Updates, Anniversaries, Women, Cooking Lessons, Shakespeare, etc...

你们好!
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A few interesting updates from the Life of Phil in China...
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Last Sunday, March 8, 2009, was "International Women's Day" (国际妇女节 guójì fùnǚ jie). Various banners hung around Southwest University's campus wishing the female population a merry day. In fact, all the female students in the School of Foreign Languages received a 15 RMB gift card, just for being a woman! However, are they "women"? I have written about this specific phenomenon before; the distinction between "girl" and "woman" is quite large in China. I've learned a great deal about "being female" from my classes, being that about 80% of my students are women...ladies...girls! Most female university students want to remain "young at heart" and, my favorite adjective they frequently use, "fresh," thus they laugh whenever I ask for a brave woman to participate, and further, shocking me when very few raised their hands when I asked if they celebrated the only day designated for being female. Being a woman in China means you are old, married, have children (or in China, a child) and are, for the most part, washed up and domesticated. This view is slowly changing as China grows and opens, but old habits die hard: women are still viewed, and especially in the mind of a man who is ready to settle down, as a house work/family servant. The most interesting tidbit of knowledge I learned about this holiday is in Chinese (I am told, originating in Southeast China) there is a slang expression - "三八 sānbā" which to any Chinese language learner would simply mean the numbers 3 and 8. Actually this slang means "bitch" in Chinese, and what a better way to say "Bitch!" than using the numbers 3 (March) and 8 (8th): The date of the holiday supposedly honoring women. John from Sinosplice wrote about this back in 2005. Happy Bitch Day?!
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Speaking of becoming a domestic servant, I had a very lovely cooking lesson from a former student yesterday. I hate cooking in my apartment; I don't see the point when I have 200 restaurants with amazing, cheap food right around the corner. But since I live in China, and it's my mission to learn as much as this culture as possible, it's nice to see, learn, and experience how China's real Chinese food (as compared to America's fake Chinese food) is chopped, mixed, stirred, fried, boiled, and steamed. Tina, one of my best students who is working on her MA in elementary English education, invited me over to her apartment and there her and I made some delicious Chinese delicacies, my favorite being homemade "糖醋里脊 tángcù lǐjǐ" - Sweet and Sour Pork. Here are some pictures:

糖醋里脊tángcù lǐjǐ (above)

"It's Chinese food...and I helped!" (see old Shake n' Bake jingle)

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My Shakespeare class started this morning - Act I of Hamlet - and it went well. I dressed in black (how else can one dress when "clouds hang on you"?) and screamed and whispered and laughed and cried, the way (I think) Shakespeare should be taught. I made a little mistake on board, however, when I was writing the date. I wrote "March 10, 2008" instead of "March 10, 2009." A simple mistake, probably not worth noting here, but I will admit it kinda got my heart pumping? Why? Well, last year on this day, the Tibet uprising occurred, resulting in many deaths on both sides (More Tibetans died, of course, because the People's Liberation Army (ironic title?) have the guns). I doubt anyone in the class made this connection, but I did instantly, even though I wrote it subconsciously. I don't want to write too much here about the situation in Tibet because I know my students read this blog and if I say the "wrong thing" (aka, anything in support of the D.L.), I don't doubt they will hate me from this day forth: a reaction I don't blame them for - they are the products of Deng XiaoPing's "political re-education reform" after the 1989 T-men Massacre, which I must say again and again, is not discussed in schools in China. Or, worse yet, they would just dismiss me as another "fell-fed foreigner who has no business criticizing China" as said by China's future President, Xi Jinping, who I must say has very poor diplomatic skills with such a quotation. I think my students and I both know the situation in Tibet isn't going away. Sadly, I care about them too much to bring it up in debate lessons, which might (I have been warned) result in me getting the boot. They can't even begin to try to understand; every video with the D.L.'s speaking is blocked on Youtube. Like Hamlet, that's a real tragedy. Thanks Mr. Deng! You've made my job sooo fulfilling... (that's "sarcasm" for my Chinese readers).

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Men: Be kind to women. We need them! Women: Don't stop fighting for your rights. You've made a lot of progress, but there is still work to be done in both America and (especially) China.

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I love and miss you all,

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Phil

蓝麦飞