University of International Studies, Xian

The University of International Studies in Xian is about 20 minutes outside of the city, maybe a little further. it is an enormous campus that is actually surrounded by several other enormous schools. This school specializes in foreign languages. We strolled around the campus a bit, and then met with the dean of the English department. He had some interesting things to say, but I was most interested in how he got his job. What I've noticed is taht there are lots and lots of people working everywhere. We went into a coffee shop, and there were about six people working there. it seemed as if one or two people took orders and made the drinks, while the other 3-4 stood around, cleared tables, etc. There are always people cleaning the streets (essentially by hand, or with brooms), and usually several per block. In fact, they often will have an umbrella under which to stand when they aren't cleaning the streets.

So my question is this: How do people get their jobs? Are they assigned to a particular field? A specific type of job? Do they choose? The dean said where he had worked, but hadn't really explained the process of how he got the jobs in the first place. This will have to be determined at some point!!

In the afternoon, we went to another Key School (these are the showcase schools). This was another high school, and it had many campuses around Xian. It is obviously very wealthy, or at least, someone put a heck of a lot of money into it, as have all the school we've seen. We had an opportunity to talk to some students, which was VERY cool, and as always, my favorite part of these trips. It's a shame that most of these schools are out for the summer, and we won't be able to talk with asw many students anymore.

The young woman I spoke with had chosen Helen as her American name, because she thought Helen Keller was "cute". I'm not sure what she meant by cute, but I'm thinking it's not the same as what we mean by cute.

We talked a little bit about her school and what she was studying (biology, chemistry, physics, English, Chinese, PE (yes, that's what she said), and computer science). She like computer science and English the best. She also said she had a hard time with English at first because she couldn't figure out the tenses. Apparently they don't have tenses in Chinese the way we do in English, so she spoke "always in the present tense."

We got started on Harry Potter - she's read them all, some in both English and Chinese. She is very mad at Snape right now, but I told her (thanks, Jason and Doug!) that we have to trust Dumbledore. (A little somethin' for the HP fans)

Anyway, that was definitely the highlight of the afternoon. We went to see the other campus of the school (big, wealthy, stuff, very little in the way of student work, except in the art room). It bothers me greatly that there doesn't seem to be a coherent history or Social science program in Chinese schools. In seems to be done sort of as an aside in both English and Chinese, but not at all in the way we do it. (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, btw, just a different thing) I also thing there is a lto more focus on pre-1911 history (pre the fall of the last Imperial dynasty) than on history since 1949 (beginning of what they call "new China"). Now in theory, one could argue that our hsitory classes, function similarly, but I think there's a great distinction there. We tend to teach our history warts (pimples might be more appropraite in contract with China's 5000 year history) and all, and I don't think that's really done here. A lot of people still seem to really love Mao (while many also seem to dislike him intensely, let's look at that too). Anyway, I'm still baffled. They seem very, very proud of their ancient past. The Tang dynasty (618-907 CE, if this History & Civ of China book is to be trusted) comes up a lot as the Golden Age of China. It is a puzzle to which I don't believe we'll get a satisfying answer.