language

Language is an infinitely fascinating concept to me. It's one of the basic fundamental building blocks of life along with time etc...Right now language occupies my thoughts constantly. I'm teaching language, I'm learning language, and when I'm not doing either I'm either communicating by language or thinking about how I can teach language better, and learn language more effectively... It's kind of all consuming. Sometimes I'm teaching my students, and I put myself in their place imagining how useful the lesson is... and then I'm a chinese language student and I'm both analysing my teacher's teaching techniques as well as identifying things that I could use in my classes, and of course trying to actually learn the language.

I'm also reading about language - particularly the study of languages - linguistics and similar fields like semiotics - the study of signs. Language is essentially a set of signs that signify things to those who can understand. It's through language that we create a shared understanding of meaning. This is very academic and I'm actually re-reading some university texts I've previously studied in my communication and cultural analysis subjects at university. I know, nerd, nerd, nerd...

One of the things I actually ask my students from time to time, is "how do you learn a language?" - ie what works for you? and do you have any tips. One approach I'm trying out at the moment is to paste sheets of Chinese language all throughout the house - mostly in places like the shower, toilet and kitchen... I think it's helping.

cold and rainy

Blogger is back and working again after the 40,000 - 80,000 reported 'scanner' employees spent the last three weeks checking for inappropriate posts. At least that's what I can only assume. So evidently, my blog has passed the test? Because it's still alive.

There have been many things I could have mentioned here over the last 3 weeks, and some of it I've put in emails and other forums etc. Tracey has been keeping her blog up to date, so check hers out as well. I'm hoping to make more of an effort to phone a few people and not spend as much time online. But now I'm working every night of the week (except Saturday and Sunday of course), so it will be more difficult to find a good time to phone.

It's been really cold and rainy for the past three or four days. But everyone says it will get really cold when the rain goes away. Right now, I think our maximum daily temperatures couldn't be any higher than about 12/13 degrees. We've finally worked out how to run the air conditioners as heaters at home which is helping a bit. But I have a big list of necessary clothing items to buy: gloves, scarf/s, beanie, slippers (that's right, not afraid of 'em), raincoat for my bike... I bought a heavy duty jacket the other day. It's kind of a cross between a military overcoat and one of those horrible jackaroo Australian jackets - what were they called again?

My Chinese is getting a little better. I now have 3 morning lessons a week with a Chinese student tutour and am also trying out a lot more stuff with the 2 Chinese staff here at work, and all the other people I meet in our daily life.

The other day I bought the complete series of Black Adder on DVD. My goal was to convince Tracey that Rowan Atkinson is funny. Tracey only knows him as Mr Bean and as that feeble wimpy character he often plays in movies (largely based on Mr Bean). Unfortunately, we sat down and watched the whole first series - which is really ordinary, and no where near as funny as series 2, 3 and 4. So now she's even less convinced...

censorship II

"woh woh, woopsy daisy"

From Murray:

"In China, we don't have software blocking Internet sites. Sometimes we have trouble accessing them. But that's a different problem...I've heard people say that the BBC is not available in China or that it's blocked. I'm sure I don't know why people say this kind of thing. We do not have restrictions at all."
-- Chinese official at UN summit in Athens, denying the existence of the well-documented Great Firewall of China

(by the way, this image isn't related, it's just funny)

the latest

The latest news with this site is that Blogger is still down - meaning we can post, but can't view our sites or other sites... It's really annoying. There is a way around it by going to one of the illegal sites that let's you search for anthing on the net (blocked or unblocked), but these are often slow and unfriendly and usually I can't be bothered with the whole process. So I don't think I'll post much until it's back and running again.

About 3 weeks ago Tracey and I bought bicyles, which has been a great investment. I've been riding to and from work everyday which is lots of fun and helps me stay fit.

I'm starting to become more aware of the grime and dirtyness of this place. I often go outside and within a few hours feel dirty - dirty hands and face and your clothes can look and feel a bit dirty. The pollution - hazy sky thing has been a bit more noticeable over the last month. There's not really bad smells in the air, but there must be a lot of pollution. Although I'm sure it's nothing like some of the industrial Chinese cities.

The Chinese language is improving ever so slightly. I get frustrated at times that I'm not already an expert!! But, have to reassure myself that it's a long process to learn a language and it won't happen over night. I feel that my listening is improving, but my speaking is very ordinary. I now have a tutor (a Chinese student) who comes to our place 3 mornings a week, so I'm sure this will help me to improve. I'm also seriously considering enrolling in the university course which is 5 mornings a week for 4 hours each day, but I don't think this starts until February.

Other than all of that, we're both looking forward to going to Hokaido, Japan to ski for the Christmas week, which isn't all that far away.

blogger's down

bathroom scene
Originally uploaded by Wurly.

Bloggin' hell... Blogger's down again - has been for about 4 or 5 days. Damn you people (raises fist in the air)!!! I can evidently post, but can't view the site. Luckily that will still allow me to put a coded message in my blog entry, to let everyone know that “capitalism is your best friend”... he he he...

In the meantime, why not join our new Flicker group - "the Everyday Mundane" - it's not inspired by the everyday beautiful, in fact it's not inspired at all. If you have photos that are unimaginative, banal, mundane, worthless, boring or craptacular (as Jonno put it)... then feel free to jam up that site with photos. The photo that accompanies this post is one I've submitted. It's a stunning photo in my mind, imaginatively titled “bathroom scene”...

I'm out!

summer's ending

As I mentioned a few posts back, the temperature can very quickly drop here in Suzhou. In the last couple of days, we've gone from quite warm, humid days where we've used the air conditioning regularly, to a drop of at least 5 degrees cooler. It's days like these when you realise how cold Suzhou can get, and that when people keep telling you that it gets really cold that you start to believe them.

On another topic - here's an interesting widipedia article on funny words. Apparently words like underpants (and simply pants), duck, megaphone, weasel, spleen and the 'Wankel rotary engine' are inherently funny... if you're not laughing now as you read this, there's something wrong with you!!

more on photography

After finishing reading Sontag’s, book On Photography I feel that it has affirmed my belief in the importance of being present in the moment, of living each moment, taking it in and living life to the full. Photography is a type of consumption – we consume photos quicker as technology improves. With the advent of digital cameras and iPhoto and computerised documenting of photos, we are taking more photos and keeping more. But we can never reach our need for the consumption of photos – “As we make images and consume them, we need still more images; and still more”, says Sontag. She describes it as a lust, which cannot be satisfied: “first, because the possibilities of photography are infinite; and second, because the project is finally self-devouring”.

The consumption of photography is also due to the accessibility of it – it is both easy to participate in (to take photos or be in them) and easy to appreciate them. This makes photography quite different from other art forms such as painting and literature, which require greater time, and an often more advanced understanding of how to see (ie cultural literacy).

Some other thoughts from Sontag’s book: “One can’t possess reality, one can possess (and be possessed by) images… one can’t possess the present but one can possess the past”. It’s almost as though by taking a photo we are ignoring the present, but documenting the past… an interesting thought. Garry Winogrand has said, “I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed”.

I like Jonathan’s idea of a challenge to take the most boring, uninteresting, or worthless photo – perhaps this could be our new challenge for a flickr group? My photo for this post is an example…

film

more later

Lars Von Trier

Today, in my spare time I watched the film "The Idiots" by Lars Von Trier. For those of you who may not have heard of him, Lars Von Trier is a Danish film director who has created many unique and highly original films since the early 1990s. He's widely known for a trilogy of films exploring what he calls the 'golden hearts' character found in his films "Breaking the Waves" (1996, starring Emily Watson), "The Idiots" (1998) and "Dancer in the Dark" (2000, staring Bjork), along with his next major film, "Dogville" (2003, with Nicole Kidman). He's also known for jointly creating the "Dogme" film making method - search on google/wikipedia to learn more about this - but basically, it's a fundamental re-evaluation of filmmaking based on using real people (non-actors), real location shooting, no props, natural light only, no credits etc etc... quite challenging in itself. Of the four films listed above only "The Idiots" is a Dogme film.

All four of these films are amazing and importantly, worth seeing through to the end (which can be a challenge) as Von Trier has an ability to create incredibly beautiful (and often tragic) endings to his films that are often based on redemption. In particular the breakthrough ending to "Breaking the Waves" - probably my favourite of his films is amazing. All of these films (but more-so the first trilogy) have a central character who has a Christ-like nature in the way she sacrifices her life for others. But this character trait is usually combined with an 'idiot' like innocence like the main character in Doestoyevsky's the Idiot. For christians or those interested in the concept of the ‘ideal’ or ‘perfect person’, these films are a fascinating watch. They are also challenging to watch (particularly "Breaking the Waves" and "Dancer in the Dark"), but as I have said, I believe rewarding. The central character is always a female, (played by Emily Watson, Bjork, and Nicole Kidman) and is someone who is taken advantage of by the people around her. This abuse of their trust is what makes his films hard to watch, but the selfless nature of the "golden hearts" always seems to have some more meaningful purpose to it.

Von Trier is not a Christian, and was not even brought up in a Christian environment. It is therefore strange that he creates films that seem to both condemn the simple Christian faith, and celebrate it as well… Dogville has a revengeful twist to it’s story which separates it from the other 3 films. Interestingly in Dogville, Kidman’s character is titled, “Grace”. All these films intertwine themes of faith, abuse, sacrifice and enslavement – and I think they say that faith is the only avenue to transcendence…

Anyway, I guess I'm just excited at seeing an interesting and thought provoking film. Von Trier is one of those rare directors like Andrey Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick or Yasujiro Ozu - a true visionary! Get out there people and search out his stuff! I'd start with "Breaking the Waves" and if you liked that see the others...

For those of you who have seen his films, I’d be interested to hear from you!

censorship

This image is the one I was referring to earlier in the 'on photography' post. I know this blog entry's title is a bit provocative - but it's not actually meant to be. Just last week Wikipedia began working again which is great news. And we've also finally managed to get our cable connection working so we have access to the standard Asian pacific TV channels - CNN Asia, BBC World Asia, HBO (movies), TV5 (French), NHK1 (Japanese), CNBC, ESPN (sports), plus an even more expanded selection of Chinese channels. We are now both feeling a bit more connected with world news and CNN and BBC both provide pretty good coverage of a whole range of issues.

So it seems that our limits on access to information as westerners is now almost on par to most other countries. I still cannot access the proboards site - a forum where I used to regularly go, and the BBC news section of it's web page is blocked, but most other things work fine. I get a sense that things are changing here quite rapidly - from week to week this country looks and feels different. The wikipedia opening last week is a good example as was access to blogger which seemed to be reopened about a week or two after we arrived.

which film are you?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

on photography

I've been thinking a bit about photography recently. Mostly because I've been reading an excellent book by Susan Sontag titled "On Photography". Susan Sontag is one of my favourite authors, she writes fiction, and non-fiction on a whole range of topics. I find her thoughts really insightful. Her book "On Photography" explores a number of different ideas about why we take photographs and what this signifies.

She ponders why it is that we find beauty in everyday items, the'everyday beautiful' as Nick and Jonno call it. The mundane, or the everyday has for many years been a major focus of photography: "bleak factory buildings and billboard-cluttered avenues look beautiful, through the camera's eye". Relating this to a surrealist asethetic she notes that "the Surrealist ragpicker's acuity was directed to finding beautiful what other people found ugly or without interest and relevance - bric-a-brac, naive or pop objects, urban debris". And she notes how in contrast to paintings which look worse over time, that photographs, "when they get scrofulous, tarnished, stained, cracked, faded still look good; do often look better". And she says that photography in this way is like architecture whose works are subject to the "same inexorable promotion through the passage of time" arguing that the Parthenon for example probably looks better as ruins. It is true that overtime, all photos become artistic, beautiful, unique - because of their reference to the past. Check out Found magazine to see our fascination of old photos and found scraps of things... my favourite from that site, is a note, that simply says, "Crossing the Delaware... snakes, wolves, space, the Century..." - cryptic, but equally fascinating!

Sontag also explores many other motivations for, and symbolism in photography. There is obviously the widely known concept of the photographer as voyeur - which is at its most strangest in photos of war victims - where the photographer has made a choice to photograph rather than assist the victim. Strange. She talks about boredom (an interesting concept for me) - she says that "boredom is just the reverse side of fascination" - both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other. In fact, the Chinese have a theory that you pass through boredom into fascination. Sontag notes that many photographers are outsiders who do not relate to the images they take (they are removed, distanced through the lens) - not intervening in their subjects' lives - just visiting.

One other obvious connotation with photographs - is death and the past. Photographs are a reminder of death and "an invitation to sentimentality. Photographs turn the past into an object of tender regard, scrambling moral distinctions and disarming historical judgements by the generalised pathos of looking at the past". I like this quote: "photography is the inventory of mortality". Commenting on observing photos of Polish Jews in WW2 - days, weeks, or months before they would die, Sontag says, "photographs state the innocence, the vulnerability of lives heading toward their own destruction, and this link between photography and death haunts all photographs of people".

staring

Ok, so I don't feel I've had much culture shock, but one aspect of the Chinese people's culture is grating on me, and that's staring. You get stared at everwhere, whether it be walking down the street, eating meals, and even the occasional stare while doing your thing in the toilet. Of course, there is also my earlier remarks about being stared at while getting changed at a swimming pool... You get used to people staring and to some extent you deal with it, but I still don't like it. It can be really invasive. My main way of dealing with it is to ignore it, or send a fixated stare back, and lately when someone's deliberately trying to get a good look, to look downwards and away as much as possible to deprive them of any "stare enjoyment" factor...

I haven't worked out how to say in Chinese that "staring is extremely impolite in the West" etc. This combined with the constant exclamations of "mei guo ren" (American) or "lai wei" (foreigner) that for some reason Chinese people feel compelled to say when you walk past is really annoying.

I've thought up many shirts I could print up to 'fight back'.... one's like "have a good stare"... or "yes, I'm a foreigner"... maybe even, "I'm a foreigner - you should stare at me"... or taking it further, "I'm a foreigner" (and on the back) "want to try and rip me off?".... of course all of these would be more effective if written in Chinese characters on the reverse...

English teaching

I've now been teaching for 7 or 8 weeks and although I have had some ups and downs, overall I am very much enjoying teaching. Teaching adults in particular I have found to be rewarding, but I feel I still have some way to go with teaching my kids (year 4 and 5 kids), as at times this has been a struggle. The kids need a lot of entertaining - ie games, and need to be challenged, and for the most part, I feel that I probably haven't challenged them enough.

I'm learning a lot about English by teaching it. Did you know that 8 words make up approximately 33% of spoken English? Have a think about what they could be and then check the comments section - where I'll post the answers! I actually have a list of the 300 most commonly used English words. Some interesting words that made the top 300 - state, American, war, government, president, John, church, power, and God. Just shows that although we are taught to not talk about politics and religion etc, that these topics are extremely popular. Most of the other words were prepositions and adjectives (ie not nouns etc) like - don't, got, told, let, look, only, what, said, most etc....

Australia

get your head in there
Originally uploaded by Wurly.

Well, I've enjoyed a week and a bit's holiday, where I was lucky enough to get home to Australia for all of 5 days to see Andrew and Jen's wedding and visit friends and family... Then flew back to China and together with Trace went to nearby Hangzhou, which is a picturesque Chinese city located on a lake. It's been a great break from everyday life here and I loved catching up with everyone in Australia, and Tracey and I enjoyed taking it easy in Hangzhou. I'll put up a few photos on my flickr site if you're interested.

I have some very special friends back in Australia and seeing many of them and kicking back to see the great AFL grand final was fantastic. See you all again hey!

Chinese English names

As many of you will know, its common for Chinese people to take on an English name. This may be simply to make their names more pronounceable to Westerners, and/or to come up with an exciting sounding English name.

It leads to some interesting choices - as many of you will have heard. Usually they tend to be old fashioned names - Bob, Perry, Rex, George, Howard, Nancy, Betty, Frank, Fred, Grace etc (are some of my student names)... Joyce and Jennifer seem to be popular for girls.

But then there are the weird names - those who seem to have chosen surnames - Wilson, Henderson, and other strange names - Lym, and my favourite so far, Promotion - that's right his name of choice is promotion... although his English wasn't that great, you just know that guy is going to go places...

travelling

The concept of travelling is interesting, because when you reduce it to its basics, its just walking around in foreign places. So instead of walking to the shops in your hometown, you walk to a restaurant or your hotel in a different location. So walking is key to travelling, second only to buying stuff - buying food and buying occasional travel momentos... So what's that all about? Maybe I've just been struck with some common sense, but surely a more enjoyable holiday is sitting on a beach at a resort somewhere, or skiing, or at least doing something that you don't already do at home. This has taken me years to realise this. Most of my life I've been fascinated by urban cities - it has been important to see, and walk around the places where people (for whatever reason) have chosen to congrugate... London, New York, Tokyo, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, Bangkok, Melbourne, Shanghai, Barcelona, Vancouver, Singapore etc etc... I still love big cities, but for me that experience probably makes more sense if you actually live in the city for a while. Hence what we are now doing in Suzhou (and near enough to do in Shanghai).

So, I guess I'm saying that the 'tourist' attractions (that have never really appealed to me anyway) seem to interest me less and less. Temples, historical sites - the commercialism of these places has always distracted me from any sense of genuine appreciation, and I already feel that I want to steer clear of the so called hot tourist must-sees in China. Although I do want to see the Great Wall. But a temple is a temple, an art gallery an art gallery, one city becomes the next and the next... As a consequence, I think the things that I will more than likely take away most as memories from China will be the people.

silencio

I just had a bad teaching day. Everything seems a bit hit and miss at the moment and I'm trying to put together lesson plans amidst a lot of confusion and uncertainty. I'm supposed to put together a 16 week syllabus for 9-11 year olds (I actually don't know how old they are because here in China you are 1 year old when you're born - ie your first birthday you turn 2) but I have a book that could probably last 8-10 lessons and yet I'm told it has to last 32 lessons - ie 1 year, because parents don't want to pay for the price of costly English books. This means I'm to put together a 16 week course, when I already don't have enough material in the book, but extend it out to 32 weeks... And of course I haven't mentioned the fact that I've never taught children before.

I also started another new group of adults tonight and they conjured up the Silence of the Lambs effect that I mentioned somewhere else on this blog. The material we are trying to teach them is too complex, but again - that's out of my hands because this is the book they've purchased.

So enough about teaching complaints. The weather here has changed dramatically. Within one or two days the temperature has dropped at least 10 degrees. Last week we were living in air conditioning at home, in cabs and at work and sweating lots with the high humidity. Then it started raining and has continued to rain for the last three or four days, and now it only feels no more than about 18-20 degrees - cool, and not humid at all. The locals say these changes in temperatures from one day to the next are a regular feature of Suzhou. Perhaps it's a bit like Melbourne? I actually think that 2 weeks ago we were experiencing weather hotter and more humid than you would in Brisbane - maybe on par with subtropical places like Bangkok. Now everyone's already getting ready for winter when it usually snows.

welcome back

I've let my hair go a little bit and experi- mented with moustaches as this recent shot of me (middle) and some of my favourite students shows... I'm really enjoying teaching and the schedule I have at the moment is pretty good. Next week I start teaching 10 and 11 year old middle school students. This week David (another English teacher here) and myself tested about 100 students. These kids are the cutest kids I've ever seen. Except for all the other cute kids you see every day here. They are all so eager to impress the foreign teachers and so excited to see you. When you are walking through the school (and total strangers in Suzhou streets) they try out all their phrases like, "hello" and "good morning" as you walk past them. It can be annoying but when it's a cute kid - you can't help but say hello back...

The International Circuit

Sometimes as I'm getting about between home and work or shops and restaurants I think to myself why are we doing this? What makes someone decide to pack up and move to a foreign country. At other times, I think, why didn't we do this earlier in life? At Tracey's school we've met people who have made travelling and living in foreign countries their life. There is an 'international school circuit'. For example one couple we have met - an Irishman, a Kiwi and their 4 year old child have lived for 4 years in Germany, 2 years in Eritrea, then 4 years in Cambodia before arriving in China for what will be at least 2 years for them. I think they lived somewhere else as well because I know that John, the Irishman hasn't lived in Ireland for over 12 years. His friends are scattered all over the world, and I guess one negative from this existence is that he no longer has strong bonds back to his home country. I asked him whether they would stay for a longer period in China or another country now that their child was reaching school age and he agreed, so maybe they'll stay for 4-5 years this time.

For people who do have this life, they are very lucky as International Schools look after their staff really well in terms of working conditions and salaries. So for Tracey and I it will be interesting to see where this journey in China takes us...