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.

           

           

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[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.




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*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！