The travels of Justin

It’s tough to write from the internet bar. There are plenty of reasons to avoid the filthy internet bars, ranging from the stale smoke-filled air to inconvenience of having to walk 30-minutes from my house (each way) to the only internet bar that is satisfactory for me. Instead of quickly checking email, deleting spam, and otherwise having no messages, a visit to the internet bar is a 2- to 4-hour commitment that requires I try to catch up on what has happened in the outside world. If I try to chat with friends far away, or use Skype (currently my only vehicle for making long-distance calls), my visit takes even longer. The internet bar is a fine spot for travellers, but for daily interraction with the outside world it is far from suitable.

Tonight, I turned around to listen to two guys talking about me. I had been listening to a video when the cool breeze of a fan moved. I turned around to see what was happening and I only caught the words “加拿大人” (Canadian) while two boys were turned looking at me as they discussed me, obviously thinking I can’t understand their words.

It’s hard to know exactly how they know where I’m from, because no question seems to be off limits. Questions from university students and random locals usually centre on whether you like Chinese food, Chinese girls, your nationality, and any other detail of your life that pops into the mind of the interrogator. Even Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming was recently mentioned in the China Daily as saying how there is no topic off limits in the locker-room with his fellow countrymen, but he had to learn there were certain topics off limits with his American teammates, because other cultures have different privacy boundries. I don’t have much problem with this, except that it’s annoying when I purposly come to the internet bar for the chore it has become. There’s simply nothing fun about writing a travelogue in a place that is inconvenient and uncomfortable.

I spent this past weekend in Beijing and made a big purchase intended to remove myself from the ritual of the internet bar: I bought a laptop computer. Less than 24-hours after my purchase, I arrived in my Nanchang apartment where the keyboard ceased to function. It is a hardware malfunction and I will have to pay to ship my laptop to Shanghai for repair.

Normally I detest laptops. They are not scalable like desktop computers. They lose value quickly. The components are specially engineered and thus have less market pressures to be price competitive compared to desktops — that translates to “freakin’ expensive” for non-economists. Since my goal is to stay in Asia to study both Chinese and Korean language, I had to concede to the fact that I can’t travel every year with a giant computer in tow.

I suppose this is all to say that once I have a computer I can write more often. So it might be another week or two (hopefully not longer than that) until I can return to writing regularly.

On Tuesday we toured the new campus as planned, but was surprised only by how desolate it was. The school population, as I’ve been told, is about 80,000 students plus faculty and support staff, but many parts of the school are still under construction. Maybe the capacity is 80,000 students. Regardless, the ‘tour’ wasn’t as exciting as everyone expected, but it was still far from disappointing. At one point we were led into the unnecessarily large entrance hall to a drab administrative building. We gawked at the chandelier while we waited to see what interesting secrets this building would hold, but were quickly ushered back to the bus.

Chandelier in an administrative building

Walking around part of the campus while waiting for lunch gave everyone some time to meet each other. As I had seen the campus already, meeting my classmates was the real fun. We ate some food at the school cafeteria before returning to the school.

Wednesday dropped a little bit of rain, so when I met our leader for another outing, the group was decidedly smaller as most would rather stay in their hotel. Only 4 of us, plus our guide, ventured out to explore the shopping along 中山路 (ZhongShan Road). I had been to this area before, but I managed to discover a few new spots including an interesting indoor market of clothing, toys and knick-knacks, and even bolts of fabric. This is a place I’ll have to return to and explore futher.

Local market

When Thursday rolled around, we met for our first pre-class. Our very capable and knowledgable teacher wanted to introduce and review our pinyin knowledge and pronounciation. I found it a bit boring, only because pinyin is the only part of Chinese language I’ve been able to practice this past year, but the practice is always good. Every day I sit in my apartment and read out-loud all the combinations of initials and finals that make the sounds of Mandarin Chinese and I will probably find a tutor to drill me and correct my pronounciation mistakes — an easy job because I make so many. Outside our 7^th floor classroom window we could see all the freshmen going through an annual ritual of manditory military training. The USB on this 网吧 computer isn’t working, so maybe later I’ll upload a photo or two of the kids learning to march.

Tomorrow is Monday and will bring us our first week of real classes. The 20 foreigners here have been divided into two groups: a beginner (Group A) and advanced group (Group B). I was placed in Group A because my vocabulary is so limited, but I want to be at a higher level. I don’t want to lose the next few weeks reviewing basic pronounciation when I’m ready to study vocabulary. Honestly though, when you consider that some the Group B students have 3-years of study in their home countries, I think Group B is going to be out of my league. I wish there was a middle group. Part of this frustration just comes from the simple fact that one year later my language skills are painfully limited. In Tianjin I had to pay extra — beyond my tuition — to have some serious Chinese language classes. That was 8-months ago, and in the time since then I’ve had to devote my energy to being successful in my business classes (taught in English) for the sake of my GPA and academic career. It’s just exciting to be studying at all, now that my living and school situation has finally become stable. Maybe next year I’ll be able to return to Tianjin and shock my friends by speaking in their native tongue. That would be so great!

There’s nothing strange about starting a bit slow and then being overwhelmed quickly. My other friends studying in China say that learning Chinese has that effect. They say you start to learn 5 characters a day. It’s nothing really. But after the second week, you are trying to remember characters you learned in week one and what started out simple is actually quite a challenging exercise. At least I can say that my ambitious desire to reach Group B is extra fire to motivates me to study hard. 好好学习中文！

Extra motivation isn’t really required though. Once you are here, motivation is everywhere. The more you can speak, the more you enjoy just being in a really great and interesting place. One of the big fears for people coming here is how to find food. There is plenty of food that can be ordered by pointing, so ordering from a menu is an extra pleasure. This past week I’ve been planning to cook two meals. I want to try making Korean Kimbab now that I have a labratory in Nanchang. China’s Mid-Autumn Festival falls on October 6^th this year and the traditional food to make at home with friends and family is dumpling, called jiaozi (饺子). A friend from Tianjin has given me her recipe for jiaozi and I plan to host a big lunch at my place to celebrate this festival and welcome them to China. For both of these recipies I have a small list of ingredients which have given me something specific to study.

Translating the English names of vegetables — particularly special ones, like pickled yellow radish for Kimbab — can take me hours. The payoff for adding these new words to my vocabulary makes the learning fun. Yesterday I went to a restaurant with some classmates and for the first time I felt like some of the menu made sense to me. It’s a slow process, but it’s extremely rewarding. There was a time when it was fun to order a dish from the menu and not know what to expect. I was never disappointed by the food that arrived. By reading a menu I can now avoid dishes I’m familiar with and try new things.

China is full of surprises. Yesterday, one of my classmates learned of a football match (soccer to you North American readers) at a nearby stadium. For RMB$5 we watched the local team try in vain to break the zero-zero stalemate. I was most impressed by the well mannered local hooligan whose shirtless torso was covered in team slogans. Donning giant red horns and a giant 八一 flag, he led the energetic crowd to chant in support of the home team. I never saw anything like it in Tianjin.

Later in the night, after exploring other parts of the city, we spotted dancing at the park outside the stadium. When we approached, we were soon surrounded by local people wanting to say hello and be friendly. It was quite an overwhelming experience to watch everyone waltzing while being overloaded by questions from curious local people. I did learn about an English corner that usually draws about 100 people (or so I’m told) at 9am every Saturday and Sunday at 8-1 Square (八一广场).

Sometimes I’ve been having a strange cultural experience. In Tianjin, all the foreigners came to China with very little understanding of customs and we modified our behaviour accordingly. After a few nights of having dinner with some of my new classmates I’m very aware of small things I would have never noticed before. I spoke today with a foreigner I knew in Tianjin and he asked if I noticed people doing ‘rude’ things. I don’t think of them as rude, per se, because they are being very polite for their own culture; however, they are unknowingly rude in small, yet noticable ways, when you are immersed of Chinese culture. We had a good laugh. It’s just one of the strange experiences you get to have when you’ve been living abroad for a while.

For months I’ve been in the dark about many critical issues, including when school starts. It always seemed like the strangest thing to be unknown by a school. Sure, I understand that the Chinese language courses for foreigners are operated much differently than degree courses, and approrpriately so, but I still couldn’t understand why no one had an answer. The closest thing to a clear target starting date was ‘near the end of September — maybe around the 20^th.’ Chinese people are famous for last minute events, and so it was on Friday night at 5:30pm I get invited to a 6pm dinner at a nearby hotel that would lift some of the fog surrounding these questions.

You can imagine my surprise when I was dining with heads of the International College at Nanchang University (NanDa 南昌大学) and I’m told that a decision was made to hold a meeting for foreign students 3-days later on the Monday. At the meeting, we’d have the chance to meet our classmates, and possibly learn when class will actually begin. At this point the start of classes sounds like progress, and I find it interesting to know at least some of my future classmates already in Nanchang. Since I arrived here months ago I’ve been asking to be introduced to some of my future classmates so we can get to know each other and share discoveries about the local area. With the exception of some Americans I had approached in a restaurant (“Do you study at NanDa?”), the International Department has always maintained that other foreign students wouldn’t arrive until closer to class starting. I’ve since learned, other foreign students have been here for several weeks (at minimum), with a few people having already spent 1.5 years in Nanchang.

Saturday night rolls around and I get a text message from my new American friends saying that they’ve heard class might be starting on Tuesday. Class on Tuesday? We’ll wait for the Monday meeting to know for sure, but this sounds good. Alright! Great! By this stage, I’m itching to start my lessons. The novelty of being in a foreign country has worn off a lot from my year in Tianjin. My studies in Tianjin were in English and did not include a language component so now it can be frustrating to be locked out of simple things just because I don’t have a rudimentary command of the language. Studying in class will be much more effective than trying to study on my own in my quiet apartment, but I can’t understand why I’m (1) hearing about class dates much earlier than expected, and (2) why I’m hearing about them through unofficial channels. I keep asking myself, if they want to attract foreign students to Nanchang, wouldn’t the class start date be considered as critical information? I can only assume that some approximate date had given to the other students since everyone is already here. I guess I didn’t get the memo.

“Umm… yeah. I’m just going to go ahead and get you another copy of the memo.” -Bill Lumbergh, Office Space

I was looking forward to this important Monday meeting, and decided that regardless of it’s outcome, I would at the very least be able to say I enjoyed an excellent breakfast of slightly overooked pancakes, eggs, and toast. Well, it is now Monday night and the meeting was a good one. Once we found the meeting room, 40 or so students sat themselves around a giant boardroom table with giant fake flower centrepieces adding colour to the room. The chair of the meeting had the understandable problem of picking a language to speak. We have people from Niger, West Africa (country unspecified), Mexico, USA, Canada (me!), Russia, Korea, and Japan. Do you use Chinese? Most people present understand a bit of Chinese, but most (certainly including me) can’t understand a full meeting in the language. What about English? Everyone who doesn’t speak English natively at least has some English training; however, nothing beats the clairity of your native tongue. Everything was spoken in several languages in turn: first Chinese to set the tone, then English for almost everybody, with some French and Korean used to clairify.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, class will not start. Instead, we’ll meet at 9 AM and take a trip the new campus of NanDa, on the outskirts of the city, to familiarize ourselves with the school’s third and biggest campus.

We were told class is expected to start either Thursday or Friday. It sounds like we’ll be starting with a review of phonetics while the teachers assess our ability. Then they’ll divide everyone into classes and make a plan.

After months of waiting, it has begun.

Put in a big order for utopian-engineered peoplehole covers, Microsoft has designed a high school:

Students — who are called “learners” — use smart cards to register attendance, open their digital lockers and track calories they consume. They carry laptops, not books, and the entire campus has wireless Internet access.

Teachers, or “educators,” rather than using blackboards, have interactive “smart boards” that allow teachers to zoom in and out, write or draw, and even link to the Internet.

There’s no library, but an “interactive learning center” where information is all digital and a “multimedia specialist” will help out students.

Instead of a cafeteria, there’s a food court with restaurant-style seating. The performance center — where two sections rotate close to create a smaller space — replaces the typical auditorium.

-emphasis mine

Makes me think of those futuristic designs from the 60′s and 70′s of the “house of the 21^st century,” trying to depect what the futuristic mid-80s might look like with all those robots and gadgets.

It’s remarkable that that the only use of the word “obsolete” is refers to Gates’ depiction of the current education system. I guess those Associated Press reporters wouldn’t want to strain themselves with actual jounalism. It’s nice and all that Gates has funded and, through his company, supported an experiment that is interesting; however, does anyone wonder how quickly a school like this in mainstream use would become obsolete or at risk to hackers? If there was even a token question about such things you might assume this was not simply the regurgitation of an interesting press release.

And the language used… why can’t the coporation spare the workplace jargon? We know hotel customers are considered “guests” and Starbucks employees are “partners”; one might argue that whether a student is also “learner” rests on several factors, including the qualty of the educator.

“Learning is not just going to school,” said Shirley Grover, the school’s energetic principal who came from the American School in Milan, Italy. “Learning is equal to life.”

[...]

“Two things are quite intriguing — the willingness of the district and Microsoft to try something different,” Lynch said. He cautioned, however, that while trying new methods may be valuable “we have to be careful because you’re messing with kids’ lives.”

What is intriguing is that the real experiment has nothing to do with technology. Good luck to the students –err, I mean, learners.

After facing many complications and sending daily essays by email, I suddenly needed a break from writing. I wanted to share two interesting views of living and/or studying abroad:

• Kevin Lim (and dad) post advice for Singaporeans and others living abroad.
• JAVA JIVE – Quarter Life Crisis: Part One (Life as an Expat)

(touque tip: AsiaPundit)

Last month I was answering questions about TRU and Canadian universities to Chinese parents. I’m sure China isn’t the only country that seems obsessed with ranking, but it’s a country where I have experience to talk about.

Constantly my friends and people I meet are asking me about what is the “best” university in Canada. They don’t want to know what school I think is the best, but what is ranked the highest? In a country where government decree tells you which one is the most prestigious school, I can forgive my friends with being frustrated when considering a Canadian school. No one seems to believe me that we do not have an official ranking system. “You must not know about it,” said one Chinese girl to me while her mother smiled from her side at the Beijing education expo. Canada’s most famous measure of quality and fame comes from Macleans magazine, but if that’s your only measure of education quality you’re going to have some surprises after graduation; besides, Mcleans ranks based on a variety of criteria, but that criteria is subject to critisim and — even if you do accept it at face value — it still doesn’t end with a clear numerical ranking.

For example, if one wants to compare economics PhD programs you might spend several hours digesting a site like econPhD.net which has rankings specific to “10 subdisciplines and 36 minor fields…” What this clearly demonstrates is that someone wanting to study Economic History & Thought will rank schools very differently than someone studying Financial Economics. Whether you want a career in research — and thus put a lot of weight on whether graduates from a school are often published in academic journals &mash; or you want a career that applies economics in business decision making or entrepreneural activities, you will need to rank schools based on very different criteria.

One of the things I particularly like about TRU is that it is a fantastic place for enterprising students in any field of study. TRU is a new and fast growing university. There’s no debate club, the school newspaper is irrelevant, every department has great ideas that want to materialize, and all of these present opportunities to students who want to invent, create, and provide leadership and direction to an institution in its relative infancy. A school that is growing sometimes has more opportunities with less competition than school that are entrenched. If you dream of being a newspaper editor, you can get that hands-on experience at TRU where it might be more difficult at another school. I was once that at UBC it can be almost impossible to fight through the fierce competition to participate in a study-abroad program like the one I’m a part of; even if you’re a top-student at other schools, only a limited number can go and you might not have that chance. I know that TRU is creating opportunities for students who have dreams and need help to realize them. Both types of schools have their benefits, and TRU isn’t perfect for everyone, but depending on a Mcleans-type ranking system will leave you blind to opportunities.

When asked about the TRU business program I tell people about many stories I’ve heard about ACE*TRU, the very active and successful business club has been operating professional businesses, hosting leadership and career training to students of all diciplines, and winning awards of the highest distinctions (my two-cents: someone should put those awards on that new website of theirs). If ACE*TRU can beat most famous business schools in Canada in national competitions judged by CEO’s of the nations largest corporations, it’s fair to say that if the TRU business program isn’t famous now, it’s just a matter of time; in the meantime, it’s competing at the national level which at least reflects a quality program.

While I can look upon my university with pride, I know that universities are subject to market conditions and have areas of specialty. Unlike China, graduating from a famous school will not ensure you a job, and even this is changing; in fact, Canadian business people recognize that Canadian schools each have different strengths. Macleans can aid potential students—as it is intended—but provides too limited a view of the Canadian education market to base life decisions on a ranking alone. There are perks at famous schools, but at the end of the the day it will be your individual accomplishments, your academic record, your resourcefulness, and your ability to get a job done that will ensure success in the post-graduation job market.