Week 10: 第十周
Hangzhou
Last weekend was awesome! I got to reunite with a Chinese friend that I met in Denmark, and she's studying French so I brought along a French friend. I remember how the languages were switching from Chinese to English to French and it was confusing. My Chinese friend said something about some kind of food in French, asking my French friend to translate it to English for me, but my French friend couldn't remember what it was in English. So I asked my Chinese friend to say it in Chinese, and then knew they were talking about eggplant. So complicated.
I enjoyed how confusing it was though. And when I study abroad in Italy, I will visit my French friend and my Chinese friend said there's a chance she'll be in France in 2020 as well. Fingers crossed!
I know that my dad is back in the USA but I kind of felt close to him in Hangzhou, or at least close to a version of him that existed before I existed in his life. When he was in his early twenties he climbed all around these small mountains on the paths that are now blocked off to tourists. So while in Hangzhou, I kind of imagined a smaller version of my dad hiking through the mountains and felt close to him.
I'm not sure what kind of flowers were growing on these vines but I like it. Then again I don't know what most plants and animals are.
My friend told me that ancient Chinese poets carved poems into the mountainsides and this kind of let people know that they've been there. That's a much more sophisticated version of "(insert name) wuz here" carved with a knife.
Here is a beautiful couple getting their wedding pictures taken at West Lake.
We were walking through the tea fields and there were workers in the distance wearing those adorable huge Chinese hats. You can see them in this picture if you look closely. Anyways, my French friend wanted to buy green tea and my Chinese friend suggested we ask one of the workers where to buy some. The worker was very nice and she was getting off work, so she offered to take us to buy green tea. She took us to those houses in the middle of the picture and knocked on one of the doors for us. There was a family inside and they wanted us to come into their house and sit and drink tea. I didn't take any tea but they had a really pudgy baby that I fell in love with immediately. The baby took my finger and tried to eat it but ended up sucking on his own hand because babies have adorable spatial reasoning. I admired the baby while my two friends sipped on hot fresh tea, and the two adults of the house were extremely hospitable and warm. After the sample tea was finished, my friends asked how much it was for a container of dried tea leaves. They said 3000 RMB (that's about 480 USD). My friends were horrified and started talking in French so the family couldn't understand them. I awkwardly sat there and the baby threw up twice. My friends asked for smaller and smaller containers to lower the price, but a quarter of the original size was still 750 RMB (about $120). We were embarrassed about accepting their hospitality and then not buying any tea, but we left and my friend ended up getting two containers of tea leaves for 20 RMB ($3.20) elsewhere.
We did figure out that my friends got about 100 RMB (or $16) worth of tea for free during our time in that family's house. And I got to adore a pudgy baby so it's okay.
This is one of the many buddhas. This buddha has many arms so that she can pray for all the people who are suffering because she wants to alleviate everyone from their afflictions. That's a really nice thought, someone just praying for all of humanity to suffer no longer.
Tiger Mother is better than mouse mom
The term "Tiger Mother" was popularized by Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a memoir by author and lawyer Amy Chua that was published in 2011. (Great book by the way.)
I know what a Tiger Mother is by the familiarity (and by the fear) but I didn't have actual words for it, so I Googled it. (Actually Bing-ed it because Google is blocked.) Here are some views on Tiger Mothers:
"A mother raising her children in a traditional Chinese way, including strict rules, tough love, and discipline to get children to succeed."
"A mother who drives her children very hard to succeed in school and in extracurricular studies, like learning a musical instrument."
"A mother who is overly strict with her child in order to foster an academically competitive spirit. This form of upbringing is intended to direct a child towards financially successful careers at the potential risk of feeling emotionally unfulfilled and/or socially inept."
Obviously that last one was the harshest on Tiger Mothers and was the most Western judgement on parenting, but it's a fair perspective I guess.
The Oxford dictionary has example senteces for each entry, and here are some of the example sentences for Tiger Mother:
"Laziness is the greatest sin for Tiger Mothers."
"Through hard work and application, an army of Tiger Mothers will transform their children into piano geniuses at the age of four."
"Being raised by a Tiger Mother to me means as a child, I wasn't given the freedom to make my own decisions."
"She professes that she is a proud Tiger Mother, owning her superiority over Western parenting again and again."
This is a short essay written by the daughter of my teacher that gives an accurate depiction what having a Tiger Mom is like. My teacher said she was really embarrassed when she saw that her daughter wrote this essay depicting her like a Tiger Mother, yet she shared this essay with our class. According to my translation skills (which are mediocre at best, sorry) she writes something vaguely like this:
"Hello everyone! My name is Rachael, and I am 7 and in the first grade. As far as hobbies go, if you count all the activities my mom has given me, then I really have a lot. There's fencing, drawing, English story-telling, swimming, golf, dancing, martial arts, etc. My mom tells me that doing all these activities is really good for me and will help me get into a good university. Sometimes I feel like a superman juggling all of these activities and having to do each one very well. I think my mom is making me do too many things, and I feel very tired. Of all these things I do, I only like two of them. I don't even know what university is for."
This is pretty much most Chinese kids and Chinese moms though. I remember when I was younger and I did math competition, speech and debate, martial arts, dance, art camp, science camp, piano, basketball, volleyball, soccer, flute, etc. To be fair, I did like soccer, volleyball, flute, and sometimes art. But I really, REALLY hated dance, piano, and debate. By any measure, I still had it easy because I grew up in America where the competition isn't so intense.
Something my teacher talked about was the fierce competition in China. It starts from a young age, around Kindergarten. If the child has "fallen behind" around the 3rd grade, a lot of people think it's "too late," which sounds really ominous. My teacher said that she grew up very happy, playing in the dirt and having lots of free time. In contrast, her daughter wasn't competitive enough of an applicant to get admitted to the prestigious government school in Kindergarten, so she goes to an international school. My teacher thought this rejection was a blessing in disguise so that her daughter could have an easier workload, but the poor girl still stays up until 9pm doing homework every night as a first grader. My teacher said she doesn't want to give her daughter so many things to do because my teacher believes in letting children grow up in a natural, relaxed, and happy state. But she says that she feels like she has to. If she doesn't act like a Tiger Mother, then everyone will look at her as a bad parent and perhaps her daughter will not be able to be independent when she reaches adulthood.
My teacher asked if anyone was on scholarship in their home university, and I raised my hand. She acted impressed, but then I did the most Chinese thing I could think of and gave credit to someone else. I said, "It's not that I am that disciplined and hard-working, it's just because my mom is just like you, a lot of Chinese moms are all the same. In my natural state I am very lazy." This made her very happy to hear. She said that her daughter doesn't understand and appreciate her parenting style, even though she is a very good kid. I told her she is still a kid, even if she is a good kid. My teacher said, "Right, she's still a kid." My teacher seemed sad so I told her that one day her daughter would appreciate everything she's done for her. She asked me when and said that seemed like a long time away because she really hates it right now. I said that maybe she won't hate it when she's 20. My teacher said, "Really?" I said, "Well I think so, because I'm 20 now and when I was younger I really hated what my mom did. When my friends were outside playing or watching TV, I was practicing math problems and piano. But now I'm grateful." My teacher laughed and said that 20 really was a long way to go. I shrugged and smiled. I guess there's not much my teacher can do.
My teacher asked me if I want to move to China, and I said that I did but only for a couple of years. She advised me to leave China and go back to America when I want to get married and have kids, that it's really pitiful how her daughter lives under so much pressure and fatigue at such a young age.
I admire how hardworking a lot of people are in China, but it's definitely hard on the kids and parents alike.
Thanks for reading!
I'm sad that I'm nearly halfway done with my time in China, but I'll be happier once midterms are over. Wish me luck as I travel to Jinjiang and crash study for my midterm exams this weekend! Thanks for reading and see you next week!