User Comments - bababardwan

Posted on: Asking for a Raise

"lessons about the Expo"

..is that the old lesson,or can we expect a new one on the Shanghai Expo?[he asked eagerly]

"murky realm of dialects"

...I know there was the lesson dialect party mix,but does this comment signify there may also be more along this line? 'twould be interesting,esp at a higher level that the newbie level the last one was on so more territory could be covered.

Anyhow,thanks catherine for insights into the CPod lesson devt philosophy.

Posted on: Asking for a Raise

"it's not the same"...sorry if I wasn't meant to laugh at this...it's funny and sad at the same time [is there a word for that in English?...in Chinese?]

Posted on: Hobbies: Music

No,I'm not aware of any stand alone middle schools here in QLD. There are some schools that go from Prep to Year 12 and are all on the same campus but are separated into 3 different sections of the campus into primary,middle and secondary each with it's own headmaster and admin,etc [so in these I suppose it's just been a reorganisation of the structure and running of the place].Others are secondary schools that previously started at year 8 only [not having a primary attached] but [perhaps seemingly in response to some of these other schools having successful middle school intakes] have subsequently added a middle school.Of course as regards the reason behind it,I'm just giving you my impressions which may well be wrong.

Edit,looking at your comment again "adjustment and upheaval" reminds me of one of the rationales for middle schooling being touted is just for that reason...that is to help in the transition from the relatively cushy nurturing primary school years to the more demanding secondary years where kids are meant to show a bit more independence and organisational skills....so I think it's to help them gain some of those skills.But I see where you are coming from...if it had been a completely separate school then I don't think it would be beneficial...it would be yet another adjustment,friends issues,etc

Posted on: Hobbies: Music

"We don't use that term in Australia?'

...really? ...we do in Brisbane anyway for the last few years.It's basically defined by the school,but is roughly between late primary and early secondary,so for example it can be years 6-8 or years 5-7.

My take on it is that it has occurred in the Private schools.One trend here is that some folk send their kids to a private secondary school,but don't wanna pay for it in primary due to the cost and due perhaps to the view that it is not as important as secondary school.Creating a middle school seems to be a way to get them to fork out a bit earlier,while ensuring a place in the sometimes hard to get into private schools.But I reckon educators would also argue about this transformation stage [prepubescent or early pubescent ] and the educational and social benefits of separation from both primary and secondary.Anyhow,this is just my take on it.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

bodawei,

I don't quite follow you mate.Do you think that East Asia having the lowest incidence of HIV makes the above tale any less of a tragedy [sure there are plenty of other tragedies elsewhere also worth learning from and addressing],or that telling the victims or their families that East Asia has the lowest incidence would be any sort of comfort?

I hope you don't take it by my above post that I am in any way China bashing which of course I'm not [heaps of botchup stories all over the globe and in this incidence it may have come down to just a few individual authorities ],but it's hard to fathom what went on [perhaps poverty and a poor level of education went hand in hand to a degree] and hard to condone any attempts to withhold treatment from the victims.Of course I have no way of knowing the veracity of the story or not,but like you would have to wonder about the motivations if it were made up,and if this story has been confirmed by other sources then it seems more likely to be true,but I don't really know.

Posted on: Chinatomy: Iconic Tunes and Hairy Crabs

You're a classic mate.Thanks for starting my day with a laugh. :)

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

I see.Thanks xiao_liang so much for going to the trouble of typing all that out.Good effort mate.Given that hiv was discovered in 1981[not to mention other blood borne viruses] it's a tragedy that such a practice was happening in the 1990's.The article explains then why they were just after plasma.

As an aside:

"age-old difficulty of enforcing central government policies at the local level"

...was more or less exactly what Xinran said at a talk I attended recently.There was a lot of resistance at the local level when it came to trying to improve things for women in rural China as traditional roles were still strongly adhered to which kept them in situations in which they had little prospect [I think she was basically suggesting they were kept poor ,uneducated and subservient and the local men in authority saw no reason to change this despite directions from higher levels centrally]

What a shame that what seems to be an issue of face even led to:

"restrict any kind of access to the AIDS villages, even trying to stop doctors and officials sent by Beijing from doing their work "

..one would hope that an effort to preserve face would not extend so far as to become more important than other folks welfare.So while tragic,it is also interesting in that we are taught about face,but also we are taught that in Chinese culture there is a lot more emphasis on the overall good of the community being more important than the good of the individual and so it seems here we have these two cultural values coming head to head and in this case face has won out.I suppose this will come down to the individuals involved to a degree and perhaps in other circumstances the greater good will win out.

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

thanks catherine,another one I must watch

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

thanks fulankelin. Interesting article. I'm still curious about the details which the article lacked. ie. what went wrong specifically in this "blood selling"

Posted on: The Shanghai Literary Festival

thanks sydcarten.I've never heard of it but I'll keep my eye out for it now.