China Exchange 1999 - International Programs @ TCC

but not this week. I will begin teaching classes on Monday. This week I met with Professor Wang Wei to discuss my class schedule, teaching and testing methods, and review some of the material I will use in class. I will be teaching three groups of undergraduate students with class sizes ranging from 17 to 22. Two of these groups are third year students and one is fourth year. I will be teaching them a History of Photography course. This class will emphasize photojournalism and advertising photography so that the it will relate to BBI's two major programs which are International Journalism and Advertising. Since I am teaching in the Foreign Language Department the class emphasis will be on using English and learning about Western culture in addition to the normal course content. I will also be meeting with a small group of graduate students. In these meetings, which will include Wong Wei, we will watch and discuss American television news programs. I will meet each of these groups once a week for two hours. I will also be doing some work with Professor Dennis Ding who heads the Advertising Department. Professor Ding visited TCC last year.

Professor Wang Wei

Reviewing tape for graduate class.

THE BICYCLE TRIP TO BEIJING

In China westerners are a bit of a curiosity, even in an international city like Beijing. A westerner on a bicycle is a bit more curious since taxis' are so inexpensive by western standards. But a westerner, riding a bike, wearing what I believe to be the only bicycle helmet in existence in all of China, is a absolute spectacle. Staring is not considered impolite in China as in the West and I received a great many of them on my first bike journey from BBI into Beijing. I debated about wearing the helmet but. after seeing the traffic conditions in the city, I opted for safety over vanity. Traffic in Beijing is heavy and chaotic. You have to pay attention every second. On this trip I let my mind wander twice while riding and both times I nearly wrecked, you have to give traffic your full attention all of the time.

I purchased my new Chinese bicycle on Thursday for a price of $28.00. It was suggested that I buy a used bike since theft is a problem with new ones. However, since I didn't know how to go about buying a used bike and the price was so reasonable I opted for the new. On Friday morning I left BBI at 8:00 A.M. It is about seven miles from BBI into downtown Beijing but on a bike they were pretty hard miles. It was a windy day and my bike only has one speed which made peddling hard. There was also a lot of traffic road construction along the way. It took over an hour and a half to make the trip.

A typical roadside sign around Beijing. Showing a new construction project.

Beijing is a city on the rise - literally. Everywhere along the way were huge construction projects. The traditional housing in Beijing is the houtong. These are neighborhoods of one story dwellings enclosed in walled compounds with narrow mazes of streets and alleys. One of the joys of visiting Biejing is to wander, usually lost, through the hutongs. There is practically no violent crime in China, particularly against Westerners, so it is generally safe to wander through the city at any time of the day or night. This gives the visitor a wonderful freedom but is a little difficult to get used to if your experience is visiting American cities like New York. Sadly many of the hutongs are rapidly disappearing under the constant pressure of development in Biejing.

The new national bird of China - the crane.

The traditional housing of Beijing, the hutong, is quickly disappearing.

The main purpose of my journey was to meet an American friend, Danny Levinson, for lunch. I was put in touch with Danny through his father, David, who teaches at Thomas Nelson Community College. David headed the Photography Program there for many years but has recently changed directions and is now teaching computer graphics. He has two sons who both live in China, Danny in Beijing and another who is an MBA in Hong Kong. Danny has been a wonderful resource on this trip. We were in touch by E-mail before my arrival. He provided me with a lot of useful information to help me prepare for my journey. He even set up an E-mail account for me so that I was able to go on line immediately on my arrival in China. We met on my second day here. He showed me his place of business and his typically Chinese apartment. Taking cabs is an important skill in Beijing and on this first meeting Danny gave me a basic lesson in cab skills. We ended our first contact going out to a great, spicy Hunan dinner with a beautiful actress friend of his, a very interesting woman who travels all around Asia with her work.

The most famous site in China, the Forbidden City, straight up the street (a two hour bike ride) from BBI.

Today, my first order of business was to find my way to Danny's place of business, a company called SinoFile. I got a little lost but then almost by accident found myself in front of SinoFile's building, a beautiful turn of the century church. SinoFile is a company that analyzes media in China for large corporations. In their office in Beijing they receive newspapers and magazines from all over China. Readers translate the articles from these sources and enter them into a computer. If you were a company in, say, the food service industry SinoFile could provide you with all of the media references in China that relate to your business. Danny is in charge of Online Development for the company. You can check out the company's web page at www.sinofile.com. SinoFile's founder and Managing Director, Dave Jacobson, is a pretty interesting fellow. Dave, the child of missionary parents has several advanced degrees in fields including religion and classic Middle-Eastern linguistics. He has lived all over the world and is a long time resident of China. He is married to a Chinese woman with whom he founded this company. According to Dave, his father-in-law, now in his eighties, is a famous boozer, poet, and scholar in China.

Yet another wonderful meal. Dave, SinoFile's Managing Director, is on the far right.

I arrived about an hour early for lunch so I parked my bike and did a walking tour of the neighborhood. SinoFile is located in an area that is not, yet, overly developed with huge skyscrapers. There was a nice street market close-by and some hutongs to explore. It was my good fortune to have arranged to have lunch with Danny on a Friday, a day that the employees of SinoFile often go out together for a meal. I was invited to join them at a Muslim restaurant a short way down the street. The meal consisted mostly of mutton (meat from fully grown sheep) in a variety of forms. We started with some spicy vegetable side dishes and grilled lamb on skewers. Then came spare ribs and sheep kidneys in sauce. Next, a soup of mutton, potatoes, noodles, and bean curd served in a Mongolian hot pot (pictured). One of the most impressive presentations was a whole leg of mutton that had been deep fried. All of this was accompanied by a spicy red pepper sauce and beer, a lot of beer. Dave consumed a small bottle of maotai, a popular and potent clear liquor made from sorghum and definitely an acquired taste. Dave demonstrated its strength by dipping his finger into his cup and lighting it on fire. The final course was a plate of spaghetti type noodles with a tomato sauce with small pieces of, you guessed it, mutton. All in all, a memorable dining experience.

After enjoying such a great meal and being a little beat from the trip into the city, I decided to forgo more sightseeing and head back to BBI. The trip back was pretty tough due to a strong headwind. I arrived back at the campus in the late afternoon, giving me time to rest up before a dinner date with some other teachers from the school - but that's another story.

NEXT: 3/11 My first week teaching

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ED GIBBS
egibbs@tcc.edu
 
 

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