How To Get Into College And Be Successful (Have I Piqued Your Interest?)

I was out to a lunch with a friend for her birthday the other day.  Her oldest son is beginning the college search (read: she is beginning her son's college search).  Anyone who has gone to college or has had a child go to college knows, the process can be filled with anxiety and worry, real and imagined.  Being a doer from a family of doers, our friend has gotten a jump on the college search (her son is just only a junior).  She explained that she is a person who knows how much time she has and will actively work towards her goal until the due date.

We can contrast that with the thinkers, who ruminate on a subject during most of the precious available time and only take action when the remaining time is less than or equal to the time required to complete the task at hand.  That would be us.  I'm not making normative statements here, just identifying two types of people.  In this case, the thinkers were able to assuage the doer's fear that her time was running out, assuring her that she needn't feel so pressed as to act rashly.

Our friend had already gone to the public library and checked out The Princeton Review's 377 Best Colleges and a heap of related tomes.  I laughed a bit at her and a bit at myself: at her because she can well afford to buy the books ten times over and would actually read every page twice, and at myself because I hadn't ever thought of checking the books out from the library, and the purchased books remain unread on my shelf to this day.  You are how you were raised, it seems.

In any event, our friend was disappointed but also slightly amused to find her son not reading these books but rather interlocking their pages as if shuffling playing cards.  Once they were sufficiently intertwined, he would try to pull them apart to test their (and his own) strength.  Perhaps he has a future in physics and/or bodybuilding.

Noting some anxiety, I assured my friend that everything would work out as it was meant to.  In general, we're big believers in that.  That doesn't mean we believe in fate.  Rather, we believe in our natural ability as people to find our own way.  If you are open-minded and take one day at a time, you'll always wind up where you belong.  Of course, when talking about college, few people are comforted by hearing that, especially from me.

But it is true.  I find that many and most people start out thinking that they should go somewhere or do something because it is what they are supposed to want.  My school was right for me, but it isn't right for everyone.  Admittedly, I didn't look at college guides, and I never visited any other schools, but I followed my gut.  And that's why I got in, I think.  Maybe I did exactly what I'm saying not to do and got lucky, but I don't think so.

So, I advised, keep reading about and visiting schools until you find something that you like and that feels right to you.  Again, you don't want to hear it from me, but forget about US News rankings and all that baloney.  The rankings are based on statistical fact, but in viewing these aggregate data, we forget two things.  The first is that the students they measure already go to that school.  They have been selected by an admissions committee on the basis of its expert evaluation.  The fact that students who go to a school are performing a certain way says nothing about a student who doesn't go there.  Furthermore, aggregate data are rarely useful enough to reliably predict the performance of any individual.  You are unique and will fit in to an environment in your own way.  And if it's a bad way, then it doesn't matter what the statistics say: you will do poorly.

Like I said, admissions committees are the experts when it comes to how students will do at their school.  They review thousands of applications each year and have a solid grasp on who will thrive and who will wither, and they will use your application to determine into which category you fall.  Given that, there is that great temptation to tell admissions committees "what they want to hear."  But, trust me, they will know what you're trying to do and reject you.  Even if you've managed to trick them, you're not doing yourself any favors.  By putting yourself in a place you don't belong, you're doing more harm than good.  You will be miserable.

The best applications, then, are the most honest ones; the ones that tell the committee who you are and not what you do; the ones that show a whole person and not just a student, not just the captain of the soccer team, not just the president of the student council.  Just be honest about yourself and what's important to you, what makes you different and unique, what makes someone else want to know more about you.  Just be honest, and you will be fine.  And you will wind up where you belong.

After you wind up where you belong, you'll find out you didn't know yourself as well as you thought you did.  College is a place where you can expect the unexpected, where you can expect to find out you aren't the person you were told you were or who you thought you wanted to be.  You'll meet all sorts of kooks and weirdos and/or find out that you are one.  My advice always is to take every chance you get to hang out with people that are different from you, as long as they're not doing anything dangerous or stupid.  Most often you'll be surprised how much you like them once you give them a shot.

To make my point more concrete, I recounted a story over lunch about a conversation I had had with a recent college freshman.  It was not a girl I knew well, but whom I had known quite some time.  We had volunteered at Sunday School years back.  She had always been a sweet and smart girl, a good sister and daughter, and as far as I could tell, a good friend to others.

She was telling me about her small Liberal Arts school, and how excited she had been to meet her new suite mates.  She had been randomly assigned to a suite of six girls (herself included).  The last suite mate to arrive was a girl named Melissa (names changed).  She walked into the suite wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a backpack.  She had short hair, and wasn't wearing any makeup or jewelry.  By process of elimination, my friend greeted the girl as Melissa.  Melissa responded, "I go by Matthew.  You can call me Matt."

It caught her off guard.  It's not every day you're freshman roommate is a trans man, after all.  I was impressed, though, with how gracefully and maturely she seemed to have been handling the situation.  Sure, she was a little uncomfortable, at least at first.  But she soon realized that being uncomfortable was a personal problem, ultimately have little to nothing to do with Matt and his lifestyle.  He showed no interest in her other than being suite mates, maybe even friends.

Back at the lunch table, our friend was reminded of when she had visited Skidmore just over 30 years earlier.  She told us how her mother thought the Saratoga Springs campus was simply lovely.  But as soon as her father saw two girls kissing, he had seen enough.  They were out of there in a New York minute.  "I'm not like that," our friend said, "you do what you want, as long as your not in my face about it.  I mean, you can do what you want as long as your not making other people uncomfortable."

It was a fair point but one that I thought needed qualification.  As far as I'm concerned, everyone needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves if their own standards of normalcy are making all the weirdos feel bad about themselves.  Everyone deserves the right to be who they are, and if that makes you uncomfortable, well, then that's your problem.  Just because you're more "normal" doesn't give you priority.

And that's one of those beautiful things you learn in college.  Be who you are, and learn to tolerate, even enjoy, the people around you for who they are and what they believe in.  Be honest about what you think, but don't judge others for having different opinions.  Don't apologize for what you have or lie about where you've come from, but also don't look down on those with less or mindlessly worship those with more.  They are worth no more or less than you are.

So, in the end, my advice was nothing more than what I would have said in almost any other situation.  Be honest and open, tolerant and accepting, willing to learn about others but especially about yourself.  And stop worrying so much about what or who you're supposed to be.  Frankly, it's the safer and easier choice anyway.  But if you can handle a little risk and are interested in long-term returns, then bet on yourself.  You are a solid investment.

Is/are there any question/s?

I woke up this morning to a interesting text message.  It asked about the peculiar feature of the English language shown in the two example sentences below:

1. Let me know if you have any questions.
2. I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

You'll notice that in the first statement, the noun following "any" is in the plural (questions), but in the second, it is in the singular (inconvenience).  Why should that be?  Mightn't it be just as proper and make just as much sense if these sentences read as follow?

1a. Let me know if you have any question.
2a. I'm sorry for any inconveniences.

If you're a native speaker of American English, then these sentences surely sound odd to you.  Additionally, you might have been reminded of any of the following common phrases.

1b. Is there any question (that)...?

Perhaps you've discovered that the usage of "question" in instance 1. differs from the usage in 1b.  In the former instance, the word refers to "a sentence worded or expressed so as to elicit information."  In this sense, "question" is a countable noun.  That is, he has two questions, but I only have one.  However, in the latter instance, this same word refers rather to "a doubt about the truth or validity of something."  Here, "question" is less concrete, more conceptual, and (althought technically countable), less apt to be counted in the same way.  Now see this.

2b. The inconviences of rural living can wear on aging people.

Here, "inconvenience" in instance 2. refers to trouble caused, whereas the instance in 2b. refers to instances of such trouble.  The line is indeed blurier, but still there somewhere.  Below are a few other fun examples, just to push the point a little further.  These examples are not consistent in terms of usage differences, but they all still illustrate a point I make earlier about countable and uncountable nouns.

3. I don't see any glass.
3a. I don't see any glasses.

These are totally different words.  The first "glass" is an uncountable noun.  Now that you've swept up, there is no more glass on the floor.  The second "glasses" can be both an inherently plural noun, referring to eyeglasses, or it can be a countable noun in the plural, as in wine glasses.  This sentence could have either meaning.

4. Do you have any money?
4a. Have there been any monies exchanged?

Here, "money" refers to a medium of exchange, whereas "monies" refers to discrete sums of money.

5. Is there any soup on the menu?
5a. Are there any soups on the menu?

The first example here also can have two meanings.  Do you see?  The second is more specific, asking about the existence of a soup or variety of soups listed on the menu.

Hopefully, there isn't any question that I've made things clearer, but if there are any questions, please do let me know.

Sliding Doors*

I could not find my dress shoes this morning. I scoured every closet, every shelf, every nook, and every cranny for over half an hour before resigning to slacks and brown loafers. I was all dressed when my mom came in and inquired of my dour expression. "Why so glum, chum?" she asked, surprisingly chipper for having spent the entire day prior in not one but two hospitals, in two different states, for two totally unrelated reasons.

"I'm not killing it today," I told her, "I can't even find my shoes." She suggested that if my room were not such a disastrous mess, then perhaps I would be able to find what I was looking for. A fair but frustrating assessment of the situation.

I looked down at the floor, paused, surveyed the landscape. And there they were, right in front of my face, wrapped in a yellow sarong I had acquired from a guest house in Costa Rica last summer. I remembered having packed them in the cloth after dinner at The Fat Duck, the last time I had worn them.

Already fully dressed but unsatisfied with my attire, I weighed the costs and benefits of changing into another outfit. Fortunately, I did not fall victim to a classic error in the cost-benefit analysis exercise. I changed.

Running late, I unsurprisingly caught every red light on my way to the train. I took a left on red, and tires a'screeching searched the parking garage for a space, especially difficult well after rush hour, when most spaces are filled. As I was getting out of my car in the only spot left on the third floor, I dropped my phone between the seats. It was dark, and I had no idea where it had landed. Train was leaving in 4 minutes. I still had to find my phone, get my bag, lock the car, get out of the garage, and run all the way to the platform. Basically, I was a dead man.

A run turned to a sprint. I could hear the toot toot of the approaching train. Do you want to make this train? I asked myself. Yes, I do. I slipped in as the doors slid closed behind me.

Was life trying to tell me something this morning? Maybe. All I can hope is that I never regret sprinting for that train.



*Inspired by Peter Howitt's 1998 film of the same name, starring Gwyneth Paltrow

The Fat Duck Experience

There is no dearth of articles about The Fat Duck, so I find little need to tell you that it is the crown jewel of chef-proprietor Heston Blumenthal, or that it has received three Michelin stars, or that it has been ranked and reviewed by a number of independent publications as one of the top restaurants in the world.  All of that information is readily available in the archives at The Times (of London or New York).  Alternatively, if you ever happen to be passing through the town of Bray, England, you can pop in for a quick bite and judge for yourself.

            

The technologically savvy have no doubt by-passed those dusty basement archives and gone straight to Yahoo, the unparalleled oracle of our times, and done a quick Internet search.  They will note that Bray lies in the English county of Berkshire, some 30 miles west of London.  If you can catch the express train from Paddington, you will be to Maidenhead in just over a half hour.  Any cabbie at the station will know The Fat Duck and would be delighted to drop you at the front door for a small fee.  Livers de luxe might hire a car straight from London for a few-odd hundred quid.  Up to you.

            

The unassuming exterior of the former public house is appropriate for the neighborhood, quiet and residential.  No neon signs emblazoned with “THE FAT DUCK” or “OPEN” found here.  Rather, the restaurant is inconspicuous to the point of obscurity.  In fact, I was even slightly hesitant at the front door.  Is this it?  A framed menu to the right of the door indicated that this was indeed the place.  The door was small and wooden, closed to the outside world.  I thought of Alice and what she might do.  Needless to say, I entered.

            

Inside beyond a narrow corridor, a British gentleman by the name of James welcomed us warmly and showed us to our table.  Being a taller fellow, James had to duck under the thick wooden beams that ran along the ceiling.  Fortunate (for once) to be shorter in stature, I had no trouble clearing them.  The low ceiling and plush carpeting made for hushed acoustics and a cozy atmosphere.  We sat at a lovely table for four in the back.

            

James returned shortly after with menus and a weighty tome.  The menus are merely for introductory purposes.  There is little choice of what to eat, as The Fat Duck offers The Tasting Menu only, a prix fixe, fourteen-course extravaganza.  The choice of what to drink, however, can be daunting.  The weighty tome I mentioned contains hundreds, if not thousands, of premiere wine selections.  But have no fear, for Isa, a world-class sommelier, will be there to save you from embarrassing yourself in front of your guests.  We ultimately decided to go with a prepared selection of wines, specially paired to the items on the menu.  I definitely recommend it.

            

I will refrain from extensive commentary on the meal itself.  You can find the menu on the website.  Suffice it to say that it was spectacular in every way: flavor, texture, temperature, smell, color, even sound.  The courses were creative and exciting, introduced and explained in detail by world-class servers. And that, in my opinion, was the highlight.  The serving staff were sharp and professional, dressed to impress in suits and ties, but they were also friendly, welcoming, and cheerful, and would not look askance even at jeans and a tee.  We were in suits, but the dress code reads: come as you are comfortable.

            

Four hours later, James sent us on our way, with a bag of sweets and a sealed copy of the menu in hand, mementos from a fantastic evening.  If you can save up a little spare change and make a reservation a few months in advance, I suggest you give The Fat Duck a try.  And be sure to bring someone you love, or that you hope someday will love you.  They just might after a meal here.

Backlash

Well, needless to say, there was some disagreement with the views expressed in my previous post.  Several people have suggested that the problem stems more from a sense of entitlement, lack of consequences, and a general loss of public shame.  Below is just one (negligbly edited) example of an alternative but, I'll maintain, not oppositve view:

My son spent the better part of his childhood collecting, hiding, and revering his arsenal of plastic guns.  He has long been a fan of action films, violent movies, good guys over bad guys, just as my brother and I were. He would never ever, ever, ever shoot anyone with a gun, real or plastic, because he has been brought up a sensitive, life-loving, giving, wonderful man. Even if I were being attacked, I know for sure that he could never pull a trigger.  An individual's anger manifests because of those around him -- i.e., SOMEONE or SOMETHING triggers the violence, not our laws, not our way of life, but the Liberal Democratic bulls**t that has people thinking that they can do anything they want, anytime they want, to anyONE they want, with no retribution.  All we need to do is to teach our kids that they can't do whatever the f*** they want.  Then, you'll see change.  When I was a kid, this s*** was UNHEARD of. 

Again, I don't think we are entirely in disagreement.  Ultimately, it is up to parents to teach their kids the difference between right and wrong, especially in the face of so much wrongdoing.  However, it's up to everyone to change the environment, the culture of violence, that surrounds them.  I'll say the same thing about our kids' health: Yes, parents need to do more to keep their kids eating right and getting enough physical activity, but its up to all of us to demand that we live in a society where it's not so hard for parents to do the right thing.

Someone else had a different view, basically that is the fault of movies and video games, but perhaps not in the way you would expect.  I've paraphrased these comments below:

Action movies are a lot different than they used to be, and so are video games.  The special effects have become so advanced that it's hard for us to distinguish fantasy from reality.  We see "real-life" violence and engage in "life-like" killing all the time now, making what was once only a fantasy into a potential reality, and leading to the kinds of horrific things we are seeing. 

I agree that movies are a lot more realistic.  For example, I watched the first ten minutes of Batman & Robin with George Clooney, produced over a decade and a half ago.  It was laughably simplistic in comparison.  I never had any interest in games with guns (although I loved Mortal Kombat), so I can't really comment on that. I don't know about the rest of the argument, but perhaps there is something to it.  I'm sure if I start digging in the Yale Psychology database, I'll find something.

The response suggests that people really do care about this.  And I think that there is at least some merit to most of the arguments, except the "we need more guns" one, which is just insulting, and which I mention only to ridicule.  It's like suggesting we all smoke to prevent dying from second-hand smoke.

If you think you've a better suggestion than that, I'd love to hear it.

What is wrong here?

The Aurora, Colorado shooting in theater nine has unsurprisingly been dominating the news over the past few weeks. I'll respect the request of Anderson Cooper and not mention the shooter's name in this post, since, as he says, we should be focusing on those that died and celebrating the lives they lived. I only hope the families and friends of the victims, as well as the community as a whole, is able to cope with the tragedy, especially in the face of the barrage of media attention on the undoubtedly lengthy court proceedings to come.

I've been asking myself what exactly the problem is and how can we fix it. I agree with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, whose "Bowling for Columbine" is now ten years old, when he says, "Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people." Obviously, with no guns, there would be no gun deaths, but it is equally obvious that getting the quarter of a billion guns out of American homes and out of Americans' hands is an almost insurmountable task. And I don't think that is the solution anyhow.

Sadly, many seem to think that guns are the answer to gun violence. Since the shooting, background checks, the first step to owning a gun, have risen by over 40%. The gun lobby has convinced us that if people were armed in the theater, someone might have been able to stop the killer. Never mind that he was armored to the hilt and had diffused smoke and gas throughout the theater before stepping through the exit door. If there had been 10 more guns in that theater, everyone would be dead. This is real life, not a vigilante action movie.

The problem is a culture of violence. It is not the *fault* of video games and movies, which are disseminated throughout the world and into many counties where gun violence is almost entirely absent. They are merely a by-product of the problem: a deep-seated mentality that Americans should look out for themselves (and their families) first and screw everyone else. We need to teach ourselves and our children to love and protect each other, and we need to actively address the psychological issues that face our friends.

I've now seen The Dark Knight Rises. It was a fantastic movie, well-produced, highly dramatic, and loaded with the hi-tech special effects we have come to expect from 21st century summer blockbusters. Yet, it exemplifies the type of horrific violence that Americans crave and love. Frankly, I'm ashamed to have enjoyed it.

I wonder whether or not this movie and others of its ilk actually contribute in a meaningful way to the violence we experience as a nation. I'm not sure. All I do know, though, as evidenced by this photo I took in a park in Newport, RI a week ago, is that our kids are obsessed with guns and violence, and parents are tolerating it. We are giving our children license to be violent, and it is up to us to stop it. Please do your part.

Out there

Once you're a few miles out on the North Atlantic and begin to lose sight of the shore, it's hard to tell which way you're going, especially at midday, when the Sun is directly overhead and of little help. Sure, we have GPS and autopilot technology these days, and the compass has been around for quite some time, but the navigators of old were often unsure and sometimes dead wrong about where they were and which way they were headed. Many of them were lost, some of them were found, and a select few of them found something unexpected -- like this great country of ours. At least that's how we like to tell it.

Nowadays, it seems that we've got so much to help us get where we think we're supposed to be going that we forget that sometimes getting a little lost can be a good thing. Maybe you'll wind up finding exactly what you've always wanted but didn't even know you were looking for.

Newport, RI

I absolutely love it here in the summer. There is so much to do and so much to see, never a dull moment and always a lot of fun. We had pleasant weather and calm seas on our ride up here from Norwalk on Saturday, which took just over 5 hours. We slowed down for lunch, otherwise it can be done in 4. I was pleased to get a table relatively quickly at the patio of The Black Pearl, steps from the marina and the home of arguably the best clam chowder on the face of the earth. They don't take reservations, so we sent the "Advance Team," myself, my brother, and our friend R., to put our name down about a half-hour before we actually wanted to sit. We had some drinks at the outdoor bar and were entertained with the antics of a bachelorette party, which continued later at The Candy Store, the club under Cooke House, a restaurant adjacent to The Black Pearl. We had a table at the club just next to them.

The nightlife is electric, but daytime too is also quite interesting. R. and I took tours of the two most famous of the Gilded Age mansions, The Breakers and Marble House, built by Cornelius and William Vanderbilt, respectively, the millionaire railway tycoons, to serve as their summer cottages. The Breakers sprawling lawns overlooking the ocean and over 138,000 square feet of interior space are simply breathtaking, and the materials and attention to detail in Marble House are unparalleled.

Only a three-hour drive from Manhattan, it is the perfect place for a weekend getaway. I recommend it highly.

New York City Soda Ban

            New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced his intention to ban sugar-sweetened sodas in servings over 16oz in restaurants, fast food outlets, street stands, and sporting arenas.  Some are up in arms, but my arms are up in celebration.  This is a bold and courageous step forward in America’s battle against obesity.

            The concern about the nanny state is legitimate in general, but misattributed in this case.  The ban will not restrict freedom of choice, as everyone will have the same access to soda as before.  The mayor is not telling New Yorkers what to drink.  Rather, he’s reminding them that soda is unhealthy, a fact no one disputes, and limiting a profiteering food industry from swindling customers into buying significantly more soda than they actually want.  32 ounces of soda for one person in one sitting is just too much. Period, point-blank.  If you really, really want that much though, then prove it, and buy two.

            Jon Stewart mocked the proposal as draconian and likely ineffective.  He is clearly missing the point.  Study after study has shown us that people are terrible at determining in advance how much food or drink is likely to satisfy them as well as when they are actually satiated.  The result is that people tend to order whatever they see as the best deal and will consume whatever is in front of them.  Sure, some people just want more soda.  But the science seems to indicate that many folks will be happy with a 16-ouncer and will keep it moving.

            Coca-Cola responded to the proposal by saying that New Yorkers expect and deserve better and can make their own choices about what to drink.  Duh.  Huge profit margins on increased serving sizes couldn’t possibly be what are motivating soda companies and fast food restaurants to push these “comically oversized” portions[i] on unsuspecting customers.

            Isn’t it odd that Americans would prefer corporations make decisions for them rather than the government, while the former profits from their business and the latter is invested in their health and well-being?  I think so.  If Coke and Pepsi were paying the medical bills, we’d see how quickly they’d hop on board.

           

           

---

[i] See Stewart’s commentary here

Time's Paces*

It has been a long week.

The first two weeks of class went by rather quickly.  Having come back from a much-needed break, I felt rejuvenated and ready to take on the new semester.  New classes, rich in content and more tailored to my interests, naturally encouraged more engaged study and class participation.  Too, the looming conclusion of my stay here has created a healthy sense of urgency in all respects.  My time here is running short.

I've always found the perception of time a wildly interesting concept.  People often say that time seems to pass more quickly as they age.  It at has always made perfect sense to me why this would be the case.  One day for an eight year-old boy would be only about 1/3000 of the time he's lived, whereas the same day for his 80 year-old grandmother would be only 1/30000 of hers.  The day is relatively more significant to the young boy than to his grandmother and thus feels longer.  This is only one of many explanations, many of which are far more scientific, but regardless of which you choose, the fact remains that the phenomenon is real and experimentally replicable.


Based on this logic, the third week of the semester should not have seemed longer than either of the first two but rather shorter than both.  This was not the case, as the astute reader has already picked up on.  Don't worry if you are not the astute reader: I appreciate all (two) readers.  In any event, the reasons for the anomaly are manifold.  If you care/dare to continue (astute reader, that means you), please see below the three principal reasons.

First, as of an unfortunate announcement by administration earlier this week, the political climate has been heating up.  The teaching staff is disgruntled, as are the students on their behalf.  Nothing has been worked out conclusively, and so I'll end my treatment of the issue here (at least temporarily).  Suffice it to say that it's warmer inside than out these days, the classroom stuffy and uncomfortable.

Second, the initially negligible idiosyncrasies of classmates have become increasingly irritating.  What at first were the endearing quirks of new and interesting personalities are now simply the annoying realities of their actual personalities. And given the heatwave, they've become particularly insufferable.

Third, next week promises to be the most exciting week of the year.  Please take no offense if you've been a part of other exciting weeks this year: there have been many, and you know who you are.  But attending a three-day, 200-person, shotgun-wedding extravaganza in a rural Chinese village easily takes the cake.  I've been too excited even to sleep.  As a result, I've been tired and distracted.  But now the week is over, and I can start planning for my trip. 

I had noticed Ayi was in a strange mood one night about a month-and-a-half ago.  She was somewhere between depression and shock, performing her duties ably but mechanically, without her normal vim and vigor and beaming smile.  I finally got her to tell me what was bothering her, after which I told her that her uneasiness would soon be coming from the excitement of an approaching wedding rather than from the shock of an unexpected pregnancy.  As it turns out, I was right.

I bumped into her in the park yesterday on an afternoon walk I was taking to clear my head.  She was watching a 5 year-old boy while his parents were at work.  His name is Le Le, and he was playing in the dirt under the footbridge with some friends.  She yelled to him, "Le Le, come here!  Say hello to Dong Jie.  Speak English with him!  He speaks the best English."  It's unclear how Ayi knows how good my English is, but I just ran with it.  He spoke to me for a minute or two but was summoned back to his group of friends to participate in their display of public urination.  A female classmate of his looked up at me and said, "Is that civilized where you come from?"  I laughed and said, "It's not so bad."  I've yet to determine exactly when it goes from being innocent to disgusting; all I know is that it's unfortunately not one of those habits that fades with age.

I asked if Ayi's sons were like that when they were little. Sure, she told me, it was long ago but seemed like yesterday.  "Time flies and things change quickly," she said, "They're all learning English in school now.  Did you have Chinese when you were in elementary school?"  I smiled and told her that we did not.  I had some trouble explaining the critical period hypothesis for language acquisition, but she basically understood what I meant: I started studying Chinese too late in life to ever speak it like a native; these Chinese kids (at least in this respect) have a significant advantage.  Regardless, she informed me, we all speak Chinese extremely well, better Mandarin than her own, and certainly than that of the Henanese villagers we would be meeting at the wedding.  "They are so excited to see you.  They have never seen white people before."  The excitement was mutual, I told her.

So five white boys from Yale are heading down to the village, 10 hours on a train each way, to where we've been warned of the conditions.  "You laugh," Ayi says, "but I know how you guys live."

I think it might be another long week, and just like that it will be over.




--

*Twells, Henry. "Time's Paces." Hymns and Other Stray Verses. 1901.

Foolishness

          The Beijing air has been clear these past few days.  For me, it has been a pleasure.  The warmth too has invited late afternoon walks through the park, even an evening bike ride though the campus I once called my (temporary) home.  I know I complain, but I’m also the first to admit that this would be a really nice city if they could just clean it up a little.

          My positive attitude has lent itself to more “optimistic” thinking.  In fact, just today, I looked out the classroom window onto the cityscape.  I thought to myself, “Gee, the fog is awfully bad today…”

          Someone I greatly admire once said, “In the absence of information, optimism does not equate itself to foolishness.”  He never told me what optimism equates itself to in the presence of information, and logically I can't deduce it, but I’m beginning to see clearly that it is ignorance; bliss in the face of hopelessness; indeed it is pure and utter foolishness.     

Language Points, Part II: Ayi learns English

I won't lie, I've been waiting for Ayi to ask me about English for a long time.  I'm often criticized for assuming not only that other people are as interested in learning languages as I am but also the role of teacher in that endeavor.  To my credit, I have waited patiently for Ayi to ask, "英文怎么说？" -- or "How do you say this in English?"

One evening recently, Ayi was tidying up the apartment when saw something atop my armoire that peaked her interest.  It happened to be the banana mask that I had worn in Tokyo for Halloween.  She pointed and asked what it could possibly be.  I took it down and put it on my head, "It's a banana mask!" I said.

Once we got the obligatory how-much-did-that-cost/I-don't-know-it-was-a-gift exchange out of the way, she asked me why in the hell I would own something so frivolous.  I proceeded to explain the custom of Halloween in the United States and how it has been adopted by the Japanese.  You can imagine how all of this might be flying miles above Ayi's head.

The conversation then took an unexpected turn, "香蕉英文怎么说？" -- "How do you say banana in English?"

I was stunned.  She had never asked that about anything before.  I wonder what it was that made her so curious this time.  Of course, she couldn't have asked for a more ridiculous word.  I told her slowly, "ba-na-na."  She tried to repeat it, which she did with moderate success, and then started to giggle uncontrollably like a small school girl.

"苹果怎么说？" -- "How do you say apple?" -- Me: Apple. -- Ayi: Ah-po!
"土豆怎么说？" -- "How do you say potato?" -- Me: Potato. -- Paw-tei-tow!
"西红柿怎么说？" -- "How do you say tomato?" -- Me: Tomato. -- Tow-mei-tow!

She liked tomato the best, commenting, "好说，好记" -- meaning, "It's easy to say and (therefore) easy to remember."  We quizzed her the next week, and sure enough, she remembered.

好说，好记！

Language Points, Part I: Bahasa Melayu

As you perhaps know from previous postings, I had the privilege of touring Malaysia during the last week of January.  I of course payed special attention to the Malaysian language while there and was thoroughly pleased with how much I was able to pick up in just a few days.  You're almost surely saying to yourself: "No surprise there, but what about me? I stink at foreign languages.  I could never learn to speak Malay."

I assure you this is not the case!  And to prove it to you, please find below my introductory lesson to the Malaysia language.  You will be shocked at how easy it is!

Lesson 1: Rahmat welcomes Greg to Kuala Lumpur

Below is a simple dialogue between Rahmat and his foreign friend Greg, who has just arrived in KL for the first time.

Rahmat:  Helo kawanku! Selamat datang ke Kuala Lumpur! Pe khabar?
Rahmat: Hello my friend! Welcome to Kuala Lumpur! How are you?

Greg: Hi Rahmat! Sihat! Awak?
Greg: Hi Rahmat! I'm fine! And you?

Rahmat: Sihat!  Wow, Greg! Bahasa Melayu awak bagus! Awak tidak ada pelat!
Rahmat: Good! Wow, Greg! Your Malay is good! You don't have an accent!

Greg: Maaf, saya tidak faham! Ia bahasa yang susah.
Greg: Sorry, I don't understand! This is a hard language.

See how easy?!  If you're having trouble, don't get discouraged!  Just move on to lesson 2.

Lesson 2: Essentials

Below are a list of essential vocabulary words and phrases that you'll need in Malaysia.  Know these cold and you can go anywhere.

Hello!  Helo!

Taxi  Teksi

Bus Ticket  Tiket Bas

Train Station  Stesen Tren

Ticket Counter  Kaunter Tiket

Platform  Platform

Lift  Lif

Telephone  Telefon

Toilet  Tandas 

Kiosk  Kiosk

 


See?! Malay is EASY!





 

 
 

Tank Man

I had a suit tailored last week in Sanlitun and had to go try it on this afternoon for adjustments.  I was riding with two friends, one of whom had invited a Chinese friend to meet us about halfway through the subway ride.  He found us in the last car of the train and was introduced to me as Mike, a university student here in Beijing.

After the tailor’s (the suit was a little tight in the thighs, in case you were wondering), we went to Blue Frog for some later afternoon hamburgers and beers.  If you’re ever in Beijing looking for a hamburger, go to Blue Frog in Sanlitun Village.  I’ve had a few burgers here – these are the best I’ve had yet.  And if you’re trying to save a few bucks, go on Monday after 4pm to get the special buy one get one deal.  The waitress advises to come around 6 or 6:30 – any later and you’ll wait.

Halfway through his beer, Mike said he felt a bit “buzzed” – we had just taught him the term – but noted that my friends and I seemed unaffected by our rather rapid intake. Perceptive…  In any event, I told him that if he was looking for a more colloquial term for someone who could drink quickly and heavily, he should go with “tank.”  The word in Chinese happens to be a loanword, pronounced “tahn-kuh.”

I immediately realized the very likely possibility that the conversation was about to take an awkward turn.  Are you getting the feeling, too?  I mean, what do you think of when you hear “tank” and “China” in the same sentence?

My intuition was correct, and we were shortly thereafter discussing the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989 – one of those “avoid-at-all-costs” topics, along with the other 2 of 3 T’s (Tibet and Taiwan) and the big F (the Falungong).  Mike said that he’d been told that many people might have died that day but that he didn’t really believe it.  They don’t learn about that in school here, and the official government statement is that although some hundreds died over the course of the protests, not one person actually died in Tiananmen Square proper.

One of us told Mike that in the United States, everyone learns about Tiananmen in school, explaining in so many words that it is perhaps the most salient part of Chinese modern history for most Americans.  I suggested that this was in large part due to the infamous Tank Man, immortalized in the iconic photographs and video footage with which I’m sure you’re all quite familiar.  Thanks to Blue Frog Wi-Fi and a slick VPN, the picture was loaded in seconds on an iPhone and handed over to Mike.

As he was looking at the photo, I brought up a Chinese saying: 螳臂当车, derived from a story in which a small insect raises his arm to stop a large cart as it passes in front of him.  Of course, the saying is used to warn someone that they are overrating their own ability and being foolhardy in challenging a much stronger opponent.  He noted the fact and so asked, “Did they run him over?”

We explained that they did not – and that that was precisely the significance.  Even when the tanks tried to move around him, he bravely blocked their path, eventually climbing on top of the foremost tank to speak with the soldiers inside.  Moments later, he was carried off by a group of people, indeed never to be seen or heard from again.

Unfortunately, we will likely never know what happened to Tank Man.  And more unfortunately, neither will a billion Chinese people who lived through it.  But worst of all, I just sat there unsurprised by any of it.

Ayi

One of the best indicators of our improving Chinese has been our ability to communicate with Ayi.  A migrant from Henan province with a thick accent and little education, she has little in common with us.  However, as we’ve gotten to know her better and our ears have become more discerning, we have indeed been able to develop a true relationship with her, a fact evidenced more clearly tonight than ever before.

 

Generally at our biweekly “Ayi Dinners,” dishes come out from the kitchen one by one.  We begin eating while the food is hot, and Ayi continues to cook throughout the meal.  Once she’s brought out the last dish, she fills a plate and sits down on the couch to rest and eat.  We speak English at the table.  Ayi looks over at us.  We say to her in Chinese: “Hao chi! Hao chi! Delicious! Delicious!”  She says back modestly, “E le ba! You’re just hungry, that’s all.”  Somehow, she only needs three syllables where the English needs six.  When we are all done, Ayi cleans up and puts everything back in its place.

 

Tonight, though, before clearing the table, Ayi sat down with A. and me as we continued picking at the various dishes soon to become leftovers.  I can’t remember Ayi ever having sat down like that before.

 

“Look at all this food!” she said. “When I was young, we just had bread dumplings and corn meal.  Even at my wedding we didn’t have rice.  We were poor.  Really poor.”

 

“How old were you when you got married?” A. asked.

 

“19,” Ayi replied, after which I asked how she and her husband had met.  “It was an arranged marriage,” she continued, “I talked to him for the first time the day we married.  I had never even spoken to him before.  The matchmaker sat us down with our families.  My parents had a look at him, and his parents had a look at me, and that was it.  Then we walked out.”

 

I asked about the wedding:  “At the wedding,” she said, “my mother kept telling me to go over and talk to him.  ‘Just go ask him how old he is,’ she said.  We didn’t really have anything.  We just exchanged handkerchiefs with 喜喜 embroidered in them and then we rode away on bicycles.  Really poor, really poor.”

 

She and her husband moved to Beijing from Henan in 2003.  He fixes walls and floors in apartment buildings and she does housekeeping work around our neighborhood.  Their life is better now than it has ever been. They live in a small basement apartment in our complex and have two sons about our age, one married and one not. “They aren't cultured,” she told us, “not like you.  They don’t study like you.  You are cultured.  You are so lucky.”

Yuanxiao

More to come on my adventure in Malaysia and Singapore soon, but for now I feel the need to share with everyone what is currently happening right outside my window.  Today is the Lantern Festival, or Yuan-Xiao Festival, which is celebrated on the 15th day of the first lunar month and officially ends the Chinese New Year celebration.  The festival is celebrated not only in China, but in much of Southeast Asia, including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. 

On this day, children carry paper lanterns with riddles, solving them and releasing the lanterns into the air, hence the name "Lantern Festival."  In addition, the Chinese eat small sweet dumplings made from glutinous rice filled with peanut, sesame and other paste flavorings. They become soft and gooey when boiled.

Most notably, however, is the modern tradition of setting of fireworks throughout the city.  This is why I write this post.  I have not been able to get a good enough picture to prove it to you, but I kid you not, there have been fireworks exploding just outside my window -- and all over this city of almost 20 million -- all day long.  Since it is the last day that the city will allow civilians to set off fireworks in celebration of the new year, they are going all out.

And when I say fireworks, I don't mean those silly little crackers that pop and make noise when you throw them on the ground.  I mean big, colorful, loud-ass fireworks exploding in a big way in the MIDDLE OF A GODDAMN CITY.  Which if I had to bet, will go on all night...

Welcome to Kuala Lumpur!

I arrived back in Wudaokou on Tuesday, January 24^th, at about 10pm.  Now well into the Chinese New Year celebration, the people of Beijing had long fled to their villages far outside to city, leaving the streets of my neighborhood all but completely deserted.  There were the occasional firecrackers and a passing public bus, but the lively street venders and confused mess of taxis, cars, bikes, and pedestrians in the intersection were gone.  Shops were closed, buildings were dark.  I went up to my apartment.

 

I entered to find it not unlike the street scene below, cold, dark, empty.  My roommates were both back in the United States on break.  I was just stopping in for the night before my flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the next day.  The heat had been off since New Year’s Day, and so you can imagine that the apartment would be chilled through by now.  I fired up the heat full blast in my room, but still it took hours before I could take off my heavy winter coat.  Imagine the scene: me, in a dark, cold room, wearing a parka and sleeping under a make-shift pile of covers, some of which were admittedly "borrowed" from the airline.

 

My flight to KL was not until 3:50pm, and the time being only 8am or so, I decided I had time to take a proper shower and pack my bags.  To my dismay, I discovered that the apartment was without water.  The predicament was odd, since I remember the faucets and toilet running the night before.  When I turned on the shower faucet this time, it dribbled for a few seconds, and then ultimately ran dry.  The same then went for the sink and toilet.  This was, for lack of better words, not good.

 

I informed my landlord via text message, informing her that I’d be heading to Malaysia, but that the problem must be fixed by the time A. returned on February 3^rd.  I also emailed A. and M. to fill them in on the situation.  I assumed that since there had been no one in the apartment for so long, someone must have come by to deliver a water bill that went unpaid, and subsequently the water service turned off our water.

 

Well, there is no use for me here, I figured, so I might as well go to Starbucks across the street where it is warm, where they have water for coffee, where I can sit and read a while before I have to head off to the airport.  And it’s a good thing I did, for I remembered an instance in which we had encountered the same water problem.  I went back to the building to look for some sort of notice of temporary water shut-off notice but found none.  I grew less hopeful.

 

Back up to the 14^th floor I went just to check one last time.  Sure enough, water had again started to dribble out of the faucet.  I waited a few more minutes, and the water finally returned to normal, but only after expelling the pockets of air that had accumulated in the pipes.  Disaster 1: Averted.

 

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the flight from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur.  I took a cab rather early to the airport, seeing as I had nothing much else to do home and could at least have some more coffee and read at the airport.  I sat doing just that for about two hours, and then, exactly 3 hours before my flight was scheduled to depart, I walked over to the check-in desk.  I though that since I was so early, I would just breeze right though.  Quite the contrary, there was already a healthy line forming.

 

After about 15 or so minutes, I was just second in line behind a group of Chinese travelers in their mid-50’s.  Just then, a much younger Chinese girl carrying a group tour flag steped up to the desk to handle her business.  Believing the young girl had cut the line, one of the older women yelled, “Hey, you can’t cut the line! The line is back there and we’ve been waiting!”

“I did not cut the line!” Responded the young woman, "we’ve just moved our bags over there and need to finish our business.”

 

I could tell by the tone of the argument that it was inevitably going to escalate.  And it surely did.  The male representatives in each group also began to argue, but seeing the attention they were now attracting, decided it might be best to separate the ladies into their corners.  I had thought about interjecting with some rational thought, but decided that it would be most prudent to slip unnoticed past both groups and check myself in and get moving on my merry way.  As I was doing so, the police were called over to settle the dispute.  The younger woman had accused a man from the other group of hitting her.  Of course, denials abounded, and no one else wanted to get involved.  I got a laugh out of the agent at the ticket counter when I said to him, “警察来了，我得走了” –  “The cops are here, I gotta go!”

 

Our gate was the farthest from security, in the basement, and there was bus waiting to transfer us across the tarmac to the plane.  We walked up the steps with 30mph winds in 20 degree weather into the plane.  I crouched down to get behind the barrier to avoid the cold.  Once inside, I found my seat at 33C: the aisle seat in the last row backed up against the lavatory.  As you can imagine, I had the double privilege of smelling excrement stench from a seat that would not even recline.  What’s more, I was in the vicinity of about five eight- to ten-year-old Chinese children whose parents were either too busy or too disinterested to monitor their behavior, which included screaming, kicking, punching, climbing on seats, opening up the overhead bins, running up and down the aisles, and being generally obnoxious.

 

I took my blanket, put it over my head, and was not seen again for the six and a half hours it took to get to Kuala Lumpur.  But here I am.  It is hot.  More to come shortly.