If you were like the many who thought that I was done, you’re wrong. I need to conclude the gargantuan endeavor that is this blog with one final post. I’ve been back in the United States for about a week and a half now, and I’ve begun packing and preparing for my return to the University of California, San Diego. Workload permitting, I’ll edit over this whole blog so it flows like a novel, consolidating posts where necessary and refitting everything so it works, more than partially so that I can relive the experience that I am so missing, and know that I will continue to be nostalgic of for the foreseeable future.
And if because of the reverse-chronological format of blogs you arrive at this post first, I encourage you to start at the beginning four months back. Though I’m biased, I think it’s worth it.
Des Amis, Des Ennemis
I have this nasty habit of getting sick in some way or another before entering a new environment. So before heading off to Hong Kong, I happened to be going through the usual. It kept me going to the bathroom in short and my head was persistently and consistently hot. Thinking there was the possibility of getting quarantined, I can’t say I filled out the health declaration form truthfully, and I self-medicated to get me through the lines should they take my temperature.
Showing how much I knew, since Hong Kong just gave sick people respiratory masks and advisory literature but nothing more, I entered the cab on the way over marveling at the sheer number of bridges on surface roads that there were and the lights of Central, only to be nearly shocked at the superficial condition of buildings outside of the tourist drag.
I was sick and I get sick in such situations because of my nervousness and I know it. I didn’t know who my roommate would be, how cliquish the locals would be, how accepting my fellow exchange students would be of the contrast between my national origins and my ethnic roots. All I could tell myself was that it would all work out and that whatever happens happens.
And as I’m blessed time and time again, through privilege and circumstance, everything worked out better than I could have ever assumed. Out of my perceived adversity, though profoundly false, I guess I could say that I became a stronger person in my first learning experience of my four-month exploration.
I guess I’m a naturally shy and soft-spoken individual. Though I do enjoy the company of others on a regular basis, I also enjoy my own company alone, reading a book, writing (this blog), and much less often watching television. For some reason I had a hunch that I would be the second case more often than not. That’s not to say that I can’t have fun, because in new situations I turn up social butterfly mode and go with it until I have at least a few good friends.
And more than a few good friends I got. They weren’t exactly the friends I was hoping for, being that I wanted to immerse myself in Hong Kong and its locals, but in some ways making friends with other international students gave me a better world view, especially an Anglophone world view, rather than just a Hong Kong- or Chinese-centered one.
Of my friends, of course some were better than others; for a few we parted ways over personality, never ideology. So I guess I’ll go bad news first.
My luck with roommates varies a lot over time. I know he doesn’t read this blog, so in this conclusion, I have few qualms about describing our dealings, especially keeping him in anonymity (at least from those who don’t know him).
He happened to have come from Illinois, the same state where I can say my parents are from (having been educated there, met there, married there, and lived there for a long time). That’s not to say that he’s like my parents though, because he turned out not to be in so many ways.
In being cordial we were good friends for the first month and a half. Though it sounds corny, this was what I like to call the honeymoon period—that being before people fully get to know each other and personalities fully materialize. Things that were so minor to me during the honeymoon period, such as his perceived need to get a girlfriend right then and there in the first two weeks, and his staying up way late to play video games only to complain of exhaustion and boredom during the day began to really annoy me.
In addition, his preconceptions of me came out one by one, one by one revealing themselves to be more specifically misconceptions. For one, he kept insisting that both my parents are from China, to which I had to remind him that my father’s from Detroit and my mother is originally from Hong Kong and immigrated mid-childhood. It followed that during a discussion about learning languages he believed that I speak Mandarin natively, as taught to me by my parents. I had to remind him that my father is a natural-born American and that my mother is from Hong Kong (where they overwhelmingly speak Cantonese over both Mandarin and English), to which I told him he should be able to speak standard German, since he claimed Austrian roots.
And I’m no saint, but on the other hand many of my hunches about him turned out to be true. For one, he whined a lot about not having enough money, though he blew it like no other, spending plenty on drinking and partying. And when he found out that I don’t get financial aid from the government, he assumed that I’m from a rich family, thereafter pointing to expensive sportscars and telling me to buy them for him. The cherry on top was the rigid attitude that he had to all things world. He described his disdain for Islam Week at HKU and described the locals in terms he should have thought twice about before saying to me and my Asian self. In his intelligence, he managed to tell his mom about me in not-so-excellent terms with me in the room. He assumed since I had my earphones in that I wasn’t listening when in reality he should have saved it for later, when I wasn’t present.
It all culminated towards the end of reading week, when after landing at the airport from our group trip to Beijing, he said that had to get off the plane to go meet his friends, with the implication that we were not his friends as denoted by his overly forward tone.
That friend turned out to be a “girlfriend” located an hour’s ferry away in Macau who he probably met on the Internet. In earlier weeks, he would browse the personals section of Craigslist in his boredom, telling me about them while I was trying to study. I ended up disappearing to the library more often than not to study or at least get away from him and he ended up disconnecting from the group and disappearing to Macau nearly every weekend to go see her. That’s not to say I assumed their relationship was one of convenience, because I know how he described her to some of my other friends.
And on the upswing, throughout the whole semester, his opposition to picking up a few words of Cantonese became quite irksome. Yeah, others were like that too, since it’s plenty evident that it’s not hard to get by in Hong Kong on English alone, but with him, it fit his personality in such a way that could only be described in American English-only campaigns by many of the uneducated too lazy to press number “1” or “2” on their phones when prompted.
This isn’t to say that we weren’t friendly though, being that we had to be as we were roommates and all. We parted ways on the appropriate note. He packed away all the People’s Liberation Army “Commie” hats at Mao Zedong quote books for his friends and had be chuckle at the appropriate time. I told him he gets cheap thrills from that stuff. He said it was for his friends. I modified my statement to say that he and his friends get cheap thrills from that stuff. He also was trying to figure out how to pack away a rolled poster for his right-wing father that featured Obama morphed into Mao. He thought I was laughing with him at the witty piece of art. I was laughing at him since he couldn’t get it into his backs without crushing it, putting about thirty folds in it. And as much as I can disagree or even hate someone, defiling someone’s image simply isn’t constructive and if you have to lead with your emotions than you aren’t going to get anywhere (or haven’t gotten anywhere).
And in another falling out, this friend happens to read my blog instead of updating his own (October, November, and December all went down without a single word). This is the friend who I described as not understanding face (in the universal sense) and social relationships that I used as an example in my Traditional Chinese society class.
All of a few hours after my post went on screen he called me during class. I hung up on him since I was in class, so he texted me describing how sorry he was and how he wanted to start anew. I forgot about it by the end of the day, so he ended up sending me a message on Facebook telling me that I defamed him to the point where I should remove and retract my statements. I told him that he was in the wrong, and since it would be sufficiently difficult to figure out that it was him (though the lack of a name and a face), and because I presented my writing as my opinion and not as undisputable fact that in no way could my statements be construed as libel (which he incorrectly termed slander). In addition, he had no career of which to speak to ruin, no would anyone care about what I say about him. I told him that those people who figure out that I was talking about him already have opinions formed of him, and that my little post wouldn’t shift things one way or the other.
With nothing good to say to him and knowing that he had nothing good to say to me, we avoided each other until the last few days. We were cordial and did not mention the disagreement we had.
Later, I was told that he doesn’t like me. I replied to her that I don’t really care. What happened happened and it had gotten to the point where I practically brushed it off my shoulder.
And for the good news, most of the people that I met were genuine and open-minded. I found myself discussing contemporary issues with them and debating the past (often over coffee). I found good travel buddies after thinking for the first few weeks that I should probably find some tours to take me travelling.
Though it seems that I sold them short in this conclusion, I described much of what we all went through in nearly all of my previous posts, from travels to classes and simple cultural differences.
Seeing all of them go was in itself the end of this Study Abroad chapter in my life, since they were more than there for all of it—they were an integral part of it. I plan to stay in contact of course, and who knows?—maybe we’ll have a Hong Kong reunion in a decade’s time.
Lectures and Tutorials
It may just be because I belong to this system, but I can’t describe fully how much I appreciate the liberal arts education. Something also must be said about learning in the common language rather than the elite language.
But first things first: liberal arts as a type and theory in methods of education has a different meaning to the general public and American university students than in the international higher education community, especially along the Anglophone front. Here, we like to think as liberal arts as primarily and often exclusively referring to those institutions of higher learning termed liberal arts colleges. Names aside, this distinction is made primarily to distinguish them from research universities—the difference having less to do with what is liberal arts and more with how big the student population is, how many students there are per class, and what the professors do during their free time.
Liberal arts colleges aim to boast more intimate student experiences, with students being able to learn better through a more Socratic classroom environment with the format more along the lines of a pseudo-discussion rather than a rote lecture in which only the (doctored) professor talks.
On the other hand there are the research universities, where professors teach large lectures with much of the grading being left to teaching assistants, often graduate students, allowing them to research with the time leftover (though often research comes before teaching). In this sense, students have to work at getting to know their professors, most notably by taking advantage of office hours. Misconceptions about research universities stem from that basis—that because lecture halls regularly encompass three hundred students, they cannot be nearly as effective as liberal arts colleges.
In my opinion, people should choose what works better for them rather than just thinking that liberal arts colleges are just better or worse. I know two things: that both formats work well for me, with me myself preferring the anonymity that a large lecture hall can afford me, and also that out of the fourteen or so classes that I have taken thus far at UCSD, most have had less than seventy students, with my smallest class having around ten. I believe that the value of what you get out of anything is what you put in, meaning that it’s irrelevant which format, whether it be large lectures or small discussions, you choose, insofar as you take full advantage of the resources at hand.
But American public definitions aside, what is really meant by attaining a liberal arts education is not the methods in which you met you ends, but rather what you get out of it. As I understand it, without consulting any literature on the matter, the liberal arts education is one of breadth, notwithstanding continuing depth, meaning that you should come out of college understanding not only your subject, but also other subjects—not necessarily all of them, but of those that you do, at least their basis or even some finer points, or in other words, well-roundedness. The theory behind this is that by getting a good depth of feel for more of what our universe of knowledge is about, you can produce more profound critical thought on your own discipline, seeing material in a more comprehensive manner if you will.
In this sense, American universities and colleges are all based in liberal arts, since all have general education requirements of sorts to gain breadth {as well as to keep accreditation). You can contrast this with vocational schools, which, being more skill-based, teach you what you need to know for your future job with much less emphasis on critical thought.
In other countries, higher education is often somewhere in between liberal arts institutions and vocational schools. In Hong Kong for example, general education is advertised by the university as something for personal enjoyment rather than as a requirement. So in this sense, breadth is more an optional asset rather than a requirement for graduation.
Of course, there are pros and cons. Using the simple comparison between the American education system and that of Hong Kong, graduates from American universities and colleges come out as highly skilled in terms of critical thought, or more pragmatically put—problem solving. Graduates from Hong Kong universities will come out with more specific knowledge on the specific fields that they’ve trained for.
So automatically, one would compare the two and ask which one is better. On top of the fact that I just got back from Hong Kong, I compare the two because of their similar economies. Hong Kong’s is based on the service sector, largely in finance, with much industrial manufacturing having gone to nearby Guangdong Province in Mainland China. That of the United States is going in that direction, with (industrial) jobs going overseas because of cheaper labor in places like China. As such, Americans are finding it more and more necessary to upgrade their educations with children now being expected to go to college or likely end up in a dead-end job.
So which system of higher education is better? Though I’ve tried to fully express my viewpoint in earlier posts and very simply stated my ardent appreciation of the system I happen to be in, I’m not going to delve into that again here, because then I’ll end up going into dollars and cents, and past subsistence (including security), I’ve never felt like happiness or the meaning of life were embedded in numbers of any sort.
The second point of contention that I intend to mention is the language of instruction. Hong Kong, having been a British Crown Colony for the vast majority of its successful history, tends to over-idealize and overestimate its colonial heritage. As such, much emphasis is placed on English-language education, with the appropriate policies being in place and in action in the territory’s major universities, of course including the one that I attended on exchange.
Before coming to Hong Kong, I read in the pamphlet that the school sent me to help me find my way upon arrival that though classes are all in English, the local students speak to each other in Cantonese. I took a double take at the sentence, knowing that there is generally the tendency to prefer speaking in the language with which one is most comfortable in. It was in a sense of what was to come, because the pamphlet was correct as expected.
While I fully believe in language rights, certain things about Hong Kong local students weren’t quite clicking as I was hoping. The pamphlet itself used funny English. It had funny constructions, odd prepositions, and “the” before nearly every noun, whether it needed it or not. I assumed that the way the pamphlet was written simply reflected the variety of English used in Hong Kong. I don’t think this was an unreasonable assumption at all. It is well known that especially since English has such large geographic spread, there are bound to be vast differences in various technical usages of certain words and even different grammatical features. For example, a British English speaker would say, “at weekends,” whereas an American English speaker would say, “on weekends.”
As I would find out, it’s hard to classify Hong Kong English as a true variety of English. This is because the differences in word usage between Hong Kong English and American English were anything but consistent (and hence not predictable and not easy to internalize). When Hong Kong English speakers would say something, it seemed often that any preposition could go in conjunction with any verb, and because of that, it took a great deal of effort during my entire stay there (meaning it didn’t get any easier) to understand what people were saying.
Their lack of English skills was in large created by the fact that they don't speak English with each other, and based on what I have heard and witnessed, that they seem to subconsciously view English as a hindrance to their educations despite its advantage in their futures. The reason I say that is because during a floor meeting at Lee Hysan Hall, the students conducted all their business in Cantonese despite the presence of non-Cantonese speakers. This meant that instead of everyone switching to English (which they are all expected to be able to speak), they had one member translate for those who could not understand. It seems as though if they had more practice, they would either get their prepositions correct or at least consistent.
I say this to mean that everyone should speak English properly, like many Americans would have it be, just that in a school that boasts English as its language of instruction, it might be good as a student to get to speaking well a consistent variety of the language if not an already existing standard.
This isn’t to say that everyone was a bad English speaker, for I’m sure there are. What I mean is that overall, the local student population needed dearly to refine their English-language abilities.
What this meant for my classes was that in my opinion they were largely diluted. Ask me what I learned in class and I’ll tell you I’d rather talk about my travels. Professors had to speak slowly so that students understand. This meant that in the fourteen-week semester (my quarters at UCSD are ten weeks), I feel I learned less than back in California during a significantly shorter term.
La Gran Obra de Arte
I know I’m not the first in using my passport as a something of a symbol of my travels, but I’m going to do it anyways. Doing so is popular because such a representation is apt. After all, that little booklet accompanied me all along the way.
The original sections of that little booklet were completely full by the end. If you recall, by mid-November, it readily became clear that my passport book was filling up with stamps. Since Hong Kong and Mainland China have separate immigration schemes, the fact that I did a lot of frequent traveling to the mainland meant that most of those stamps were red rectangles and ovals. Under advice online from the Department of State, I ventured over to the consulate-general to have more pages added to lessen the likelihood of being turned away when going through immigration. Unfortunately, none of those pages were actually used since no one wanted to be the first to stamp on those pages, being that they are a different color from the rest of the booklet. Instead, they took the liberty of being economical and went backwards the booklet, stamping wherever they could find a corner here and there.
Most know of the pride I take in my passport, and the fact that I will have to get a new one soon means that this one, once invalidated, will likely find its way into a bank vault somewhere (though probably not). I may be one of the few who do this, but I like to exhibit my passport when people ask about my travels. The fact of the matter is half of them are asking to be polite more than out of interest, so handing over my passport to them for the first time gives them something physical to match with the various stories wandering around my brain. I know that I’m not the best storyteller in speech, and I don’t deny that there is always room for improvement in my writing.
Before going to Hong Kong, I had been to China for the first time in my life on a two-week tour of some of the major sights. Prior to that trip, my international travels consisted of one road trip to Canada from Ohio with my aunt and uncle in Dayton. Back then you didn’t need passports to re-enter the United States through that border—just American birth certificates or American naturalization certificates plus identification. Even now with passport control, the United States doesn’t stamp Canadians (I’m pretty sure) and Canada doesn’t stamp Americans (I’m certain).
I went through Canada again at the end of an Alaskan cruise, having been routed through Vancouver. But the bottom line is that I got my passport first for my trip to China. I used it again for going to the Schengen Area when my family and I toured Paris and much of Italy. This means that in the first three years of having my passport, the first two pages were used: one with my Chinese visa and one with immigration stamps.
Applying for my Hong Kong student visa through the university and receiving my new full-page sticker made me pretty happy despite the fact that it was one of the ugliest pieces of paper ever designed. It made me realize both the definite fact that I was going to be going on a long trip and that that trip was happening soon.
And as visas go, I had to get one more to enter Mainland China, for which I applied and received in Hong Kong. The process reaffirmed my nationality in the fact that my visa cost over $1000 HKD when most other people in line paid less than $300 for exactly the same piece of paper.
And on my multiple-entry visa, I got most of my passport stamps. On exchange, I went to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, and Guilin, crossing the border between Hong Kong and Mainland China twelve more times. Other trips that I made were to Macau and Taipei. Outside of Greater China though, I only made one trip—to Phuket, Thailand. I genuinely intended to get to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, and Tokyo, had it not been for the increased costs in traveling alone, and I’m confident that had I stayed for the entire year, I would have gone to Vietnam and Cambodia as well.
I guess it’s difficult for me, especially as an American, to say that I'm not well traveled. Because although the farthest trip I made when I was under 10 was from northern Los Angeles to San Diego and my first plane trip happened the summer right before September 11, 2001, it’s hard for me to claim such a statement in the present. The fact of the matter is that not only have I gone to New York state and back through thirty states, but also my passport has become the great work of art that it now is.
With my internalization of the fiction that is nationality, I understand that talking about my passport in such a manner can be construed as a double-edged sword, but because it’s recorded the majority of my travels in such a succinct yet unique way, it serves me more as a momento and a souvenir rather than a document proving my citizenship.
Dollars, Yuan, Baht, and Those Unsung Heroes
In planning this conclusion, I initially intended to list out the costs of my study to Hong Kong. I’ve decided as of now though to stop short of this. I will say that after making my final summations the number is not small, or at least not nearly as small as I would have expected.
I consider my lifestyle comfortable, perhaps upper-middle class, but not lavish or particularly elitist. My travels were much of the expense. Encouraged my mother in words and parental financial assistance, I found myself going somewhere nearly every other weekend. In short, traveling outside of Hong Kong added up to about 40% of my total expenses.
However, my biggest single purchase came in the form of a digital single-lens reflex camera, which, being on sale, I splurged about 9% of my total expenses on. I got a Nikon D90, which sits at the top of the mid-range section, right under professional.
It cost me so much that in a very stable, rational matter I assure you I just about didn’t hand over my debit card to my salesperson. After the fact, I lamented for weeks about how much I paid for it, comparing it to how much money I would have spent on more trips and such, how much it costs to free a modern slave, how many times over I could have paid off my friend’s library late fees.
Since I did study abroad rather than just travel abroad, I should probably mention how much I paid for my education abroad. At just over 30% of my total expenses, tuition was about $4000 USD, paid to the Regents of the University of California. I actually don’t know how much it costs to go to the University of Hong Kong because since the University of California sends as many students to the University of Hong Kong as the University of Hong Kong sends the University of California (under the exchange program), students pay their home institutions. This means that the amount that I paid was about equivalent to how much as semester would have cost at Berkeley or UC Merced.
And herein I start my thanks. At the urging of my father, I applied for a $500 USD-scholarship at UCSD (with multiple recipients). This is one of the very few merit-based scholarships that don’t look at financial need. I happened to get this scholarship (for whom I have no idea who to thank) and it was automatically transferred to my EAP program in a miracle of the bureaucracy that feeds into UCSD Finance office.
For the longest time I had no clue where the $500 came from in my EAP financial accounting. I assumed it was a glitch in the system. When I had to pay a bill to UCSD though for a Programs Abroad Office administrative fee, I saw the two register lines devoted to this scholarship (receipt and subsequent transfer). So to whatever committee or person thereof that I got this scholarship from I owe my first thanks.
My second thanks goes off to the Programs Abroad Office here at UCSD, the staff of which (save one particular advisor for the Global Seminars Program) were all extremely nice and helpful. They, along with the system-wide Education Abroad Program office helped me and all the exchange students sift through all the paperwork involved. Especially regarding immigration-department paperwork for Hong Kong students, these two offices, along with the Center for Student Development and Resources (CEDAR) pushed all my paperwork through the bureaucracy of Hong Kong immigration.
If memory serves me right, I had to submit about ten forms through the offices. The two big forms were the application to the University of Hong Kong after my acceptance to the program which took me the better part of an hour to fill out in English and my student visa application that in all its thirty pages was divided into parts “A” through “K” with every letter in between.
Of course, my greatest thanks go to the financiers of this expedition and my support crew, both of whom happen to be my family. As cliché as it sounds, my family has always been there for me, if not emotionality at least in person, and without them it is clear that at my age, and especially because of my financial viability, that this trip would not have gone as far as it did. Without their assistance and their blessing, I would not have had the ability to jet around East Asia. I also acknowledge that while my parents pay for much of what I do so that they have a controlling interest in what I do, it is always for my own good if not for the good of the family.
And in this sense of family, there is one thing left of my heritage that I think is not only important but also incredibly moral. I vow never in my life to ever just send them off to a nursing home. The fact of the matter is that while I’m told I was an easy infant to take care of, the amount of good that my brother and I brought to their lives in constituting a family is offset by the negatives, such as opportunity cost in careers lost, significantly long periods of sleep deprivation, and financial well being. At one point in my mid-teens, my parents noticed I was drinking expensive lactose-free milk at such an alarming rate that I equated the situation with water being flushed down a toilet. But ultimately from a moral perspective, it would just be wrong to cast off one’s parents in their time of need.
Honestly though, I can’t say that it’s only because of my heritage that I aim to espouse such a principle in my conscience. My parents have always struck the right balance between being imposing and controlling to the point where I’m led in the right direction and laissez-faire to the point were I could find the right direction by myself. Because of that, not only have I never had an intense period of rebellion, whether it be in middle school, high school, or right after leaving the nest, but also my parents are the two people who I’m most open with, whether or not they would like to believe it.
And though friends don’t usually get mentioned in such a context, I feel I owe thanks to my friends both at UCSD and at HKU who gave me first-hand support. From my friends at UCSD, their interest in the normalized craziness of what I was doing have a certain kind of value to this endeavor that, while kind of superficial, made me enjoy the whole thing that much more. And my friends at HKU, who came to the territory as disoriented as me helped pull me through all the changes set in front of us, though many of us came from different backgrounds, different homes per se. I guess it was through diversity that we aided each other in perceived adversity and because of the lot of them that I went from missing California then to missing Hong Kong now.
If you haven’t slipped into beta mode yet, you probably realize that I gave you enough information to figure out how much I spent in acceptable detail. I just didn’t want to throw numbers around for people to preoccupy themselves with.
In the Quest
This blog itself had an interesting role in my experience abroad. Though I had no intentions of telling anyone about my blog because I wanted to have the freedom of conscience in a sense to write whatever I wanted to write on it, word leaked. I could blame Facebook for not allowing me (at least at the time) to promote my blog to friends back home at the exclusion of new friends in Hong Kong—but that would be somewhat irrelevant.
In this age of social media, I knew what I was getting myself into by starting a blog for the whole thing rather than just writing my thoughts down into a physical journal. And therein lies a paradox in my said motivations in writing a blog rather than a traditional journal.
I have said a few times that in all my writing I write for myself. And it’s true. So the paradox that seems to be lies in the fact that I write for myself yet I publish it on the World Wide Web for the whole world to see. Now I wouldn’t be publishing it online for others to read in my own self-interest.
Actually I would. Let me explain. I write for myself in the sense that most directly I write for my own purposes—say so I may be able to read this when I’m old and crumbling. I also write for myself in the sense that ultimate benefit will come to me. This isn’t to say that you lot who have read my blog won’t get anything out of it—just that by you reading it I get some ultimate benefit, often in addition to yourselves.
This works on two levels. I talked about how on a superficial level seeing that other people take interest in what I’m doing gives me satisfaction in the sense that what I’m doing is worth something rather than in the sense that now I can become popular. On the higher level, me publishing what I have to offer (in a sense) puts something out there for everyone, including people to whom I have no connection, to comment on. This means ultimately that as I get older and mature into a career, I will have mileage posts to speak of about my life. From there not only will I able to reflect upon my past, but also what other people have to say about my past. For all my uncertainty in life, this blog is staying on the Internet.
To me, this means that this blog can prove more interactive and in a sense provide advantages over traditional publishing. Taking a step back, I write papers for class ultimately because I need to get a good grade on it to a good grade point average to go to a good graduate school and establish a solid career in which I will hopefully be able to do meaningful work. These papers are unlike a blog though in that there are only a few people who will ever read them.
Because of my inhibitions about my work, I am and have always been hesitant about putting it out in the open for everyone to view. But because of the fact that blogs and the Internet come off in my subconscious as quite anonymous, I have few qualms about putting nearly everything about my experience out there on the web.
And honestly, it’s nice not having any editors past yourself. I’m ultimately going to have to go over this monstrosity of over well one hundred ten thousand words (a mid-size novel) to make it flow. My photos that I have put in separate posts out of convenience could be integrated into my text, ultimately reducing the number of posts (currently one hundred forty-six), which I’ll make look more like chapters, yet increase the number of words in smoothing everything over.
As for the style of my narration, I wrote everything descriptive in the past because everything of substance happened in the past. In terms of flow, I understand this blog to be more formal-sounding than most. I have also been told that I write like I speak, which meant close to nothing to me since I think the best writing is genuine thought, regardless of research. My conventions I wrote in my native dialect without regard to Standard American English (except in orthography). This means that the overwhelming majority of grammatical mistakes you seem to find are actually perfectly fine in my eyes. If you see few and far between in the way of weird words and odd grammatical constructions, it means that you and I have more in common than you may outwardly imagine. Bottom line is that my balance between sheer informality and stringent formality strikes a tone of authenticity in myself from which you can gauge yourselves.
After the Quest
I go to UCSD, but when I was applying to Harvard I wrote for one of my essays something I entitled “The Last Prologue.” Obviously it either wasn’t enough to get me accepted or it was enough to get me rejected, but either way I mean the title as a way to see how I positioned myself in my surroundings.
You could say that immaturely, I felt like my childhood was kind of a prologue to me real life, which would begin when I became an adult. The first time I doubted this conviction came the day I turned 18 and felt nothing different. In my newfound adulthood I was no different than the day before, and at that moment I thought in a different way how there are so many young people who have wisdom beyond their age and so many old people who lack the years that they possess.
I don’t mean maturity in playful banter. In this regard arrogant people would be classified as immature. Ultimately though, if my childhood of eighteen years was my prequel, then my old age lasting a few decades, say from retirement, would be my afterword, my conclusion, and my epilogue beginning with my death. In my reformed mindset, I feel that since to call old age an afterword would be unfair, to call childhood a prologue would be nonsensical.
I now firmly believe that one’s life is the entirety of one’s life. So though there’s no getting rid of your past, for the rest of your life there is always opportunity for maturity.
In the same regard, I will be graduating college within a year and a half. It could even be as soon as fifteen months, each month of which I am confident will fly by whether I want it to or not. Before studying abroad, I’ve gone through my childhood and the various levels of education in the public school system. I’ve worked in a few very small jobs as a tutor and as a translation assistant and I’ve also sat on a large non-profit’s Board of Directors. After studying abroad, I’ve lived and studied outside the country. I’ve felt lost in translation but not as lost as some people. I’ve discovered that I’m a dual national. Most notably yet most simply though, I’ve advanced one term in my university career and became a more mature, open-minded individual in the process.
People like to say that the journey is the destination in that what you learn is in the journey. I would like to modify this to say that the journey is but after. I have learned so much my studying abroad, but I know that as much as I have learned and will have learned by the time I, say, turn 50, there will always be more to learn. Hence, the journey is after, and in that sense, you’re always in a journey, since the day after tomorrow is but tomorrow come today’s tomorrow.
And so in the title I refrain from calling this the last post, because though this is indeed my last post to this blog, in no way is it my last bit of writing. And though it’s usually uttered in a different context, it’s always the case that when one door closes, another one opens, even if it’s not the one you planned for.
So out of college in less than a year and a half, what’s my next door to open?
After the Quest
Showing posts with label classes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classes. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Class Roundup: Hong Kong
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.
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.
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
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.
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, December 1, 2009
Class Roundup: Cantonese
Cantonese is my second class to be done with and my only class this term to be half the units (3 instead of 6, to be transferred as 2.5 credits). In a roll of final assignments, the final examination was last Friday and the group presentation happened yesterday. I just got back a few hours ago from the optional dim sum lunch with the class, so I figured that now is as good a time as ever to blog about it, especially since I only need to proofread my last term paper (due Friday).
The final went better than expected. For the midterm I must have spent a few weeks studying for it, going over the vocabulary time and time again, to get 91%. For the final though, I had to allot my time tighter, so I ended up only spending a handful of hours over a day and a half to prepare. And I ended up with the same grade—91%. The one thing I noticed was the sheer number of tones I got right (most all of them).
I personally couldn’t care less about remembering words have what tones. There is just so much variation in the raw number of tones between speakers and locations, so all I aimed for was to be understood. In this aspect, I hoped to learn Cantonese much like a native speaker—trial and error, to just speak and see if I’m understood, to adjust my own sounds when I hear others say it differently. To this effect, I thought it was annoying that we had to remember the tones when we wrote down our Romanized Cantonese in the Jyutping system.
I got my final returned to me the day we had our group presentations in the form of skits. I paired myself with a German classmate, and I think we did pretty well. The week before, we had to submit our scripts for grading and correction, so Monday was when we got to perform our presentation from memory. Of course, the teacher allowed us to use our notes if necessary, because it’s better to be graded down rather than getting a zero mark. But my partner and I were the only group to not rely on our notes at all. Also a plus, our pronunciation was pretty good if I do say so myself, though I stuttered a few times.
Today, we had dim sum (點心) lunch at Star Seafood (明星海鮮餐廳). Though I’ve had my fair share of dim sum at Chinatowns back in the United States, this was only the second time I had gotten dim sum in Hong Kong, not including the one time I got it in Shenzhen.
I didn’t know most of the people at my table, mostly because the lunch was for all the Cantonese classes put together, but that was half the fun. At the end of it all, we took a picture with our Cantonese teacher and paid the bill. Four more classes to go!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
The final went better than expected. For the midterm I must have spent a few weeks studying for it, going over the vocabulary time and time again, to get 91%. For the final though, I had to allot my time tighter, so I ended up only spending a handful of hours over a day and a half to prepare. And I ended up with the same grade—91%. The one thing I noticed was the sheer number of tones I got right (most all of them).
I personally couldn’t care less about remembering words have what tones. There is just so much variation in the raw number of tones between speakers and locations, so all I aimed for was to be understood. In this aspect, I hoped to learn Cantonese much like a native speaker—trial and error, to just speak and see if I’m understood, to adjust my own sounds when I hear others say it differently. To this effect, I thought it was annoying that we had to remember the tones when we wrote down our Romanized Cantonese in the Jyutping system.
I got my final returned to me the day we had our group presentations in the form of skits. I paired myself with a German classmate, and I think we did pretty well. The week before, we had to submit our scripts for grading and correction, so Monday was when we got to perform our presentation from memory. Of course, the teacher allowed us to use our notes if necessary, because it’s better to be graded down rather than getting a zero mark. But my partner and I were the only group to not rely on our notes at all. Also a plus, our pronunciation was pretty good if I do say so myself, though I stuttered a few times.
Today, we had dim sum (點心) lunch at Star Seafood (明星海鮮餐廳). Though I’ve had my fair share of dim sum at Chinatowns back in the United States, this was only the second time I had gotten dim sum in Hong Kong, not including the one time I got it in Shenzhen.
I didn’t know most of the people at my table, mostly because the lunch was for all the Cantonese classes put together, but that was half the fun. At the end of it all, we took a picture with our Cantonese teacher and paid the bill. Four more classes to go!
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Class Roundup: Asian Art History
Introduction to Arts of Asia: Past and Present (coded FINE1008) was my first and only class to end thus far. I took the final this past Monday and now have but to wait and see what I get in the class. This class roundup serial is for me to conclude my posts about the classes that I’m taking here. It’s odd in a way that everything’s ending. I’ve echoed this before and I will still talk about it later in more detail, but I feel like I’m just not ready to go back yet.
This class was comprised of three assessments apart from general participation in tutorials and attendance at lectures. (I didn’t miss a single class or tutorial for this class). The three assessments consisted of two medium-sized papers and one final examination.
The two term papers were different for me. It was a challenge in that I’d never written a paper for any humanities subject before. Writing for political science, much is quantitatively based, more so at UCSD than at HKU (where we seem to be more on the philosophical side of things), I was constantly unsure of whether what I was doing was right. Furthermore, I wondered whether what I was doing was wrong.
The first paper, we had to choose any one object from either the HKU Art Museum, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, or Sotheby’s art auction house. Not really opting for traveling, I chose a Buddhist statue in the university’s art gallery. It was of Weitou, guardian of the Dharma (named Skanda in Sanskrit). The statue was gilt wood, but I could find hardly anything on Weitou or wood gilding. I was forced to deduce more than I was comfortable with and rely heavily on my own opinions and observations without having published scholars to back me up. When it was all said and done, I got an A-, which considering that she said she doesn’t grade easy, was a relief.
The second paper, we had a choice between two tasks. The first was do create a piece of art ourselves using the techniques talked about in class. This had to be accompanied by a paper describing your own work, telling why and how you used certain techniques. And I preferred to do this assignment. However, seeing that I had about a week to do this assignment (which is no time by my anti-procrastination standards), along with the fact that I had no idea where to get the resources to paint, I felt pressured to do the second task.
The second task was to compare two particular handscrolls, one a copy of the other. My thesis was something to the effect of the techniques used in the copy bring more meaning to its basis in the original. I got a B+ on it.
As for the final, the jury (of one member) is still out. I won’t likely find out my grades until January at the earliest, late March at the latest. All things considered though, I felt I did reasonably well.
It was organized into three parts: image identification, unfamiliar object identification, and short essay.
Image identification consisted of four pictures of works we studied in class. To each we were to place with applicable names and titles as well as a general time frame. In addition, we were to describe the significance of the presented works and analyze their importance, preferably with a sociohistoric emphasis.
To study for this, I printed out all the images from the Fine Arts Interactive Visual Archive (or FAIVA for short), and took extensive notes on them in lecture and in tutorial, as well as on the side, like information on the time period in general and background information on the author and such. As a rough estimate, there were between thirty and forty images that I went through over and over.
Out of the four of them, I probably did a bang-up job on like two and a half of them. The other one and a half I believe I knew enough to earn most of the points.
For the second part, we were to be presented with a (replica) ancient Chinese object. In all honesty, the only reasonable object that she would have given us was an ancient Daoist vessel—and it was.
For this, we had to describe the technique behind making it (basically bronze into a clay mold) and its significance. I figure I did pretty well. I had a lot to say about it, especially because she talked about it extensively in the last tutorial (and I took extensive notes which I studied over).
The last part was a short essay question. We were given the topics beforehand—to describe the function, significance, and perception of a place of leisure either in Ming China or Japan. I went over the Ming Garden, since the professor reviewed that one as well the day before in tutorial.
I have reason to believe that I did decently well in the class. Hopefully I got at least a B+, which they say will round up a third to an A- when grades transfer back to UCSD.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
This class was comprised of three assessments apart from general participation in tutorials and attendance at lectures. (I didn’t miss a single class or tutorial for this class). The three assessments consisted of two medium-sized papers and one final examination.
The two term papers were different for me. It was a challenge in that I’d never written a paper for any humanities subject before. Writing for political science, much is quantitatively based, more so at UCSD than at HKU (where we seem to be more on the philosophical side of things), I was constantly unsure of whether what I was doing was right. Furthermore, I wondered whether what I was doing was wrong.
The first paper, we had to choose any one object from either the HKU Art Museum, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, or Sotheby’s art auction house. Not really opting for traveling, I chose a Buddhist statue in the university’s art gallery. It was of Weitou, guardian of the Dharma (named Skanda in Sanskrit). The statue was gilt wood, but I could find hardly anything on Weitou or wood gilding. I was forced to deduce more than I was comfortable with and rely heavily on my own opinions and observations without having published scholars to back me up. When it was all said and done, I got an A-, which considering that she said she doesn’t grade easy, was a relief.
The second paper, we had a choice between two tasks. The first was do create a piece of art ourselves using the techniques talked about in class. This had to be accompanied by a paper describing your own work, telling why and how you used certain techniques. And I preferred to do this assignment. However, seeing that I had about a week to do this assignment (which is no time by my anti-procrastination standards), along with the fact that I had no idea where to get the resources to paint, I felt pressured to do the second task.
The second task was to compare two particular handscrolls, one a copy of the other. My thesis was something to the effect of the techniques used in the copy bring more meaning to its basis in the original. I got a B+ on it.
As for the final, the jury (of one member) is still out. I won’t likely find out my grades until January at the earliest, late March at the latest. All things considered though, I felt I did reasonably well.
It was organized into three parts: image identification, unfamiliar object identification, and short essay.
Image identification consisted of four pictures of works we studied in class. To each we were to place with applicable names and titles as well as a general time frame. In addition, we were to describe the significance of the presented works and analyze their importance, preferably with a sociohistoric emphasis.
To study for this, I printed out all the images from the Fine Arts Interactive Visual Archive (or FAIVA for short), and took extensive notes on them in lecture and in tutorial, as well as on the side, like information on the time period in general and background information on the author and such. As a rough estimate, there were between thirty and forty images that I went through over and over.
Out of the four of them, I probably did a bang-up job on like two and a half of them. The other one and a half I believe I knew enough to earn most of the points.
For the second part, we were to be presented with a (replica) ancient Chinese object. In all honesty, the only reasonable object that she would have given us was an ancient Daoist vessel—and it was.
For this, we had to describe the technique behind making it (basically bronze into a clay mold) and its significance. I figure I did pretty well. I had a lot to say about it, especially because she talked about it extensively in the last tutorial (and I took extensive notes which I studied over).
The last part was a short essay question. We were given the topics beforehand—to describe the function, significance, and perception of a place of leisure either in Ming China or Japan. I went over the Ming Garden, since the professor reviewed that one as well the day before in tutorial.
I have reason to believe that I did decently well in the class. Hopefully I got at least a B+, which they say will round up a third to an A- when grades transfer back to UCSD.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Finals (Three) Week(s)
I can’t believe this term is starting to come to an end. It’s now been just over three months since I arrived here (confused) in late August. That means that I have just under a month left here, so I figured I’d sum up my plans for the remainder of my stay.
Believe it or not, classes have begun to end. One of my classes is completely finished—I took my final for it yesterday. One more will be all over after a group presentation next Monday. The third will end with a final examination on Thursday of revision week.
This week is actually the last week of instruction. My lectures have started ending one by one and I’ve harbored mixed feelings about my classes ending, but that’s for a later post. I still have two classes next Monday though, because the instructors wanted to make up for the fact that classes began on a Tuesday. I don’t mind; I’ll be here then.
This weekend will the first in a while that I’m not planning on going somewhere outside of Hong Kong. I’ve got work to do, with four more finals to study for a research paper due the end of revision week. It’ll be nice and quiet here.
After revision week though comes the official period for final examinations. Granted, I’ll only have three (as one’s already taken and the other two are likewise scheduled prematurely). Back at UCSD, finals take up one week. That week is appropriately named finals week, and occurs immediately after instruction stops. We have no revision week and little time to revise in between finals.
Here’s different. It’s partly to blame I suppose on it being on semesters rather than quarters here, but finals week is actually three weeks here. (Okay, in actuality it’s two, but it feels like three to me.)
If you remember from when I registered that we wouldn’t receive our timeslots and venues for finals until mid-November, that time has come. While I would have hoped for them to be grouped together, preferably at the start, they all turned out to be spread out. I have one on December 8, one on December 14, and one on December 18. I leave back for the States on the 21st.
In no way do I plan to use all those gaps for studying. I want to keep travelling! To this effect, I’m going to go to Nanjing from December 4th to the 8th. And in the other gaps, I’m still negotiating where to go and what to do. No worries though—it’ll be good.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Believe it or not, classes have begun to end. One of my classes is completely finished—I took my final for it yesterday. One more will be all over after a group presentation next Monday. The third will end with a final examination on Thursday of revision week.
This week is actually the last week of instruction. My lectures have started ending one by one and I’ve harbored mixed feelings about my classes ending, but that’s for a later post. I still have two classes next Monday though, because the instructors wanted to make up for the fact that classes began on a Tuesday. I don’t mind; I’ll be here then.
This weekend will the first in a while that I’m not planning on going somewhere outside of Hong Kong. I’ve got work to do, with four more finals to study for a research paper due the end of revision week. It’ll be nice and quiet here.
After revision week though comes the official period for final examinations. Granted, I’ll only have three (as one’s already taken and the other two are likewise scheduled prematurely). Back at UCSD, finals take up one week. That week is appropriately named finals week, and occurs immediately after instruction stops. We have no revision week and little time to revise in between finals.
Here’s different. It’s partly to blame I suppose on it being on semesters rather than quarters here, but finals week is actually three weeks here. (Okay, in actuality it’s two, but it feels like three to me.)
If you remember from when I registered that we wouldn’t receive our timeslots and venues for finals until mid-November, that time has come. While I would have hoped for them to be grouped together, preferably at the start, they all turned out to be spread out. I have one on December 8, one on December 14, and one on December 18. I leave back for the States on the 21st.
In no way do I plan to use all those gaps for studying. I want to keep travelling! To this effect, I’m going to go to Nanjing from December 4th to the 8th. And in the other gaps, I’m still negotiating where to go and what to do. No worries though—it’ll be good.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
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.
Monday, November 16, 2009
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.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Guilin: Sleeper Trains and Airplanes
My latest journey started in Shenzhen, from where we were to catch the thirteen-hour sleeper train to Guilin. This was a Friday, as my plan was to arrive in Guilin on Saturday morning, spend the night, and then take the sleeper train back to Hong Kong via Shenzhen in time for Monday classes. Looking at Wikitravel, it looked like there was about enough in Guilin and vicinity to last for about two full days, though actually being there, it was obvious that this trip could have easily lasted for at least a week.
Like I said, it all started in Shenzhen, land of the Special Economic Zone. With this being my third time to China, I wasn't particularly thrilled about roaming about, but since the train was to leave at 5:25 p.m. and three of my friends had not yet seen Shenzhen, we decided to make Friday before the train a Shenzhen train trip.
Other factors made it desirable to see Shenzhen that day. I was lucky enough to be granted a multiple-entry Chinese visa (meaning I could enter China as many times as I want during my visa's validity for no more than 30 days per entry). I'm not sure whether it's because I've gotten a Chinese visa once before or they've got a soft spot for me because I'm ethnically Chinese, but many of my friends were only allowed to apply for double-entries. Since Shenzhen is Hong Kong's land gateway to Mainland China, it just made sense to see Shenzhen on the same entry as Guilin since they had limited entries.
That day was odd in a couple ways. First, I had never gone long-distance overnight on a train before in a foreign country. I've been on long-distance trains and I've been to foreign countries and I've been on long-distance trains in foreign countries, but never overnight. This teensy weensy fact that this journey was my first sleeper train ever in any part of the world created this sort of aura in my head.
What also made this journey special (and this first Shenzhen leg odd) was that there are certain unwritten stipulations in my study abroad experience set in place by my sponsors--my parents. I am to learn Cantonese to the extend that I can speak decently with my mother. I am to travel as much as especially to see places that I have not yet been too. I am to travel to Guilin, because it's beautiful and easier to get to from Hong Kong than from California. Besides, many a poet over China's several-thousand-year history has posed Guilin as China's national treasure (though not necessarily in those worlds).
So because of that, the day kind of floated by. To start, I forgot my Shenzhen map in my room so we had to get a new one (which wasn't nearly as good) when we got there. I'd only been to Shenzhen twice before this trip, but my natural sense of direction took over as my friends noticed I wasn't even looking at the signs when I went from one MTR line to another and another, and then through immigration, where I knew where the shortest immigration lines were and where to fill out the health forms to enter China, and to crook my neck to the side so they could take my temperature.
In Shenzhen, I took them to the same place that I had street food the time before. We found some good stuff, and I maintain that while I've had my fair share of complaints about not-so-good food at restaurants, I've never felt poorly about street food--plus it's way cheaper.
But before that, we went to two places. The better one (by far) was Lianhuashan (莲花山) Park, which was an easy walk from the current northern terminus of Shenzhen Metro Line 4. There we took a brief-but-enjoyable hike (which was worsened by the heat) to a lookout point. After breaking many points along the way, it probably took us half-an-hour to hike to the that lookout. It was (very recently) paved as an open space, with the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the form of an impressive statue looking out at the same view as the people over Shenzhen.
The park was great, minus the speakers that kept counting in Mandarin. It sounded like commands in square-dancing songs, so we figured it must be to facilitate some sort of similar activity. It was nice to get a proper view over Shenzhen though, because down on the ground, it is not nearly as noticeable how developed Shenzhen is, especially if you live on Hong Kong Island, where grass gives way to a sea of skyscrapers.
But before that, we went to the Chinese Folk Cultural Village (中国民俗文化村), which was meant as a showcase for China's fifty-five minority ethnic groups. While interesting as a concept, the way the park was laid out and the fact that the concept is never fully explained to foreign tourists who know little about China's ethnic groups, combined with the price of entry, we probably could have done without it.
As we finished up with our Shenzhen day trip, we made a run from street food to the train station, arriving just fifteen minutes before departure, physically getting onto the train just five minutes before it left the station. The pictures in later posts don't really show the conditions of the sleeper trains. There was nothing wrong with them, but they are very old style and according to what I've read, the trains being put on China's new high-speed rail network are a lot more modern.
I got the hard-sleeper class, as did all but one of my friends, who got a soft sleeper (for nearly double the price) because he got his ticket later than the rest of us. In the hard-sleeper compartments, there were six beds total, with three stacked above each other on each side, illustriously named top, middle, and bottom (上,中,下) on our tickets. The beds appeared clean and we were given linens to stay warm. Though I didn't see it first-hand, I was told that the soft-sleeper compartments had four beds--two on each side--and were equipped with doors that closed. The floor was not so clean though, and when walking from one train car to another, you could see the grime originating from the bathrooms (with pooper stooper toilets). On the bright side, I didn't get sick off of this trip.
The duration was something I was afraid I wasn't going to deal with well, actually. My flight to Hong Kong from Los Angeles happened also to be thirteen to fourteen hours long, and by the time that plane was about to land, I was more than ready to just get off already. However, this trip was quite bearable. For a few hours, I wrote blog posts on my computer while on my bed. (I only brought my computer because I put myself under the impression that I was going to study in some fashion while in Guilin.)
The hours following, the group socialized in the diner car of the train as we winded down for the coming day. Getting to bed a bit before 11:00 p.m., we were due to wake up before the train was to arrive at Guilin at 6:42 a.m. the next day. So we tucked ourselves in and right as we went to sleep, I saw one of the train attendants with a flashlight crouching in our compartment neatly moving our shoes to one side.
After the constant clunking of the wheels on the tracks (especially since I was in the bottom bunk), we woke up at 6:15 a.m. to find the train going seemingly in the opposite direction. While one of my friends thought that we'd missed our stop and were heading back, I assured them all that trains work by turning around at terminal stations, giving the illusion that you're then going in the wrong direction. (Newbs!)
The train screeched to a halt at around 7:00 a.m. and we, in all our lethargic glory stumbled off the train and into Guangxi Zhang Autonomous Region (province equivalent).
To skip all the meat of the story, I'm going to continue by going back to Hong Kong, leaving you watering at the mouth for my favorite trip so far, Guilin.
Sunday night, I found myself in a different train car than the others because of a possible mistake when we bought our train tickets in Shenzhen. It wasn't a big deal though, as the main objective was just to get back to Hong Kong, hopefully in time for my 2:00 p.m. class (as my 9:30 a.m. class was canceled that week). As expected, the train was just like the last with pretty much the same exact ammenities.
That night, I read for a while before going to sleep, and waking up well before when the train was supposed to arrive at 10:30 a.m. (though it arrived closer to 11:30), I did my Cantonese homework. Starving and knowing I wasn't going to get the opportunity to eat before 5:00 p.m., I heard the train attendant selling Guilin noodles (桂林米粉) passing by. I bought it, and though it wasn't nearly as good as what I actually had twice in Guilin, it was fulfilling. I ate with ease as I convinced myself that it had been boiled at some point, because by the time I'd gotten it, it was a bit hotter than lukewarm.
Needless to say, I got to class on time and in one piece, though I actually got lost trying to find the immigration counters getting back into Hong Kong. I blame the signs.
Not yet have I have I ever been late, much less absent from a lecture or a tutorial here at the University of Hong Kong.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Like I said, it all started in Shenzhen, land of the Special Economic Zone. With this being my third time to China, I wasn't particularly thrilled about roaming about, but since the train was to leave at 5:25 p.m. and three of my friends had not yet seen Shenzhen, we decided to make Friday before the train a Shenzhen train trip.
Other factors made it desirable to see Shenzhen that day. I was lucky enough to be granted a multiple-entry Chinese visa (meaning I could enter China as many times as I want during my visa's validity for no more than 30 days per entry). I'm not sure whether it's because I've gotten a Chinese visa once before or they've got a soft spot for me because I'm ethnically Chinese, but many of my friends were only allowed to apply for double-entries. Since Shenzhen is Hong Kong's land gateway to Mainland China, it just made sense to see Shenzhen on the same entry as Guilin since they had limited entries.
That day was odd in a couple ways. First, I had never gone long-distance overnight on a train before in a foreign country. I've been on long-distance trains and I've been to foreign countries and I've been on long-distance trains in foreign countries, but never overnight. This teensy weensy fact that this journey was my first sleeper train ever in any part of the world created this sort of aura in my head.
What also made this journey special (and this first Shenzhen leg odd) was that there are certain unwritten stipulations in my study abroad experience set in place by my sponsors--my parents. I am to learn Cantonese to the extend that I can speak decently with my mother. I am to travel as much as especially to see places that I have not yet been too. I am to travel to Guilin, because it's beautiful and easier to get to from Hong Kong than from California. Besides, many a poet over China's several-thousand-year history has posed Guilin as China's national treasure (though not necessarily in those worlds).
So because of that, the day kind of floated by. To start, I forgot my Shenzhen map in my room so we had to get a new one (which wasn't nearly as good) when we got there. I'd only been to Shenzhen twice before this trip, but my natural sense of direction took over as my friends noticed I wasn't even looking at the signs when I went from one MTR line to another and another, and then through immigration, where I knew where the shortest immigration lines were and where to fill out the health forms to enter China, and to crook my neck to the side so they could take my temperature.
In Shenzhen, I took them to the same place that I had street food the time before. We found some good stuff, and I maintain that while I've had my fair share of complaints about not-so-good food at restaurants, I've never felt poorly about street food--plus it's way cheaper.
But before that, we went to two places. The better one (by far) was Lianhuashan (莲花山) Park, which was an easy walk from the current northern terminus of Shenzhen Metro Line 4. There we took a brief-but-enjoyable hike (which was worsened by the heat) to a lookout point. After breaking many points along the way, it probably took us half-an-hour to hike to the that lookout. It was (very recently) paved as an open space, with the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the form of an impressive statue looking out at the same view as the people over Shenzhen.
The park was great, minus the speakers that kept counting in Mandarin. It sounded like commands in square-dancing songs, so we figured it must be to facilitate some sort of similar activity. It was nice to get a proper view over Shenzhen though, because down on the ground, it is not nearly as noticeable how developed Shenzhen is, especially if you live on Hong Kong Island, where grass gives way to a sea of skyscrapers.
But before that, we went to the Chinese Folk Cultural Village (中国民俗文化村), which was meant as a showcase for China's fifty-five minority ethnic groups. While interesting as a concept, the way the park was laid out and the fact that the concept is never fully explained to foreign tourists who know little about China's ethnic groups, combined with the price of entry, we probably could have done without it.
As we finished up with our Shenzhen day trip, we made a run from street food to the train station, arriving just fifteen minutes before departure, physically getting onto the train just five minutes before it left the station. The pictures in later posts don't really show the conditions of the sleeper trains. There was nothing wrong with them, but they are very old style and according to what I've read, the trains being put on China's new high-speed rail network are a lot more modern.
I got the hard-sleeper class, as did all but one of my friends, who got a soft sleeper (for nearly double the price) because he got his ticket later than the rest of us. In the hard-sleeper compartments, there were six beds total, with three stacked above each other on each side, illustriously named top, middle, and bottom (上,中,下) on our tickets. The beds appeared clean and we were given linens to stay warm. Though I didn't see it first-hand, I was told that the soft-sleeper compartments had four beds--two on each side--and were equipped with doors that closed. The floor was not so clean though, and when walking from one train car to another, you could see the grime originating from the bathrooms (with pooper stooper toilets). On the bright side, I didn't get sick off of this trip.
The duration was something I was afraid I wasn't going to deal with well, actually. My flight to Hong Kong from Los Angeles happened also to be thirteen to fourteen hours long, and by the time that plane was about to land, I was more than ready to just get off already. However, this trip was quite bearable. For a few hours, I wrote blog posts on my computer while on my bed. (I only brought my computer because I put myself under the impression that I was going to study in some fashion while in Guilin.)
The hours following, the group socialized in the diner car of the train as we winded down for the coming day. Getting to bed a bit before 11:00 p.m., we were due to wake up before the train was to arrive at Guilin at 6:42 a.m. the next day. So we tucked ourselves in and right as we went to sleep, I saw one of the train attendants with a flashlight crouching in our compartment neatly moving our shoes to one side.
After the constant clunking of the wheels on the tracks (especially since I was in the bottom bunk), we woke up at 6:15 a.m. to find the train going seemingly in the opposite direction. While one of my friends thought that we'd missed our stop and were heading back, I assured them all that trains work by turning around at terminal stations, giving the illusion that you're then going in the wrong direction. (Newbs!)
The train screeched to a halt at around 7:00 a.m. and we, in all our lethargic glory stumbled off the train and into Guangxi Zhang Autonomous Region (province equivalent).
To skip all the meat of the story, I'm going to continue by going back to Hong Kong, leaving you watering at the mouth for my favorite trip so far, Guilin.
Sunday night, I found myself in a different train car than the others because of a possible mistake when we bought our train tickets in Shenzhen. It wasn't a big deal though, as the main objective was just to get back to Hong Kong, hopefully in time for my 2:00 p.m. class (as my 9:30 a.m. class was canceled that week). As expected, the train was just like the last with pretty much the same exact ammenities.
That night, I read for a while before going to sleep, and waking up well before when the train was supposed to arrive at 10:30 a.m. (though it arrived closer to 11:30), I did my Cantonese homework. Starving and knowing I wasn't going to get the opportunity to eat before 5:00 p.m., I heard the train attendant selling Guilin noodles (桂林米粉) passing by. I bought it, and though it wasn't nearly as good as what I actually had twice in Guilin, it was fulfilling. I ate with ease as I convinced myself that it had been boiled at some point, because by the time I'd gotten it, it was a bit hotter than lukewarm.
Needless to say, I got to class on time and in one piece, though I actually got lost trying to find the immigration counters getting back into Hong Kong. I blame the signs.
Not yet have I have I ever been late, much less absent from a lecture or a tutorial here at the University of Hong Kong.
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.
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