Mildly scary cultural experience at the BLCU

[yonitabonita]

Ever wonder what sort of activity the BLCU (and Chinese universities in general) might regard as inappropriate? What follows is my own encounter of the topic.

A few weeks back, foreign students at the BLCU were told that the university was

holding a 'cultural event', to which each class had to contribute an item. Being 30 and cynical, I asked if I might decline the opportunity. But my teacher told me that participation was not negotiable - we all had to participate and it was final. We were told our performance had to relate to either Chinese culture, or an aspect of our experience of living here in China. Seeings how it wasn't negotiable, I decided I'd better get into the spirit of things.

Our class knew that other classes had choreographed routines, 6 part harmonies,

uniforms, the whole shebang. Our teacher didn't want us to look ridiculous (nor did we).

In the absence of any other ideas, I came up with a little light hearted skit that takes

the mickey out of foreign students.

All week, precious grammar, reading, listening, speaking lessons were

suspended so we could get the show together. Finally we had a polished

piece full of gags. We all thought we were rather clever and pretty funny.

We even looked forward to performing it.

Anyway, after the dress rehearsal (24 hours before the actual performance),

our teacher told us that 'her seniors' decided that our script had to

be changed to reflect an ending that upheld good school morals. Our teacher was really nervous when she broke the news. Apparently, if we refused to comply with their wish to see a total transformation with our performance, then it would be "非常不好" for her job. There would also be "很严重的"consequences" for students involved. Holy crap - a real live political drama!

Given this flattering response, you'd think I'd crafted a masterpiece so brilliant, so powerful that it might be seen as capable of crippling the current administration.

What I wrote was a pathetic little slap stick skit barely worthy of being

called satire. In it, I take the mickey out of foreign students in China. In short, it was a sequence showing the gradual waning of student attendance in class, the lame excuses students make up for not coming, the antics students get up to at Wudaokou etc. One day, the teacher comes to class and finds no one in class at all. Following this scene, students finally rock up and find that the teacher isn't there. The audience at this stage get a glimpse of the teacher downing a coctail on a beach somewhere far away. It was hardly Ibsen but we were short on time.

With such a heavy response, I thought that that we were let off the hook- surely we wouldn't be expected to come up with something totally different within 24 hours. We're here to learn Chinese, not a bunch of thesbians.

And yet I was wrong. Permission to not submit wasn't granted. The logic of the Head

Teacher is as follows: if our class didn't make a contribution it would

signal that something was wrong. Seeings how nothing was wrong, we HAD to get on stage. Sing a Chinese pop song! Do a little dance! - otherwise something really would

be wrong.

I was asked to do the honours. While it might have been interesting to experience the reality of a dancing circus monkey, I decided it was for another lifetime. But I didn't want to come across as unwilling to compromise. I would do it on the condition that I would be allowed to wear a paper bag over my head. No one asked me again.

It was creepy to see 29 other groups of students each performing cheesy happy clappy fluff ; 'the beauty of China', 'the glory of kung fu'. Each class was given a bag of whistles, squeaking hammers, tooting horns, fibre optic wands and other such happy making gadgets. I didn't take one and a teacher came and put a pair of fake clapping hands

in front of me.

I'm not meaning to be CNN about it all. On balance I've had a really wonderful experience in China. For the first time ever, I live on a street where every shop keeper knows who I am, what I like to eat, who I support in the World Cup, in short local and warm. I love learning Mandarin and seem to have boundless energy for trudging through the text books.. but when I have such experiences, I'm reminded of what a suffocating place China can also be if you are minded to ponder such matters. Anyone out there have similar experiences?

Y

[self-taught-mba]

Yep. And to think I took heat for saying one of the problems with the chinese teaching system is "cramming culture down the throat of the foreigner".

My point exactly. But like you, I still like it here:mrgreen:

[doumeizhen]

I realize its a little late for this now, but perhaps we can spare some people in the future. Here is how to get out of it:

Work as a writer, make it clear to your teachers that this is what you do, and miss class occasionally for work reasons (just failt to point out that you are sleepy from reading all a fantastic book all night). Make sure you are in good standing with your Professors by keeping up with your work (it hlps if you have disproportionate learning (can speak but not read) and they've stuck you in a wrong class, as they won't know what to do with you!), but towards the end of the semester, miss a couple of extra classes, and pick up outwardly signs of stress (smoking, or even rambling, will make it very clear). Miss performance...

I didn't even know they had happened until after the fact. The bad part about missing them, is, that you don't get to watch all of your friends

Sing a Chinese pop song! Do a little dance!

My classmate here was telling me about how her classes would do plays every year, and another friend who grew up in Romania was part of a dance group that traveled in Germany. You know, we might hate having to perform cheesy acts in public, but in a way, it is culturally significant, don't you think. We come that much closer to our Chinese comrades.

[roddy]

Apparently, if we refused to comply with their wish to see a total transformation with our performance, then it would be "非常不好" for her job.

Nice to see BLCU treating their staff with professional respect then. Get the monkeys on stage, or else . . .

Doesn't surprise me to be honest, which is sad. I think the best thing to do is either put up with it and go along with the show, or just quietly and calmly refuse to have anything to do with it regardless of cajoling or threatening - you're up against a cultural difference of 'You are a student at our school and should follow our reasonable requests' vs 'I'm a thirty year-old adult and your request is daft.' There's little chance of a win-win situation.

[niubi]

we had to do some kind of performance/skit as well when i was at blcu back in 1996-97. at the time i was trying to read a bit of liu heng's original screenplay for zhang yimou's film qiuju goes to court (秋菊打官司) outside of my classwork. i came up with the idea to adapt a segment of the screenplay for our skit; we performed it without any interference from the higher ups aside from our teacher working with me to adapt the script to our level of chinese. as many of you know the film is shot in a psuedo realistic style with many shots using a telephoto lens which sometimes gives you the sense of surveillance. it's a bit pessimistic. i liked the screenplay a bit more, there was a great deal of sarcastic humor which is mostly absent from the film. i wonder if looking back now, what i set in motion was a bit subversive.

[galaygobi]

Had a similar occurance just this past term at BLCU. Few months back there was an essay writing contest, and our head-teacher was picking the best essays from our homework to submit for the contest.

I had written an essay on being rejected as an english teacher here in Beijing, because I am of chinese descent. Our head-teacher thought my essay was well written and what not, and wanted to submit it for the contest. Unfortunately his superiors wouldn't allow it. Not a big deal for me anyways, since I didn't want to participate in the first place, but my head-teacher is still sorry about it to this day as he talked to me about it a week or so ago trying to explain that although he thinks the essay deserved to be in the contest, the school would not allow it.

[got_no_jaffas]

a friend's class decided to do a sketch about being ripped off in china, from the hapless foreigner landing in beijing with no knowledge & getting charged higher prices & given poor service etc, then attends blcu, learns chineses & chinese culture & then learns how to really get things done.

it was rejected. deemed not in the best interests of chinese ethics.

which is odd because there are 3 chapters in the blcu textbook on being ripped off by the chinese!

[yonitabonita]

Thanks for your responses. It's all quite interesting, and incredibly sad finding what's sensitive and what's not. I wonder what's so dangerous/ objectionable about openly talking about the experiences of ABCs, CBCs getting English teaching jobs? Or is it that it's not an issue to celebrate so best left swept under the carpet?

In my BLCU textbook, there was an article about how some lazy useless foreigner had wasted so much hanging out with his mates that his Chinese hadn't improved at all in a year. I figured that if it was ok to be published and taught to thousands of foreigners, then it would be ok on stage. Go figure.

Anyway, after the event, I got into a bit of a funk, and decided that my piece for kouyu class would be about a thread I read on this forum a while back about racism against black people in China. My teacher didn't say anything at the time, but the following week, she told us that in kouyu class, we should only talk about funny things that happen to us in our daily lives.

'nuff said. I didn't come here to be a revolutionary or to challenge the system. Even then, I need to vent when the system slaps me on the head.