Thirteen Ways of Looking at China ^
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Before I begin, a caveat: When I got home from Australia and people would ask me what Australians were like, I would say, "Well, when I first got there, I thought, 'Australians are like this.' Then after about three months I thought, 'No, Australians are like that.' And then after about seven months I stopped making such statements because I realized I couldn't characterize the whole country by any single statement."
I'm sure that what will follow (both here and in later entries) is a lot of "Chinese people are like X" that I will probably disavow as soon as I have more experience. But it's interesting to me now to think about these things . . . and forgive me if I sound naive . . .
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My new name for China is the Zone of Proximal Development. "Zone of Proximal Development" is a term coined by the Russian psychologist (?) Lev Vygotsky to mean (as John Lennon might put it) the difference between what I can learn or do by myself, and what I can learn or do with a little help from my friends. The idea is, people learn best from other people, and a bunch of people learning from each other is the best way to learn.
The Chinese seem to have taken this idea a step further - to the expectation that a bunch of people working together can do anything. My friend Fanlin told me a few weeks ago that in China, people equal power. I've been thinking about that since he said it, turning my own observations over against that idea, and trying to understand how it plays out.
One striking example has got to be the countdown to the beginning of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing. If you haven't seen it, go hunt it up in whatever online venue works for you - it's astonishing. Those 2,000 drummers practiced 8 hours a day for four months, and together they were more precise than a computer-generated clock. It was a masterful display of what a lot of people working together can accomplish.
The idea on a micro-level is just as compelling. On the plane from Beijing to Chicago, I sat next to a young man who's on his way to start his freshman year at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa - when he saw me try to put one of Louise's horses in the overhead compartment, he jumped up to help me. We got to talking, and he offered to let me watch some videos with him. (My favorite moment was when he realized that the German film wasn't dubbed, and if we went with English subtitles, he'd miss a lot. I said, "That's okay; I can probably follow the German well enough to understand the movie, so turn on the Chinese subtitles." And as it turned out [largely a result of genre knowledge], I could.) So of course I offered to get him in touch with my friend Tosh, who just got his PhD in Ames, and who also traveled from Asia (Japan) to be a college freshman, too. And that's how it works: In helping you, I help myself. The whole society runs better if people are helpful to each other.
And then when I got home, I found this passage in Quotations from Confucius, a little gem of a volume we scored in a bookstore the day before we left.**
That's my kind of place, you know?
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^ There aren't really thirteen ways written here. The title was purely referential. (But maybe there will be thirteen ways by the time I'm done.)
** You gotta love traveling with bibliophiles. On the way to the store we were bitching about our overweight luggage and wondering how we were going to cope, and as soon as we saw the books, you could hear, "Oh, wow! Where did you find that? Are there any more?" Collectively we scored books of poetry in translation, a novel, a kids' book, maps of China and maps of the world with China on the left. We possibly bought at least one copy of every single thing we could find that was written in English and had something to say about Chinese culture (there wasn't much). We walked out of the bookstore very happy - and each with luggage about ten pounds heavier than when we went in. Priorities are priorities . . .
I'm sure that what will follow (both here and in later entries) is a lot of "Chinese people are like X" that I will probably disavow as soon as I have more experience. But it's interesting to me now to think about these things . . . and forgive me if I sound naive . . .
--------------------
My new name for China is the Zone of Proximal Development. "Zone of Proximal Development" is a term coined by the Russian psychologist (?) Lev Vygotsky to mean (as John Lennon might put it) the difference between what I can learn or do by myself, and what I can learn or do with a little help from my friends. The idea is, people learn best from other people, and a bunch of people learning from each other is the best way to learn.
The Chinese seem to have taken this idea a step further - to the expectation that a bunch of people working together can do anything. My friend Fanlin told me a few weeks ago that in China, people equal power. I've been thinking about that since he said it, turning my own observations over against that idea, and trying to understand how it plays out.
One striking example has got to be the countdown to the beginning of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing. If you haven't seen it, go hunt it up in whatever online venue works for you - it's astonishing. Those 2,000 drummers practiced 8 hours a day for four months, and together they were more precise than a computer-generated clock. It was a masterful display of what a lot of people working together can accomplish.
The idea on a micro-level is just as compelling. On the plane from Beijing to Chicago, I sat next to a young man who's on his way to start his freshman year at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa - when he saw me try to put one of Louise's horses in the overhead compartment, he jumped up to help me. We got to talking, and he offered to let me watch some videos with him. (My favorite moment was when he realized that the German film wasn't dubbed, and if we went with English subtitles, he'd miss a lot. I said, "That's okay; I can probably follow the German well enough to understand the movie, so turn on the Chinese subtitles." And as it turned out [largely a result of genre knowledge], I could.) So of course I offered to get him in touch with my friend Tosh, who just got his PhD in Ames, and who also traveled from Asia (Japan) to be a college freshman, too. And that's how it works: In helping you, I help myself. The whole society runs better if people are helpful to each other.
And then when I got home, I found this passage in Quotations from Confucius, a little gem of a volume we scored in a bookstore the day before we left.**
A man who has faith in humanity, while seeking to be established himself, tries to enable the others to be established and while desiring success in everything for himself, helps the others succeed in everything. To draw exemplary strength from handy facts is the way to perform humanity.
That's my kind of place, you know?
------------------
^ There aren't really thirteen ways written here. The title was purely referential. (But maybe there will be thirteen ways by the time I'm done.)
** You gotta love traveling with bibliophiles. On the way to the store we were bitching about our overweight luggage and wondering how we were going to cope, and as soon as we saw the books, you could hear, "Oh, wow! Where did you find that? Are there any more?" Collectively we scored books of poetry in translation, a novel, a kids' book, maps of China and maps of the world with China on the left. We possibly bought at least one copy of every single thing we could find that was written in English and had something to say about Chinese culture (there wasn't much). We walked out of the bookstore very happy - and each with luggage about ten pounds heavier than when we went in. Priorities are priorities . . .
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