Friedman for 40 Yuan

你们好!
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Youtube.com came back to life Saturday, but this evening, after I prepared a very special entry with a recent video contribution, the Great Chinese Firewall decided, "NAH!" and just pushed their magic block button. So, yes, let them unravel their confusion about self-identity and who and what to fear, and then hopefully this will pass like a kidney stone...
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Today I was walking to buy some fruit when I saw a small book stand selling [what I thought was] used books. I always gravitate to these makeshift book stands, seeing if they might have the answer to my Chinese language plight (no such success yet), but to my surprise, surrounded by Chinese-language novels, calligraphy books, cartoon collections and Chinese business texts, I found both "The World is Flat" (22 yuan) and "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" (18 yuan) by the NYTimes' Thomas Friedman. All together, I bought both of these books for 40 元 yuan, which is a little less than 7 US dollars - "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" retails at 18 bucks alone on Amazon. How is this possible?

Well, there are 100% fake. Hot of the photocopy machine - even the copyright page is included! Gotta love it! - unless you are Thomas Friedman or his publisher. One a side note, Mr. Friedman, in case you find this blog entry after Googling your name (for some odd reason), just know I am a huge fan, think you should be President (of any country, preferably America, but more necessary: China), and I plan on investing in your books when I return to our America in a few short months. Keep doing your thing! And maybe the next book can be on education - another relevant topic when we talk about needed "revolutions"!

The lilacs have bloomed outside my apartment and it smells lovely, especially after an afternoon rain shower. If only the sun would break through these thick (and perpetual) Chongqing clouds... I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

The Chinese University Adaptation Poem

你们好!
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Hearts, Love, Longing for that special someone, and a few more Hearts for good luck...
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As my students prepare for their grueling and, in my opinion, extremely silly TEM-4 (Test of English majors) Exam (today I had a student ask me the difference between "assume" and "presume" - do you know?), I have been trying to provide a creative, non-grammar-related learning environment where they can freely express themselves without thinking about whether the better answer is A or B. Poetry to the rescue...
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The Adaptation Poem is simple, yet requires students to a) work together, b) use what they already have, and c) joint the pieces together with their own homemade glue (metaphor) to ultimately create some new kind of flying machine. Think back to Ron Howard/Tom Hanks' Apollo 13 where the NASA crew had to take supplies already on the space craft and make a contraption that filters CO2 - duct tape here and there, a tube sock, a piece of wire wrapped around there, and WHA-LA! An Adaptation Poem!

I gave the students a list of famous/infamous lines from poetry and/or music (below) and they must write a 10-line poem alternating the list's lines with the original lines:

• My heart is as dry as dust.
• For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love!
• Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
• The answer is blowin' in the wind.
• There are daggers in men's smiles.
• My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. (many questions about this one)
• I'm bringing SEXY back!
• Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games.
• And my heart will go on...
• Girls! Girls! Girls!
• This is the first day of my life...
• Will I wake tomorrow, from this nightmare?
• I woke up this morning, I suddenly realized, we're all in this together.
• We didn't start the fire!
• For the times, they are a-changin'!
• I am the walrus!
• I am going to stay 18 forever...

I gave the students about 30 minutes to write and decorate their poems, and then they presented them in front of the class. I took pictures of all 25 poems so you can see and read them all HERE. Many laughs were had. It's lovely to observe how free-thinking minds can start with the same exact things, tinker with them, and then finish with completely different inventions...

But are they different?

I think it would be interesting for a sociologist to examine my students' poems; about 80% of them seem to have the same subject matter: LOVE, whether it is lost, gained, wanted, or completely missing. Not even "love for one's country," or love for anything other than intimate human relationships. Even the poems about "growing up" and "being positive and optimistic" were about love being the missing piece of the life pie. I counted nearly 100 heart decorations before I gave up, hearted out!. I have many hypothesises for this subject choice, and I am sure if you are a Westerner teaching in China and are familiar with the (unscientific) effects of the College Entrance Exam (GaoKao) on Chinese social adolescent development, then you can put 1 and 1 together.

But some poems really impressed me! I read a few that were about real issues: war, political activism (sort of), and narrative in nature. One of my favorites - just because the group didn't know what a walrus was until I drew a rough sketch for them, used the famous Beatles' line and changed it into a poem about animal rights (again, sort of). You gotta love the bloody cross in the bottom corner:

Poetry is grand...

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

P.s. Sitemate Kristen is a Mexican Chef! 很好吃!

The CCP is afraid of the Internet

你们好!
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Sitemate Kristen and I did not have a pleasant lunch this afternoon. The topic of conversation: YouTube.com and why, as of last night and all day today, it is blocked across China.
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I use YouTube in my classroom every week for a series of "Dramatic Dialogues" (more on this in future posts - as soon as [if] YouTube returns) ripped from popular American sitcoms, used in order to inject emotion to my students sometimes robotic oral English-language skills. It's been a raging success for the past 3 weeks and so today, I thought it might be interesting to videotape it for YOU. SUCCESS! However, you will have to hold your horses because (I guess) the Chinese Communist Party thinks Youtube is not good for its people. Again, "stability" (AKA government officials keeping their unelected jobs, black-tinted BMWs, and guanxi) dominates individual freedoms.
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But why in the last 48 hours and not last week or month?
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The Internet is a-buzzin' about why the Great Firewall of China suddenly stopped YouTube from passing. This is not the first time Youtube has been blocked during my service; last year at about this time, when Tibetan monks rioted for autonomy, many foreigners captured live footage (later and foolishly distorted by CNN, which I must say is NOT affiliated with the American government - a common mistake made by Chinese) and BOOM, YouTube blocked. One hypothesis is there is new footage of the PLA beating Tibetan monks, as reported from BBC:
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The site has been carrying a graphic video released by Tibetan exiles, which shows hundreds of uniformed Chinese troops swarming through a Tibetan monastery - a group of troops beat a man with batons.
In another scene a group of men, including a monk, are beaten, kicked and choked, while they lie on the ground. Some have their hands tied others appear to be unconscious.
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The date and locations of the footage cannot be confirmed. Beijing maintains that it dealt lawfully with last years protests in Tibet. On Tuesday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China "is not afraid of the internet". However, he was unable to confirm if YouTube had been blocked.
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Another, and probably more plausible hypothesis is the posting of official US-Navy videos on Youtube showing real footage of an incident a week or so ago involving an American surveillance ship, USNS Impeccable, and its run-in (described as "harassment") with a few Chinese fishing boats. The fishing boats mooned the American ship and tried to "snag or cut the cable to its towed sonar array." Sadly, the Chinese fishing boats didn't have their cameras rolling when it was time to be accountable for their actions. I think the below images says a hell of a lot about each country's military might...

But the real issue is how China is not afraid of the Internet, but the powers that govern China are. Many Chinese are upset too; the message boards are full of Chinese citizens and bloggers who see these blocks as a sign of a nervous and confused government, giving the country of China (I disagree with Mr. Mao - China and the CCP are NOT interconnected and reliable on each other) the P.R. problem that trails them like a ball and chain as they take their first steps onto the world's stage.

So I guess you will have to wait to see how YouTube is used to bring China and the West together through education, language, pop culture, and creativity...

"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." ~ President Barack Obama 奥巴马, January 20, 2009

I love and miss you all,

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Phil

蓝麦飞

St. Patrick's Day in Chongqing (year #2)

你们好!
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Peace Corps China (Chongqing) 13 and 14

+ a few special extras

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞

The 6-word Memoir (Expanded!)

你们好!
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I've written about my experiences using 6-word memoirs in the Chinese University Classroom approx. 1 year ago, and due to their overwhelming success then, I thought I should expand the lesson this semester for my English major students. Last week I gave my students the homework of writing one six-word memoir followed by a short paragraph explaining the "story" behind their 6 words.
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Read all my students' 6-word memoirs!
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My favorites:

• Rock, Rock, Rock, Keep on Rockin'!
• I once was so much naughty!
• Grammar and Vocabulary make me down!
• No absolute fairness in this world
• Try to remember, try to forget
• Friends hurt me, friends save me
• The stereotype sucks, the rationalism rocks!
• East or West, home is best
• What am I going to do?
• Like a fish, but couldn't swim
• I will be my own boss!
• So lucky to be with you
• Got the flu, lost in school
• I never feel alone, thank you
• Mum and I planted the tree
• I WANT TO BE WITH YOU!
• My life seems like a ladder
• Love me or hate me. Choose.
• No one knew. But I did. --- my favorite...

After we looked at a blackboard full of summarized experiences, picked our favorites and explained why they "stirred our soul," students got into 5 groups and I asked them to work together to write one 6-word memoir for each of 5 "famous" persons from history (pictures taped to the front board; see above pictures link). I tried to select a mixture of Chinese and Americans, from both the past and modern society, the last person being the "most intelligent, good-looking, and overall coolest person of the five pictured." Here are some of their responses, concluding with the 6-word memoirs/autobiographies I wrote for each of these world-renowned figures (Bolded):

George Washington:

First President of the United States

He chopped down a cherry tree

I really like your hair style

Where would America be without him?

Brave hero, but he approved of slavery

Mao ZeDong:

No Chairmen Mao, No new China! (insert smiling, clapping students here)

He swam across the Yangtze River

He made life easy and hard

Sometimes the hero can't resist temptation

Where would China be without him? (Good Question!)

A "foreign teacher" is an oxymoron (homework was to understand this)

Bill Gates:

Money Money Money Money Money Money!

Hundreds, Thousands, Millions, Billions, Trillions, WOW!

Gained from others, gave to others

You can't take it with you

Liu Xiang: (2004 Olympic gold-medalist who was injured for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, inspiring many Chinese tears)

Proving Chinese can run fast too

Run, Jump, Run, Jump, Run, Jump

Will come back stronger and faster

Love him or hate him? Decide.

Disappointed? What if he won silver?

Philip Razem:

Phil: 桃花朵朵开 táohuā duǒ duǒ kāi (Phil: You cause the peach flowers to blossom)

Being handsome is not your fault (Trust me, I know!)

I love you! Yes! Me too! (I love you too!)

A bridge to a different world

All I want is the truth!

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This activity, of course, was designed to exercise students' creative skills, as well as think critically at a life and note its successes and failures ("Remember: No one is perfect"). The most interesting answers were groups' 6-word memoirs of Mao; when I put his picture on the front board, many students in the class clapped and got physically excited (wiggling in their desks) when it was him I chose from Chinese history. Some groups, as listed above, had only good things to say, but others acknowledged the many (many!) faults of Mao in their 6 words. If a class from, well, any country outside of China was asked to write this summarized moment of Mao, I am sure a very, very large percentage of them would use words like "murderer" and "evil" and "failure" etc. But the question is: How many American students would acknowledge Washington's (many!) faults like I did above?

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Final note: A student in my last class came up to me and asked, "Why didn't you select any women?" I had no good answer, and for that, I apologize.

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PCVs! Do this with your class! and check out http://www.postsecret.com/ for inspiration. "We are more similar than different."

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I love and miss you all,

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Phil

蓝麦飞

Mountain Dew in Chongqing, China! 激浪, 不山露水

你们好!
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Kristen and I were walking to lunch this afternoon and decided to stop into a small grocery store to pick up a drink. To our surprise, on the top shelf of the small, upright refrigerator was my first sighting of Mountain Dew in over 21 months. For 2 RMB (30 cents or so), I bought, popped open the can and...DID THE DEW!
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The can is interesting; it reminded me of something I might find in my family's Canada, where the official language is English, but all the products are labeled in both English and French. In my experiences perusing Chinese supermarkets, this "half and half" labeling method is still rare; most foreign products - i.e. Tide Laundry Detergent, Heinz Ketchup, Jiffy Peanut Butter - are translated into Chinese, retaining only the English-language brand name for credibility. As you can see, half of the can is the standard Mountain Dew logo we (I say "we" meaning mostly young college students who don't want to drink hot coffee while buried under a stack of Shakespeare books until 3 a.m. - cough cough) know and love:And the reverse side is the Chinese translation, which I must say, looks very, very cool.

Kristen and I both knew how "Mountain Dew" could be translated - 山露水 shanlùshui, literally "mountain dew" - but on the can, it has been given the name of 激浪 jīlang, or "turbulent/surging wave(s)." Hey, I think that's pretty accurate! Just wait till Chinese start drinking this stuff and begin experiencing that caffeine-induced high, followed shortly by the disabilitating caffeine withdrawal that only another ride on the Dew's "turbulent wave" can fix! Do the Dew!
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I love and miss you all,
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Phil
蓝麦飞
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Note: In no way does "Runnin' the Great Wall" endorse or receive sponsorship from Mountain Dew Citrus Cola. Or does it?...

Our "Muslim Noodle" Restaurant in Beibei, Chongqing

你们好!

Actually, there are dozens of "Muslim Noodle" restaurants in Beibei, but this specific one has an indescribable charm. DeCaprio (his spelling), who I write about often (running friend; we travelled to Beijing and ran on the Great Wall), and his girlfriend, Mary, also a senior English major at Southwest University, introduced Devon (My lovely first-year sitemate) and I to this small, cubby-hole-of-a-place during my first semester teaching in Beibei. Before I say anymore, take a look at this place, and then I'll tell you just a few reasons why this is "My Favorite Restaurant in...China." Enjoy!



I mentioned in the introduction that one of my favorite characteristics about this restaurant is the "diverse" crowd. I (try to) teach world citizenry in my classes, which is difficult when China, for the most part, is a homogeneous society (Chinese will quickly disagree and claim they have 55 minorities and blah blah blah, but the truth is, more than 90% of Chinese are of the Han majority, and "minorities" seem token and exploited in the tourism industry). However, Southwest University is a blessing due to it's sheer magnitude; it has a large(r in comparison to other Chinese universities) population of foreign students, coming from as close as Thailand to as far away as the U.S., Africa, and the Middle East. This restaurant, garnished with pictures of Mecca and whose cooks and waitresses kneel and pray on stray mats, sometimes amid the chaos of lunch hour, does not serve any pork dishes (the staple meat of most Chinese food) and prohibits alcohol. It's food and environment caters to a demographic of SWU students who come from western provinces (Xinjiang Province most notably) and countries that share China's Western border. In the video there is a cameo from one of my friends, Kunduz, who is a foreign student from Kirghistan, sitting at a table with other foreign students from, I was told, Pakistan and other Central Asian countries. Though Chinese is the most widely spoken language inside, local dialects and heavily-accented English swirl through the air. Think The Tower of Babel without the chaos, add great food! It's quite an experience, and I always learn more and more about the world and its people every time I order my fanqie rousi gai jiao fan, jia yige jidan!
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The family that runs the restaurant still presents many mysteries to me. I have learned a few details about them from DeCaprio (Mongol minority) and Mary (Hui Muslim minority), as well as from random English tutors and friends, but as for their real life story, I feel it will always be lost due to their private disposition. The lone waitress, a young girl about 13 years old, works everyday, all day, and she is so sweet and speaks really slooow Mandarin to me - "Chi Shenme?" - and then repeats my order back to me with a smile. The Laoban (boss), complete with his Muslim hat and long black beard, chuckles when I ask him, "Duo Shao Qian? 多少钱?" (How much?) and we have a friendly tradition of shaking hands every time money is exchanged. He has two little children, a boy and a girl, who can't be much older than 6. They play all day while their mother works in the kitchen, and have confessed that they aren't upset about not going to school - tragedy for me as a teacher - and I can't help but guess that they will do the same job as their older sister - bringing dishes from the kitchen and taking orders - when they grow up. Enjoy your youth while you have it! A small part of heart breaks every time I see them playin' around the restaurant with big, curious smiles, and then their older sister, sweating and carrying big plates of chopped chicken and potatoes, exits from the kitchen. It reminds me of what I have had, continue to have...and will have. And how fortunte I am.
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I hope you can experience this scene, or something like it, in your life. Life lessons and delicious food is a lovely combination...
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Finally, please click this link to learn about and possible donate to PCV Val's secondary project in Guizhou Province! She is the ultimate do-gooder and deserves all the support she needs! The task that lies before her is very arduous, and every US Dollar YOU donate will be used to change the lives of a few (many!) Chinese children who have not been blessed with the fortune YOU (unknowingly) possess! Check it out!
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I love and miss you all,
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Phil
蓝麦飞

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

Introducing Zappa! "For BRAIN POWER!" and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"

你们好!

Introducing Zappa!

"For BRAIN POWER!" "Zappa! is an all natural supplement that stimulates brain activity. Popular with American university students during Finals Week, it can be taken directly or mixed with the beverage of your choosing. Tasteless and odorless, it aids memory, recollection, and mental alertness!"

Now before you start thinking I am trying to sell homemade heroin on the blog, hear me out! At the end of last semester, I gave my students a take-home "final exam": Shirley Jackson's 1948 short story, "The Lottery" (click if you haven't read it) and asked them to write a simple 1-2 page composition detailing their reaction to the story's "ridiculous" (the most popular adjective in their essays) ending and how the story was relevant to personal experiences from their own lives. I gave the assignment and said nothing more. All Spring Festival, I read hundreds of these essays, collected interesting quotations from a select few, and just this past week addressed the story/assignment to the class. But before that....

I want to thank my lovely mother, who sent me a huge crate of Zappa! in the mail. I chopped it up into small cubes and passed out tissues to all my students. I used a pair of Peace Corps-issued tweezers to disperse the Zappa!, because every American college student knows you can't touch Zappa! with your bare hands or the active chemical in it would be compromised. As I carefully placed the fragile cube on their tissues, some of their faces moved curiously close to the Zappa! and gave it a really hard look. I gave myself a cube and, after raising my tissue, stuck the tip of my tongue onto the small cube and pulled it into my mouth, chewing quickly and then swallowing. The class followed.

The class quickly started, we did our speaking/thinking exercises, and after a 10 minute break, we started talking about "The Lottery" and the things they said in their essays (NOTE: If you want the handout with the complete quotations, send me an e-mail). Here are a few of my favorite quotations:

• "Today, we still follow like sheep. When seeing a report in the newspaper, we believe it without thinking; when knowing a piece of news from the TV, we accept it; when hearing an inflammatory speech, we respect it. But is it true? Is there something phony? Is there a stereotype which puzzled our right decision?...Because of conformism (conformity), we lose our creation; because of conformism, we stops thinking, because of conformism, we human being degenerate to animals"
• "We cannot tolerate to see the situation in Tibet worsen like in DRC, not let Taiwan be independent as Kosovo, not have an election like America does. We hold different history, different culture and different backgrounds. The tree that bear fruits in the outsider are unquestionably cannot always grow well on the soil of China"
• "Sometimes opposition is not enough. Last year, almost all the students in our major asked the school to change a better dormitory for us, or at least gave us a shower. We wrote a letter to school and we all signed our name on it. But our school didn’t take any action, and in other words, our school just ignored our request. Though we felt very angry about it, we can do nothing. Perhaps we need to adapt ourselves to our environment."

And a quotation that received many laughs and nodding heads:

• "It seems that people can only be happy when they see others unhappy. I have to admit that I have also had this kind of feeling. My friend ____'s boyfriend is gorgeous and they look very happy. I really envy them. Once ____ had a quarrel with her boyfriend and cried in front of me. I felt sorry for her and tried to comfort her. I could feel the smile inside my heart. That was true. I could feel it and even hear it."

We talked about these quotations; some students said some really interesting things that I believe aren't normally shared in a Chinese university classroom (setting aside tradition for modernism, wanting a say in political affairs, etc.) but there was still many who regurgitated the Party line: "The West should stay out of our affairs. The monks in Tibet like their hard life - it's part of their culture." The Peace Corps and SWU told me when I arrived that I shouldn't talk about the "Three T's" (Taiwan, Tibet, and 19_89 Tian_an_m_en - the last still being too controversial to discuss in a classroom) but I slowly start to see I don't need to bring them up in class - the students make connections themselves. That is wonderful.

And finally, in the last 5 minutes of class, I ask the students where their Zappa! is, and ask them why they ate it. "You did it!" they yelled. The week before, I gave everyone a fortune cookie my mother had actually mailed from home. They were primed for receiving presents. "Guess what? Zappa! doesn't exist...I made it up. It's poison - (Phil looks at his watch) - you have 5 minutes to live." The class sits back quickly and stares at me with a mixture of curiosity, catharsis, and pure fear. "Just kiddin'" I say.

"What how many things are like Zappa! in your life? How many things do you just accept and put into your body or mind without thinking and asking yourself, 'Wait a minute! What?!' What is your Zappa!?"

Heads nod, small smiles, working brains.

Of course, maybe they will never trust me again. But I would rather have them not trust me than compliantly swallow without first thinking if they should put something or idea in their mouths/minds. "Never forget Zappa!" I tell them before the bell rings.

What's your Zappa!?

I love and miss you all,

Phil

蓝麦飞

References:

• Lu Xun's "The Medicine"
• Zappa! is just Chinese snack food called 禄豆糕 I bought in Guangxi Province. Hard Bean Cake. 不好吃!

The needle in the haystack...

你们好!
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In his 2005 book, A Man Without A Country, Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC."
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This past weekend I journeyed down to Chongqing to NUTS, a rock/punk music hall recommended to me by one of my students.

China's music scene is dominated by pop. Pop stars' faces are all over television commercials, billboards, and food packaging at the supermarket, and their voices seem to be perpetually singing a harmonious ballad of triviality. Very rarely do I meet a student who tells me that they enjoy a genre that's not pop music - sometimes they say they like Jay Chou, calling him "Rap" or Hip Hop," but trust me, he is a sheep dressed in wolves' clothing. As a music lover who involuntarily pushes the (shallow) pop genre as far away from my ears as possible, living and listening in China has not been the most pleasurable musical experience. In short, I learned another valuable aesthetic characteristic of American culture: musical diversity...or at least America's promotion of diverse genres of music, compared to that of poppy (poopy?) 中国.

But that's not to say that China's music scene is hopeless. Club Nuts is a needle in the haystack, and judging from my experience there, a source of new creation and individualized expression in a vanilla world. I met up but PCVs Scott and Megan, took a cab to the venue, paid the 25 RMB cover, and walked into an small cement-box concert hall holding maybe 150 people. The band was local and to our surprise, played 1/2 their set of songs in English, claiming their indie-rock, New Age sound was heavily influenced by The Cure. The band's lead singer was female (think Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), had large, round black-framed classes and short auburn-dyed hair. They wore a conservative green dress with bright yellow tights and neatly laced Converse high-tops. Her voice was high and resonate, and she subtly swayed in pulsing colored lights. The band members, all men, played to precision, and more than once I looked over to Scott and Megan and yelled, "These guys are legitimate!" They received hordes of cheers from the crowd of Chinese musical outcasts (and a few foreigners), many dressed with their own Bohemian flair, ending their set with a cover of Coldplay's "Yellow" (with Chinese characteristics)! 哈哈

In all honesty, the experience was rejuvenating. I lose faith in China sometimes - the suppression of university students' creativity, especially of those who are supposedly studying a subject in the field of "Humanities," is fuel in my fire - but now and then, I've learned how something as simple 1-hour rock n' roll show, with performers who probably failed the GaoKao (College Entrance Exam) with all-time lows, can recharge my optimism in the Middle Kingdom. Rock n' Roll...the best diplomacy!

Picture TAG: ClubNuts

I love and miss you all,

Phil
蓝麦飞