Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Second Day of Classes: Overpopulation, an Old Friend

If possible, my second day of classes has been even more eventful that the first. At least I was very much in control of the schedule and not late to anything at all.

The first class of the day was the History Department's version of classical Chinese class. Everyone but me had the textbook, but fortunately it wasn't really necessary on the first day. The professor, LHz, was wonderfully expressive and stern, expounding with the severest of frowns the crucial importance of properly studying classical Chinese--and NOT as the Chinese department does (dismissive tone), but in a properly historical manner. He looked most angry and disappointed with us in advance, and as if he could never in his whole life crack a smile,--then suddenly he stopped lecturing to make a joke about the construction going on loudly outside, and in fact he can smile, and even laugh.

I had great difficulty understanding his speech, but he wrote very clearly. (I have also looked over the first few lessons of the handwriting book.) Also, I understood more or less what he ought to be saying, even when I didn't understand all his specific words. So I think the class is probably worth trying at least a few more times. Maybe I will get better too.

After the class I went to lunch at the foreign students' dorm again, because it has the first-world bathroom and I had the appropriate dining hall tickets. I had a really nice lunch there, "lion's head" meatballs (which made me think fondly of our end of the year dinner in Prof. BE's class) and a really nice sauteed green vegetable. I don't know how the Chinese do it, but they make the best sauteed greens of anyone. Also, how wonderful it is to eat a delicious and satisfying lunch for less than a dollar. Then again, I might go on an all-popsicle diet. The little stand in the building where the classes are, as well as the little shop in the foreign students' dorm (and everywhere else) have the greatest popsicles, many of which are quite proteinaceous. Today I had two: a mung bean one and a peanut one. So delicious and cooling. (The weather has got hot again.)

After lunch I went to the bookstore and obtained, with minimal effort, the textbook for the class I had just been to (as well as a couple other goodies). I also got myself a small water-bottle so I can fill it up with hot water between classes the way other kids do, while still being able to carry it back and forth in my little bag. It is heavy plastic and has the brilliant Chinglish inscription, "Health Vogue: My life I choose." The informational card inside says, "Container with fresh flavor found in it and a life of comfort. I love you!" 'Nuff said!

I was somewhat at a loss for what to do with the next hour. I first located the room for my next class, which was in a different building. Initially, I thought I would just sit in there and read, but it was terrifyingly tiny and there were already a couple people in there napping. I tried standing outside the door, but my feet went to sleep. I tried some of the other classrooms in the hall but they were occupied and also smallish. Finally I went back to the neighboring building, which had bigger lecture halls, and sat in one of those. Along with quite a number of other students. It seems that at the end of lunch hour, almost all the classrooms are full of students, even those who don't have class. They all sit or slump, dozing or studying--but not talking, hardly moving. Except for when someone comes in or goes out, the place is as quiet as if no one were there at all.

About 15 minutes before class was due to start, I made my way back to the small room. It was now pretty well full of people, but I squeezed into a corner seat. More and more people kept arriving. The classroom was designed for 12, and was incredibly ghetto: it didn't even have chairs, but only benches, and the benches were (I kid you not) only about four inches wide. I won't say anything about my fat American ass, but you get the picture? At least the fat offered a bit of padding...but not two hours worth! Those benches are hard!

By the time the professor arrived, the classroom was packed and there was a crowd outside. He is a very famous professor who deals with excavated texts, LL, and everyone wanted to hear him. He had made the mistake of wanting to hold this class as a "discussion" but had advertised it as an ordinary class rather than keeping it a secret from everyone except those he wanted in it. He interviewed the crowd outside the door and invited a few archaeologists and philologists to squeeze into the room. "Sorry to the rest of you," he said, while I cowered in my corner, feeling undeserving and wishing I could slip away. I would have if it wouldn't have created so much commotion.

However, the students outside were not so easily dismissed. "We've come here--and now we can't go to class?" This argument sounds more persuasive in Chinese, I think, because it tugs at some pedagogical obligation heart-string that Americans don't so much have I think. Resistance to a professor's command to "go away" just comes off as dedication rather than as disobedience. So no one went, and a great murmuring of "we might just change the classroom?" could be heard from everywhere. Everyone (not just me) wanted everyone to be included, the people inside as much as the people outside. LL held out for a long time, because he wanted the class to be in the small room and he wanted it to be small-room-sized. At last he had to give in, though. I know if he were a Harvard professor, he would simply have lectured with students spilling out into the hall, and worn them down with straining to hear until they finally went away. But instead he grumpily led the stream of students (maybe 30-40) into the neighboring classroom, which was conveniently empty.

Then he proceeded to give a fascinating lecture, which to my credit I understood quite well. I'm sure I missed some subtleties and nuances, but overall I was proud of myself. The class is going to be on the Laozi (Dao de jing) in its transmitted and excavated variants, but it will not be strictly philological. Instead, he wants to look at how the variants influence our picture of the deeper intellectual content--and various other things as well. I got the feeling that if I could somehow take this class I would be led by a master through the proliferating maze of excavated Laozi scholarship, into some very interesting directions indeed. However. However. I believe he made some comment at the end like, "If you're not actually taking the class I'm very sorry." As in, I'm very sorry but don't come back.

Meanwhile, who should I run into--but my Princeton classmate KS! I shouldn't have been so surprised to see him, as I knew he was in Beijing. But somehow I didn't realize he would be HERE this semester. So I said to KS as people filed out, "Did that last comment mean we're out of luck?" KS said, "Well, I actually kind of know him; we've hung out a bit. Let's wait until he has a bit of time--those are his own students" (referring to the little huddle of intent backs gathered around him) "--and I'll introduce you. Or have you talked to him?" Of course I hadn't. We waited a long while, meanwhile chatting about various things. Eventually the crowd thinned out and I was duly introduced. LL was in "how do I get rid of students" mode rather than "I'm so pleased to meet you" mode, and was quite lukewarm. But he muttered in KS's direction, that of course he should feel free to listen in. Ambiguously it could have included me. But it is a great dilemma for me, whether to push myself in where I'm not really wanted and I'm not sure I can really do justice to the agenda he has. Certainly I would be too terrified to say anything, and wish he'd just give a lecture and be happy about the number of people who showed up--or else be specific about his restrictions.

KS said if you want something in China you just have to push in and go for it, because--there being such a superfluity of people--no one is going to volunteer to make more work for themselves. It's easiest for them if you don't go for it, but that doesn't mean they'll turn you away if you do go for it. (That pedagogical heart-string.) I am deeply conflicted. Fortunately I have a week to think about it. Though I suppose if I do want to go for it I should spend the week working very hard to deserve it. KS concurred that it looked like it would be a great class. But it's hard to even begin to explain how acutely I feel my lack of credibility here. I am a nobody in the grad student rat-race. Though I get by with my Chinese well enough in most situations, when I'm flustered I can barely say a word. And being looked down, alas, is the most flustering thing there is to me, so it's a very bad downward spiral.

In any case, I had a lovely chat with KS after the class. We got some cold drinks at a little store and sat by the lake. He has a dorm-room on campus, paid for by his scholarship, but also has an apartment on the east side of town. He is doing some great things with his dissertation--I was tremendously excited to hear about it, though at the same time involuntarily feeling painfully behind and inferior. We started at the same time, after all, and with the same advisor, but he made very different choices…. No need to say more in that vein. The positive way to think about things, I suppose, is that it may seem late to mend my ways, but if I wait until tomorrow it will be even later.

After KS and I parted ways I had dinner in one of the few cafeterias that took cash. (Still bewildered about the card thing.) I saw something I thought looked tasty, a kind of meatball and noodle soup, and scrutinized the menu until I had a pretty good idea of what it was--then ordered it without incident. Indeed, I got the thing I wanted. Of course I had to sit alone and eat it, but it also cost less than a dollar. I had not been sitting for long when one of the kids I had met at the Communication Association meeting came by and said a cheery "Hello!" to me, putting down his stuff in the seat next to mine (including a "Secrets of English" text) and dashing off to get some food. He had the same thing as I, so I know I must have got something good. Then we chatted, in English, about all sorts of things. It felt very cheery and nice to have dinner with someone, and I didn't even mind speaking English as the price of it. English is my only commodity and it's rare to find situations where it's in enough demand to be of any use to me at all!--At least, that's how I feel most of the time.

I was in good spirits by the time we were done eating, and decided that after all I would give a try to the last class (11th and 12th period!) I had on my schedule. A highly "optional" one because I suspected it might not be too useful. It was called something like "a rough discussion of literature." I had come in not very early (though not late either!) and all the seats but the front row were occupied. Well, so I sat in the front row, so what.

Interesting to go to class at night (7-9 PM). And what an inspiring class! The professor had an extremely expressive face as well, but his face was kind and smiling and sad as if he were moved by his own words. He spoke very wonderfully about the value of literature to life, being sure to solicit opinions from the class (which were delivered in eloquent phrases--even when the contents were unimpressive). Then he said more wonderful things, and he was very easy to understand. You'd think by my fifth and sixth hour of class in a day I'd be a little burnt out but I felt all afire instead.

Mind you, there's probably nothing useful to me about this class except the inspired feeling it gives me. (But that in itself is worth something.) It was a sort of comp.lit. class, and included many Western lit. greats that I had actually read, and Chinese lit. greats, of which I had read some. It reminded me very much of a lower division Harvard class. The charisma of the professor! the eagerness with which the students tried to show off their cleverness! I didn't feel alienated as I had back then, because I felt outside of it. I felt very strongly the sense that what mattered wasn't anything I expressed but what effect the words had in my own being. And every word the professor said seemed perfectly honed and yet spontaneous. It was grand!

I could say much more about it, but it's getting so late. The only thing other thing I will mention--because it made such an impression on me--was a really first-class snub I received while I was sitting there.

I should say first that I feel like a total freak wherever I go. I just know that I look different and am being looked at and wondered at. Since I am not used to it, I am very aware of the sliding-away edges of people's stares. However, during the mid-class break (when I was sitting quietly in a happy reverie), one of the sycophantic little group--which had been talking and arguing in a tight ring around the professor for some time--detached himself and walked over to me.

"Bluh-bluh-bluh-bluh?" he said, either very fast or very indistinctly or in words I didn't know.

"What?" I asked.

"Bluh-bluh-bluh-BLUH?" he said, more impatiently.

I considered for a moment the range of things he might be inquiring about, and decided to say, "Yes. I am an American."

"I thought so," he said in a very clear and slow and haughty tone. "I heard how loudly you laugh and so I could tell that you weren't Chinese." (But the ethnonym he used, as I know from my study of ancient China, means not just "Chinese" but "civilized" and is often used in opposition to "barbarians.") That is, I could tell that you weren't a civilized person. Of course, as always in English or Chinese, I was too consternated for a snappy response. I just stammered a little apology, and worried for a while if I had offended the wonderful professor with my (unconsciously loud?) laughter. He had made jokes. Other people had laughed. I felt very confused.

Then I started to feel it was kind of funny too, a real high-class snub. The fellow, who was wearing a lime green t-shirt, walked away for a moment, then hurried back into the little sycophant circle, which the professor was enduring patiently rather than enjoying in the old-boy-type way some of the other professors seemed to do. He seemed more interested to get back to class that in continuing to be flattered or argued with (I couldn't quite tell which).

It occurred to me that perhaps Mr. Lime-green felt a little threatened somehow? It's hard to believe. But I was sitting in the front row, and even if I didn't leap up and tell the professor how moving I found his lecture (in fact I wanted to, but felt shy), I could have had easy access. Or maybe it was because he thought I had read more of the Western books than he had? Or had I somehow trespassed by my very existence? Or was it just really rude to laugh outright when someone said something funny?

That did get me started thinking about American laughter, or rather laughter in American culture as I know it. We laugh, don't we, when we are happy? And to show that we really appreciate something, right? Real laughter is a very sincere expression as it is hard to fake convincingly. But perhaps tiny polite laughs are the norm here. Then I thought of something funny I should have noticed about what Mr. Lime-green said. He said I laughed loudly so he knew I wasn't Chinese, but isn't funny--from a literal point of view--that that was how he knew? I mean, not my weird broad shoulders or my freckles or my big nose or my generally Caucasian features? Or for that matter, my awkward speech? Ah how much trouble he must have taken, waiting for me to laugh before he could tell I wasn't Chinese! What a chump.

Well, I've been hated by classmates for most of my life, for one reason or another. No point letting it get to me at this late date. Nonetheless, for the whole rest of the class, though, I tried very hard not to laugh at all. Still, I couldn't help enjoying it very much. It was a grand class, and I was very tempted to say at least a few words to that effect before I left. But the same little circle of people (all guys, and including Mr. Lime-green) closed in around the professor again after class, and though I waited several minutes, they didn't budge. Never mind. I would show my appreciation by equipping myself with the textbook and coming back. Maybe I would try sitting in the front row again, just to give 'em a rise.

The prof. had looked at me kindly when he gave me the syllabus, so at least it seemed that I might be welcome.

It was a roller-coaster of a day, so much bad and good rolled into one, so many wonders and difficulties. I guess that's China, isn't it. I feel very new and green, vulnerable, inept, and yet sometimes hopeful.

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