We are both changing, China and me. It is inevitable and a challenge for both of us. Sitting here on the campus of the Beijing Language and Culture University listening to A-Mei and supping a latte, I am part of the hugely vital experience that China is living through. I left the comfort of the boardroom of my PR agency in Singapore for a dorm room here on campus, studying Chinese for three months. At the end of first week I have some observations that I hope might be of interest to you.
Change is scary. From a three bed apartment and a semblance of authority in Singapore I have gone to a small-bed room dorm and an inability to do something that I make a living doing; talk! The whole idea is that if you come to BLCU you have come to learn Chinese, and the first lesson is trying to get administered and a room on campus. China loves a paper trail, and the BLCU handbook has a flowchart to help students chart a course from registration to payment to receipt of a little red booklet that tells everyone you are a xuesheng (one of the first words I learnt). It’s stressful but everyone is very pleased to help, but just in Chinese. Lesson #1 – ignorance is humbling.
Some 30,000 people are studying Chinese in Beijing. Mainly Japanese and Koreans, who have an advantage in sharing similar character sets, my class has Latin Americans on an MBA break, two English lads hoping to travel around China before going to University, an Icelandic girl and her Iranian friend. Apparently there are virtually no Singaporean’s, who may already speak the language but may benefit from the connections to be made here. Campus is a tasty melting pot of Chinese and international citizens of the world whom, since Yao Ming, have taken to basketball with an intensity that should be alarming for the American Olympic basket ball team.
Western students are extravagant. Nicole, my tutor, exclaimed that I must be very rich as I took my laundry to be done for RMB15 (US$1.5) as it can be done for RMB3.5 if you don’t mind having it hanging wet in your room. Nicole lives with three other girls in a room and pays US$140 for a year, my room is US$300 per month. The average salary in Beijing is US$1,500 per year, a bar staff will make US$60 per month and farmers earn an average US$540 per year. Students here work very hard, late into the night; they see what Westerners have and want to work for western companies when they graduate. There is a hunger for knowledge and progress in young people that I have not seen anywhere before, coupled with a genuine sense of commitment to their Chinese culture and families.
That culture is changing too. My oracle is the ‘China daily’ – I still don’t understand the news on the state owned channels. The state-owned publication is available after 1pm for RMB1 and is the only English language daily in China. In two sections of some 16 pages each it chronicles national, international and business issues. It illustrates the dichotomy between the modern China and the China that still lives cheek by jowl in the hutongs.
‘Boy loses hearing to valentine in Hangzhou.’ A boy went to the doctor complaining of hearing loss. Kissing the boy while looking at the beauty of Hangzhou’s famous Westlake, his girlfriend managed to burst his eardrum. Apart from the obvious comment on the passion of girls from Hangzhou, the story for me shows an innocence about sexuality that I find here, an ignorance of health issues, and an interest in publishing stories that in other countries would be in the ‘can you believe it’ section, not news.
“Thief arrested for trouser shortening.’ A peasant woman heard that the store she had ‘acquired’ her trousers from offered free shortening of the hem. She demanded her free service only to be apprehended as she had stolen the trousers in the first place. She thought that they would not recognize her! There is a huge and growing gulf in sophistication between the poor and rich in China. It is of great concern to the Party as literally millions of rural people flood to the cities weekly in hope of jobs. The papers each day have stories of the need to take measures to address the growing disparity of wealth; with discrete mentions that each major political change in China has come from the countryside.
Meanwhile China takes centre stage, both in Asia and the world. The hosting of the six party talks on the North Korea issue, initiation of bi-lateral talks with India on trade, preparation for the Olympics, and fending off pressure for a currency revaluation, are all indications to me that China is re-emerging from decades of isolation. Since Nixon’s ping pong diplomacy China has been on and off the geo-political map as a counter against Russia and Japan. Now it is assuming it’s own place, while wrestling with rapid domestic change and international pressure.
The BLCU for me is a microcosm of what is taking place in China; inevitable and challenging change. Chinese tutors are teaching foreigners, foreigners are bringing new ways of thinking and living, and together it is a rich mixture of innocence and complexity. In the process of attempting to speak Chinese, I am learning about my own limitations and preconceptions. One thing I am sure of, change is happening, and as spring is opening the buds on the trees outside my dorm room, this is a fabulous place to both watch and participate in that change.
