quelquefois

I recently read this article in the NYT on the popularity and exclusivity of a Teach for America teaching position. I’m still adamantly opposed to TFA. So some overachieving kid with big dreams of world change gets thrown into an inhospitable atmosphere and tries to make good of all that’s bad. With little training, he tries to create a positive impact, but before he can achieve that, his stint is over and he leaves after two years with a sense of moral righteousness. Kid, now with a “prestigious” bullet point on the resume, continues to build his future career, likely unrelated to TFA, make big money, leaving underperforming students feeling abandoned yet again by the system.

A simple Google Scholar search shows more results that undermine the notion that TFA brings “positive” change to underperforming schools across the country than supporting it.

One study says:

Findings for 5 school districts, roughly 300 new teachers, show that students of under-certified teachers (including teachers from the “Teach for America” program) make about 20% less academic growth than do students of regularly certified teachers.

While I believe the underlying philosophy of TFA is still honorable, the pageantry and self-righteousness involved on the applicant side has turned me off from the whole thing. Do students avoid independently searching for jobs because it lacks the prestige associated with TFA? Is there a sustainable solution to bring positive impact to low-performing schools?

Ten days ago I was certain I was going home. I had mentally prepared myself, started allocating things (i.e., throw away versus keep versus donate), and listed things I needed to do before leaving Beijing (yes, going to the Forbidden City for the first time in my life is one of them).

Two days ago I bought my one-way return flight back to China. In the past week or so, I got offered a job that promises professional development and is challenging. So I accepted. Looks like I’m in for another year.

In thirty-three days, I will be boarding a flight back to California, and I don’t know when I will be back. Though I have endless memories, both happy and sad, I still feel as if I hadn’t written down as much as I’ve wanted, I hadn’t taken enough photographs, I hadn’t seen enough things, made enough friends. Between finishing up my Fulbright grant, studying for the GRE, applying for graduate school, and starting full-time work, the past few months have melted away without a chance for reflection or relaxation.

While I am ready and excited to start the next chapter of my life, a part of me is sad to leave China. Luckily, once I get home I’ll have more time for myself (and graduate school applications!!), for photography, for fast and uncensored internet, for all the other things I enjoy in life.

One thing I’ll miss about China: women in pajamas and hair curlers on a
public street playing with dogs (and naturally with 10+ people
crowded around taking pictures and gossiping)

It’s not easy being a woman in China. In the workplace, women face the glass ceiling phenomenon, but there’s also a sticky floor, wherein women in low-paying jobs get paid less than men of equal skill level. In their personal lives, they are bombarded by images in mass media, telling them they need to be thinner, fairer, taller.

While many societies promote equal political and social rights for women (China being one of them), it’s rare to see it fully implemented in practice. This entry is about when I’ve received some sort of discrimination based on my gender at the pool. I don’t have any specific conclusions or policy recommendations; this is just a story of my life in China.

When I was studying in Harbin last year, I often went to Heilongjiang University’s pool. Every time I went, I stuck out as one of the fastest swimmers in the pool. I befriended the lifeguards there, who welcomed my presence every time with a smile and a wave. One lifeguard, ? (Li), in his late 40s, single, would often swim with me and race me. He always tried to invite me out to another pool he worked at during his off days from Heilongjiang University, though due to the distance and time constraints, I never made it out.

In order to let him know when I’d be heading to the pool (we became swimming partners), he took my mobile number. Sometimes I received texts that were written to be mass forwarded to friends–ones that wished health and happiness, success in life, and happy holidays. Eventually, he asked me to have a meal with him. I agreed, seeing no problem–friends have meals together, too. We dined, and afterward he insisted he show me his shabby apartment, adorned with tacky posters and trinkets collected from his many years in Harbin. He had a medal and trophy case, for the many times he’s won swim races. We took a photo together and I left. Simple as that.

At one point, he started telling me he loved me, that he wish he could be with me, lamenting the age difference being the only barrier to our being together. I cut off communications then. And then that’s when he would call and text nonstop. I felt sorry for ??, but never responded. How did the concept of friendship become “love” so fast?

*    *    *

Once I moved to Beijing, I got a gym membership and spent most of my gym time in the pool. Again, the lifeguards immediately noticed me, smiled whenever I came, asked me how I was, and suggested workouts for me. Then, over time, one lifeguard, ?? (Laotian), would introduce me to other swimmers.

One time, a swimmer, ? (Wang), and I had a conversation:

Him: ?????????????????I am scared of immigrating to the U.S., because I am scared of discrimination against me because I am Chinese.
Me: ??????????????????????????????????????????????????But this is unavoidable. Regardless of what country you live in, society is not completely equal, you will face discrimination in some respect (be it social status, your profession, your gender, etc).
Him: ??????????????????????????????????I am happy to live in China because I am not discriminated against. You shouldn’t have any problem here either, right?

I went on to tell him that, in fact, China is a very discriminating place. He did not believe me, so I started giving examples. First, I told him that if I don’t speak Chinese absolutely fluently, I can be marked as an outsider, a non-Chinese. Secondly, I told him that if I were not a woman, but a man, that swam like I did in the pool, he would not have even noticed me. And that’s not even touching on the many other ways women and foreigners are discriminated against in China. His eyes showed a glimpse of understanding, though he never conceded to my argument.

*    *    *

While the topic of “discrimination” is worthy of many posts and debates, how it has affected me personally led me to wonder whether I would have gone without this sort of attention if I were male. I wouldn’t be watched and pointed out to every time I swam when the lifeguard(s) I knew were on duty. I wouldn’t have to defend my right to ride a red and black road bike as opposed to the low bar, pastel-colored, single-gear bikes. Any male friend who swam well has never gotten the kind of attention I have, but is that a result of Chinese females being less forward and confrontational? Are men better swimmers than most women?

Is the attention negative? Never. These men have all been incredibly nice and well-meaning. However, their professions of love, the fact that I cannot swim in peace, and the need to worry about how to turn someone that I might have to see every day down is more than I bargained for when I signed up for the gym.

Yesterday, the WSJ posted an article called “An Expat’s Exotica.” It basically contends that expat havens such as Beijing and Shanghai are no longer considered “exotic” by Western standards because so many Westerners now live there and because these cities can now accommodate the familiar Western lifestyle. The author exalts those who veer off the beaten path, living in exotic places such as Changsha, Hunan or Wuhan, Hubei. He highlights a woman named Janie Corum, who is “pioneering the vast region for American businesses, striving to create a more comfortable environment (emphasis added),” paving the way for Westerners to discover China’s “remote corners.”

This is the most ridiculous piece of journalism I have encountered in a while. That people still label countries (or parts of countries) as “exotic” is beyond me. Granted, much of Asia is still a mystery to many Westerners, but that is no excuse to call a culture exotic.* If anything, it a) just proliferates the need among Westerners to “understand” a supposedly mysterious and remote culture by infiltrating or dominating a foreign civilization (a la imperialism, colonialism), and b) perpetuates the notion of “Orientalism,” a European concept invented to label Asia as a place of exoticism, romance, and ancient mystique (see, for example, Edward Said’s Orientalism).

While there is a need to understand different cultures, and while a great way to understanding those cultures is to immerse yourself within it, it is not acceptable to frame those cultures as “the other,” something so profoundly new and in contrast to ordinary Western customs. The colonialistic/taming-the-exotic-for-the-West actions that follow this mindset that this article suggests we (as Westerners) do should not be spread, but countered.

Any thoughts, comments, critiques, counter-arguments welcome.

*I admit, Chinese people also exotify Westerners to some extent. To many Chinese, they are all blonde-haired, blue-eyed moneyed beauties. However, in my experience I have yet to encounter a Chinese person who has wanted to explore the free West and debunk their mysterious, rich, contemporary lifestyle.

Today, my roommate Jules and I were biking to the train station, and at a stoplight we ran into an American who was out on a run. Jules and I were speaking English about alternate routes to the train station.

Man: Wow, people who speak English! (then he looks at me) Both of you!
Jules: Yeah, where are you from?
Man: I’m from New York. (directed at Jules) China is great, isn’t it?

Then he proceeds to look at me as if he was saying, “Your country is great!”

I hate that all white people in China think you can’t speak English. And if that isn’t enough, Chinese people don’t believe I speak English well (nor do they think I speak Chinese well enough, either).

Where do I belong in China? Where do I belong in the world?

I got this in a message today:

i miss you too amy. u know i used to kinda like you back in the day.

Kinda? Why would you even tell me that?

Last week, the central government blocked access to the New York Times. Then a few days later, unblocked access. No one really knows why, but personally I think it has something to do with negative coverage of China on the website. Right after access is restored, the Times publishes an article about releasing a political dissident in China. The site hasn’t been blocked again, but I thought it was ironic that:

a. the Times posts a politically sensitive article after it was blocked for political reasons
b. the indirectly anti-China article was surrounded by a pro-China advertisement:

 
According to the Shanghaiist, these ads are paid for by the Chinese government to spread their interpretation of Tibetan history and development. 

I wonder how East-West tensions will escalate (or ease) as a new President transitions into power, as the financial crisis continues, and as China transitions into post-Olympics 2009.

I started writing an entry about the financial crisis in September (okay, “started” is an overstatement, I just came up with a title), just when everyone thought it was peaking, or at least becoming apparent to everyone. But there were so many news articles, op-eds, and blog posts about it, I couldn’t make one point that hadn’t already been mentioned. So it just sat in my Drafts, waiting for the day when I’d have something to say.

In August and September of this year, when all the newspapers and magazines featured cover stories with photos of laid off bankers walking out of Lehman Brothers, of stock markets plummeting, and of traders freaking out, I reveled at the expense of all those greedy Wall Street bankers who, in order to make a pretty penny, approved and executed some outright ridiculous, illogical transactions. I also felt triumphant that, despite pressure from Brown’s career services (which seemed only to push us towards corporate careers), I did not sell out to all the big businesses that flooded to campus last fall.  How do you like them apples, Ivy Leaguers? Finally, they can suffer, too.

Who am I kidding, they’ll all be [financially] better off than I would ever be. I’m just jealous of their flossy flossy lives. Can I get a little monetary love here?

On a more serious note, I soon realised that in the end, sure, some i-bankers peril, but the crisis hits hardest for those who aren’t making over $100,000 a year. For example, it affects people who, because of the instability of the financial market, choose not to purchase flowers at my mother’s shop. The lack of consumer spending is eroding confidence in markets, which snowballs into wider implications for our national, and international markets. And while I wish Congress didn’t pass the $700 billion bailout plan so the companies who fucked things up in the first place could decide how to clean up this mess, that’s not how the world works.

Tom Friedman said it well:

We need a leader who can look the country in the eye and say clearly: “We have not seen this before. There are only two choices now, folks: doing everything we can to shore up banks and homeowners or risk a systemic meltdown.”

Yes, that may mean rescuing some bankers who don’t deserve rescuing, while also helping prudent bankers who were doing the right things. And, yes, that may mean rescuing reckless home buyers who never should have taken out mortgages and now can’t pay them back, while not aiding people who saved prudently and are still meeting their mortgage payments.

No, it’s not fair. But fairness is not on the menu anymore. We will deal with that later. Right now we need to throw everything we can at this problem to make sure this recession doesn’t spiral down into a depression. This is no time for half-measures.

Today I FedEx’ed my ballot back to the United States. I’m happy to have voted and to have exercised my right, though sad I didn’t get an “I Voted” sticker.