of the discussion was the education reform currently underway in Hong Kong.
As a background note, secondary education is becoming one year shorter and university education is becoming one year longer (in a timed manner). This means that in fall 2012, the nine universities of Hong Kong will be taking in two classes (for two different curriculums), or a 40% increase in students over the previous term and the previous year. The universities are all expanding their campuses as able to accommodate this increase.
Current university students overall seem to be pretty apathetic, since it’s not immediately affecting them. But in any situation like this one, students who have opinions tend to harbor strong feelings.
I love my university, and I appreciate what is being done for me. I wish that more often more people would be appreciative just of the air around them. I love my university, but besides reasons of gratitude, I couldn’t tell you why. The university isn’t a person, but a group of people, so I suppose my love would be for the environment, for (the majority of) the people.
In our last Hong Kong and the World class, one local student expressed a very strong dislike (or at least severely neutral) opinion of the University of Hong Kong. Now, HKU isn’t my university per say (though I registered with the alumni office at their request), but I see no reason not to love it. Though it is structured differently than UCSD, I can firmly see that a university is a university. I’m not so sure she can quantify her lack of affection for HKU either, much in the same way that I cannot quantify my affection for UCSD.
There are plenty of UCSD students who hate UCSD, but they tend to back up their feelings or opinions based on the liberal arts classes that they are forced to take, Making of the Modern World that one day I hope they will appreciate having taken.
In all honesty, I can’t really fully appreciate that student’s lack of affection for the university. Though I never asked her personally, she said to the pro-vice-chancellor that she believes her workload is far to heavy. (Although I have been here for only one semester, I can say that my full course load is producing far less work that I’ve had back at UCSD.)
So there’s haters everywhere I suppose, and it doesn’t matter whose grass your on. I think though that the ultimate reason why I love my university is that I’m an appreciative, positive person who tries to see everything and tries to see everything with an open mind.
And let the statement never disappear that many UCSD professors notice the difference in writing and critical thought in papers from Eleanor Roosevelt College students.
In the development of the person, it would appear that time is more important than money.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Class Roundup: Phonetics
Here I sit in the medical library—three exams down, three to go, and that’s it to the semester. I think I did well enough on my last final, that being for Phonetics, one class which I’m glad to have taken abroad. It’s not so much that it’s bad back home, because it’s not; it’s more because I get to study phonetics in light of other languages here, and the best part is that instruction is still in English.
I’m told that here, HKU imposes a curve. I’m used to curves just being advantageous to the student, because back in UCSD professors have a lot of leeway in letter-grade assignment. Hardly ever would a curve be used if it would systematically lower most everyone’s grades. I had one teacher who only gave out Fs to people with less than 40% in the class (whereas the standard F grade is under 59% or 60%).
So I don’t think I did poorly in the class, but I hope that I did better than average. Even though most of the class was focused on English (and I have English intuition), I found that on the first midterm I missed a lot of points because I wasn’t dealing with Standard American or British English. It worked to the local students’ advantage because they got to memorize standard language rules, whereas I had a hard time memorizing standard language rules since I had intuition to contend with. On the other hand though, the local students were allowed to go by their intuition in the Cantonese segment of the course.
The final examination turned out to be all right. It wasn’t super easy but it was fair. It turned out to be okay mostly because the professor allotted us a lot of choice, all languages considered.
For the last two assignments of two exercises each, we had to transliterate a series of sentences and phrases in and out of Cantonese and Mandarin to the International Phonetic Alphabet. It was difficult for me because even though I have some experience with both languages, many of the words that I know in my head I wouldn’t know how to write down. This is because while there are something aspects of writing characters in Mandarin that lend hints as to their sounds, there is little to no other indication of how to pronounce characters you don’t know (especially considering the tone). Colloquial Written Cantonese, using many of the same characters as Standard Written Chinese (based on Mandarin), is a whole other story, since many older speakers of Cantonese can write things down as they would literally say it. Luckily, I have a friend who helped me pronounce these phrases, and with the fact that we went over them in tutorial before turning them in, there was no problem with the exercises.
What was disconcerting was that the professor said that he’d have some similar problems on the final examination. It was a little worrying, but I was confident that he would try to accommodate the few exchange students because not knowing what characters were going to be presented beforehand practically meant that you had to learn the language to do the test. After the TA/tutor sent an email out asking for a reply for those needing accommodation, I was confident that it would be fine—and it was. The final had six questions translating the orthography of English, Mandarin, and Cantonese into the International Phonetic Alphabet and six from the International Phonetic Alphabet to English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. We only needed to answer two out of each set of six, so I ended up picking the two English ones in each section after having a look and subsequently deciding I had no idea what was written in Cantonese and Mandarin.
In addition to those two sections, there was a vocabulary (definition plus example) section that I think I fared well on. What was different from the midterm examination was the addition of essay questions—two to be exact. They were straightforward enough, and I’m confident I got most all points for both. What was almost to be expected though was that though I had spent plenty of time studying for the examination before the fact, the subject of one of the essay questions was something that I had literally study half an hour before the test, sitting at Starbucks on campus with my venti drip coffee.
Now, I don’t know if everyone studying linguistics (especially phonetics) does this, but I find that when I study, I talk out loud to myself. It’s not complete sentences or anything that makes sense, more examples that I’m told exist and I just want to check.
As an example, I’ve read over to myself “Polish is great.” Written down, give it to a group of people and have them read the sentence. Chances are, there will be two ways of pronouncing “Polish.” One reading means polish as in nail polish. The other refers to the Polish nationality, with the grammar of the sentence suggesting that what’s meant is the Polish language.
In phonetics, though, I find myself doing stuff like realizing that in fast speech, “rider” and “writer” are pronounced pretty much the same by American English speakers. Today though at Starbucks, I was trying to straighten out my Mandarin affricates, because I can pronounce all the differences when I’m presented with Hanyu Pinyin but I need to equate Pinyin to the International Phonetic Alphabet. To this effect, I was sounding out. There are six in total in Mandarin (in comparison to two in English), but I pronounced nine sounds in total to get the system straightforward in my head. In Pinyin, it would be “s, z, c. x, j, q. sh, zh, ch;” in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it would be rendered as [s, ts, tsʰ. ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ. ʂ, tʂ, tʂʰ]. I got some looks, probably from people thinking I was mental, but whatever.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I’m told that here, HKU imposes a curve. I’m used to curves just being advantageous to the student, because back in UCSD professors have a lot of leeway in letter-grade assignment. Hardly ever would a curve be used if it would systematically lower most everyone’s grades. I had one teacher who only gave out Fs to people with less than 40% in the class (whereas the standard F grade is under 59% or 60%).
So I don’t think I did poorly in the class, but I hope that I did better than average. Even though most of the class was focused on English (and I have English intuition), I found that on the first midterm I missed a lot of points because I wasn’t dealing with Standard American or British English. It worked to the local students’ advantage because they got to memorize standard language rules, whereas I had a hard time memorizing standard language rules since I had intuition to contend with. On the other hand though, the local students were allowed to go by their intuition in the Cantonese segment of the course.
The final examination turned out to be all right. It wasn’t super easy but it was fair. It turned out to be okay mostly because the professor allotted us a lot of choice, all languages considered.
For the last two assignments of two exercises each, we had to transliterate a series of sentences and phrases in and out of Cantonese and Mandarin to the International Phonetic Alphabet. It was difficult for me because even though I have some experience with both languages, many of the words that I know in my head I wouldn’t know how to write down. This is because while there are something aspects of writing characters in Mandarin that lend hints as to their sounds, there is little to no other indication of how to pronounce characters you don’t know (especially considering the tone). Colloquial Written Cantonese, using many of the same characters as Standard Written Chinese (based on Mandarin), is a whole other story, since many older speakers of Cantonese can write things down as they would literally say it. Luckily, I have a friend who helped me pronounce these phrases, and with the fact that we went over them in tutorial before turning them in, there was no problem with the exercises.
What was disconcerting was that the professor said that he’d have some similar problems on the final examination. It was a little worrying, but I was confident that he would try to accommodate the few exchange students because not knowing what characters were going to be presented beforehand practically meant that you had to learn the language to do the test. After the TA/tutor sent an email out asking for a reply for those needing accommodation, I was confident that it would be fine—and it was. The final had six questions translating the orthography of English, Mandarin, and Cantonese into the International Phonetic Alphabet and six from the International Phonetic Alphabet to English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. We only needed to answer two out of each set of six, so I ended up picking the two English ones in each section after having a look and subsequently deciding I had no idea what was written in Cantonese and Mandarin.
In addition to those two sections, there was a vocabulary (definition plus example) section that I think I fared well on. What was different from the midterm examination was the addition of essay questions—two to be exact. They were straightforward enough, and I’m confident I got most all points for both. What was almost to be expected though was that though I had spent plenty of time studying for the examination before the fact, the subject of one of the essay questions was something that I had literally study half an hour before the test, sitting at Starbucks on campus with my venti drip coffee.
Now, I don’t know if everyone studying linguistics (especially phonetics) does this, but I find that when I study, I talk out loud to myself. It’s not complete sentences or anything that makes sense, more examples that I’m told exist and I just want to check.
As an example, I’ve read over to myself “Polish is great.” Written down, give it to a group of people and have them read the sentence. Chances are, there will be two ways of pronouncing “Polish.” One reading means polish as in nail polish. The other refers to the Polish nationality, with the grammar of the sentence suggesting that what’s meant is the Polish language.
In phonetics, though, I find myself doing stuff like realizing that in fast speech, “rider” and “writer” are pronounced pretty much the same by American English speakers. Today though at Starbucks, I was trying to straighten out my Mandarin affricates, because I can pronounce all the differences when I’m presented with Hanyu Pinyin but I need to equate Pinyin to the International Phonetic Alphabet. To this effect, I was sounding out. There are six in total in Mandarin (in comparison to two in English), but I pronounced nine sounds in total to get the system straightforward in my head. In Pinyin, it would be “s, z, c. x, j, q. sh, zh, ch;” in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it would be rendered as [s, ts, tsʰ. ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ. ʂ, tʂ, tʂʰ]. I got some looks, probably from people thinking I was mental, but whatever.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Storm that Passed without a Fight
Yeah, I’ve been traveling a lot, I know. This latter half of the semester, I’ve been jetting off to different cities, with my last conquest being Phuket, Thailand, four hours away. There is less than a month left, and though deadlines are looming and finals are approaching, I remain calm and look forward to a few more excursions before my departure back to the States.
It’s funny how people think that something has to give for something else to happen—and it’s true. It’s like you can’t be in two places at once (not yet, though I believe not ever), or how matter can’t just disappear. The funny thing then is that people don’t realize that there’s no need to give because there already is so much give—and by give I mean time, of course.
Back at UCSD, the normal course load is about four classes. The minimum is three to be a full-time student. I took five—and there’s a couple reasons for that. The first quarter, I took the standard four. I was bored out of my mind. I caught up with many different television shows (including the nine-season Scrubs and the now-ten-season CSI) and at the end of the year I took to reading a lot.
Because of my boredom, I decided why not take an extra class? I can handle it well and I’ll graduate earlier and spend less of my parents’ money on my education. After all, the UCSD levies tuition against all full-time students equally, regardless of actual credit hours. And after that happened, I was still bored. I started a blog for my upcoming study abroad trip and started brainstorming ideas for extended prose.
Here is not all that different. Each class that I attend here is about three hours per week in duration, except Cantonese, which is about two. Add it all up and I go to class 17 hours per week. With studying, it probably works out to 48 academically-focused hours. A seven-day week is 168 hours long. I sleep off around 56 of those. So 168 minus 56 minus 48 leaves me with 64 spare hours per week.
Last weekend, the Thailand trip lasted about three full days—that’s 72 hours, and two of the three nights I spent studying for my Fine Arts final that I got over with yesterday.
So the time is there—it’s just how you use it, I suppose. I found that working on deadlines early, getting projects done a few days before they’re due (at a minimum) keeps me at rest. That way if I find something (fun) to do, I can easily be spontaneous. Last week, I turned in an essay due Friday at 7:00 p.m. on Monday at 9:00 a.m. The professor hadn’t even given the department office instructions to collect it yet.
I found out that I hate procrastination, and it’s been keeping me afloat ever since I discovered this little preference of mine. At UCSD it was the same way. My first quarter, I had a paper due week eight of the term. The week before, we were to do a peer review in tutorial/section, so I finished it in the middle of week six. I found that my paper was the only one in the class that was really able to be peer-reviewed, so nearly everybody read it. Cool.
So that’s how I do what I do—good ol’ hard work—and it really works. But that’s just one side of the coin. The other is the realization of many of us here—where does the time go at home?
I know the answer for my own situation. It drains into the tube (though my computer functions as my television). I don’t mind reading—in fact, I really like reading, but the television usage can go down. That would renew my spare time.
The funny thing is that while I’ve seen more of the United States than the average American (by means of a thirty-state road trip when I just got my driver’s license in 2006), there is still so much that I’ve never seen. I would struggle to say that I’ve been to New England. I’ve still not been to New York City. I’ve been to many, many national capitals now, yet my own isn’t on that list. Most sad (though common) is that I’ve not been thirty miles south of UCSD. Admittedly, there’s a current travel warning from the Department of State advising travel to Mexican border areas because of recent increases in drug-related violence, but the fact that I can’t say that I’m not well traveled makes it pathetic that I’ve never been to Mexico.
I’ve been to Canada quite a few times, actually, which can be construed as ironic seeing as Mexico is but thirty miles south and Canada is more than a thousand miles north. So I’ve made a personal pact to see more around North America (and South America), time, money, and parent permitting. (Though that’s not to say I wouldn’t love to travel some more with my family).
We’ll see where life takes me when I get back to California.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
It’s funny how people think that something has to give for something else to happen—and it’s true. It’s like you can’t be in two places at once (not yet, though I believe not ever), or how matter can’t just disappear. The funny thing then is that people don’t realize that there’s no need to give because there already is so much give—and by give I mean time, of course.
Back at UCSD, the normal course load is about four classes. The minimum is three to be a full-time student. I took five—and there’s a couple reasons for that. The first quarter, I took the standard four. I was bored out of my mind. I caught up with many different television shows (including the nine-season Scrubs and the now-ten-season CSI) and at the end of the year I took to reading a lot.
Because of my boredom, I decided why not take an extra class? I can handle it well and I’ll graduate earlier and spend less of my parents’ money on my education. After all, the UCSD levies tuition against all full-time students equally, regardless of actual credit hours. And after that happened, I was still bored. I started a blog for my upcoming study abroad trip and started brainstorming ideas for extended prose.
Here is not all that different. Each class that I attend here is about three hours per week in duration, except Cantonese, which is about two. Add it all up and I go to class 17 hours per week. With studying, it probably works out to 48 academically-focused hours. A seven-day week is 168 hours long. I sleep off around 56 of those. So 168 minus 56 minus 48 leaves me with 64 spare hours per week.
Last weekend, the Thailand trip lasted about three full days—that’s 72 hours, and two of the three nights I spent studying for my Fine Arts final that I got over with yesterday.
So the time is there—it’s just how you use it, I suppose. I found that working on deadlines early, getting projects done a few days before they’re due (at a minimum) keeps me at rest. That way if I find something (fun) to do, I can easily be spontaneous. Last week, I turned in an essay due Friday at 7:00 p.m. on Monday at 9:00 a.m. The professor hadn’t even given the department office instructions to collect it yet.
I found out that I hate procrastination, and it’s been keeping me afloat ever since I discovered this little preference of mine. At UCSD it was the same way. My first quarter, I had a paper due week eight of the term. The week before, we were to do a peer review in tutorial/section, so I finished it in the middle of week six. I found that my paper was the only one in the class that was really able to be peer-reviewed, so nearly everybody read it. Cool.
So that’s how I do what I do—good ol’ hard work—and it really works. But that’s just one side of the coin. The other is the realization of many of us here—where does the time go at home?
I know the answer for my own situation. It drains into the tube (though my computer functions as my television). I don’t mind reading—in fact, I really like reading, but the television usage can go down. That would renew my spare time.
The funny thing is that while I’ve seen more of the United States than the average American (by means of a thirty-state road trip when I just got my driver’s license in 2006), there is still so much that I’ve never seen. I would struggle to say that I’ve been to New England. I’ve still not been to New York City. I’ve been to many, many national capitals now, yet my own isn’t on that list. Most sad (though common) is that I’ve not been thirty miles south of UCSD. Admittedly, there’s a current travel warning from the Department of State advising travel to Mexican border areas because of recent increases in drug-related violence, but the fact that I can’t say that I’m not well traveled makes it pathetic that I’ve never been to Mexico.
I’ve been to Canada quite a few times, actually, which can be construed as ironic seeing as Mexico is but thirty miles south and Canada is more than a thousand miles north. So I’ve made a personal pact to see more around North America (and South America), time, money, and parent permitting. (Though that’s not to say I wouldn’t love to travel some more with my family).
We’ll see where life takes me when I get back to California.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
King's College
Teaching English as a second language has always been something I've always tossed around in my head. Whereas in general I probably couldn't cope teaching English high-school style, teaching it as a foreign language always tickled my fancy, as it has to do more with the practical and conversational than the philosophical.
English is in high demand here in Hong Kong. As one of the region's official languages and one its business advantages in the international arena, people who can speak English have an automatic leg up on the competition. Statistics show that Hong Kong isn't nearly as cosmopolitan as it's purported to be. Ninety-five percent of the population is Han Chinese and ninety-five percent use Cantonese primarily as their daily language.
From what I gather, English is taught in many secondary schools, but trying to talk to many service workers here in English, reasonably presuming they attended secondary school, whatever they learn tends to fade away. Talking to secondary-school students (I have no idea what grades they are in because they use the English form system), it's apparent that they, at least the ones I've talked to, have a good grasp in speaking the language. Comprehension is another issue, because whereas they can understand each other's English and I can understand theirs, they cannot understand enough of mine. And seeing as most native English speakers speak more like me and less like them, it would behoove them to improve their comprehension skills.
With this thought in mind, many Hong Kong people, several starting from scratch, pay oodles and oodles of money to get tutored (or coached) to make their English better and closer to standard varieties. Many tutors make $100,000 USD per year, from what I've heard. Others who have invented themselves as celebrities have become multimillionaires by such means. If I had the proper documentation to be allowed to be employed in Hong Kong, I might have tried my hand. But since I didn't, I participated in something second best.
Back to the secondary-school students--the reason I got in contact with them is through a program(me) that was publicized through the Office of International Student Exchange (OISE) here at HKU. It was advertised mainly to exchange and international students as the King's College English Teaching Programme. Sounds really intensive, doesn't it?
There was no pay, but that was understandable. It was a volunteer program in which after their school, we were to walk across the road and down half a block to King's College, a local boys' secondary school. though the program name had "teaching" in it, it was more of a mentorship, for they already had English class in school.
We first learned about it in non-local-student orientation back in August and I was excited to apply. They were supposed to send us applications shortly thereafter, I thought, because the program was to last most of the semester. I was wrong. After enquiring by email, I was told that application would be made available, but much later.
Around came the middle of September, nearly a month into my four-month stay here. The application had come and I was ready to apply. Only then were we told that it was but a four-week program, where we would teach for one hour a week on a given day. So I applied for a few timeslots I had available.
Now this happened to be going on during that whole shopping-for-classes fiasco, so I didn't definitively know when I was going to have free time. About two weeks later, I had registered after much ado for my tutorials. They were sporadically (and thereby inconveniently placed), so I wondered if both my class schedule, being my first priority, and the King's College Programme would fit together.
A few weeks later, well after I'd finished shopping for classes, registering online for classes, and registered partially online for tutorials, the selection came out. It was clear that they had more applicants than they needed. I had a partner to "teach" six students, and it just so happened that I got the Wednesday 4:00-5:00 timeslot, which proved to be problematic.
During that timeslot, I had my tutorial for Hong Kong and the World, so quickly I emailed my tutor Sebastian to see if he would allow me to move when I attend to an empty slot on Thursdays so that, if necessary, I could withdraw from the program as early as possible. The next day he graciously granted my request, since we were already well into the semester. I was now in the program.
The program dates were set to begin shortly after reading week. Orientation was scheduled in the latter half of reading week, but when it was found out that most of the exchange students couldn't make that date, it was moved earlier. I couldn't make either day.
I told OISE (specifically Queenie) that I wouldn't be able to attend and she sent me the orientation materials after the fact. there was a conspicuous lack of lesson plan stuffs, though it was suggested that in the first session we have the students give us a tour of King's College and that in the fourth and last session (which was today), we give the students a tour around the University of Hong Kong. Oh and a big piece of advice that proved a little unsuccessful was to talk about sports with them--yeah, that topic lasted like ten minutes total.
Week One
I arrived straight from my Humanity in Globalization lecture. The professor was beginning to give us advice on how to write a good paper, and I had to leave since he was going over on time in order to get to the first day of the program.
We were to pick up our folders and then proceed to our classrooms (which were marked on maps for our convenience), and we were each given a small bottle of water. At the entrance to the school, I met my partner, who I learned if from Singapore but normally attends university in Australia, here on exchange for one semester.
This first session a mere four of the six students showed up.
Going to start the first session, I found that he was talking a lot more than me. Though I tried to increase my presence by inserting more into the conversation, the students all directed their questions at him rather than at me. I figured that they found it easier to understand him, because although he speaks good English, his accent and their accents are quite similar.
As expected, they gave us a tour around King's College, giving me some insight into the life of a secondary-school student in Hong Kong. We were shown their athletic facilities and canteen, as well as their library and a hallway that students were not allowed to go through.
Hong Kong is like Las Vegas in that it implodes its history and builds upon the rubble. So King's College and a few buildings at HKU are some of the few remaining examples of the colonial style.
Week Two
This week, all but one of the six students attended.
One student brought a newspaper clipping. It was about how a Hong Kong woman in finance decided to quit her job and start a frozen yoghurt business. They all thought she did it to make more money, assuming selling yoghurt can make more money than her high-paying corporate job. Though it is possible, she will, for a very long time, will be losing money on startup and then be making lots less money than her former career. I presented this argument to the students, that switching to selling frozen yoghurt was more a labor of love than a financial pursuit. They thought I was joking.
After that all, we completed unsuccessfully a crossword puzzle of sorts. I maintain that it was poorly designed with definitions too vague (and sometimes flat out wrong) for the specific words they were looking for. Needless to say, we moved on.
Hangman was the name of the game, and we went back and forth throwing random words at each other to see if we could get them. We kept the words easy, as did the students when it was their turn. Because we had some substance to this meeting, time went a lot quicker than in the last session.
Week Three
This week was actually two after Week Two because they had their finals the week in between. Two decided to show up (the most talkative two).
My teaching partner, at their request, told them how he served in the Singaporean Army (as there is conscription of young men there) in order to defend themselves against possible attack from Malaysia. Though Singapore officially operates in four languages, the one and only in the army was Malay. His position was the army police, to suss out all the contraband and maintain internal order.
We went over another newspaper article. This was was about tonsils and tonsil stones (which accumulate in your tonsils and pop out when they get too big after a bit of prodding). Big words such as tonsilitis were skipped understandably, and at the end of the article they admitted that big chunks of the article didn't make sense. We verbally summarized the article for them.
Though I told them in the first place that I'm American, they learned that little fact again. I answered questions about the United States, pointing out where I'm from on a big bad chalkboard drawing, drawing New York state onto the map, and explaining that the smallest state Rhode Island is not an island at all.
Week Four
The last session was earlier today today. The same two students as last week were the only ones to show up, and they were really excited to get shown HKU by us.
So we walked them there. As with any good tour of HKU, you start at Main Building. It's the oldest and most historic (and prettiest) building on campus. The main room in Main Building, Lok Yew Hall, is where the university hosts all its A-list events and ceremonies (except for graduation, which is being held this year at Asia-World Expo on Hong Kong Airport Island).
We continued around campus and showed them the library (but entering requires a HKU ID card, so we looked in from the outside), as well as a few canteens and some unique buildings. After we got through in just forty minutes, I was reminded how small campus is.
We walked them back to the bus stop and they went home.
Closing Ceremony
I won't be able to attend the ending ceremony for the program. It is to be held next Wednesday at Lok Yew Hall. I told them that I was probably going to go until I realized that I have class during then. All in all, though it was not exactly what I expected, I'm glad that I participated because it was a good experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
English is in high demand here in Hong Kong. As one of the region's official languages and one its business advantages in the international arena, people who can speak English have an automatic leg up on the competition. Statistics show that Hong Kong isn't nearly as cosmopolitan as it's purported to be. Ninety-five percent of the population is Han Chinese and ninety-five percent use Cantonese primarily as their daily language.
From what I gather, English is taught in many secondary schools, but trying to talk to many service workers here in English, reasonably presuming they attended secondary school, whatever they learn tends to fade away. Talking to secondary-school students (I have no idea what grades they are in because they use the English form system), it's apparent that they, at least the ones I've talked to, have a good grasp in speaking the language. Comprehension is another issue, because whereas they can understand each other's English and I can understand theirs, they cannot understand enough of mine. And seeing as most native English speakers speak more like me and less like them, it would behoove them to improve their comprehension skills.
With this thought in mind, many Hong Kong people, several starting from scratch, pay oodles and oodles of money to get tutored (or coached) to make their English better and closer to standard varieties. Many tutors make $100,000 USD per year, from what I've heard. Others who have invented themselves as celebrities have become multimillionaires by such means. If I had the proper documentation to be allowed to be employed in Hong Kong, I might have tried my hand. But since I didn't, I participated in something second best.
Back to the secondary-school students--the reason I got in contact with them is through a program(me) that was publicized through the Office of International Student Exchange (OISE) here at HKU. It was advertised mainly to exchange and international students as the King's College English Teaching Programme. Sounds really intensive, doesn't it?
There was no pay, but that was understandable. It was a volunteer program in which after their school, we were to walk across the road and down half a block to King's College, a local boys' secondary school. though the program name had "teaching" in it, it was more of a mentorship, for they already had English class in school.
We first learned about it in non-local-student orientation back in August and I was excited to apply. They were supposed to send us applications shortly thereafter, I thought, because the program was to last most of the semester. I was wrong. After enquiring by email, I was told that application would be made available, but much later.
Around came the middle of September, nearly a month into my four-month stay here. The application had come and I was ready to apply. Only then were we told that it was but a four-week program, where we would teach for one hour a week on a given day. So I applied for a few timeslots I had available.
Now this happened to be going on during that whole shopping-for-classes fiasco, so I didn't definitively know when I was going to have free time. About two weeks later, I had registered after much ado for my tutorials. They were sporadically (and thereby inconveniently placed), so I wondered if both my class schedule, being my first priority, and the King's College Programme would fit together.
A few weeks later, well after I'd finished shopping for classes, registering online for classes, and registered partially online for tutorials, the selection came out. It was clear that they had more applicants than they needed. I had a partner to "teach" six students, and it just so happened that I got the Wednesday 4:00-5:00 timeslot, which proved to be problematic.
During that timeslot, I had my tutorial for Hong Kong and the World, so quickly I emailed my tutor Sebastian to see if he would allow me to move when I attend to an empty slot on Thursdays so that, if necessary, I could withdraw from the program as early as possible. The next day he graciously granted my request, since we were already well into the semester. I was now in the program.
The program dates were set to begin shortly after reading week. Orientation was scheduled in the latter half of reading week, but when it was found out that most of the exchange students couldn't make that date, it was moved earlier. I couldn't make either day.
I told OISE (specifically Queenie) that I wouldn't be able to attend and she sent me the orientation materials after the fact. there was a conspicuous lack of lesson plan stuffs, though it was suggested that in the first session we have the students give us a tour of King's College and that in the fourth and last session (which was today), we give the students a tour around the University of Hong Kong. Oh and a big piece of advice that proved a little unsuccessful was to talk about sports with them--yeah, that topic lasted like ten minutes total.
Week One
I arrived straight from my Humanity in Globalization lecture. The professor was beginning to give us advice on how to write a good paper, and I had to leave since he was going over on time in order to get to the first day of the program.
We were to pick up our folders and then proceed to our classrooms (which were marked on maps for our convenience), and we were each given a small bottle of water. At the entrance to the school, I met my partner, who I learned if from Singapore but normally attends university in Australia, here on exchange for one semester.
This first session a mere four of the six students showed up.
Going to start the first session, I found that he was talking a lot more than me. Though I tried to increase my presence by inserting more into the conversation, the students all directed their questions at him rather than at me. I figured that they found it easier to understand him, because although he speaks good English, his accent and their accents are quite similar.
As expected, they gave us a tour around King's College, giving me some insight into the life of a secondary-school student in Hong Kong. We were shown their athletic facilities and canteen, as well as their library and a hallway that students were not allowed to go through.
Hong Kong is like Las Vegas in that it implodes its history and builds upon the rubble. So King's College and a few buildings at HKU are some of the few remaining examples of the colonial style.
Week Two
This week, all but one of the six students attended.
One student brought a newspaper clipping. It was about how a Hong Kong woman in finance decided to quit her job and start a frozen yoghurt business. They all thought she did it to make more money, assuming selling yoghurt can make more money than her high-paying corporate job. Though it is possible, she will, for a very long time, will be losing money on startup and then be making lots less money than her former career. I presented this argument to the students, that switching to selling frozen yoghurt was more a labor of love than a financial pursuit. They thought I was joking.
After that all, we completed unsuccessfully a crossword puzzle of sorts. I maintain that it was poorly designed with definitions too vague (and sometimes flat out wrong) for the specific words they were looking for. Needless to say, we moved on.
Hangman was the name of the game, and we went back and forth throwing random words at each other to see if we could get them. We kept the words easy, as did the students when it was their turn. Because we had some substance to this meeting, time went a lot quicker than in the last session.
Week Three
This week was actually two after Week Two because they had their finals the week in between. Two decided to show up (the most talkative two).
My teaching partner, at their request, told them how he served in the Singaporean Army (as there is conscription of young men there) in order to defend themselves against possible attack from Malaysia. Though Singapore officially operates in four languages, the one and only in the army was Malay. His position was the army police, to suss out all the contraband and maintain internal order.
We went over another newspaper article. This was was about tonsils and tonsil stones (which accumulate in your tonsils and pop out when they get too big after a bit of prodding). Big words such as tonsilitis were skipped understandably, and at the end of the article they admitted that big chunks of the article didn't make sense. We verbally summarized the article for them.
Though I told them in the first place that I'm American, they learned that little fact again. I answered questions about the United States, pointing out where I'm from on a big bad chalkboard drawing, drawing New York state onto the map, and explaining that the smallest state Rhode Island is not an island at all.
Week Four
The last session was earlier today today. The same two students as last week were the only ones to show up, and they were really excited to get shown HKU by us.
So we walked them there. As with any good tour of HKU, you start at Main Building. It's the oldest and most historic (and prettiest) building on campus. The main room in Main Building, Lok Yew Hall, is where the university hosts all its A-list events and ceremonies (except for graduation, which is being held this year at Asia-World Expo on Hong Kong Airport Island).
We continued around campus and showed them the library (but entering requires a HKU ID card, so we looked in from the outside), as well as a few canteens and some unique buildings. After we got through in just forty minutes, I was reminded how small campus is.
We walked them back to the bus stop and they went home.
Closing Ceremony
I won't be able to attend the ending ceremony for the program. It is to be held next Wednesday at Lok Yew Hall. I told them that I was probably going to go until I realized that I have class during then. All in all, though it was not exactly what I expected, I'm glad that I participated because it was a good experience.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Escape to Peace and Quiet
Though I’ve been in places and cities with many more people concentrated in areas much smaller, Hong Kong seems dense enough for me to miss the relative lack of people back home—in Thousand Oaks or on campus in La Jolla.
There’s always constant noise just going on. I don’t know if this means that the city is just getting to me or if I just need a break and more time to adjust, honestly. I don’t even live in the center of the city, but out my window, I see all the cargo ships coming in and out, frequently honking their horns at each other.
In the depths of the night, local students yell across the halls to each other in Cantonese about stuff they couldn’t possibility save until the morning—an occurrence whose impact I’ve mitigated through the use of earplugs. They also go talking in class as the professor tries to lecture, which has prompted me to sit closer to the front but to no avail.
I don’t know what it is about here that makes it so loud, but I’m ready to get back to a place where the whisper is valued and everyone was taught indoor voices versus outdoor voices at a critical age.
Though I still very much enjoy living here, the noise and constant commotion has gotten to the point where the rush for food at lunch annoys me. Despite the fact that there are a handful of seats in the canteen at such times, the crowds themselves and the fact that everyone has to talk louder just to be heard over everyone else make me order my food to go.
It’s all very trivial, I know, but it’s been bugging me.
So to escape (partially) from the crowds, which on a small campus are nearly everywhere, I’ve found solace in a couple of places. In front of Main Building there is hardly a soul. Sometimes I’d see a faculty member and more often I would see a janitor keeping up the grounds by sweeping leaves.
The other is the courtyard in front of the Journalism building (I believe it’s officially named May Hall). In the morning there, I’ve seen people practicing taichi, but during lunch hour, there is hardly anyone occupying the many benches and several tables. Instead of the often crowded and more often noisy Global Lounge, I sit out in that courtyard to work and study and write blog posts as my battery permits.
And so I escape in part—escape from noise and commotion; escape from those oppressing crowds as I ready myself for chit-chatty lectures and yelling in the halls.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
There’s always constant noise just going on. I don’t know if this means that the city is just getting to me or if I just need a break and more time to adjust, honestly. I don’t even live in the center of the city, but out my window, I see all the cargo ships coming in and out, frequently honking their horns at each other.
In the depths of the night, local students yell across the halls to each other in Cantonese about stuff they couldn’t possibility save until the morning—an occurrence whose impact I’ve mitigated through the use of earplugs. They also go talking in class as the professor tries to lecture, which has prompted me to sit closer to the front but to no avail.
I don’t know what it is about here that makes it so loud, but I’m ready to get back to a place where the whisper is valued and everyone was taught indoor voices versus outdoor voices at a critical age.
Though I still very much enjoy living here, the noise and constant commotion has gotten to the point where the rush for food at lunch annoys me. Despite the fact that there are a handful of seats in the canteen at such times, the crowds themselves and the fact that everyone has to talk louder just to be heard over everyone else make me order my food to go.
It’s all very trivial, I know, but it’s been bugging me.
So to escape (partially) from the crowds, which on a small campus are nearly everywhere, I’ve found solace in a couple of places. In front of Main Building there is hardly a soul. Sometimes I’d see a faculty member and more often I would see a janitor keeping up the grounds by sweeping leaves.
The other is the courtyard in front of the Journalism building (I believe it’s officially named May Hall). In the morning there, I’ve seen people practicing taichi, but during lunch hour, there is hardly anyone occupying the many benches and several tables. Instead of the often crowded and more often noisy Global Lounge, I sit out in that courtyard to work and study and write blog posts as my battery permits.
And so I escape in part—escape from noise and commotion; escape from those oppressing crowds as I ready myself for chit-chatty lectures and yelling in the halls.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
As Stubborn as
A couple weeks ago now (sorry for the delay), I went to the second high-table dinner for Lee Hysan Hall. I didn’t really talk about the first one in a published post because, well, I didn’t have very savory opinion of it. But as a (re)cap, high-table dinners are when the entire hall (of a few hundred students) gather at Bay View Canteen downstairs (which is mediocre at best), dressed in suits and classy dresses, for what is supposed to be a classy occasion. And so sum up my thoughts on the first one—it’s not.
I figured that, okay, it wouldn’t be bad to go to the second one. They are only once a month, and with only three total, maybe it would be better to just attend and get it over with, because, you never know, right? There might be something you might miss and end up regretting not going. I’ve since this second high-table dinner retracted these feelings in their entirety.
It’s not like we’ve got much choice in attending though. Those students with legitimate reasons for being absent may report it to the building warden (who’s a teaching professor) and be excused. Those who miss without approval to do so must write a letter in an attempt to excuse themselves for their absence. Those who are chronically absent from these high-table dinners risk getting expulsion from the hall.
Some of my friends got excused ahead of time; some just skipped. I don’t think they wrote a letter of apology to anyone though, nor do I believe they were asked to, because as exchange students, we are definitely given a lot of leeway in mistakes and such. I’m guessing that if they miss the next one in the same fashion though, they may be asked to write a letter.
The routine of the event itself was the same as last time. Meet at a certain time (6:00 p.m.) at the common room but don't quite assemble until way later (6:51), at which point the elevators (two clunkers for the sixteen-story building) are completely full and you don’t get down there until 7:25 p.m., just in time to sit down for the dinner to begin at 7:30 p.m. (though neither time did it start until after 7:45).
So this time, the couple people I knew on the floor and I headed down independently of the floor. Each floor was assigned a few round tables, and each round table had specific students assigned to it. Wanting to sit with some of my friends, I ignored the table assignments with the full intention of moving if someone asked me to.
No one asked me to. This time around, actually, the table that I sat at was quite empty. This, I found out, was because much like myself, the local students all wanted to sit with (all) of each other at a few tables. They kicked out other students who weren’t their friends from their tables to make room. As such, the table I sat at became the table of rejected exchange students. This group included, among others, one floormate who relayed me her relations with the locals—and though her relationship with them didn’t get her a seat at the “friends” table, I still admire how she was able to reach out to them in a way that I failed.
I guess I should start by describing my relationship with them again. I know that I constantly keep referring to them as a group, but please know that I understand that they are individuals and that a few I’m quite friendly with.
I moved in my first day and I went up and down the halls to try to help me figure out the electrical sockets. The solution came in as simply as I’m not used to have power-cut switches out the outlets themselves (though now I think that it’s a very smart idea), but to help me come to this, I found a local in the common room who identified himself as Jason. He was friendly and helpful, and though we live on the same (male) side of the same floor, I’ve only seen him a handful of times since.
Also in the first week, I met a guy named 99 as in “nine-nine,” though if I had read his name out loud before proper introductions, I would have pronounced it as “ninety-nine.” He was really nice as well, but I’ve only seen him a few times as well. My neighbors towards the bathroom I say “hi” to every once in a while. It never goes far beyond that because whereas I tried many times to start conversation with them, they’ve never bothered to contribute anything to their conversations with me.
I’ve never been to a floor meeting, the first because I was sick, the second because I was out of town, and the third because I didn’t know. From what I’ve heard though, they’re conducted in Cantonese (though everyone should be able to competently speak English as HKU is an English-language university). So instead of switching to English when someone who doesn’t speak Cantonese attends the meeting, they instead have one student translate for them.
The last one, my exchange floormate was told that the meeting was being adjourned, but after he left, they started talking more about specific hall activities that they didn’t offer to him, just because they assumed his disinterest due to his lack of participation in the previous floor and hall events.
I understand that a big part of my not befriending them has to do something with a language barrier. I don’t speak good Cantonese and many of them are not comfortable in speaking English. The bigger obstruction though is that they treat relationships differently here. In the act of saving face, the way they go about it is to prefer not to make contact with those who they don’t know, and only after do they know someone do they open up. I wasn’t about to deal with that.
This floormate exchange student, though, did. She told me how she wanted to be involved in hall activities. She would knock on the local’s doors and get cold responses time and time again, until one day she flat out asked them why they exclude her.
Since then, they’ve invited her to all the activities. She and the locals socialize outside of the hall events as well. They get along with her so well, that the last time I talked to her, they were pondering over what Chinese name they should bestow upon her.
I admire what she’s done. Maybe I’m too stubborn to do what she did; maybe I just didn’t care to make friends with people who didn’t overtly care to make friends with me. In some ways I’ve failed, and in some ways I perceive it’s not my fault.
Back at UCSD, Eleanor Roosevelt College is the undergraduate residential college with the international focus. As such, International House, where many of the exchange students stay, is on our campus. I participate in their activities as I am encouraged to. I try dearly to make friends with them, and show them the America that I know and love—the California that I know and love.
Maybe what I expected was unreasonable. Maybe how it works here is just different. As much as I’ve gotten used to Hong Kong and made this where I feel at home overseas, this one aspect of friendship is just something I’m not sure I would ever get used to.
It’s okay though. I don’t need a Chinese name—I’ve already got one of those.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
I figured that, okay, it wouldn’t be bad to go to the second one. They are only once a month, and with only three total, maybe it would be better to just attend and get it over with, because, you never know, right? There might be something you might miss and end up regretting not going. I’ve since this second high-table dinner retracted these feelings in their entirety.
It’s not like we’ve got much choice in attending though. Those students with legitimate reasons for being absent may report it to the building warden (who’s a teaching professor) and be excused. Those who miss without approval to do so must write a letter in an attempt to excuse themselves for their absence. Those who are chronically absent from these high-table dinners risk getting expulsion from the hall.
Some of my friends got excused ahead of time; some just skipped. I don’t think they wrote a letter of apology to anyone though, nor do I believe they were asked to, because as exchange students, we are definitely given a lot of leeway in mistakes and such. I’m guessing that if they miss the next one in the same fashion though, they may be asked to write a letter.
The routine of the event itself was the same as last time. Meet at a certain time (6:00 p.m.) at the common room but don't quite assemble until way later (6:51), at which point the elevators (two clunkers for the sixteen-story building) are completely full and you don’t get down there until 7:25 p.m., just in time to sit down for the dinner to begin at 7:30 p.m. (though neither time did it start until after 7:45).
So this time, the couple people I knew on the floor and I headed down independently of the floor. Each floor was assigned a few round tables, and each round table had specific students assigned to it. Wanting to sit with some of my friends, I ignored the table assignments with the full intention of moving if someone asked me to.
No one asked me to. This time around, actually, the table that I sat at was quite empty. This, I found out, was because much like myself, the local students all wanted to sit with (all) of each other at a few tables. They kicked out other students who weren’t their friends from their tables to make room. As such, the table I sat at became the table of rejected exchange students. This group included, among others, one floormate who relayed me her relations with the locals—and though her relationship with them didn’t get her a seat at the “friends” table, I still admire how she was able to reach out to them in a way that I failed.
I guess I should start by describing my relationship with them again. I know that I constantly keep referring to them as a group, but please know that I understand that they are individuals and that a few I’m quite friendly with.
I moved in my first day and I went up and down the halls to try to help me figure out the electrical sockets. The solution came in as simply as I’m not used to have power-cut switches out the outlets themselves (though now I think that it’s a very smart idea), but to help me come to this, I found a local in the common room who identified himself as Jason. He was friendly and helpful, and though we live on the same (male) side of the same floor, I’ve only seen him a handful of times since.
Also in the first week, I met a guy named 99 as in “nine-nine,” though if I had read his name out loud before proper introductions, I would have pronounced it as “ninety-nine.” He was really nice as well, but I’ve only seen him a few times as well. My neighbors towards the bathroom I say “hi” to every once in a while. It never goes far beyond that because whereas I tried many times to start conversation with them, they’ve never bothered to contribute anything to their conversations with me.
I’ve never been to a floor meeting, the first because I was sick, the second because I was out of town, and the third because I didn’t know. From what I’ve heard though, they’re conducted in Cantonese (though everyone should be able to competently speak English as HKU is an English-language university). So instead of switching to English when someone who doesn’t speak Cantonese attends the meeting, they instead have one student translate for them.
The last one, my exchange floormate was told that the meeting was being adjourned, but after he left, they started talking more about specific hall activities that they didn’t offer to him, just because they assumed his disinterest due to his lack of participation in the previous floor and hall events.
I understand that a big part of my not befriending them has to do something with a language barrier. I don’t speak good Cantonese and many of them are not comfortable in speaking English. The bigger obstruction though is that they treat relationships differently here. In the act of saving face, the way they go about it is to prefer not to make contact with those who they don’t know, and only after do they know someone do they open up. I wasn’t about to deal with that.
This floormate exchange student, though, did. She told me how she wanted to be involved in hall activities. She would knock on the local’s doors and get cold responses time and time again, until one day she flat out asked them why they exclude her.
Since then, they’ve invited her to all the activities. She and the locals socialize outside of the hall events as well. They get along with her so well, that the last time I talked to her, they were pondering over what Chinese name they should bestow upon her.
I admire what she’s done. Maybe I’m too stubborn to do what she did; maybe I just didn’t care to make friends with people who didn’t overtly care to make friends with me. In some ways I’ve failed, and in some ways I perceive it’s not my fault.
Back at UCSD, Eleanor Roosevelt College is the undergraduate residential college with the international focus. As such, International House, where many of the exchange students stay, is on our campus. I participate in their activities as I am encouraged to. I try dearly to make friends with them, and show them the America that I know and love—the California that I know and love.
Maybe what I expected was unreasonable. Maybe how it works here is just different. As much as I’ve gotten used to Hong Kong and made this where I feel at home overseas, this one aspect of friendship is just something I’m not sure I would ever get used to.
It’s okay though. I don’t need a Chinese name—I’ve already got one of those.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Phonetics
I figure that I’m probably the first student in the UC system to take Phonetics here at the University of Hong Kong. Whereas the other classes I’m taking (with the exception of Humanity in Globalization which is a new class) were all listed on the EAP catalog of classes for HKU, Phonetics wasn’t. The database is a guide and unofficial, because it gathers data based on classes former students have taken, and now, Phonetics is listed with the other HKU classes.
In the class of probably seventy-something (though half that many show up with any regular frequency), I am but a handful of students. The professor, a white American, speaks Cantonese and Mandarin in addition to English, and the tutor/TA at the beginning of the quarter would make all announcements in Cantonese, which I would then have her repeat in Cantonese.
Other than the obvious reasons for taking Phonetics here rather than back home, namely that I’m here and I need to take Phonetics as a required class for my major in Linguistics, I enrolled in this class because whereas back home the class is all about English, probably only American English, this class here focuses on American and British English as well as Cantonese and to a lesser extent Mandarin.
This fact is ultimately why I chose to take this class here and not here, and for the most part I feel like—1. It’s given me some insight into the one language that through my childhood had given me the worst time learning; 2. It’s helping me learn Cantonese more accurately and more efficiently now.
There’s one problem for me though—most of my classmates are native Cantonese speakers. Whereas back home most of my classmates would be native English speakers, with my classmates being mostly native English speakers, and with the class being in English, here, everything’s the opposite except that the class is taught in English as set by school policy. Whereas back home we analyze our English intuition and transcribe the way we ourselves speak, here we’ve analyzed British and American English, lightly touching on Australian and New Zealand English a bit, and then analyze our (or their) Cantonese intuition and learn how to transcribe that.
This has manifested in a couple of ways. First off, when I voiced my opinion about American English intuition, it was replied to by saying that I don’t speak standard American English—which I would admit to, but then again no one truly speaks a standard form of a language. On the other hand, the Cantonese speakers in the class when they voice an opinion on Cantonese intuition, it gets replied to in the way that I felt like I should have been replied to. “Well, that’s how you speak and linguists aren’t here to correct your language, but observe it,” or something along those line.
I guess it’s fair, and I’d never complain to the professor or the tutor about it. I have to learn about Cantonese sound systems without the aid of intuition and they have to learn about English sound systems without the aid of intuition.
What might not be so fair is that I don’t know too many colloquial Cantonese characters. See, he the last homework assignment he gave us two big assignments, neither of which I could do without the help of a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong. If I understand correctly, Hong Kong Cantonese writers use a lot of colloquial characters to write down what cannot be directly written down in Mandarin in informal contexts but write in standard Chinese in formal contexts. In addition, some words in Hong Kong Cantonese are so new that there are no characters for that syllable, so they write out the sounds in English letters.
The assignment was in two sections: the first gave Chinese characters (many of which colloquial Cantonese ones), of which you were to transcribe the sounds into the International Phonetic Alphabet (which was designed to be able to use to write down all human languages); the second was to take IPA transcriptions devoid of tone which we had to write the Chinese characters for. I don’t mind asking for help on assignments if people don’t mind helping me—and they don’t so I don’t mind. But, after all my help, I only completed about three quarters of the assignment. Don’t worry, though—he went over all the answers before we had to turn it in.
Later he said that there will be similarly structured questions on the final examination (styled quiz). The professor knows though that I, along with a few other students, can’t easily do that without sufficient aide, and with this being an English-medium class, I’m confident that he’ll do his best to accommodate me.
Now that Monday’s over, I only have two weeks of instruction left. Next week I’ve got two finals ace, for which I’m bringing study materials this weekend to Thailand. Au revoir!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
In the class of probably seventy-something (though half that many show up with any regular frequency), I am but a handful of students. The professor, a white American, speaks Cantonese and Mandarin in addition to English, and the tutor/TA at the beginning of the quarter would make all announcements in Cantonese, which I would then have her repeat in Cantonese.
Other than the obvious reasons for taking Phonetics here rather than back home, namely that I’m here and I need to take Phonetics as a required class for my major in Linguistics, I enrolled in this class because whereas back home the class is all about English, probably only American English, this class here focuses on American and British English as well as Cantonese and to a lesser extent Mandarin.
This fact is ultimately why I chose to take this class here and not here, and for the most part I feel like—1. It’s given me some insight into the one language that through my childhood had given me the worst time learning; 2. It’s helping me learn Cantonese more accurately and more efficiently now.
There’s one problem for me though—most of my classmates are native Cantonese speakers. Whereas back home most of my classmates would be native English speakers, with my classmates being mostly native English speakers, and with the class being in English, here, everything’s the opposite except that the class is taught in English as set by school policy. Whereas back home we analyze our English intuition and transcribe the way we ourselves speak, here we’ve analyzed British and American English, lightly touching on Australian and New Zealand English a bit, and then analyze our (or their) Cantonese intuition and learn how to transcribe that.
This has manifested in a couple of ways. First off, when I voiced my opinion about American English intuition, it was replied to by saying that I don’t speak standard American English—which I would admit to, but then again no one truly speaks a standard form of a language. On the other hand, the Cantonese speakers in the class when they voice an opinion on Cantonese intuition, it gets replied to in the way that I felt like I should have been replied to. “Well, that’s how you speak and linguists aren’t here to correct your language, but observe it,” or something along those line.
I guess it’s fair, and I’d never complain to the professor or the tutor about it. I have to learn about Cantonese sound systems without the aid of intuition and they have to learn about English sound systems without the aid of intuition.
What might not be so fair is that I don’t know too many colloquial Cantonese characters. See, he the last homework assignment he gave us two big assignments, neither of which I could do without the help of a native Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong. If I understand correctly, Hong Kong Cantonese writers use a lot of colloquial characters to write down what cannot be directly written down in Mandarin in informal contexts but write in standard Chinese in formal contexts. In addition, some words in Hong Kong Cantonese are so new that there are no characters for that syllable, so they write out the sounds in English letters.
The assignment was in two sections: the first gave Chinese characters (many of which colloquial Cantonese ones), of which you were to transcribe the sounds into the International Phonetic Alphabet (which was designed to be able to use to write down all human languages); the second was to take IPA transcriptions devoid of tone which we had to write the Chinese characters for. I don’t mind asking for help on assignments if people don’t mind helping me—and they don’t so I don’t mind. But, after all my help, I only completed about three quarters of the assignment. Don’t worry, though—he went over all the answers before we had to turn it in.
Later he said that there will be similarly structured questions on the final examination (styled quiz). The professor knows though that I, along with a few other students, can’t easily do that without sufficient aide, and with this being an English-medium class, I’m confident that he’ll do his best to accommodate me.
Now that Monday’s over, I only have two weeks of instruction left. Next week I’ve got two finals ace, for which I’m bringing study materials this weekend to Thailand. Au revoir!
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.
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
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.
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