Disclaimer

By this point, you probably know that I am once again headed for the other side of the world; this time, I will be teaching English in Taiwan with a Fulbright grant.  Apart from this being exciting news, the Fulbright committee has made me aware that I need to state a disclaimer on this blog in order to avoid having my grant revoked, as I will most definitely be posting tidbits about my life in Taiwan.  So here is my disclaimer:

I acknowledge that this blog is not an official Department of State blog, and that the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State.

Cheers!

Powerless

I know I've been remiss.  It's not often these days I actually get struck with the inspiration to write -- not even about something as fantastic as traveling the world.  That aside, I have a hard time believing anyone out there would actually want to take the time to read my views on issues of a more domestic nature; thus, I have refrained from broadcasting my views on, say, the upcoming election.  And yet, it seems, here I am again.

Yesterday, the state of Ohio got thrashed and pummeled by Hurricane Ike's leftovers.  I was actually driving back to Miami from Columbus throughout the worst of it.  I was white-knuckling my way back to Oxford as my car, heavy though it was, got buffeted about by the gale.

Not long after we left Columbus, much of the state lost power.  Miami University is currently running on back-up power and my apartment complex remains powerless until at least tomorrow morning.  Because of the lack of power, classes were canceled today but will be back again tomorrow.

In wandering about today, I witnessed the destruction firsthand.  Branches and leaves covered every inch of ground that had been bare mere hours before (this is hardly an exaggeration).  Entire trees had been uprooted -- and not just saplings, either, but trees of formidable age and girth.  Vast stretches of heartwood gaped like open wounds (forgive me for waxing poetic).

Two main thoughts occurred to me.  First, these are the external signs of a planet in pain.  Never in my memory (which may be poor, but all the same) do I recall seeing the effects of a hurricane from the coast in our own embarrassingly landlocked Ohio.  Over the past ten years or so, there has been a marked -- and measurable -- increase in the ferocity of these already intense storms.  These are the symptoms of our world being used, abused, manipulated, and destroyed.  These are the effects of erosion, deforestation, and especially global warming (which, mind you, Sarah Palin and many others claim does not exist).  Natural disasters, remaining natural, have become increasingly disastrous.

I do what I can.  I am adamant about recycling and bringing my own reusable cloth bags with me when I go grocery shopping.  I buy eco-friendly household cleaners and organic food as much as I can.  But here's the rub -- this is simply not enough.  I cannot fix the damage that has already been incurred by passively recycling and driving as infrequently as possible.  For all I have taken and gained from this world, I do far too little in return.  This planet deserves more from me; it deserves my love and compassion and a great big helping hand in times of distress.

The other thought that came to me -- and there's no surprise here -- was just how spoiled Miami students are.  Unfortunately, it's not just Miami students that are spoiled; it's most of America.  All last night and all during the day today, I overheard numerous complaints about the lack of power, as well as downright annoyance at the delay in getting it up and running again.

I know about the state of the economy.  I know that many institutions, financial and otherwise, and inching inexorably closer to financial ruin, especially given the events over the weekend.  I am aware that this power outage will result in a big financial setback for many businesses and grocery stores.

So we'll be without lights and hot water and internet for a while.  So we'll throw out the stuff that's gone rancid from our freezers and fridges.  At least we have the resources to replace these things.

But instead of being quite so focused on our own personal struggles, I wish these students would extend their attentions to some of the other parts of the world.  We with our cell phones and iPods and laptops (I am no exception) -- we have so much and yet there are so few of us who really just how lucky we are, just how much we actually have.  Worldwide, people live in squalid conditions.  Worldwide, there is a daily struggle to scrounge together enough food to feed one's hungry family.  There are entire towns all over the world that never have electricity.  There are people who don't have disposable income like we do, who can't travel or see the world because the cost is so unrealistic.

To these students who are so distressed by not having electricity for one or two or even three days, I wish I could tell them to go to Cambodia.  I want them to see the poverty and pain that I saw, to understand that there's so much more to life -- to their lives -- than a mildly inconveniencing power outage.  We may seem powerless, but we don't have to be.

Cultural Heyday

I do apologize for my prolonged silence. Country-hopping around Asia kept me preoccupied for quite some time; after that, it was readjusting to life in America. So that’s the biggest news – I am safe and sound, back in Columbus. However, as I mentioned earlier, I am not quite done with this blog yet. I would like to put up some posts about my travels as well as one or two more posts concerning China. Today’s topic: the influence of culture on our daily lives.

Our lives are so intricately shaped by culture that most of us don’t even realize it – and continue to be oblivious until we see an entire other culture doing things differently. Much of my experience in China this past semester revolved around this idea; as it turns out, far more is cultural than I had ever thought.

Consider money habits. When counting money, Americans tend to shuffle the bills from hand to hand. Go grab some bills and try it out – I’ll bet you didn’t even have to think about it. Chinese people, though, count money differently; they fold the bills in half, hold them in one hand, and in the other hand unfold each bill one by one as it is counted. Like so many cultural habits, neither method is superior – just different.

Also, when cashiers give you change back in America, they usually hold onto one of the shorter ends of the bill with one hand and extend it towards you longways. In China, however, they use two hands, one on each of the corners of a long side. I always felt like I should accept the change the same way, but somehow never remembered and only used one hand. Old habits die hard.

Chinese people also give you business cards in a similar fashion. In fact, Chinese business card etiquette is very specific and must be followed exactly to prevent insulting the person you’re talking to. They hand you the business card the same way change is returned; you accept it in the same fashion and stare at it for thirty full seconds; then, for the duration of your meeting, you put the business card out in front of you in plain sight.

Even facial expressions are cultural. Some are innate, to be sure – smiling and crying transcend cultural boundaries. But the subtler expressions, like displaying pleasure, these are the ones that are shaped by the culture you are immersed in. For example, when Chinese women are pleased, they tend to hide their smile behind a hand, as though they know they’re taking more pleasure than they should. I have also been told that, say, when I speak French, my facial expressions change – I forgo the American facial expressions and use French ones instead.

And, believe it or not, the way people run in public is also cultural. Chinese women do a little shuffle-run that I have never seen anywhere else. When Americans run in public, it tends to look a little more natural to my eyes (for lack of a better, culturally-neutral expression). That is, it’s more along the lines of how someone would run if they were going to be running a long distance. But Chinese women only run for very short distances in public – thus the shuffle-run.

In fact, our lives are so dependent on culture that I feel very little is actually innate. I mean, think about it. Where does cultural influence end? Even many ideas people have are cultural. The opinions many Americans express about things like respect and independence are different from the ideas many Chinese people express about the same topics. In China, family is everything; in America, it’s important to strike out on your own. So how many of your thoughts are actually your own and not part of the culture you were raised in? Does this affect free will? That’s not to say we don’t have free will, but the actions we are free to take are also shaped by our cultures (as well as other factors, such as gender and religion).

I suppose the whole point of this is to suggest that far more is cultural than most people think.

Price Comparison

In my bag everyday, I carry a cheap watch. I say cheap because it is cheap by American standards; $25 is not much to pay for a watch. It does what I want it to, in that in keeps the time accurately and has a stopwatch so I can time myself when I go running.

In America, as we all know, the currency is the dollar; in China, it's the RMB; in Thailand it's the baht; in Cambodia (where I am right now) it's the riel. There are approximately 7 RMB to the dollar, 30 baht to the dollar, and 4000 riel to the same dollar.

Now consider the price of a bottle of water. In China, the average cost of a bottle of water is 1.5 RMB. In Thailand, it's 6 baht. In Cambodia, they use the dollar anyway (since their own currency is so unsteady), so it costs $.25, or 1000 riel. In America, to be optimistic, I could theoretically spend $1 and get a bottle of water. However, I have been told that prices have sky-rocketed while I've been away, so I cannot claim that my information is current.

Here is what I have concluded.

In Thailand, my watch can buy me 125 bottles of water.
In China, my watch can buy me 116 bottles of water.
In Cambodia, my watch can buy me 100 bottles of water.

In America, my watch can buy me absolutely no more than 25 bottles of water. On a good day.

One more time… One more time… One more time… One more t…

I’m currently in Thailand but way behind on my posting, so I’m still talking about China. Not to worry, I will definitely tell you all about Thailand, but probably not until I make it back to America and have a chance to upload my photos (seriously, Thailand without photos? That just wouldn’t be any fun at all).

One of the things that I find very interesting about Chinese culture is how deeply engrained the concept of repetition is. Everything is repetition. Any kind of physical or mental exercise is centered around repetition. For example, there was a little park by my apartment complex and every morning when I woke up, I could hear the Chinese version of “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” And I do mean every morning; not a day went by without being graced by a Chinese Ricky Martin. The same people were doing the same dance to the same song every single morning.

At the gym I went to, there existed a similar phenomenon. For all the exercise classes, they listened to the same music and repeated the same moves over and over again. I remember this one particular hip-hop routine – I think the instructor even wore the same silly clothes to all of the classes (you know, red warm-up suit, some bling hanging around his neck, one pant leg rolled up, baseball cap worn at a 45-degree angle; all this and he was still a terrible choreographer). In any case, they would play the same song over and over and over again and do the same dance. If the class was lucky, some moves might be added on to the routine they had already learned. It was interesting, though – they never would work on specific parts of the routine. It was just the whole thing, again and again.

Another example is how all my Chinese classes have been structured. Class can be a bit boring because of the mind-numbing amount of repetition. We read the vocabulary out loud, twice for each vocab word; we read the whole dialogue out loud two times; we do similar exercises for every chapter; we write out each new character at least five times so we memorize it. The focus is on reading and writing. Oral speaking tends to be kept to a minimum (which has always bothered me). Every once in a while we’ll go around the room and come up with examples using some particular grammatical structure. Mostly, though, we focus on what is on the page in front of us – which requires no independent thought at all.

It gets you thinking. First of all, if those dance classes were happening in America – well, they just wouldn’t. All of the dancers would be bored out of their minds. Dance is by nature a creative process and so each week you listen to different music and do different exercises than you did the week before. But then education in America is largely about learning how to be creative and thinking for yourself, whereas in China I feel like you’re learning to be just like everyone else. It seems to me that the Chinese educational system does not encourage creativity. I suppose with such heavy governmental censoring, that’s a necessary by-product. It’s hard to feel free to think for yourself if you’re constantly afraid the government is going to exile you for it.

So anyway, my theory is that the reason there’s so much repetition in everything people do in China is that that’s the way the educational system is structured. In a sense it has to be; the writing system is so complicated that if you don’t practice the characters over and over again until you want to lose your mind, you won’t be literate. So repetition is the heart and soul of everything.

I have heard previously that all of the well-known Chinese-speaking pop stars are Taiwanese – from what I’ve seen of China, I believe it.

Safe and Sound

A quick note to everyone: I am alive and well here in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I am still upset about the earthquake in China, especially since it was so close to where I spent the past four months of my life. I have friends in Chengdu that I still haven't heard from, despite sending messages as well as I am able. However, I heard phone lines and such things are down, which is probably why I haven't heard from them.

I also heard that the tremors could be felt as far away as Bangkok, but by the time the earthquake hit, we had already left Bangkok and were in Chiang Mai (despite being closer to China, we didn't feel a thing). In any case, again, Sofia and I are fine. We didn't even know there had been an earthquake until we read the news.

An Update on Rebekah

This is Rebekah's sister. I'm sure by now you've all heard about the quake in Chengdu. As you know, Rebekah left Chengdu a few days ago, and she's totally fine - she's currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Despite the news reports that buildings in Bangkok were shaking from the quake, she didn't feel a thing. I wanted to leave a message here so that you all knew, since we haven't gotten any blog posts lately.