Awww...

Here is a letter I received from one of my students the other day:

Hi Kitty! This is the last journal. And the examination is around the corner. I don't worry about the examination. But I do know, after the examination, you won't come to see us. Is that right?

What I want to say is I will miss you in the future. You have brought us much happiness, and we all consider you as a good teacher and a good friend. You have a shown us what an optimistic an American girl is.

Since you have accepted my invitation to be a judge last time, I came to know how kind you are. To be honest, I was touched. On that evening, we talked a lot. I was so excited that I was full of energy for following several days. It's very comfortable to be with you. So, extremely, I want to make friends with you. Maybe we have been, all right? That's why I telephoned you to make sure you are ok on the earthquake day. You are my friend.

I don't know if you wonder why a Chinese boy would think so much for just a simple help. If you do wonder, I would say it's the different between Chinese and American. One is inner and the other is outer. I don't know if each American girl, or boy is so straightforward, but as your character has impressed me, my dream that studying in US few years later is more resolute. I want to make friends with more straightforward American. At that time, if have chances, I will go to Minneapolis to drop at my first American friend's home. Will you welcome me? :)

But we have another problem to work out. If we don't keep in touch with each other for four or six years, we will just be strangers.

So I will reveal the main purpose of the whole passage. I want to keep in touch with you in the future. If you consider your Chinese student I is ok or just not bad, please promise me. I want it very much. And on the other aspects, you can get accurate information about China from me, it is free! :)

In the end, I want to represent all my classmates to say, you are a good teacher, a good friend, we all love like you, we will miss you forever!

I'm really going to miss all this undeserved admiration.

Something to Chew On

An interesting article about the future of meat consumption (and food, in general) in the face of growing global demands and climate change.

Being over here has made me think a lot about not only what kind of effects food has on my body, but also the consequences of my food choices both locally and globally. The food situation in China has gotten a lot of attention lately (at least in the foreign media) with the Olympics, the problems with tainted exports, and the effects of pollution on food and agricultural land. But overall, China is facing the same kind of problems that the U.S. has faced in the past or will face in the future. Both countries need to take a serious look at an agricultural system that is suffering from economic and environmental problems.

Here is a great website that shows you what agricultural products are in season in your area (U.S. only). It also has links to recipes for those who need some extra help. Eating locally not only supports the local economy but also cuts down on greenhouse gases caused by transporting produce hundreds or thousands of miles. If that doesn't convince you, it tastes better too.

I think that's enough raving for today.

More Earthquakes and Chinese Buildings

Since the first major earthquake a couple weeks ago, there have been various aftershocks occurring, and even more common is the constant threat of aftershocks. At least once a day, I get a text message (from who, I'm not exactly sure) notifying me about the current state of the seismic plates and whether or not I should be concerned. Last week, the entire country was warned there would be another earthquake between the hours of 10pm and midnight, and everyone was thus advised to go outside their homes and any other building they might be occupying. This whipped up enough paranoia so that the entire student body (or it seemed) moved outside to camp in the streets or other open areas. Here is a picture of the badminton courts that night, just outside the hotel .


I chose not to spend the night outside because a) I'm pretty sure you can't predict when an earthquake will happen and b) the first one didn't do any harm in Xi'an, so an aftershock is even less of a threat. Altogether it wasn't worth the trouble of sleeping outside when I had to look chipper in front of 30 students the next day.
However, some students are rightfully worried about staying in their dormitories. I was told by Ma Jing that one dormitory on campus had even moved -a whole inch!- and the students of that building are staging a "sleep-out" protest as I write this. I'm not entirely sure that's ture, but, there has been a lot of controversy recently about the schools that collapsed in Sichuan province, which killed thousands of children, and all the while buildings that stood right next door were relatively unharmed. Here's a NY Times article for more information about the problem. The schools, apparently, were not properly reinforced, made from substandard concrete, and were not even up to the lax building codes of China.
The building standards have been a source of constant wonder during my time in China. Most of the construction is done by peasant laborers who seem to have no formal training in building, and there seems to be little or no leadership in completing projects. Witnessing the progession of construction on the new campus of NWPU is a little bizarre: one thing gets completed, and then destroyed by subsequent progress, and then needs to be rebuilt. One example is when a construction vehicle smashed the newly formed concrete curbs because no one thought to put down some ramps for the truck to drive over. And apparently, the cracks that happened on the teaching buildings on campus after the first earthquake were not due to the ferocity of the shaking, but instead, the fact that during construction someone tiled over some parts of the building that were supposed to move - in case of an earthquake (This was pointed out by another foreign teacher who is training to become an architect).
In many cases with new buildings here, they look very classy and expensive when they are first built, but because of lack of upkeep or the use of shoddy materials, they very quickly look like crap. I recently learned that the hotel where I live was built just 4 years ago. Now, it really is not a bad place to live, but to anyone who has seen my apartment up close, it is amazing the kind of damage this place has sustained in just 4 years. Almost equally amazing is the fact that the hotel still charges $100 per night to stay in a room like mine.

The sink faucet

The shower curtain- It is held up (kind of) by some string.

The carpet- My mom refused to walk on it with bare feet.

Update

The death toll has reached a staggering 10,000 people, including 900 children that were trapped inside of a collapsed high school. Thousands are still trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings. At least 20,000 have been injured. Thankfully this area of the country has escaped any serious damage, but hundreds of thousands of people in Sichuan province are without shelter and basic necessities. If you can find it in your heart, many charities are now accepting donations to help with disaster relief. Contributions can be made at the Red Cross or Mercy Corps. Every little bit will help.

I'm okay!

I'm safe and sound after the earthquake that struck China this afternoon. The center of the quake was actually not far from Xi'an, in Sichuan Province, just south of here. The tremors actually interrupted a game of kickball I was having with my students (to teach them about American baseball culture.. or something). I thought I was just a little dizzy from shouting too much and from the afternoon heat, but it took my students a few minutes to remember the word "earthquake!" (even though we studied 'Natural Disasters' less than a month ago), and we all dropped to the ground. Students and faculty were forced out of all the dormitories and classroom buildings and afternoon classes were canceled. This gave my students an extra two hours to appreciate the finer points of kickball (which, by the way, they thoroughly enjoyed-pictures to follow soon). In typical China fashion, we were left sitting outside on the pavement for the next couple hours without any updates on the situation, when we would be allowed back inside, or even why we were sitting outside for so long in the first place. So I decided to cut my losses, cancel my evening classes and catch the next bus back to my apartment. We've been really fortunate here and haven't witnessed any major damage, although one of the new buildings on campus is sporting some serious cracks in the facade. A few of my students, as well, were trying to get in contact with their families who live not far from the center of the quake. Fortunately, they are all okay. Yet, the death toll is already at 190 and some estimates have gone as high as 5,000, so please keep us all in your thoughts as the real extent of the damage is sorted out.

Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of the holiday, I want to talk a little about the best mother of all.. Mother Earth. (Sorry Mom, I love you!)


Here's an interesting article about China's ongoing battle with the environment. I've talked a lot of global warming with several of my classes and the results have varied between bemused condescension and genuine concern. Yet, none of them seemed to care very much that China is now the largest producer of carbon emissions. The most shocking thing to me was that many of my students couldn't think of any way that they could personally contribute to stopping global warming. Not one. Granted, these were my freshman who are, in general, the worst students on the planet, but I mean, come on.. Anyway, the article is really informative, but if you don't have the patience to read it (it's pretty long), I'll quickly summarize the most interesting points.

• 400,000 people in China die prematurely each year from respiratory illnesses.
  
• Four-fifths of the length of China's rivers are too polluted for fish.
• China now rivals North Africa as the world's leading producer of border-crossing dust (as my friend Min living in Korea has generously pointed out).
• China's GDP is growing at a rate of about 10% per year. But it is estimated that the result of China's environmental damage (everything from crops lost to health care costs) is costing 10% of its GDP. In essence, all of the economy's celebrated growth.

Another important thing to note is the consequences of our own choices as consumers (yes, I'm talking to you all the way across the world!) The article rightly points out the fact that our demand for cheap goods is fueling this environmental destruction that, whether we like it or not, will come back to get us one day. The wood furniture we conveniently purchase at Ikea is manufactured in China with illegally logged wood from Siberia and Indonesia. Deforestation accounts for 18% of the world's greenhouse gases. That's only one example, but I could go on. The fact is that, even though we have strict(ish) laws in the U.S. about pollution and emissions, the material goods that we desire have to be made somewhere. Unfortunately for the Chinese people, their government officials are not beyond the draw of all the dollars they get in manufacturing these goods. Indeed, the author elegantly states that China is merely following the American economic model. And as I've heard my students say, developed countries have polluted the earth for hundreds of years in order to become powerful, now it's our turn.

But the Chinese people are not taking this lying down. The article highlights that pollution and environmental damages caused an estimated 50,000 disputes and protests in 2005 alone. However, these protests have all met with the same response: government crackdown resulting in lives lost, in one case even, a 13-year old girl. As one demonstrator in Zhejiang province said, "They are making poisonous chemicals for foreigners that the foreigners don't dare produce in their own countries. It is better to die now, forcing them out, than to die of a slow suicide."