On a train from Chengdu to Nanjing I was reading a book from my father: Understanding China. The title is written in Chinese on the cover and my typically curious Chinese compartment-mates took the book from me and were examining it. They asked who had written the book, even though the author's name was printed quite clearly on the front. I pointed it out, but they asked again. After some discussion among themselves one commented to his comrades: Understanding China, how can a foreigner really understand China? I immediately came up with several retorts about outside perspective and certain freedoms, all of which I kept to myself. However, writing my last report I find myself remembering my fellow traveler's words and beginning to agree. I think that it would take at least a lifetime of intensive study to "understand" China, something out of the grasp of most foreigners, if not many Chinese.
On the recent May 1st holiday I was able to see how much I'd learned while accompanying visiting friends around Beijing. I had never been to Beijing before but I could still find my way around and avoid many of the pitfalls that ensnare China-greenhorns, like me at the beginning of this year. I found that I can even argue (albeit somewhat brokenly) in Chinese. I saw directly through sellers' bluffs and bargained down to close to reasonable prices, usually a third of the asking price. I even found back alley, hole in the wall restaurants where Chinese eat and the food is good and not overpriced.
I feel like I should come to some conclusion about China, but it is obviously too big of an undertaking and even in my limited experience, too complex. I expect I will continue putting pieces together for years to come. I try to think of what defines China, but traveling and books have both taught me that around China there are distinct languages, customs, characteristics, religions, foods, and even histories. It is difficult to speak of China as a whole, even if you can decide what that "whole" is. Although train mates have related to me that "people," i.e. too many of them, are China's biggest problem, they are also China's greatest asset.
I will spend the body of my last report talking about the people of China, starting with my students and moving to the masses I bump into outside my room.
Students and Teachers
As much as I am their "teacher," my "students" are really my teachers. In their own way, they point out my mistakes, teach me new perspectives and insights, and reward me for my successes. The second semester was my chance to apply what I had learned during the first and make up for a few of my blunders (albeit with different students). I only rue that I do not have another semester to demonstrate what I have learned this semester. In fact, I keep dreaming up new lesson plans and regretfully putting them aside as I remember I will not have time for new lessons. Last semester I would occasionally get nervous, especially when students did not understand, and then I would worsen the situation by speaking faster. One of the important lessons learned during the first semester was how to speak to the students, and how to tailor my language for each level. I realized I have to send very clear signals about what's going on. For example, when explaining words and phrases I first explain that I am about explain what a word means.
My new confidence and more relaxed attitude toward staying on schedule mean that I can slow down and make sure students understand what I think is most important before I move on. Besides just modifying my pace and tone, this semester I added a lot of miming and body movement to go with my talking, which I, despite my occasionally reserved nature, actually enjoy. My students, who rarely see such demonstrations from their Chinese teachers, not only better understand my meaning but also get a kick out of it. Among their favorites was my imitation of American Westerns to explain "stand-off."
The second semester I tried to engage the students more, so that I talked less and they daydreamed and gossiped less. I think I still need to work harder to incorporate more activities during the class period to keep everyone interested. However, I have also realized that with 30 students, I cannot be everywhere at once, I cannot interest everyone, and I cannot make sure that everyone participates all the time. Usually students must take some responsibility for their learning by working hard, practicing, being curious, and finding answers. Some superior teachers are able to capture the most ambivalent, or even negative students, and to engage them so that they take some responsibility and put forward an effort. Unfortunately I have not yet reached such heights.
Despite my relative successes this semester, I did have one of my worst fall-outs with a student. It began with one of the most common annoyances of teaching fellows: students gossiping during classes, and continued through a series of phases marked less by cultural differences and much more by teenage indignation and rebellion. I guess some things may be the same the world round. I resolved the situation by talking with the student and with teachers. I advise future fellows to act as quickly and as decisively as possible in such situations. Second semester I tried to be understanding but firm. I understand that students have a lot of work and that especially if their English ability is lower they get more pressure from their Chinese teachers and have to work harder in my class.
I think that many students really enjoy our conversation classes as a break from the grind of their normal classes: a completely different set of activities, with much less homework. However, some take this "break" concept too far and use it as a time to socialize with their friends. In their defense, I will mention that as my observation and Chinese skills have both improved, I realized that about a third of the time they speak to each other in Chinese, they are actually explaining or discussing what is going on in class. I like to hope that this usually helps the students learn English, but I'm afraid that occasionally students start to rely on translations from their classmates. Perhaps there is no way of getting around the "group work" aspect inside the Chinese classroom.
Most of my students and colleagues are inspiring. The students work so hard and their English is already better than that of their peers of a few years ago. The teachers work within a fairly constraining set of guidelines to give their students the best education possible and to change a fairly rigid system from the bottom up. Chinese students and teachers face incredible pressures and just showing up each day is sometimes a feat. Teaching my students, I tried to come to conclusions, but my students and other teachers helped show me I needed to examine and then scrap or revise every last conclusion and replace it with a more fluid idea. I expected Chinese students to be obedient but found they have their share of rebels. I thought that students spent all their time studying, and while I still think they spend too much time studying, a few do seem to find time for basketball and computer games. They helped me put my own educational life into perspective and helped me sympathize with even some of my most unsympathetic teachers. My students taught me, though sometimes unwillingly, the rudiments of teaching, but more importantly about communication, listening, and cross-societal sharing. Though it should go without saying, I will be grateful to them for the rest of my life.
Things Heard
One thing learned from students and other Chinese is a new respect for noise. Both inside and outside the classroom Chinese students and adults alike enjoy a good time and celebrating with their friends. The more "spirited" the event, the better the time had. As the Chinese enjoy cheerfulness and expressiveness (under the right circumstances), the volume of a party seems to be a standard measure for the spirit; therefore, the louder the event, the better the time had. Many Chinese seem to want to help the "spirit" of the event by increasing their volume for the occasion. Restaurants and other public places are often filled with the sound of Chinese enjoying themselves.
Many Chinese seem to have taken this increased-volume approach and decided to apply it to every occasion. Personal conversations on the bus are well-audible, as are hallway chats at 1am. The atmosphere is augmented not just by people talking and laughing but also by other sounds such as turned-up TVs and radios, turned-up cell-phone rings, slamming doors, and amplified messages played by vendors to attract customers. The Chinese have become so accustomed to a high volume that they also easily tune out unwanted noises such as squealing breaks, car horns, vehicle engines, and 24-hour construction. It sometimes seems that Chinese people love a bustling atmosphere so much that they are afraid of silences. Consequently, many places that are typically "quiet" spaces in the U.S., such as parks and gardens, are filled by loud-speakers with the sound of radio and music in China.
Perhaps the Chinese sound preferences have developed as a survival technique. With such a crowded land, people spend a good part of their day crammed next to other people. In fact, the preference may actually have grown out of habit. Most Chinese probably have to increase their volume a little hear themselves over so many other people. In the U.S. we retreat to quiet neighborhood streets and weekend camping trips for our relaxing bouts of quietness, even though the sounds encountered in our daily lives would barely be audible in China. In China, if people had enough money to search for a quiet spot, they might very well find themselves in the closest uninhabitable desert. Lucky for Chinese people, if they ever get lonely, they just have to step outside their apartment to find a bustling world and into the nearest restaurant to find a party.
Guanxi
Guanxi, literally "relationship," makes the world go round in China. It forms a web connecting everyone in China and even friends and family who have left for distant shores. People constantly work at cultivating guanxi and then in times of need call upon it. Guanxi is developed through a person's generosity: doing favors, treating others, and giving presents. Guanxi pathways can be created by little things like offering cigarettes or big things like helping others' children get into University. Guanxi is continued through the initial receiver's own gifts, favors, etc. The guanxi process creates a relationship of reciprocity between two people, which extends to their two guanxi networks. While in the U.S. personal relationships may be founded more on mutual regard, in China, relationships are based on both regard and mutual need.
In the U.S. we have relationships but most people don't have check-lists to calculate how much they should give people and how much they owe. We live with the myth that most people do things out of the goodness of their own hearts and expect no returns. In fact Americans are usually suspicious when an acquaintance is suddenly very generous. In China, when some one is generous people simply assume that some time in the future they will be called upon for a favor. In China, two Western (originally Christian) tenets, "wealthy are the generous" and "do unto others as you would have others do unto you" are taken quite literally in their Eastern form.
Guanxi means most of the presents I've received still have price tags, even though the price is usually much higher than the giver actually paid. Shop keepers try to build guanxi with customers by complementing their beauty, stature, or Chinese ability. In addition, no matter how much a customer pays for something the owner will ask her to tell her friends about the shop and come back because the salesperson gave her "such a good price." People will invite others to banquets, buy them snacks and trinkets, take them around town, and help them take care of business all to develop guanxi.
On a larger scale, having guanxi with people who work with train tickets or having guanxi with people who have guanxi with them means one can get train tickets before anyone else, something especially useful during national holidays when the infrastructure is too small to support everyone who wants to travel. The relative of a friend complained over dinner one night that her husband was always going out and getting drunk with his business associates to forward their "relationship." In other words, guanxi means that if a boss wants a contract for his (or her) company, he needs to take the person responsible for the contract out for a fancy dinner, drinks, and probably much more, to develop a relationship where the contractor feels it is incumbent upon him to award the contract to the company. Another friend, whose wife is a doctor, related that guanxi unfortunately also means that before procedures in a hospital, such as births and operations, the doctor and sometimes the nurses are slipped a red envelope full of money. In the next breath he ruefully explained that he was putting together an envelope for the impending birth of his child. Patients who forget or are unable to produce the envelope often find it difficult to get a date for their operation or a bed in the hospital.
In some ways guanxi is power. If a person has a lot of guanxi he can get a lot done and influence a lot of other people. The rich can obviously afford more guanxi, which helps propagate their wealth. Meanwhile the poor can poorly afford guanxi and must be satisfied with influence and power on a smaller scale, within their family or among their closest friends, and the effect is the same. In the U.S. similar forces maintain the social ranks, but perhaps we are better at ignoring it. Still, knowing the president, or being a senator, may keep a person's son out of the war or get him into a good school. However, having to work two jobs at minimum wage and having few friends or family connections may mean that a person cannot help her child with her homework (thus decreasing the child's chances of a brighter future), and will have few people to rely on when problems arise.
In China, the guanxi web is self-propagating. It weaves people into itself, binding them and everyone they know tightly together, even though they may be physically separated. In a system of give and take, people give as much as they can to everyone they can so that later they can take. If anyone decides not to play by the rules, or simply was not raised to know the rules and decides not to reciprocate a few too many times, that person is slowly cut out of the web. And that person finds him- or herself in a cold and lonely world in China. In a relatively benign example, a western friend was trading English for music lessons. After a few months of what he considered a pretty good relationship, his music teacher was suddenly too busy to have lessons and stopped returning his calls. My friend spoke with another Chinese confidant and the things he learned included: he needed to present the music teachers with gifts to reciprocate the strings presented to him for his instrument. He also needed to more forceful in overriding his music teacher's protests and demand to pay for dinner when they went out together. After my friend performed the recommended conciliatory acts, he continued his lessons happily.
A Chinese person once explained guanxi to me this way: Chinese people don't separate business and personal. They like to know the people they do business with. I'm sure people who become officials with power also find that they become very popular⦠The situation in China leaves some grey areas that may make some Westerners, as well as some Chinese, uncomfortable. However, especially during hard times in China, guanxi probably helped distribute wealth and create a support system. If people came into some wealth, they would spend a lot of it developing guanxi with their acquaintances, so their family, friends, and neighbors would all benefit. It also meant that if someone found herself in a tight spot without enough funds or influence, her social network became her safety net. Still, even as Chinese become more affluent, guanxi remains an important social force.
In Conclusion?
Sometimes I think about how little time I have left in China. I think about afterwards and all the opportunities I will miss to use and learn Chinese, to try to figure out where I've gone wrong in a conversation, to mull over where I've gone wrong in a lesson, to use and expand what I have learned this year teaching, to push my way through a line, to stuff myself with road-side snacks and banquet platters⦠I wonder about everything I still have to learn about China and about myself. I try to shrug off my regrets and think about what I have brought to China and what I will take with me. A chapter in my life is rapidly concluding but many things will continue. America and the rest of the world cannot smooth out the marks China has carved onto me.
In Chinese history the rebellion against an emperor was deemed "right" only in retrospect. That means that an opposition group could be granted the mandate of heaven after the fact, if it managed to successfully replace the emperor, thus signaling that the old emperor was truly bad and that the new government was favored. In this manner, philosophers and historians can wait and see what happens and then make a decision about the course of events and the virtue of individuals and movements. Perhaps I will borrow from this Chinese model, learning and copying from those before me. Thus, I will wait until a long time after to determine what has happened now: what has changed, what is the same, what was good, what was bad, and what just was. China will always have a little piece of me, at the very least in my students' memories, and I will always carry a little of China with me wherever I go. And if Chinese philosophers are correct, I may find myself at this point again. With any luck it will run me over from behind as if it were trying to get on the train before me.
