星期二, 十月 11, 2005
Back in the cold north, after a brief trip to warmer parts. Very little has been happening recently, as I've just been too busy.
A recent highlight is that I'm making good progress in the Bagua; the form I've been working on has made the transition from being a sequence of staccato, poorly understood movements, to being something that flows and has a purpose. I still have a long way to go but it's making sense now. These days we're practising in the open in Ritan Park (the siheyuan where we normally go is still under renovation), and it's getting cold at night - especially when the sweat is pouring after a good workout! I still need to work hard on my basics, though: the sliding "mud step" is still something I can't do well, even though it's one of the basics. OTOH, recently I've found myself slipping into the "flow" while I'm practising, which is a great feeling.
I've had my first bad experiences with fellow-students at Tsinghua, oddly all in the same class,and all with Chinese students. In one project group, some of the Chinese students simply aren't bothering to turn up to meetings, which isn't very polite to say the least. There seem to be a few Chinese students who have a chip on their shoulder about foreigners. One said quite openly in class that opening up China to the West was corrupting Chinese culture. Another... well, it was very strange. He gave a hand-written questionnaire to one of the exchange students; it was 4 sheets of questions like "Explain what innovations you have introduced to a past company, and how it contributed to the company's performance", and things like that. When we asked what it was for, he said it was on behalf of the "Tsinghua Students' Association", and that they wanted to evaluate the quality of the exchange students - whether we were any good, or whether we were just there for a holiday! I can't make up my mind what was happenening there.One possibility is that he was telling the truth - in which case, he had made no effort to type the questions, expected a large effort on our part to complete the questions without offering any benefit to us, AND was quite unconcerned that he was being really insulting. The second possibility is that he has applied for a job, been qiven these questions as part of the application, and was trying to get an English-speaking foreigner to supply answers that he could pass off as his own. I can't think of any other explanation, although I suppose there good be something. Anyway, it doesn't reflect well on Tsinghua. Luckily, most of the students seem great; it's inevitable that there will be a few bad apples, I guess.
