Lack of Internet

So I've moved into my apartment on Saturday. This is awesome, however I currently have no internet and therefore cannot write a "look at my apartment!" post. I should (hopefully) have internet by this weekend, however, and then I shall dutifully take a bunch of pictures and present them for the internet's viewing pleasure.

Until then, some quick updates/thoughts:

I've started teaching an English class. The students are undergraduate psychology students, about 25 or so of them, and I was asked to do this because I am the only native English speaker in the department. That's my only qualification. I told my boss that I have no teaching experience and will probably not do a good job, but she told me that just having the opportunity to speak with a native speaker will be useful, no matter what we do. I've also received other job offers to teach English, where again the only qualification I have is being a native speaker. Ah well. My first class was on Monday, and it went...okay. Not great, not terrible, but fine. I apparently scared the kids and, to no one's surprise, talked too fast and was a little hard to understand. I will try and correct all of this in the future, but please wish my students' luck...

Chinese bureaucracy is wonderful. And by that I mean, of course, annoying. I've been running all over the city, giving all sorts of government offices my forms, waiting several days, retrieving it, and going somewhere else to do it again. Because I live outside of the campus, the school only helps me a certain amount, so I'm doing this with only the help of some of my coworkers. They're absolutely awesome and I'd be lost without them, but they've never gone through this process either, so we're all just taking it a bit at a time.

I've disappointed a large number of Chinese Christians. I had noticed that what seemed like a strangely large number of Chinese I had had conversations with turned out to be Christian (and brought that fact up), but it didn't occur to me until I was talking with an American I had met in Guangzhou that they might be specifically seeking me out. They make the not unreasonable assumption that the foreigner they see walking around is Christian, and this idea is strengthened when they find out I'm American. So they proceed to have a long conversation with me before bringing up towards the end that they're Christian and asking if I am. The following conversation then ensues:

"No, I'm not. I'm an atheist/don't have a religion."

"Oh. But aren't most Americans Christian?"

"Yup, it just turns out that I'm not."

That has happened to me many a time. Two separate people have also offered to take me with them to church (before asking what my religion was), and I feel see their disappointment when I reply, "Sorry." So that's been fun. It was even better when I was in Beijing with the two other Luce Scholars, when we really confused everyone by having three Americans: two atheists, one Jew, and no Christians. It's definitely been an interesting cultural experience, one that I was not expecting.

中秋节快乐！

Happy Mid-autumn Festival everyone!

I know this is a big holiday for everyone back home, and you've all been celebrating just as much as I have.

I have today and tomorrow off of work, with today being the actual holiday itself, but, in a move that's typical for holidays in China, everything that was supposed to happen on Friday, including classes and work, have all been rescheduled to Sunday. Because it's important that everyone has off for the holiday itself, but no four day weekends!

Anyways, I'm going to spend today walking around the city some more, and then watching some of the festivities later tonight on an island in the middle of the Pearl River that divides Guangzhou. That will consist of seeing lanterns, I believe, and eating mooncakes. I've been told by several people that this holiday is kind of similar to American Thanksgiving, where the most important thing is to gather with your family and eat, none of the other festivities are particularly important. Except for mooncakes. I have been given and have eaten so many mooncakes over the past several weeks since I arrived in Guangzhou that it's preposterous. I move into my apartment on Saturday (yay!) and the only food that's going to be in there at that time is boxes upon boxes of mooncakes and one hunk of cheese (vacuum-sealed, hopefully not spoiled) that I brought with me from Italy.

So, the mid-autumn festival celebrates the story of Chang'e, the woman who lives on the moon. As far as I can recollect, from the stories we were told while celebrating the holiday back at Oberlin, there was a time long ago when there were many many suns in the sky over China, so everything was hot and dry and nothing could grow. One day, a famed hero and incredible archer (whose name I forgot) took it upon himself to set things right and, one-by-one, shot down the suns from the sky. In gratitude, the king (or someone) gave the archer a potion of immortality, which he consumed a small amount of every night in order to prolong his life indefinitely. One day, he was out on a trip, and his wife snuck into his room and started to take a little bit of the potion, hoping to use its magic for herself. However, the archer suddenly returned home while she was in the middle of consuming it, and, to escape his judgement (or something), she fled to the moon, where she lives to this day, immortal, as Chang'e.

I believe that's the story. I probably butchered it incredibly.

Regardless, happy mid-autumn festival everyone! If you come across any mooncakes, eat them! But try and find the ones with egg yolks in them, they're much tastier than the red bean ones.

Success!

I have signed a lease! I will be moving into my new apartment next week. It's a loft apartment, with two beds and a balcony and giant windows and it overlooks a park and is in a convenient location and is pretty freaking cool.

After I move in, I will upload pictures. But for now, that is all.

Catching Up - Harbin Day 1

So I'm going to take advantage of being in Guangzhou by catching up on a little blogging. That's right, now you can finally breathe a sigh of relief as your curiosity is satisfied. Oh so satisfied.

Harbin, as you may recall, is the capital of 黑龙江/Heilongjiang province in far northeast China, near the Russian border. Our first day was spent wandering around the city and seeing all we can see and so, to mirror that experience, I will present a series of photos from that day that summed up the important parts of it.

Behind Ben's incredibly cool pose lies the river of Harbin, the 松花江/Sōnghuā Jiāng, which is a tributary of the mighty 黑龙江/Hēilóng Jiāng itself, the river for which the province is named. The Heilong River, which I believe is more often called by its Russian name, the Amur, in English, is the river that divides Russia from China. The Songhua River winds its way through the city and is just generally pretty nice. We walked along the river all the way down to the city center, enjoying the cool weather and the nice breeze.

Along the way, we passed a rather rare sight in China:

A line! At a bus stop. Seriously, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen such an orderly line here. It was pretty amusing.

As we reached the main street of Harbin，we came across this patriotic decorated with a magnificent pillar celebrating the triumph of the people and this mural that says "Long Live Chairman Mao." Walking from here down the main street, however, the view turned changed to this:

Directly in front of this patriotic square we have a giant platform with, as far as I can tell, a televised talent competition of some sort. I don't believe they were singing. But there a bunch of women, who stepped forward, introduced themselves and where they were from and other such pleasantries. We walked away instead of looking at it for so long. But it's a good summary of modern China I feel. Communism! Right next to rampant America-like pop culture!

And here's the main street we were walking along. 中央街/Zhōngyāngjiē, or Central Street, runs down the center of the city and is flanked by these beautiful trees. It's also fairly European-style in my opinion.

You may notice those things along the sign of the street that look like pieces of paper strung between trees. Well, that's exactly what those are.

These are personal ads. Talking with some of the people along the street, these are mostly put up by people's parents to help them find a boyfriend or girlfriend. It lists all their vital stats: height, weight, name, education, age, current location, job, hometown, if they've been married before, what kind of house and/or car they have, etc. It also lists all their requirements for a significant other, so it's very convenient. Looking at the people examining these, it mainly appears to be parents examining them for their children. So that's another nice, really interesting phenomenon. Very modern China. This is actually considered a bit of an issue in China, where, because the country is industrializing and developing, people (in the cities) are getting married later and people in general are getting more educated. This especially the case for women, and you now have many unmarried women in their late 20s and early 30s, in a country were men greatly outnumber women. These women are known as 剩女/shèngnǚ，or leftover women. The recent they're unmarried, as I've been told, is a combination of your average man being intimidated, essentially, by a woman that is more educated, will make more money, and has a higher status than him, and these women being unwilling to date below their level. It's an interesting phenomenon and a fun one to talk about with people.

Also on this street we saw more evidences of the proximity to Russia:

Beer gardens! (Which unfortunately, because of time constraints, we didn't enter). Russian restaurant! With Russian food! It was tasty, quite heavy, but a little expensive, and I definitely still prefer Chinese.

This is how children are punished in Harbin. Put in giant plastic balls and released onto the river, where they're forced to fight to the death by attempting to roll into other children and force them into the eager jaws of child-eating tigers (not shown).

Pigeons, if this part of the square near St. Sofia church is any indication, are not viewed as nearly the irritation in China as they are in the US. I don't remember seeing significant pigeon populations in Beijing or elsewhere in China, so maybe that's the reason. Seriously though, there were a shit-ton of pigeons on that church and people were feeding them.

Construction. In the middle of the street. Hardhats? Ear plugs? Goggles? A cord to prevent people from walking right next to where you're working? That nonsense is all just unnecessary bureaucratic red tape. Real men use their jackhammers without protection. Pretty common scene in China, probably because there's always a surplus of willing workers and very little legal protection for them here...

Some random park while we're wandering around no idea where we were somewhere out in Harbin. Very pretty. And basically sums up one of my major feelings about Harbin: doesn't it look European?

Beautiful sunset over the Songhua river. We sat here for a good hour or so, watching the sun go down, talking with people, and people-watching. It was pretty awesome. And right next to where we were sitting:

People swimming and washing themselves in the river. You see that sign? The one right in front of all of them? The one that there's no way they couldn't have seen on their way to enjoy a dip in the river? That says "Danger. 'Wild bathing' is forbidden." Wild bathing, I assume, is washing yourself in the river, exactly what these people are all doing. This is another theme in China, people blatantly ignoring the signs literally right next to them. People smoking under no-smoking signs is the biggest offender I've come across so far, mainly because it bothers me so much, but this kind of thing is a very common scene to come across.

Unfortunately my camera died and I wasn't taking pictures with my phone for some reason, because the place we went for dinner was excellent. It was down a street that was surrounded by buildings that were literally falling apart, and then we came to this open street with a variety of different restaurants. A man on the street was doing artwork with sugar, making the most intricate-looking sweets I've ever seen, on demand and by request. Then we went into a halal restaurant that had been recommended to us and had a wonderful variety of food, almost none of which I can remember at this point. I feel like we ate cow stomach, and it was delicious, but I can't really remember what else. Though we did have a very special type of 白酒, one that had been transformed into a type of 中药/

Zhōngyào, or traditional Chinese medicine, by virtue of the items that were floating with it in the giant glass jar next to the cash register: ginseng and sea stars. In my opinion, it didn't change the flavor all that much, but Martin was quite a fan of it. Whatever greases your wagon wheels.

And that was our first day in Harbin. Hopefully more catching-up soon.

More From The Tropics

I apologize for the lack of posts recently. Things have been been a little hectic with getting started at work, trying to find an apartment, and adjusting to a new city all simultaneously.

So brief updates:

It is hot and muggy as all get out down here. Seriously, if I'm not spending all day in the office (which has air conditioning blasting all day and night), I will most likely sweat through all of my clothes. It's not very comfortable.

The beard is still appreciated in China. I was eating dinner in a dining hall with some coworkers after playing ping pong, and a freshman girl ran up to me and said, very quickly, in Chinese, "Your beard is very sexy!" and then ran away. My wit failed me at that moment, but fortunately Gangyi supplied me with an appropriate witticism for next time: "You're not the first to say so..."

The reason I knew the girl was a freshman is because she was wearing a military uniform. In China, college students' first year starts with 军训, jūnxùn, or military training. At South China Normal University (hereafter referred to as 华师/Huáshī, the Chinese abbreviated name, because it's much easier), it lasts for 15 days. So there's been lots of freshmen running around in military uniforms, marching, yelling, and being yelled at. It's fairly amusing.

The US does not celebrate a lot of international holidays. I'm not sure if these are holidays that people in China just think are international holidays, or if they're actually celebrated in many countries and the US was just like, eh, we don't need 'em. For example: Teacher's Day, International Children's Day, International Women's Day, and Labor Day (May 1st, not the one we have in September). This confuses all of my coworkers when I tell them that I have never celebrated these holidays and have only vaguely heard of them.

While I'm still looking for an apartment, I'm no longer paying money to stay in a hotel. I was put in touch with some Americans teaching English at the high school affiliated with 华师 as Princeton in Asia fellows, and they've been kind enough to let me crash on their futon while I continue my search. Onwards! I have about two weeks left before I'm supposed to register with the police and tell them my permanent place of residence, so there's still that deadline...

The average grad student in China watches much more American TV than I do. Almost everyone watches some show or another, and for the most part I've never even heard of the show they like to watch, let alone seen it. I am clearly failing as an American.

There's a great advantage to being in the south of China. In more formal meals or banquets in China, it's traditional for everyone to continually toast. You start the meal by toasting three times to everyone and any event you might be celebrating (thanking someone for coming, welcoming a newcomer, etc.), and then the meal proceeds with the host toasting everyone at the table at various times and then everyone else starts toasting everyone else. It's complicated and basically anytime there's a lull in the conversation, someone will stand up, walk over to another person at the round table, toast them, and then both parties drink. The number of toasts is determined by how formal the meal it is, and it only happens if people are drinking alcohol. Anyways, in the north of China, the meal is not considered a success until at least one person is roaring, spilling, falling-over-themselves drunk (I have never personally experienced this, but have been so informed by several friends in Beijing and Shanxi). To this end, toasts are almost always done with 白酒/bǎijiǔ, the strong Chinese liquor，and you have to finish your glass on each toast. In the south, the drink might be wine or beer or 黄酒/huángjiǔ, a drink made from various grains that's about the strength of wine, and finishing your drink is not required. So that's much more reasonable, though I have impressed several people here already with my ability to drink alcohol, as average as it may be in the US.

Finally, I start my lessons in 国画/Guóhuā, traditional Chinese painting tonight. My teacher will be my boss's father, a man of probably 70 or 80 years old from the city of 汕头/Shàntóu in Northeast Guangdong, he does not speak particular standard Mandarin (his native tongue being 潮汕话/Cháoshànhuà or Teochew, which sounds nothing like Mandarin, and supposedly preserved many aspects of Old Chinese), though I can still understand him with some effort. He's also a huge fan of 白酒. So I'm definitely looking forward these lessons, which will probably be once a week.

More Guangzhou Info

All of my visa things were taken care of entirely. I am now in China on a one-year student visa, and after I register at the local police station I will be free to exit and enter the country at my leisure. Everything was taken care of without any issues. The only downside is that now the Chinese government has all of my personal information, especially my medical information, in triplicate several times over.

So the reason I'm actually in Guangzhou is to work, not just to enjoy living in a semi-tropical Chinese city. This year, I will be working at South China Normal University, in the lab of Prof. Wang Suiping in the school of psychology on the neuroscience of language. SCNU is the third-ranked psychology program in China, and the first outside of Beijing (the top two being Peking University and Beijing Normal University).

Note the palm trees in the second photo. Still not sure I approve of such things.

Anyways, Prof. Wang and the rest of the School of Psychology has been great. They've been very welcoming, and Prof. Wang has told me there's a wide variety of possibilities that I can work on this year. There are a good 20 students, Master's and PhD, in her lab, all working on various projects that I can join if I'm interested. Additionally, some of the other professors do more computational modeling-type research, which is a bit of a favorite of mine, so I may get a chance to work with them a bit too.

Right now, I'm starting to work with one PhD student, who does work on bilingualism. His research focuses on native Chinese speakers who learned English later in life, and what the activity in their brain looks like when they're speaking one vs. the other, when they have to switch between the two, and the like. He's also working on, and I think this is the real interesting stuff, what the overall network of active brain areas looks like. There's a very cool phenomenon known as small-world networks, that arises in all sorts of real-world networks and is examinable using a field of math known as graph theory. When I say network, I mean anything that can be represented as something like the following:

This is a graph, and it's basically a bunch of nodes/vertices (dots) connected by edges (lines) to show that there's a relation between them. Though this looks fairly abstract and mathy, graphs can represent many different real world networks. For example, a social network: each node represents a person, and there's an edge between two nodes if the people they represent are friends. Or a transportation network: each node represents a stop, and there's an edge between two nodes if there's a way to get between them. Or brains: each node represents a part of the brain, and there's an edge between two nodes if those two areas are connected.

A small-world network is a special type of network that seems to appear naturally, to evolve in any sufficiently complex network, both artificial and natural. Brains, social networks, power grids, etc. all show properties of this type of network, first described by Strogatz and Watts, 1998, in the paper that coined the term. A small-world network satisfies two major criteria: for a given node, most of its neighbors are in turn neighbors of each other, and you can get from one node to any other node in a relatively small number of steps. In human social relations, the first criterion displays itself in the fact that most of your friends are probably friends with each other, and the second is responsible for the notorious game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. In brains, this allows related areas of the brain to easily talk to each other, while also allowing information to easily flow across the entire brain if necessary. Obviously, both criteria would also be met in a graph where every node was connected to every other, but the small-world network is special because it manages to achieve these two criteria with a relatively low number of edges. This is desirable because it's less costly: for social networks, no one is friendly enough to be friends with every person on Earth; for a power grid or transportation network, it would be a waste of resources; for brains, it would be a waste of energy.

So basically human brains (and every other central nervous system examined so far) are small-world networks, which is cool, but why's that important? Besides the fact that it makes sense evolutionary, because it minimizes cost while maximizing efficiency of information processing, it's also important because there's evidence that the properties of the brain network change when people are in different states. People with autism and schizophrenia appear to have differently structured networks, and the functional network of your brain (not the physical connections, but how the activity in different parts of the brain syncs up) appears to change based on whether you're awake but not doing anything, asleep, anesthetized, doing a specific task, or drugged.

Gangyi, the grad student I will be working with, one experiment that he's working on examines how the functional network of the brain differs when speakers are speaking English vs. Chinese. And this is the project that I will be helping him on at first.

Of course, being a native English speaker (the only in the lab and possibly the only one in the school of psychology...), I will also be assisting the lab by helping them revise the papers they write in English for publication. And I may teach some undergrads English, as well as tutoring my boss's young daughter, who lived for a year in the US several years ago but hasn't had significant exposure to English since. In exchange for that, I may learn how to do traditional Chinese painting. So that's super exciting.

And that's a long-winded explanation of what this next year might be like for me. Sorry for the technical bit in the middle, but graph theory is really cool, and it's exciting that it has very useful applications in neuroscience. Math!

Here's a photo of me with a bunch of professors to round out this post.

The woman in the shiny purple shirt to my left in this picture is Yang Kun, my friend who works for The Asia Foundation in Beijing. She helped me move to Guangzhou and get settled and returned to Beijing yesterday; moving down would've been much harder without her, so I'm really thankful she could join me for a couple days. The woman in the not-shiny purple dress to my right is my boss, Wang Suiping, and the man in the blue striped polo is her husband Zhang Wei, the Dean of the School of Psychology. They have both been great, and I'm very thankful to have the opportunity to work with them and the rest of the SCNU School of Psychology this year!