User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Construction

Hi xiao_liang

Geez what have you been doing, you slacker!? Actually, I forget that some people have proper jobs. :) So - I take it that we can interest you in a little construction?

The premise of the dialogue is the excessive construction noise. But for some reason, Chinese construction in Kunming must be the quietest on Earth. I am always amazed that I hear nothing from huge construction sites. Maybe they are all eating?

My current answer to this puzzle is that the city is blessed with thick red soils - I watched a huge site excavated in about a couple of days. In Sydney that would have taken about three months to break the same ground. Sydney Sandstone is like granite and we use massive pile drivers; now that is noise. China's buses are noisier than construction sites.

Posted on: Construction

Actually this lesson should be remembered for: 

没办法。再忍几天吧！

If nothing else.  

Go Ninjas!  

Posted on: Construction

This lesson and the muted (& somewhat negative?) response made me ponder on a few things:

First, for the people who put in the hard work and produce our lessons I kind of feel disappointed for them. Poddies are a difficult audience. What can I say - you can't please everyone. And ChinesePod, keep up the good work.

Second, I'm reminded I always learn something in a ChinesePod lesson, even if it is a couple of new words. If it is not as rich as some lessons I get over it a little quicker.

To those people who often raise the point that there is a big gap between Elementary and Intermediate - what about this one?

On the question of assigning a category - I have to say that the labels do lack predictive power. There is a big range in 'difficulty' between some Intermediate lessons. Does it matter too much? It is just a label.

I am one of those people who are interested in 'construction'.. development, building, big toys, that kind of thing. I thought that a lot could flow from this lesson - this is a big part of contemporary life in China. The lesson kind of just scratches the surface. But of course, you need a critical mass of people who are interested to move the discussion along.

What is the measure of a good lesson? & how can our views on this feedback to ChinesePod in a reliable responsible way? No answer to this at the moment. One thing for sure,

The rating system is not a reliable measure. 'We' improved it at one stage (a couple of years ago?) but it still doesn't say much and it can be easily manipulated like polls in a magazine about celebrities. Is it time for our 'star system' to go the way of the i-Phone? :)

Finally, it raises the matter of tags - we had some discussion some time ago and the matter was flagged for future development. This is one of those lessons that will be quickly dispatched to the 'archive' without a lot of discussion, but I like to think that it is always there and easily recovered for future discussion. That needs the tagging thing to work well. My feeling is that there has been little if any progress on this issue. It is still a bind trying to find a relevant lesson. And.. the 'Related Lessons' box is still as weird as it ever was. Is it there to amuse us? Am I flogging a dead horse?

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

Hi zhenlijiang

'Entrenched behaviour sounds like no one is in misery'

Interesting thought .. I'm not an expert in misery but it has a ring of truth in it to me. I guess you are saying that human beings will avoid misery in much the same way as they will avoid burning themselves on the stove. But organised oppression can also be a cause of misery.

The answer to all your questions is probably that we are taught to behave a certain way at an early age, and for many of us this guides us through our whole lives. (There's a saying about learning everything you need to know about life in kindergarten?) Some people change their behaviour as they grow up and reflect on what they see around them - but it is not easy, or common.

So for example.. yesterday I saw a mother instructing her baby - 9 or 10 months old I'd say, 12 months at most - still cradled in the mother's arms - to spit .. on the footpath that we were walking on. That child (and many others) will grow up thinking that spitting on footpaths is an acceptable behaviour, necessary even for good health. The spitting part anyway; the target for the spit seems fairly unimportant. The Government will no doubt spend lots of taxpayer resources publicising an opposing view on good health and slowly these behaviours will change in China.

In Shanghai I understand the Government spends resources trying to discourage people wearing pyjamas in public - now that is funny!

Most behaviour is learned, and in China this extends to instilling attitudes about the 'other' classes. When at university in China I was surprised to receive instruction myself in a reading class on the different classes - some of the instruction was subtle, some quite blatant. I thought that the attitudes in the reading were appalling but that is because I was raised in a different social environment. (My upbringing is full of myths about mateship and egalitariansim - hee hee.)

But of course most of what we learn we learn by watching, not by formal instruction.

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

Yes, in China there is a class of people who clean up after others. This does encourage a range of behaviours that lead to mess, littering. Even filth.

It is not just economics - the familiar rationale from anyone who does think about it is 'the cleaners are cheap'. When leaving a flat I was told 'don't clean anything up - leave it as it is'. Littering is common - someone will pick it up. 'Don't clear the table' (after a meal) - the ayi will do it. It doesn't matter if the toilet is left a mess, someone is paid to clean up.

There is something more than economics in play - an arrogance that can only survive in a society where one class feels comfortably superior to another class. And the behaviours become so entrenched that most people of not aware of what they doing. Interestingly the behaviours are not limited to the middle classes and above - everyone joins in these irresponsible behaviours. A poor person will be just as inconsiderate as a rich person. As long as they personally don't have to clean up. That is partly explained by another feature of Chinese society where your mates are a pretty tight little circle.

Heh - reminds me of another story (I may have told this before) - illustrates a difference between China and Australia. I once visited a government bureau and was met by a young black man who asked if I'd like a cup of tea while waiting for my meeting. 'Yes thanks' I said 'white, no sugar'. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the kitchen and said 'get it yourself - no black slaves here'.

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

My students are not too surprised by my questions; being foreign gives me a licence to be a little bit weird. :)

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

Apologies to pigs - but note I did put 'pigsty' in inverted commas. This means I wanted to communicate the stereotype, valid or not. I could have said 'dog's breakfast' and that would have possibly offended some dogs. A rat's nest? Rats also keep a clean house by choice. Where's a good cliche when you need it?

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

There is a wonderful documentary series made a few years ago about American families living in various poor countries around the world. I loved the episode where the Western family sets up as guests of a local family in a Solomon Islands village (I loved it not least because I grew up not far away). It is not long before tensions arise, particularly over attitudes about cleanliness and hygiene. The Solomon Islanders cannot believe the filth that the Americans seem content to live in!

One reason for this surprising result (at least to Westerners) is that Americans are generally not willing to spend much time or energy on cleaning, but in the Solomon Islands the women spend an inordinate amount of time on brushing the ground clean and keeping things neat and orderly. The Solomon Islanders keep a neat and tidy environment and (in this case) the Americans lived in a 'pigsty.'

There is a message here about the China experience too, but I think the 'class' factor is the most powerful explanation for the mess people make here.

I have set a question like this for one of my classes this semester: 'Explain why X is so dirty in China'. :)

Posted on: Construction

很多中国的城市有地铁施工，每天看到大机器，比如高架起重机，打桩机，还有钻床，等等。 

关于上述澳大利亚出口掘进机隧道施工法。  

高架起重机 gāojià qǐzhòngjī (overhead crane) 

打桩机 dǎzhuāngjī (pile driver) 

钻床 zuànchuáng (drill/drilling machine)

掘进机隧道施工法 juéjìnjī suìdào shīgōng fǎ (tunnelling technology) 

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

'"people lose any sense of personal responsibility" goes a bit far imo.'

Point taken, but then you do not get to go into male toilets on a regular basis, do you. :)

Actually to be fair, your quote left out the context: 'the attitude '.. who cares? make a mess.. an ayi or some other person will clean up'.' Your quote & comment make me look a tiny bit more of a ranting radical than I am. I am saying that in the context of 'making & cleaning up a mess', people lose any sense of personal responsibility. I've got a million anecdotes to back me up - but I don't want to bore the ChinesePod public more than I already have.

Thanks anyway Channelle for your comments, and good luck with the continuing Chinese.