Month: February 2020

Ha Jin’s “A Bad Joke”, highlighted not only some of the problems, but the harshness of the Chinese police force under the Communist Party. I especially wanted write a blog post digging more into Mao and what happened under his founding of the People’s Republic of China. 

I think the reason the two peasants had good reason for saying, “Damn, all the prices go up, only our chairmen never grows” (144). In the previous quote the peasants are referring to Mao’s poor leadership skills and because of these, they are upset about food and clothing price increases. The police took the peasant’s quote out of context and thought he was referring to the current chairman Deng Xiaoping, which is why they were arrested.

There is also an important detail in “Saboteur” where peasants were sleeping under a Mao statue. This is not a coincidence and I think Jin uses this to show how how bad the poor faired under Mao’s reign. The “Great Leap Forward” in the late 1950’s created mass amounts of famine because of Mao’s inefficient attempt to increase agricultural output. Also, the police force was exceptionally harsh, punishing people for almost anything. In the case of Mr. Chiu, the police punished him for their own spillage of tea on him and his wife. He was immediately arrested for simply standing up for himself and the facts.

In my ICR, IACA, the group got together on Monday night and was taught the lion dance. We started out the practice watching videos of professionals doing the dance. Kwan, a retired man who is apart of the IACA, told us that these dancers have been practicing and working together for many years. After this he showed us a video of amateurs doing the dance and what we would be learning.

He took out the lion suit and I was bewildered by how many moving part there were on the suit. There were many strings in the head to move the eyes and ears. He showed us the basic functions and the two simple parts to the dance, the back and the front.

After this he gave us a chance to try out the dance in the suit. We took turns doing the front and back positions. I was in awe that the head on the suit was so heavy. Kwan took turns timing us to see how long we could do the head position. I thought I would be able to hold the head up and do the position for about 10 minutes, when actually I was only able to do it for one minute.

After this he taught us how to move the head in a specific way, shaking it. He called this tactic “shackling” as the head pops up and down and shakes around. We practiced this technique walking forwards and backwards with a “cheerleader” who held a “pom pom” to guide us. In later lessons we plan on expanding the movements and  learning the moving parts on top of the head (moving eyes and ears). Overall, I had a lot of fun at our first practice and am excited to learn more parts to the dance. 

The China Times is a daily Chinese newspaper published in Taiwan. It was briefly mentioned in “An Official Reply” in Ha Jin’s book. A visit to the website of the China Times clearly indicates the concern for the coronavirus epidemic.

There is a separate tab on the China Times website for all stories related to coronavirus as well as the top news stories being about the virus or issues related to the virus. All the stories I read were translated with Google Translate, so there could have been translation errors in the actual text. Nevertheless, it was still very interesting to read the stories about coronavirus from a Chinese newspaper’s perspective.

One of the stories that stood out to me most was a news article titled “When does the new crown pneumonia epidemic recede? A fortune teller reveals mystery.” This news article reported how a woman known as the master of psychics looked for signs about the epidemic. According to the article, the teller received the 13^th sign. The 13^th sign indicated the “government will meet in a dignified manner to discuss” the Wuhan pneumonia and work with the appropriate medical professionals to face this epidemic. The article continues to discuss many signs and signals that I am not familiar with, including the way the seasons, stars, and moons are aligning. The article recommends the people should be following government regulation more than trying to conquer the epidemic themselves.

This article stood out to me for two reasons. Primarily, an article that pertains to “signs” would not be printed on the first page of a newspaper here in America. I correlate this to astrology, which would not be trusted by Americans when it comes to an epidemic like the coronavirus. Media that pertain to issues related to illnesses and diseases would likely be accompanied by an official statement from the CDC. The second reason this article stood out to me was that the end of the article pointed back to following government regulation. This is a focal point for China and the government is highly regulatory. Chinese media is strictly regulated by the government, so it made sense that the final suggestion pertained to following government instruction.

While reading the story “The Woman From New York” from Ha Jin, one of the biggest things that stuck out to me was the fact that suing someone for defamation was inconceivable from the Chinese perspective. They simply could not comprehend that someone would want to sue someone else for money because they tore down their character. They say, “Who had ever heard of a court that would handle such a trifle?”, and “why on Earth would she think of “pay” as a solution? This was a matter of name and honor, which no money could buy”. This is a stark contrast to the way we think in the United States. People often think of lawsuits as the first solution to problems of this matter. We often think that if the defamation can be corrected in a court of law and some sort of compensation can be given to us, then for the most part, all is well again. That is simply not the case in China, people there do not sue nearly as much as we do. We are a society that sues people and entities every day of the year, it is a very normal thing to hear about people suing corporations or even the government, and definitely each other, but that is just not the case in China. I don’t think any of us could imagine a Chinese person suing their government, especially if they can react this adversely to the thought of a simple defamation lawsuit. It is difficult to say whether one way of doing things in this scenario is better than the other, but they are extremely different and I feel that they have impacts on the society at large as well as to how people should behave and what all is acceptable or not.

After reading An Official Reply, I noticed that there were some similarities between learning a foreign language in China and learning a foreign language here in the U.S. I think that the throughout Zhao’s letter we can see that he goes through a lot of similar problems that any normal American college student would go through while trying to learn a foreign language, and Professor Fang reminds me of some of my own foreign language teacher throughout the years, although strictly in the sense of teaching style. Seeing Zhao instantly be discouraged and want to give up on learning English is something that I think a lot of people learning a foreign language might go through. I can relate to this as when I initially started taking German I was overwhelmed by how the workload looked. However, much With Zhao and his professor there was positive encouragement to help him along the way. Like Fang said no one really has a natural talent for foreign languages, but you learn them through hard work and endurance. I also noticed another similarity closer to the end of the story during Fang’s lecture in the U.S. After Fang’s lecture when Zhao and the other colleague where taking questions from the audience his English became noticeably worse and he struggled to understand and respond to the questions. I also experience this problem during my German oral assignments. I might think I’m fully prepared but trying to comprehend and respond on the spot makes things a lot more difficult. Although there were many other cultural differences in this story I though it was neat to be able to pick up this similarity between how people learn and struggle to learn foreign languages.

An interesting part of these two readings was the extreme contrast between the way that women and men’s sexuality was discussed. In “The Woman from New York,” rumors about Chen Jinli and impropriety spread, and she was unable to get a job or see her child. No one can understand why Chen Jinli would want to leave China because she has a husband and daughter. When she returns, she is treated with hostility. This made me wonder if it went back to the root of Confucianism and filial piety. She had not fulfilled her duty to her family in the eyes of the people. Chen Jinli was an outsider in China and in America, and her presumed sexual impropriety caused her to lose her husband and her daughter. However, in “An Official Reply,” the opposite reaction occurs with Pan Chendong. He is able to have multiple sexual relationships with young women and still stay with his wife. There are no consequences for his behavior in that regard. However, a young woman he gets pregnant is sent away to the countryside. Despite the inequality of the relationship and the rumors he forced the girls to perform sexual acts in order to get their stories published, Chendong is not punished. These two stories illustrate what happens to men and women in China when they break norms about purity. It also illustrates the difference between men and women when it comes to success and power and what people assume about them because of it.

Feburary 17^th:  Yesterday we had our second meeting with Benny and Kwan who are representatives from the IACA. One of the opportunities we have for the ICR is to learn and perform the lion dance.  The lion dance was something I was very unfamiliar with going into our event as I had only seen it performed a few times on Youtube/TV.    We were originally going to learn and possibly perform the dance at the Chinese New Year’s festival.  Unfortunately, this event was postponed due to recent concerns with the coronavirus (many people fly in from various destinations to attend this celebration).

As we started learning the dance Kwan taught us two basic movements he wanted us to focus on.  First, it was to lift the head up in the air and twist.  Then bring the head back down and twist left/right once again.  The job of the person in the tail of the suit is to keep their backed maintained at a 90-degree angle and slowly move their arms to make it appear as if the lion was breathing.  I was impressed with how passionate Kwan was about the dance, and it really helped our whole group stay more focused.  As we got more comfortable with the lion dance we added more movements and even cheerleaders into the dance.  The cheerleaders job is to draw the attention of the lion and make him move up and down. Throughout our practice Kwan continued to stress the importance of making the dance fun and attractive for the audience.  He even showed us an 8-minute clip from two members of the IACA who had been partners for around 12 years.  The way the moved so gracefully was very impressive and you could see how much effort and practice they put into their craft.  Overall, I had a great time and look forward to Kwan teaching us more advanced moves in the future.

On February 6^th we met as a group to meet with the two leaders of the IACA Benny and Kwan.  They are retired individuals who have lived in the Indianapolis area for a large part of their careers.  The brought in dumplings for us to eat which was a unique experience for me as I rarely eat Chinese food.  After getting to know them and telling them a little about us and our majors we began to talk about the IACA and what the organizations does.   The IACA, which stands for Indiana Association of Chinese Americans is a not-for-profit organization that was established in 1973.  The organization’s four main goals are:

• To foster constructive citizenship on the part of Chinese Americans in the State of Indiana, and the nation.
• To cultivate the understanding and the appreciation of both American and Chinese cultural heritages.
• To enrich the Indiana society with Chinese American contributions.
• To improve the overall well being of Chinese Americans in Indiana.

I really enjoyed getting to know Benny and Kwan, and hearing about how their involvement with the IACA has helped shape their lives.  We talked about potential opportunities where we could help with the IACA moving forward.  Some of my favorites we talked about were visiting local museums, help cleaning up parks/public areas, and learning the famous lion dance.  I look forward to working with the IACA this semester and learning more about what they do to help the community.

Today at Newcomer, I was not in the art classroom the entire time. After the high school students left, Mrs. Latta and I walked our middle school group down to the auditorium for a presentation on vaping and prescription drugs. I was initially very excited for the presentation to not only learn something myself, but to have the students learn some really important information that could affect their health.

I learned that underfunded schools do not have the same access to amazing anti-drug presentations nor do they have the materials to even make the presentation go smoothly as compared to wealthier districts. This experience made me frustrated that the woman presenting couldn’t reach the kids on this topic as much as would have liked and they were still left with so many questions. The children had much difficulty logging into the online program, as everything was in English, and most of them speak minimal English. This program could have been much more effective had the woman presenting did more of a group presentation and utilized the translator at hand instead of assigning fifteen minutes of individual work on the I-pad. Of course there were not enough I-pads for everyone, so the students had to share with one or two other students as well. I hid my irritation with the lack of organization, and reacted in a calm manner and just floated around the room helping students log into their I-pads.

These kids are in middle school right now, so they don’t realize how their school compares to say Carmel Public Schools. They will however, begin to realize the injustices they are facing once they get a little older. This IPS Newcomer situation reminded me of the students in Ha Jin’s “An Official Reply” who were upset that the top English students from the testing done their first year of college were taught by the best professors (156). The low group received a worse English education, which prevented them from having the same future career opportunities as the top group, who were educated by more experienced professionals.

This day helped me to better understand that the nature of this community is vulnerable to things like drugs, and that educational programs such as the one provided are necessary. However, I think the information could have been presented in a more effective way especially because the children are learning English. This experience helped me further my patience and enhanced my sense of responsibility to helping others. This ICR constantly inspires me to continue to pursue my career goals in law, so I can help combat the injustices that marginalized communities face in the United States.

2/13/20

Today the students worked on science which involved the water and carbon cycles. I helped my assisting teacher with one student. Her name was Cece at least that’s what she called herself. She was preparing for the mathematics exam in which adult ed students are required to demonstrate proficiency with basic algebra and arithmetic. She was struggling with fractions/division, inequalities and single variable algebra. The biggest problem we found was that she needed a better understanding of her multiplication tables. We talk about my interest in math and science and I explained to her what got me interested in science. After I explained it to her she appeared deflated saying that she would never get as good as I am with math. I explained to her that she doesn’t need to be good at math to make it and that everything takes practice to excel at. We parted ways and I encouraged her to continue working on her times tables and not to stress about the test. Overall I say it was a good session