CHINA IS CHANGING -dateline: July 19, 2008
China is changing. You hear it everywhere. American colleagues told me that I would be surprised at how modern China is. Chinese friends told me how things have changed since the last time they visited China, one, two or five years ago. Modernization is abuzz. But, tradition is still quite alive, if hidden on side streets just behind the glass facades of the Nike and Beyond (Bed Bath and Beyond) storefronts.

Nowhere is the co-existence of modern and traditional more evident than in the classroom. Yesterday in class, we were doing a lesson on gender and preference for partners in America. The results were from a survey … the standard stuff … women want a man who is intelligent, with good job skills, one who will earn a good salary and have a sense of humor; men want a woman who is beautiful, a good home maker and sensitive. The discussion questions asked the students to rate the most important characteristics and to talk about how people meet partners in their country. These 18-20 year olds are still so shy, that they would not say a word about how “they” might meet a partner. But they were more willing to tell me how their parents met. One girl stood and said that her parents’ marriage had been arranged by grandparents on both sides of the family! Another student stood and said that there was a person who came to her house and said to her mother’s mother that she knew a young man who was a good fit for her daughter. The intermediary, then, arranged the marriage. I know from having read several classic Chinese novels that this is a quite common traditional pattern. A third student rose and said that his parents had met in the factory where they were working. And, a fourth told the class that her parents had met at University where they were students and had fallen in love (we had to work a bit on the formation of the past and past perfect tenses, but that is a side bar to the main story!). I was amazed … one, two, three, four … four different patterns and probably several different socio-economic classes reflected in their brief but telling responses. This is China – changing everywhere, in fits and starts.

The students I am teaching at Cixi High School also appear to be from a wide range of ethnic minorities. Their faces are just more varied in shape and skin color than the students we taught earlier at Xian Shan High School. No, all Chinese do not look alike! Cixi is an industrial city, with lots of factories…and, I’m told, lots of new wealth. Lee, a young Chinese guy and our liaison, added that there are 2.1 million people in Cixi, and more than 1 million of them have migrated to the city in the past generation or two. By comparison the seaside fishing town of Xian Shan has only about 750,000 residents and probably more out migration than in migration.

At Cixi High School, each of us teaches 6 English classes a day. We see each group in the morning and again in the afternoon. The morning class is focused on developing speaking skills, including pronunciation and rhythm, typical of a native English Speaker. The afternoon class focuses on listening comprehension, probably the most challenging (and frustrating) skill for them. It’s a lot; my feet hurt at the end of a day. But, for the most part my students are great. Today, I read a selection on the Giant and Elusive Panda from my Lonely Planet CHINA Guidebook. We practiced some of the difficult words before I read the passage (two paragraphs). Then I read it at a standard Fluent English speaker’s speed. Finally, I read each sentence slowly, word by word, so as to increase their comprehension. Then, in turn, up and down the rows, they go to the board to create a word web, each adding a word that they heard the native English speaker say. When we finished to day the board was covered in words that they had recognized! They were proud of themselves – and could clearly recognize their own progress in sharpened listening comprehension. It was worth a pair of hurting feet! We understand that youth in towns and small cities across the country are learning English just like the students we are teaching. China is Changing!