September 12, 2000
Dear All,
September 12 is the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. The more romantic name is the Moon-Viewing Festival. Eating mooncakes is the key activity-these are slightly sweet pastries with a variety of fillings in them, some more appealing to western tastes than others. When I ask Chinese people about this festival, they tell me that it is a time for family reunions, and for thinking of friends and family far away. So it seems only appropriate that I should write to all of you.
Not that I actually expect to see the moon tonight. Chengdu is overcast most of the time since it sits in a large basin surrounded by mountains on all sides. The humidity just hangs here -- hard to take for someone accustomed to 300 days of sunshine annually in Colorado Springs. But with the humid climate comes lush semi-tropical greenery and a gentle feeling to the air (if you can ignore the pollution, of course).
The faculty union of the foreign languages college provided three boxes of mooncakes to each of the professors, so I have more mooncakes in my possession than I have ever seen in one place before. There are some lovely German students living in this building with whom I have struck up a friendship, so I have invited them to come over and help me eat mooncakes and drink beer and tea. I also gave mooncakes to the two young women who are the attendants on this floor. They are in charge of fixing things, cleaning, emptying the wastebaskets, and so on. Can't be too nice to them! They even speak really slowly to me so I can try to understand them.
Incidentally, I have no idea what the faculty union is or what it does beyond distributing mooncakes. Probably no relationship to the party secretary for the college. On the directory just inside the door of the college, the top line is "Office of the Party Secretary" and the second line is "Office of the Party Committee." Only then do you get to the dean, assistant deans, and the various language departments. The party secretary was introduced to me as "Professor Sheh" and she spoke to me in English, so perhaps she carries both academic responsibilities and "official" duties? Or she checks on people's political correctness in the classroom? Or you never know which role she is playing when? And what does it require to be the party secretary? Hmmm?
It's hard for me to tell how much of what is going on is run like an American university and what is politically controlled -- and I mean party politics, not academic politics. I'm quite confident that the Chinese have academic politics just as we do. (You know the old saying: The fighting is so vicious because the stakes are so small) But how is the dean chosen in a Chinese college? Does he (it rarely seems to be a she) need to pass muster with the party secretary? Is there a political litmus test? I don't think it is seniority, based on the apparent age of the current dean of the foreign languages school. And does the dean have any political responsibilities of a party nature in addition to his institutional responsibilities?
September has another relevant holiday, Teachers' Day. The graduate students presented beautiful bouquets to each of the faculty members in the English Department. Pretty nice! Tells you something about the relative status of teachers in China. Or maybe about the utter dependence of these students on their professors for a successful transition to successful careers?.
Another small observation: During the Cultural Revolution and the years immediately following, elementary school children were encouraged to be Young Pioneers, the youth version of the Communist Party. Kids wore red kerchiefs around their necks, much like Cub Scout scarves, to symbolize their membership. On my first visit to China in 1978, virtually every kid had a red scarf. I was under the impression that today many Chinese are cynical about the party and about politics in general. I have the sense that there is a lot of individual freedom in terms of economics and personal life as long as you stay away from political issues. I've read that some young people don't want to join the party today, while in the past it was a ticket for getting ahead in one's career.
As I have walked past the No.1 Primary School on campus, I have noticed that some of the children are wearing red scarves much like the ones I had seen years ago. I'd estimate that it's less than 5% of the kids. So I wonder what it means. Are the Young Pioneers much more selective these days? Are fewer families encouraging their children to participate? Is it no longer cool to join up? Or are these merely the local equivalent of the Cub Scouts now? Perhaps in a month or two I will have sufficient Chinese to ask one of the kids directly.
Slowly I'm getting myself settled. One of the faculty members has offered to share his office with me (there are two desks in every faculty office that I have seen) since his usual officemate is spending the year at the University of New Mexico. That means I can have office hours on a somewhat regular basis and meet with the students in an official setting. I think they will be more willing to drop in to chat in the office than they would make a special appointment. Since one of my roles is contact and conversation with students, and another is learning as much as I can about Chinese people and Chinese education, these office hours will have all kinds of benefits.
Well, I need to clean up my apartment before the mooncakes get consumed. Right now I have all kinds of books and papers strewn around, in preparation for today's class.
Cheers,
Kathryn