A Question of Balance

I don’t think I’ve been this busy since I pulled fifteen-hour days in high school. Last year at UCSD I had so much free time. I was able see all the latest episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, 30 Rock, Worst Week, and the Big Bang Theory. In addition, I watched all eight seasons of Scrubs and started from the beginning of How I Met Your Mother. This fall semester, I can’t remember when the last time I watched a television show was.

Here I’m busy, and for the first time in a long time, it’s not all about studying, I suppose. Back in high school, I did plenty of extracurricular activities, most of which not academic, most of which in the hopes of getting into a top-tier university. Now having been going to UCSD, I’ve realized that the way my life has been set out for me and the way that my cards have been dealt has been for the better.

To start, I believed and still do that the biggest part of getting a college education is the studying and the classes. After all, that’s what tuition pays for. Employers care more about your degree more than how much fun you have in the process. That’s not to say they don’t care about other things like work experience (and study abroad).

Needless to say, I am studying abroad at the moment and loving it. I still think that I’m here first and foremost to study, since, after all, if I wanted to go traveling I would take a leave of absence from school and go abroad without studying. And in this sense, there’s something to be said about travelling with obligations.

Something that few seem to talk about regarding studying abroad is the fact that while most students go traveling, they also have to make sure they’ve got their affairs in order so that they can go traveling. I myself have my work lined up for me. I know when I have to do it by so that it’ll get submitted appropriately and I realize that even though I don’t want to work, sometimes I have to.

My parents would be proud if I ever asked them their opinion.

By late September, I had only been out of Hong Kong once—to Macau for an overnight trip. My mother wanted to make sure I went traveling to as many East Asian places as possible, since, as she put it, it would be cheaper to do it from here in Hong Kong than back home in California.

So what was I doing the first month here? Unlike now, I had little work to actually do. I used both hands to count how many weeks until the end of the semester. I went around Hong Kong. Granted, I haven’t really explored New Territories much, but as for the Harbour vicinity, I know it like the back of my hand. I’ve seen most everything on the Island side and I could rattle off bus numbers to take to get to where you need to go and back.

So starting in Reading Week, I went to Beijing. I could tell that my mother wasn’t exactly thrilled that I was going back to a place I’d already been to, but I think it turned out to be a really good experience. The other weekend I went off to Taipei and as with any other city, there were things that I expected and more that I didn’t. Last weekend I went back to Shenzhen and got my hair cut (with a “Thai” massage for a very good price). This weekend I’m planning on going to Guilin and have bought sleeper train tickets already. After that I’m planning on going to Thailand; and though unscheduled, I’d like to go to Singapore and Japan before I leave.

Also in the last two weeks, I had two midterm examinations, submitted two papers, and made three presentations. Before Reading Week, I went had one as well. Still to go I have two papers (one research and one op-ed) and another presentation, not to mention six finals to deal with. And before the worrying begins, all the grades that I’ve gotten back thus far have been As (or at least A minuses). Oh and of course I’ve got this blog, which I’ve really dedicated myself to if I do say so myself, which I’ve added nearly 20,000 words to in the last two weeks in fifteen posts. (Check my total word count below.)

It’s a lot, but I’m dealing with it fine through good coordination and a decent planning. In some ways, how my travel plans in conjunction with studying necessities turned out was bad. When I barely had any work, I did local sightseeing—easy and convenient. As the semester has been progressing, my workload has been increasing, as been my traveling, and consequently my blog writing.

All I can say is it’s all part of the experience I guess.

On the other hand, a friend of mine’s roommate managed to do practically the reverse of what I did. Starting early, she went everywhere every weekend. Before class started, she started with Cambodia, Thailand, and if I remember correctly Vietnam. The first few weekends she was gone to places like Borneo, Malaysia, and Singapore. Now though, she’s staying in Hong Kong and doesn’t believe she’ll be going anywhere else (until at least after finals) now that her workload has picked up noticeably.

In some ways, her scheduling was better. She and I both managed to see much of the same stuff. She managed to fit it with her workload much better than I did. On the other hand (not that I think even half of the time that my life works out better), when I arrived in Hong Kong, I had more immediate priorities. I was in a foreign environment and I really had a need to get used to my new surroundings before I could go venturing off to other countries. In some ways, my friends and I know more about Hong Kong than my friend’s roommate does. We probably have seen more of Hong Kong as well.

So whose plan turned out to be better? I don’t know; my internal jury is still out, and I don’t think it’ll ever be back in. I guess it really doesn’t matter.

All I know is that I’m swamped. After school every day, I find myself in the medical library (it’s less crowded and closer to Lee Hysan Hall) studying and planning, writing and reading. Right now, I’m going to get back to studying.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.

To Extend or Not To Extend

That is the question, isn’t it?

It’s something that I knew that I would have to decide sooner and later, and I have to say that though I have come to it, I can’t help thinking the decision was made before me.

I applied to study here for one semester in substitution for one quarter back home. I chose not to file the departmental preapproval form for extension, in hopes that that would force myself to come back home for the latter two quarters of the year.

The reason for doing this was that because this university runs on two semesters per year and UCSD runs on three quarters per year, my substitution of two semesters for three quarters would delay my graduation substantially, making me miss several required classes that are only offered once a year.

So I found out after I was accepted that I can actually petition to bypass that preapproval to allow me to study here for a full year. I realize that to graduate on time though, I can’t.

Though when I arrived, I practically began counting down the days to when I leave, I’m growing to love Hong Kong. Though I still look forward to going home, I still want to make sure that these next ten weeks (yeah, I only have ten weeks left here) are the best.

In Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment, I’m most definitely at the sixth stage, where I’ve fully accepted my host culture. After this last trip to Beijing, I realized that my Mandarin isn’t half bad, and I’m ready to put my Cantonese learning into a higher gear.

In some ways, it is a race to the finish line, with me trying to get my travels in, learn languages, and get good grades at the same time. Right now, I’d rather be the turtle though rather than the hare, and unfortunately I presently feel like the latter.

Ready, set, go.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.

A World English

Last year, I was in a social anthropology class called Language, Identity, and Community at UCSD. Taught by an academic (whose name I have chosen to omit), who has done plenty of research regarding the use of Spanish and Catalan in the Catalonia (an autonomous region of Spain), the class aimed to give us an understanding about the role language plays in creating and enforcing identities among individuals and communities among groups of individuals. Though that was a very interesting class (albeit I got my lowest college grade in that class), that’s not what this is about.

The professor shared with us a story that I feel can be related with by one of my friends here. This professor was from the western side of New York State. Unlike a “standard” American accent, which many purport to be like that of Chicago newscasters, she had a regionalized Midwest accent that many people unfortunately could not understand.

And it’s really not that uncommon. Though I would be quick to point out several differences between a more standard Midwest accent and a Californian accent, in many ways characteristics of the two have converged with spoken media (such as Hollywood productions) becoming widespread, and as such, neutral. The logic of which is as follows: there is no one natural way of speaking. As such, everyone has an accent in the language(s) that he or she speaks, though some may be seen as more neutral than others due to exposure and proliferation.

This means that accents that aren’t heard on widespread media are generally understood less. So a regionalized accent such as Cajun, Scottish, or Southern, is often stigmatized as not being the norm. With such speakers’ non-standard pronunciation (and often grammatical forms as well as lexicon), they tend to stand apart from the crowd.

Such problems are made worse as students learning English as a second language are taught British Received Pronunciation or Standard American English. When learning a second language, students are taught what is wrong and what is right, and sometimes things are just different.

This story that she shared took place in Spain, with an audience from all around the world. It consisted of a guest lecture taking place in English by a German scholar. At the end of this scholar’s lecture, she asked a question, which received an answer. Afterwards, she heard people trying to figure out in hushed tones who “that woman who asked the question” was, because they could not understand her. These people were speakers of English as a second language, and in her experience she realized that being a native speaker of English did not automatically give her the ability to be understood in English-language settings. On top of that, she found that those people who spoke English as a second language felt they spoke better than her because they could not understand her regional accent.

Like I said, HKU is an English-language institution, which makes it arguably more attractive to a wider range of students over a different Chinese university where they would teach classes in Mandarin. As such, and possibly to my disadvantage, I rarely have to speak any form of Chinese here as most of the exchange students appear to converse to each other in English.

But this isn’t to talk about Cantonese again. Improperly so, this is to talk about English. I heart English, and as a student of linguistics, I’ve made a point of noticing all the different varieties I’ve heard.

To start, there are the people who’ve learned English as a second language. In that range, I’ve met and heard people from the Netherlands, Spain, France, and Norway.

Native English varieties I’ve heard are Scottish, British, Australian, Canadian, Californian, and Midwestern American. Some that I’ve mentioned I cannot be more specific about because I do not have enough experience with such varieties to the point where I could narrow it down further.

In particular, my friend from Scotland finds herself having trouble being understood the most. Except on the phone, I have little trouble understanding her. Though she is a native English speaker, the lack of understanding of her variety really shows how English is a world language of sorts.

So what have I seen?

Well, English speakers overall use most of the same words, so we can understand almost all of what we’re saying if we speak clearly. There are several words that I’ve not heard of and many more that have different meanings. The majority of the differences are in drastically different sounds.

So how do we cope?

Well we explain things to each other of course. We often make fun of each other though for the particular words that we use. It’s all in good fun. Part of learning about other people is being accepting and understanding.

I don’t have an accent, right?

Well no one thinks they really have an accent, because everyone feels like they speak naturally. So how has my speech changed since coming here?

Well for one, I’ve never really used California slang. I’d be hard-pressed to say there’s ever been a point in my life when I’ve used “dude” excessively, in say every sentence. Beach Boys-slang I’ve never used. Terms like “wipeout” never made it to me, though I know where all the places in their songs are. The thing I used the most that regionalized me is “like.”

Like though I’ve like learned how to, well, like monitor my use of “like” so if I like don’t want to say “like” so much, I like can.

So here I don’t use “like” very much at all. I’ve heard more “hella” here than I’d like from people from Northern California, and have come to terms with it here. Luckily I haven’t incorporated that particular term into my lexicon yet.

The biggest change in my speech is my intonation of questions. Whereas as home I would ask something like “Have you eaten yet?” Like , I find myself making questions sound more like . Whether or not you get what I mean by this, I’m sure I’ll still sound like this for a while after I get back home.

Speaking of returning, I just got back from my reading week trip to Beijing. Stay tuned for all the juicy details and awesome pictures!

Thanks for reading.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.

Shrimp on the Barbie

So as I mentioned earlier, most of my friends here are fellow exchange students as all but a few local students have been cold towards my attempts at friendship. That’s okay though because I have a great group of friends here.

I guess I figured that I’ve been using a lot of “we” recently rather than “I” I should talk about who this “we” really is.

I guess also that you could say it takes a certain personality to be an exchange student. It would seem on the surface that you would have to have an open mind and be prepared to reevaluate much of what you thought was given. You need to take the effort to appreciate the local environment rather than just breezing through it insisting on English only, experience instead of just seeing what’s to be seen.

This is what I thought, but as no arbitrary group of people is perfectly uniform in nature, Unfortunately, I currently hold it in my best interests to hold my tongue, as least in part, in regard to what I would like to say.

More to come after the fact.

Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.