User Comments - zhenlijiang

Posted on: Mudslide

Mm Bodawei what bright side?

I'm not clear what you mean. Are you arguing that 面子 has nothing to do with Beijing's inability to (edit) show us a bit more grace at a time like that?

If it isn't 面子--note I say "if this is 面子"--because it's the only explanation I could think of to somehow make any sense of the unpalatable (to me) "Beijing cared more about preventing the Chinese people from seeing Japan in a good light in that situation, regardless of the many people in the stricken area in pain and fighting to live, slipping away with every passing hour", and you have an idea as to what it might be, I would like to know what that is. I know I don't know China as you do.

And if the explanation does involve 面子, please tell me how it is not the right time to analyze and try to understand it. I personally learned a hard lesson from all that in 2008. The Japanese people responded, as anyone (OK now I don't know anymore do I, about "anyone"?) would be expected to, with empathy. Because we're human. Because we have lost homes, children, parents, husbands and wives, best friends, had our lives shattered, in recent earthquakes from 1995 in Kobe to 2007 (pre-Sichuan). It's something we've gone through and understand as fellow humans. Our government immediately offers assistance, 这是应该的. There's nothing to consider.

The way Beijing received was a surprise, a wake-up call, an unnecessary breaking of the spirit of all Japanese who had nothing but empathy for the victims. I learned, had to, that China is different. They have their reasons there in Beijing. We just did not expect them to take priority at a time like that.

So please enlighten me, if possible before these comments of mine really do get deleted.

Posted on: Mudslide

Hi Bodawei, I'm sure you're right and I was inaccurate and very sloppy to say "universal humanity". What I meant was that other people can understand that we are human, and we can understand that others, and not just select others, are human. I'm still hopeful that that could become true someday.

Posted on: Mudslide

our differences are small when compared to the humanness that unites us.

I thought so too. It was actually what followed the 2008 earthquake that ended up making me reconsider. The attitude with which Japanese assistance in 2008 (if you saw Qin Gang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman given the task of thanking Japan for the assistance offered, he fairly growled the words, through gritted teeth. my jaw dropped when I saw that press conference.) was received stunned me and many of us here. From our point of view, of course Japan immediately offers help. We believe our differences disappear at a time like that and there is a humanness that unites us. There's nothing to think about--we're physically close, it makes sense for us to send things and people. More importantly we've been through that, we know what it's like to be devastated by earthquakes. We have able rescue specialists who have fresh experience from our most recent earthquakes. But these brave people who were risking their lives, prepared to help those in need, were held back upon arrival in China, then taken all around, deliberately, senselessly, to areas already scoured by PLA teams and certain to have no survivors. Their expertise and readiness were offered, and "accepted", in vain.

Amazingly (to us, because our intentions were sincere), the effort to keep Japanese from looking good--and of course the rescue experts are not about being heroes; if you want to be heroic you'd better become a movie star--took priority over saving lives that might have been saved. The powers that be would much rather save their own face. See this, when it was thus thrust in our faces, was a difference that hit me like a rock. At a time like that. If this is 面子 then you can't just criticize and say "That's stupid. How can having rescue teams save people, your people, trapped under rubble constitute loss of face, just because the teams happen to be Japanese?". Because 面子 is Chinese and it's apparently a much more serious thing than we foreigners can easily understand.

Whenever Japan-China relations run into difficult times we hear voices from China saying "Japanese need to understand Chinese people's feelings". Well who there is thinking about understanding our people's? Short-sightedness and bad judgment seem to prevail too often. When you go and plant seeds of distrust and hostility where there was none, then ten, twenty years down the line do you expect flowers of 友好 to bloom in that field? And do the powers really believe they can fine-adjust and remote-control the Chinese populace's sentiments toward Japanese forever?

Anyway, that's reality. I think we're all grown-up enough here to acknowledge and accept. And we don't have to like it just because we acknowledge it. I haven't given up on universal humanity. But sometimes there are nasty surprises and the differences are made impossible to disregard.

Apologies for the rant. I realize this comment could get deleted. Sorry, I don't mean to cause trouble for CPod.

Posted on: Too Many Food Allergies

我曾经当公司职员，和很多顾客合作合作（有的时候是为顾客服务服务）。多数时候我们互相敬重，工作不太顺利的时候就更加齐心协力。可惜有例外。人与人之间有时候怎么也不对劲儿。某一天发现我对一个 (what is the appropriate MW here? it's an entire company that I mean, by "client") 顾客过敏。就是说，我讨厌得发生抗拒反应。不管对方的负责人是哪一位，不论个个项目烦重不重，和他们一起工作的时候，我一开口说话就咳嗽起来。在电话上，碰头时，就连在陈述提案的时候——时间，地点，场合都不选。每一阵咳嗽都好难受，胸部嗓子都很疼。我不夸张。身体不说谎。最后，项目结束了，咳嗽就止住。每次都是这样。这不是过敏吗？

trying to say here:
I used to have a company position where I worked together with different clients (served them more like, in some cases). But mostly these were relationships of mutual respect; when a project wasn't going particularly well we would pull together and work even more closely as a team. Unfortunately there were exceptions. Sometimes people just can't get along. One time I realized I was allergic to a certain client. I couldn't stand them so I was rejecting them. No matter which particular person there I had to deal with on a job, no matter how difficult the job was or wasn't, when I worked with them, whenever I opened my mouth to speak I would start coughing. This happened at all times, on the phone or in a meeting with them, even when doing a presentation for them. Every coughing fit was agony. My chest and throat were hurting. I'm not exaggerating! The body doesn't lie. Finally when the job ends, the coughing goes away. And it went like that every time. That's an allergic reaction isn't it?

Anyway I wanted to ask--if I said "allergic" in such a context in Japanese my meaning would be understood, so could I do the same in Chinese with 过敏?

Posted on: Too Many Food Allergies

看来我也对某种“螃蟹”过敏，嘻嘻！ OK Ok, I know. The Chinese for "crabby" hasn't got 螃蟹 anywhere in it. And you're expressing friendly interest here, 没有什么意思，对吧.

Posted on: Too Many Food Allergies

Yeah I suppose it's possibly a series. on allergic reactions ...

Just was curious, if this had happened before. After all there are so many lessons, and not all of them on out-there topics.

Posted on: Too Many Food Allergies

wa, lesson picture re-use! Is this a first?

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

Bodawei I guess I was associating 'entrenched behavior' with a Buddhist attitude toward suffering. I guess I was 不知不觉地 making some caste system associations there.

The pyjama people should be left alone!

I'll easily admit to being more an idealist than pragmatist. Egalitarianism may be bogus. Nevertheless it is an idea that appeals to me,

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

I was kind of hoping your students' faces went blank for a moment then lit up in recognition of the challenge and rewarding opportunity to look at the world in a different way, not just ... uh, a weird question. (I would be terrible at screenwriting; all my output would be these trite movies that I imagine to be very much like Dead Poets Society.)

For a second, entrenched behavior sounds as if no one is in misery. That's false isn't it? It's one thing to never clean because there's someone else to do it. But how hard can it be--toilet bowls are reasonably large receptacles, it's not like we're being asked to aim at a little paper cup--so why does so much stuff end up around the seat and on the floor and near the trash can, not in? It seems to me you would have to be deliberate, would have to make an effort even, to end up with a mess of that sort. A person may be resigned to a life of cleaning. But it must be really demeaning to have to pick up after that particular type of utterly avoidable mess. Or is this just me, presuming?

The kids from Hangzhou we hosted this year were so neat and clean (some were better organized than others of course) in every way. No way they're going to become adults who mess toilets up like that, even though they're privileged. I guess kids like them would be another, emerging class in China?

a society where one class feels comfortably superior to another class--this is intriguing. Where does this comfort with feeling superior to others come from?

Thanks for your insights. On the one hand it seems like I ought to ask for evidence ... but I trust that your view is valid, and that anyone who doesn't see it like that will come up here and say so.

Posted on: Giving Instructions to the Ayi

Yes I noted pigsty was another stereotype.

So are you saying that Americans as observed in the episode cleaned much less because of other factors--housing conditions I suppose being major--while in China a class exists considered to be "people who clean for others"? So there are those (higher than middle class?) who make and leave messes behind and never think of cleaning, and there are those who exist to mop up after them?

Are your students to write papers on the "why dirty" question? Sounds like a good project! How did they react when you announced it?