Insights into College in China - Grades

My fellow classmates from BYU-Idaho are scattered about different levels but there is a large handful of us in the same level only in different classes. A few weeks ago, we had our first test, and the resultant less-than satisfactory grades provided grounds for very interesting comparative discussion. Among the various sections on the exam there was a short essay that we had to compose. One classmate told me that when she noticed she had missed points on the essay she asked the teacher why this was, to which she was told that her composition was not as good as others’ in the class.

This subjectivity of grading has manifest in other ways. Every other day we have a small writing quiz to test our ability to write Chinese characters. I have friends in other classes that when they write traditional characters (versus the simplified characters used here in Mainland China) they get no points, but another friend was even encouraged by his professor to do so if he did not know the simplified form, and thereafter received full points. On these same quizzes I have incorrectly written up to three characters , which the professors noted by circling them, but was only docked 1 point!

The preoccupation with grades, at least in this language program, has been something unique to the American students. An Italian classmate commented to me the other day that despite tests scores and attendance at Capital Normal University, they ultimately return to their home institution where they are given language tests (something akin to CLEP tests) which serves as the only basis for their credits and grades. I think that the Chinese professors not only understand but accept this as the norm. Two American classmates were in a level above me and were doing poorly in their class, literally on the verge of failing, and approached the professor about changing classes. The response they received was, “Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal if you don’t do well on the tests and such, you’ll get Chinese slowly, it’s okay.” They objected by saying that their grades were poor, which in fact was important to them. The reply came, “Oh, if it’s about the grades then we should probably get you into another class.”

Grant you, this is the experience of only one university, and it is a unique situation because of the conglomeration of cultures constituting the attendants of the language program. However, as I continue to investigate aspects of education in China, you will see that this is not the only thing that deviates from Western standards of administering education.

The Power Over Weekend

This last week was a vacation for the country of China. The 1^st of October was their national holiday, this year celebrating 62 years of the People’s Republic of China. Instead of just taking off that Saturday, everyone gets the whole week off. However, I found out that the days of vacation were technically the 1^st through the 5^th, or through Wednesday. But since everyone wants to maximize the consecutive days off, the all-powerful China, switched the days of the week.

Okay, so that’s not exactly what they did, but not far off. Companies, schools, and government organizations got Thursday and Friday off, but then Saturday and Sunday were regular work/school days. This is not an isolated event; it happens several times a year in China. The only reason that the same didn’t happen to me is because we are an international college and so they observe the more common Western practices (LIKE A WEEKEND!!!). I think it would be fair to say that a company in the U.S. would have as much right to do this, but you can forget about schools or governments enforcing this on a mass level.

To the Western mind, this would be a disregard for sacred Sabbath days for many religions and at the very least one’s personal time to R&R, but I just read in a multi-generational Chinese memoir that after the founding of the P.R.C. it wasn’t until the early 60s that party officials (and probably many other professionals followed suit) were allowed to have Sundays off. The Great Leap Forward attempted to industrialized the people to the point of non-stop work. And as a result we have lost the exuberance of T.G.I.F. in the Orient.

Fall Treats

It’s fall time, and if you are found eating ice cream you may be stoned by glares. I was out on the street one evening to get some food on a stick, and across from my preferred vendor there was a cart with a bunch of sticks that looked like they had fruit on them and then had been dipped in melted sugar. However, this being China, one can never be completely sure what combination of sweet, sour, bitter, salty, or bland they might mix together. I asked what it was, knowing pretty well that even when they answered I probably wouldn’t understand anyway, but just as a gesture to communicate my skepticism. The man selling them replied something, and though I did not understand the tone was obviously incredulous, as if to say, “Duh!”

Though I did not buy any at that time, I went to WuMei (like Wal-Mart) and in the entrance they had them! This time I took advantage of the opportunity to try them. Indeed, they are sweet. The most common ones, and also my favorite are Hawthorn berries. They taste like apples but a little more tart and the size of a cherry tomato. Being sugar coated always helps, of course. As you can see they have other kinds as well: orange slices, hawthorns stuffed with walnuts, the also do some grapes, and a couple others that I have yet to figure out what they are.

Happy Fall everyone!

The Hospitals

DISCLAIMER: Long story ahead!!!

This already happened some while ago, but I had to wait for the happy ending before posting it. As Lacey had not been feeling well, the Lindeman family, consisting of Aaron, Leslie, and their little 18 month year old, James, had invited us over for the extended weekend to stay with them in their modern western apartment. So on Friday the 9^th of September, Aaron picked us up and took us to their place. The complex is appropriately named the Riverside Baroque Palace, for indeed it seemed palatial, though whether the functionality beneath the façade was as grand is the subject of another post.

When we walked in the doors, everything was made of what seemed to be giant slabs of marble. The right side of the entry way was an imitation gold-gilded grating, wrought in the shapes of vines and leaves. The same floral motif was in the corner of every slab of stone in the house, those of the floor inlaid with white and the walls with black to show the pattern. Every room had an individual thermostat control and the room was lit using hidden lights in the receded alcoves of the moldings.

We were placed in the guest bedroom, which also has its own private full bath. The king-sized bed was immensely comfortable, especially after the petrified pallets I’ve been sleeping on in the dorms. Perhaps the change that was most noticeable was that we could not hear a thing from inside the room; it was absolutely quite. Thus enjoying all of these comforts we felt we had regained some semblance of normalcy, which to a pregnant women is worth gold.

We stayed with them for the weekend, including Monday the 12 of September, which was the Mid Autumn Festival (中秋节 [Zhōngqiū jié]) so I did not have classes. The Lindemans had offered for Lacey to stay with them for the rest of the week until they left on vacation for Malaysia. With Lacey still feeling so unwell we took the offer, and I returned to campus for classes. We planned for me to come perhaps every other day and get her on Friday the 16^th of September to come back to campus. I should also mention a little about Leslie Lindeman. She was an OB/GYN nurse for 6 years, had been sick for 20 weeks with her first pregnancy, and is currently 6 months pregnant with her second baby, so she has been in a better position than anybody to empathize with how Lacey is feeling.

It was while I was back at campus and Lacey at the Lindeman’s that she had a particularly bad day. She had been throwing up a lot and on the verge of passing out the whole day. At one point when she had gone to get some food, she just laid down on the kitchen floor and didn’t move for hours. Leslie saw this and after having Lacey with them for a while realized that she was only getting about 300-400 calories of food a day, and at best half a liter of water. I get a call from her saying that in her professional and personal opinion she was quite concerned about Lacey and suggested we go to the doctor. Up until this point, we were very uncertain about where to draw the line regarding her health. Everyone keeps saying that pregnancy is hard and miserable and that often you just have to suffer through it until time heals you, which left us at a loss to determine when too much was actually too much. Apparently we had reached that point.

Leslie set up an appointment at Beijing Family United International Hospital for the very next day. Lacey, Leslie and myself went to the OB clinic. They ran all of the tests standard to a first prenatal checkup, which yielded several results. One, and most important, the baby was healthy. During the ultrasound we got to see its tiny body and see its heart beating. Second, and also important, according to the urinanalysis Lacey was not in extreme dehydration, though she did need fluids. Third, and very distributing was that Lacey had lost 22 lbs since getting pregnant. I think that just about anyone will tell you that such weight loss is not good at all for a pregnant woman. My sister, who was very sick during her first pregnancy, at the most lost 12 lbs.

The reaction of the doctor is very telling about China. There are several foreign doctors that work in the clinic, but it just so happened that the only doctor on call when we made the appointment was a 73-year-old Chinese woman. She had studied at Columbia medical school, so she supposedly had western training and goodness knows that in her tenure she’s probably seen it all. Upon discovering the huge weight loss, she was a little startled too, but did not do anything about it. So at the end of the checkup, I asked if we could possibly get some nausea medicine. The doctor said, “That’s not necessary, she just needs more food and water.” I retorted, “Every time she drinks or eats she throws up.” “Well then just make sure to drink and eat more.” She says. Explaining that such was not possible and that we would like some nausea medicine, the doctor obstinately refused, saying that it is bad for the baby.

The idea that medicine, practically of any kind, is bad for the baby dates back to traditional Chinese medicine. The Chinese are also more inclined to putting the needs of the baby before the health of the mother. Leslie, based on her experience in baby doctoring, was a little alarmed at this. She had her own checkup the next day with an American doctor, and explained Lacey’s condition and asked if there was some part of modern medicine that we were missing that would have led to the doctors reaction. Leslie’s doctor was frankly shocked and said that under those circumstances she would have had Lacey on an IV and with nausea medicine before leaving the clinic. We just lucked out by getting the only rock-stubborn doctor on the whole staff that refuses to give nausea medicine, and issue which is apparently going to be brought up with the board.

These discoveries are all good and well and the obvious correct choice was to see another doctor that would agree to getting Lacey on an IV, but when you have to figure out how to do so without insurance coverage, the situation gets messy. The estimated cost would be about $100 USD per hour with a potential stay of 24 hours to ensure healthy vitals. What this ended up leading us to was going to a Chinese hospital. Perhaps it goes without saying that the disparity between Western hospitals and Chinese is none too small. Have you ever heard those stories of people coming to China for cheap medicine? Well… there’s a reason it’s cheap. We had a member from our local church coming to help us translate and our situation was further improved because he already knew a doctor who worked at the hospital. So we arrived and began the line up.

Go to the basement to register. Go to this window to get your hospital card. Go up to the 6^th floor to see the doctor. We saw the doctor and after reviewing Lacey’s tests they said, “Well, it looks like nothing is wrong!” This time though, we were a little more insistent that something needed to be done. Thankfully they were swayable, and they prescribed a three-time treatment of IV liquids to rehydrate her. We asked how much it would be… the doctor said that for the first day, they would do two bags, so the two bags plus the syringe would be about 50 RMB (about $8 USD). We asked three times again just to be sure we had heard correctly. Comparing this to the international hospitals cost we were obviously satisfied and relieved.

The line up continued. Go back to the basement. Go to the pharmacy desk. (I think that the hospital system has undertones of the ration lines they always formed during the pre-communism invasions, and even thereafter.) At the pharmacy line, you buy your own IV bag and syringes, and then you are responsible to see that you get them to the right place for someone to plug you in. That took a little while but we found the IV sector, for lack of better phraseology. I was reminded of an airport terminal. There were rows and rows of chairs for people to sit in with the only distinguishing characteristic from and airport gate being that each chair had an IV bag post attached to it. For those in critical conditions they had cots and gurneys, but I assure you, they were not fickle about where those were placed. So we found an open seat out in the hall.

So that was what Lacey got to do for four hours that day. The next two days were two hours each. By the time she had finished the IV treatments her color had improved dramatically and her temperament got better as well. Though she continued to struggle with morning sickness, she is now at week 14 and coming out of the worst of it. Few people have the… opportunity (if that’s fair to say) to go to a hospital while overseas, and to have gone to a Chinese hospital is icing on the cake. The collection of war stories we will be able to tell this child are quickly mounting.

Torpedo Melon

Though there are many different fruits and vegetables here, I think this one merits particular mention because of the comment it elicited from Lacey. The fruit on the inside both looks and tastes like cantaloupe, but the texture is harder, almost like an apple. We had eaten it a couple of times courtesy of friends, and since Lacey had enjoyed it I thought I would get one. I dropped it off in our room and then went to go work on some homework while Lacey was napping. Pretty soon I get a text saying, “Did you buy a dinosaur egg?” For whatever reason it had me laughing for several minutes on end, but I replied with its actual name, “No, it’s a torpedo melon.”

Photos!

I finally have a live link for photos from Beijing! I am updating my Picasa album regularly with photos from Beijing. Check them out by clicking on the slideshow at right side of my blog or by going to Michael's Picasa Albums.

Animated Grades

With a people that does not really seem to understand sarcasm one may be inclined to think that the Chinese are all sobriety, but to this I would respond with the image of a middle-aged generation that carries around plushy teddy bear pencil pouches. Not that I saw exactly that, but what I did see in class reminded me of that.

My teacher is such a middle-aged woman who takes the class seriously and while she exercises some understanding of the difficulty of the language, she exhibits the stern expectation of good performance as often as not. I am also an adult student, and I try to act like it in the classroom. So in the midst of this context what I saw on my homework was astounding. Next to my grade was a distinctly Asian-animated smiley face, one which I think required more red ink than the corrections on my work. Thinking perhaps it was a manifestation of pity or patience at my character handwriting and trying to encourage me to keep my chin up, I dismissed the picture. To my surprise, when we got our second assignment back I had a cat face colored next to a scribbled “好” [hao3] meaning I had done a good job.

I checked with my American colleagues in other classes to see if they had experienced anything similar; one said she had not, but that when she saw her teacher’s lesson plans, the back was covered in an anime picture. I’m just waiting for the “Hello Kitty” sticker to show up on my test.