July 4, 2010
Dear Friends and Family,
My roommate at Sichuan University is Robert Thompson. Robert has had an interesting life path and is currently a Protestant minister who works with the international community on and around Arizona State University. Through his ministry and teaching part-time at ASU's AECP (American English and Culture Program), he has come to know many Chinese speakers and this has motivated him to take Chinese courses at ASU and now at Sichun University. Robert has two children, two grandchildren. He and his wife live in the East Valley.
Among my classmates, I've also befriended Collin and Chris, who are roommates and studying at the third year level. Collin is LDS, an industrial engineering major at ASU, and served a Chinese speaking mission in California. Chris is majoring in Chinese and will begin ASU's Chinese Flagship Program this fall. The three of us also hang out with Stephanie Law, who will be a sophomore at ASU this coming fall. Stephanie speaks some Cantonese and has family from Hong Kong. She studies history and among other things is interested in writing an anthology about her family's connections to Hong Kong.
The four of us have watched some World Cup games together and get along really well. Robert and I have had dinner together a few times and have found a lot to share with each other given that each of our interests in Asian culture and society intersect with our deeply rooted spiritual perspectives. The same is true of Collin and Stephanie as well. Collin, obviously being LDS and having served a mission among Chinese speaking peoples, and also Stephanie, who is very spiritually conscious and has a strong family history of Christian evangelism both in Hong Kong and the US.
As this program revives my formal study of Chinese, I have rediscovered the world of Chinese characters. The script of our Western alphabet is not endowed with meaning as are Chinese characters. While the sheer number of characters makes achieving fluency in reading and writing seem a nearly insurrmountable task to foreign and native learner alike, the meanings of radicals (symbols from which characters are composed) not only act as pnemonic devices for remembering how to write the characters but often tell stories, stories that reveal something about Chinese culture and society. The character "an" found in the words "an-chuan" and "an-jing" meaning safety and tranquility is represented by a "home" radical resting above a "female" radical, suggesting that safety and tranquility are achieved when a female is present in the home. I recently had trouble remembering how to write "yan-jiu" meaning research; "yan-jiu-sheng" also means graduate student. I decided to dissect the meanings of the radicals in hopes of finding some pnemonic for remembering how to write the word. I discovered that "yan" means to grind, as with a mortar and pestal, and is composed of the radicals "shi", meaning stone, and "kai", meaning to separate or open. "Jiu" is composed of the radicals "kong", meaning a cave or deep hole, and "jiu", the number nine. I was satisfied with the interpretation of "yan" as alchemy and chemistry are easily associated with research. "Cave" and "nine" though had me confused until later that same evening, by sheer luck, happened to catch a five minute English lesson on CCTV explaining Chinese numerology behind the number nine. In Chinese culture, the number five represents the center or the middle, as it falls in the middle of 1-9 or 0-10. Eight symbolizes completeness or perfection. And the number nine symbolizes abundance or great magnitude. I don't know the true etymology of the character "jiu", but I have interpretted it to mean exploring deep into the unknown.
I have to admit, before coming to China on this program, my thirteen years of speaking poor Chinese had weakened my hopes that I could ever achieve proficiency in the language. After a few short weeks, however, I am digging into the characters with new-found enthusiasm. Immersion (or whatever this program offers) was just what I needed to bolster my confidence that I could master enough characters to have a base on which to build listening proficiency, conversational fluency and elementary reading and writing. Not unlike my first six months in Korea, I think I will need a solid six months to a year in china, beyond the couple of years of preliminary classroom study I've already completed to really drill the basic characters, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar forms into my memory. When I began studying Korean, I was ignorant to both the possibilities and limitations of my potential ability. In terms of the possibilities, I never imagined how far I would reach, even within a few short years, in terms of conversational fluency; on the other end of the spectrum, I never realized how much farther, possibly decades, I would have to study and practice if I ever wanted to approach the fluency of a native speaker.
I have been reminded recently of how universal this lesson is so many aspects of my life. Spiritual progress, as well, can seem daunting, and my distance from the ideals of perfection that I aspire to so out of reach. Hope, however, is not found neither in the achievement of those ideals nor my proximity to them, but rather in my progress toward them, regardless of where I am picking up from. I have noticed how easily my outlook on life and satisfaction or frustration with myself can shift from day do day depending on my choices that day. It is so easy to feel depressed and down after not having exercised or read my scriptures for just a day or two. Likewise, it's amazing how quickly my spirits pick up after just one prayer, going out for a jog, cleaning the environment around me, taking a shower, listening to some uplifting music, or writing a heart-felt letter or journal entry.
Hot pot is one of china's signature dishes. And Sichuan is famous for a spicier variety of the dish. I dined at Chengdu's famous Kong Liang Huo Guo (huo guo = hot pot) restaurant last week and was treated to a meal I will never forget. My friend, Sylvia, ordered a dozen small dishes, each containing a fresh vegetable, animal part, or tofu derivative. The dishes were stacked in a small rack next to our table. Dominating the center of the table was a large cauldron containing a deep red broth of oil and water, flavored with green onions, garlic, spicy peppers, and Sichuan's famed hwa jiao (which I endearingly refer to as "numbing balls" for the spicy-numbing sensation released when you bite into one). I wasn't familiar with all of the animal parts, but Sylvia would point to various parts of her anatomy (throat, liver, kidney, etc.) and declare the name of farm animal: pig, cow, chicken. At times I wasn't sure sure what part was coming from which animal, but the textures range from smooth and chewy esophagus and intestine, to soft and grainy organs, to slick and crunchy cartileges, each dish boiled one at a time in a deep red broth of spicy peppers, "numbing" berries, and oil. Perhaps the most distinct and exotic dish to me was the pair of pigs brains, two fully intact, juicy pig brains, one for each of us. Extracting the brains from the hot pot after simmering them for ten or fifteen minutes, I was surprised to see how much they had shrunk from their original size. I now wonder what the effect of Arizona's heat is on the human brain, and whether this helps to explain the recent immigration law. I don't want to make our meal sound more exotic than it was. It was absolutely delicious and with one or two exceptions, not at all shocking or difficult to eat. The vegetable, tofu, and noodle dishes were quite familiar and delicious, and we refreshed our palettes throughout the meal with swallows of walnut milk. I have since enjoyed two more equally delightful hot pot meals as well as a number of other Sichuan specialties which I may detail in future updates.
Last Friday night (July 2) might be described as the ideal night. My classmates and I met for dinner at a hotpot restaurant near campus and enjoyed a spicy feast of boiled vegetables and animal parts. Afterwards a number of us walked to South Gate to enjoy a bao-bing (pronounced bow-bing, as in "take a bow"). Bao-bing is the Chinese equivalent of the Korean pat-bing-su, or the Japanese shaved ice with azuki beans, only it emphasizes the fruit toppings and sauces more than it does the red bean. This dessert is the perfect complement to a spicy, oily, and savory hotpot. Returning to campus, myself, Collin, and his roommate Chris, decided to find a place to watch the Brazil vs. Netherlands match. One of our program's tutor-coordinator-friends, Zhang Can, learned that a nearby movie theather would be broadcasting the game in the theater, so the four of us walked over to the theater to meet Zhang Can's roommate and watch Brazil get upset by the Netherlands. I came out of the game stunned, having believed for the last decade that team Brazil was more or less invincible. After the game, the five of us walked back to campus, and stopping in front of Zhang Can's dorm, divided naturally into a couple of different groups and chatted for a while. A couple of Zhang Can's friends happened to be returning to the dorm at the same time, and for the next ninety minutes or so, Zhang Can, her friend, and I dug deep into Chinese social psychology. Albeit in English, this was probably the best conversation I have had since I arrrived in Chengdu. I'll spare the details for now as I want to present the ideas more systematically in my next update; sufficeth to say, by time we parted ways at 2 AM, all three of us were a few steps closer to cultural enlightenment than we had ever been before.
I wish you a Happy Fourth of July and share my love from Chengdu.
My best,
Jacob
