Les Fleurs a Seattle

It has been great having my own class, and to teach Chinese. It is a very challenging course for the students, who are undergrads or grads at UW, because they meet 4 hours every day for 2 months, and they are going to finish a one-year-long first year Chinese course. I teach for the last hour, when everyone gets pretty tired of all the Pinyin and characters and sentence structure.

So I have been teaching something fun these days: like "80 hou", "chi le ma", "88", xiaonei.com and other cultural stuff. I was a little nervous before my first class on Monday, but after I taught it, I realized that-----

I am old!!! an old  old graduate student.... cuz my students are so young---born after 1988...kids...but they are very cute, enthusiastic and well-behaved~~I am very qualified to teach undergrads now, even though they are English speakers~

Something fun to share:
One day I said the character 'mang" (busy) is composed by "heart" and "death"--you are so busy that your heart is dead....one student asked : so does that mean heartattack too...?
Other question: what's the difference b/t "mei" and "bu"?
I also asked the Ss to write down anything they are interested in Chinese culture/language; one student said "what does aiya mean exactly?"...

Teaching Chinese really makes me understand my native language better~~

过去的这2周过得跟飞一样，却又如此不真实。

硕士毕业了，the end of an era. 父母过来了，在机场见到他们的一刹那，这2年来我所生活在的2个世界忽然重合。

我没有预想这一天会这么快。因为一直忙碌，也没有好好想像过他们跨越重洋、来到我这边是怎样一种情形。带他们去学校，去西雅图downtown, 去太空针，去见美国老师同学，去吃海鲜，去美国超市买菜， 去加州旅游⋯⋯一切的一切，仿佛和2年前倒了个个：我不再是那个跟在爸爸身后听从他教育的小女孩，我变成了他们所依赖的人。我曾模糊地想像这一天总会到来， 但是没有想到这么快，我好像还没有准备好承担。但是当初2年前的选择再无法重来：我终究是在这个新世界里打拼天下； 因为年轻也适应很快，而父母却要从头来学。

这2年一直在课堂中学到在美国的第1.5代移民，因为从小在美国长大，语言和文化都是美国的， 而他们的父母却不会说很多英语，文化上还是传统的中国文化，于是这些1.5 generation从小就要做小大人，帮父母与学校沟通，为家庭的事情与社会做各种联系工作。我曾不能想像他们所经历的生活。可是现在，我好像可以体会一些， 虽然我已经长大。我曾以为父亲是神，什么事情他都可以搞定； 可是在这个异地文化里，我发现自己无奈地顶替了他的位置。 不知道怎么，有点难过，也有点怕，就好像站在风口浪尖的转角处，挡风的那棵树已经瘦弱了，却不敢踏出那一步。

我想我们这一带人应该都在经历这个时刻吧。或许只是我反应得太慢。我只是觉得自己或许花了太多时间在搞象牙塔里的学习研究了。该独立的时候，却还什么都没建立：没有房子，没有车，没有老公，没有工作....小时候看过的那个关于蚂蚁和蟋蟀的寓言最近总是在脑海重现：春天的时候不储粮，冬天的时候吃什么？

我想我又想得太远了。

去加州的旅行不错。沿着著名的1号沿海高速一路向南，一路景致由茂密的松树碧绿的田野转向挺拔的棕榈直到黄色的大漠。田园看了，大洋过了，都市转了，世界影城览了。美国之大之美，难以用言语尽数。

照片为证： http://picasaweb.google.com/xuan.flowerxuan2/OregonAndCalifornia62209842PM?feat=directlink

more are coming soon...

周末从LA飞回西雅图开始教美国学生中文，每天都在备课上课，不过学生可爱，收获也挺多～现在只希望父母平安回来。

I knew this would come, did I?

Yesterday I have got the TA-ship offer letter from English Department. It's really an instructor's position, which covers tuition, insurance, and stipend for the next three years of my phd study. I am going to be teaching American freshmen composition. I have waited this for too long that I didn't know how to react properly in the department office. So I walked out and started to laugh...

and cry.

It says on the letter from the dept chair "A teaching assistantship in our department is reserved for the truly impressive applicant who has already established a strong record and who complements the strengths of our faculty."

I guess all the hard work during the past year (and now) is finally worthwhile.

The part 6 months all I heard was BUDGET CUT; economic crisis. Every dept in the college of arts and science got 20% cut of TA positions. At that time I already got my future "boss" to agree to be my phd committe chair. But no-one knew, who would get the funding. There are 500 applicants to the English dept every year. Only one or two international students got in. To teach in english dept international Ss need 290 out of 300 for the english SPEAK test...

I waited. From time to time I thought this was too painful I just wanted to get out of academia, go back to China and go back to my comfy cozy warm home, being Daddy's little girl again. People question my identity of being a minority and second language speaker in the English dept; but the things I read and professors I met encouraged me to stay, to provide a new angle to critique the language they are born with. I knew vaguely there is something I wanted to do in life; and I could achieve it here for who I am.

So here it is. In one week I have got 4 offers, 2 for the summer 2 for the future years. I can finally move on and have dreams. In return I got constant back pains and neck sores. Life is just harsh; but fair.

Thanks for all the people who encouraged me to hang in there: my mom and dad, Peter, my phd committee chair, all the MATESOLers (they were so proud of me yesterday; esp international students--yes we can do it!), my friends in China (you know who you are!!), U.S. and everywhere in the world.

 

Jai Ho! from Zinchuk Studios on Vimeo.

Watch our dance at http://www.vimeo.com/4911434

we rock!!!

The word culture in cross-cultural communication is not meant in its narrow sense as in boundaries between nations, ethnicities or language. Women and men talk differently; they belong to different cultures even when they speak the same language. Same with teenagers talking with older generations. Same with religion. Same with social classes. etc.

Now when I am doing research on Asian students in mainstream U.S classrooms, it just hits me that academic discipline draws another cultural boundary. I assumed that communication through text is important in every discipline, but I was wrong. Looking at syllabus from different departments made me realize how different each discipline is. Language, terms, philosophy, assumptions, methods...they are all different.

最近在上研究方法，显然美国这边文科基本都是质性研究方法，所以强调研究者的道德，个人对世界的认识和价值观，以及研究者和被研究者之间的关系，都会影响结果。今天讨论一篇文章，是ethnography(人种志)领域非常著名的一个教授写的，基本上根小说差不多，从一个20岁男孩的视角描写他对世界的认识，对学校及社会大环境教育的认识。这个男孩从外界眼光来看，就是边缘小人物，没受过什么教育，父母离异，自己搭一个小木屋住着，没钱了就偷东西，工作过但都是洗盘子之类； 但是这个教授很大篇幅直接引用这个男孩第1人称的讲述，让读者看到另一个角度的世界。

最后我导师问，大家想知道这个文章之后发生什么了么？

The researcher has been having a sexual relationship with this boy after he started this study for one year. The boy left after this project, and came back shortly, found that the researcher had a new partner. So the boy burned down the house, beated the researcher, and finally ended up in jail.

We were totally shocked. 这个教授本人是专门研究质性研究的道德伦理问题的阿。。。

有兴趣的可以搜索The life history of a sneaky kid. by H. Wolcott

I had such a great time in TESOL convention in Denver this time. It was so exciting to meet and talk to the big figures in our field, esp. after having read their articles and other works. Although it was expensive to go to a conference, this is TESOL, the biggest one in our field. Plus i am presenting and am at this moment of starting networking in the field~~

My two presentations went great, including the second one which was scheduled at 7am...(we had to get up at 5:30am, which was 4:30am seattle time). Lots of responses from the audience afterwards. I was very happy that people came to me in the end and talked to me about the topic. The convention was a great place to meet people. There are 6000 teachers and researchers in the convention this time, it was said, from all over the world. I have also met many Chinese, including graduate students in the US, and people from 外研社 and couple other top universities in beijing and hongkong...

I also found out that our program at UW was very critical (in terms of approach), compared to other MATESOL programs in US which are more traditional. It was during listening to other people's presentation did I realize how different people's view could be, even in the same field. I also found that I could be very outspoken and aggresive when I heard voices that promoting native-speaker fallacy and teaching the "white English". I didn't know since when I became this political. My view of the world and knowledge has changed because of this program. Various role models in the field in front of me made me realize that i need to make my voice to be heard sometimes.

It was snowing like hell the day after I arrived at Denver; but the blizzard made everything unforgettable. Denver downtown is very nice and artistic, the architecture is unque, the art museum is great, and different restaurants are cozy. Living with the other two friends in the same hotel room was also unforgettably nice:) I am happy that I was actually taking a break from the tedious Seattle life...

However, School starts tomorrow. so fast.

pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/xuan.flowerxuan2/TESOL09Denver32909513PM#

ok i have to admit that I felt so much better now after I handed in my final paper
now spring break starts
it is so nice not having to go to school everyday
although i have 2 conference presentations to prepare for the upcoming TESOL convention in March25-28
but i know professors are way busier than I am

Another thing is, once I decided to do phd whatsoever, a job interview request came...alright, the world can be fair sometimes, if you have a little patience...

its all about visa status, all about that I was not born directly as an US citizen
so everything is troublesome
the world is unfair in various respects: power, money, where you are from, social status
no pains no gains might be true, but sometimes you may gain nothing even though you took great pains
it's not about how smart you are either
the world just doesn't run as what the book says
yes it has flowers, sunny days, rings, sweet friends, family
but yet
it can also be a blank-faced cold wall where you hit hard in the face

you feel a bit safer and warmer when you think
well, the God is still taking care of everything
but what if
there is just no God
nothing
nobody is taking care of you
its just you
everything is not organized delicately but just scattered around randomly

cold, damp
like Seattle's March

two more weeks to go for this quarter
then one more quarter for my master's degree
then 4 more years?...
i am just losing track of time, and floating away from my home culture

horrifying
when u realize something that were once part of u became unfamiliar
loss of identity

3 hours for a movie is kind of long.

But not for a man's life.

If a man could be born old and grow younger, would that be any different from us?

Either way life is a parabola, we are born alone innocent and foolish as when we die. Some time in between we are achieving an imagined peak, physically and mentally. Some time in between we meet different people; some become our friends, some become lovers, some we would never see again. Some time in between we travel we learn and we see. Some time in between we meet the right person at the right time and we feel happy and will grow old with him/her, but lot of times we couldn't. In one way or another stories unfold. Memory grow.

We are who we are now because everyone around us are who they are. Everything is so delicately intertwined, and we do have control over, only that we don't know it.

Is the God watching?

今天终于present我2周以来的课程研究了： Interpreting Silence, Asian students in US universities 反响非常好～～美国同学提问不断～～

it is very interesting to do real research with collecting data and interviewing people, because there is certainly a pattern and it is certainly important to address my colleagues' attention (who are going to be professionals in the field of language/teaching) to asian ss' cultural beliefs and needs. Thanks a lot to my friends here who contribute to my interview questions, esp. soso:)

最神奇的是，因为这个星期的话题是跨文化交际，流行文化的全球化等等，我把那个武汉话rap“我信了你的邪”的youtube video放到了我们课程的网络论坛上，结果教授十分着迷，今天特意给时间我放给全班看。。。it is so interesting and weird to hear 武汉话 in the context of an American graduate classroom...然后大家开始讨论hip hop的authenticity...

What bothered me the most is many people are still talking about WE as English learners. From the past two years of extensive reading and discussions in the field of TESOL, I consider myself as a multilingual, and an legitimate English user, not a learner or simply non-native speaker. At the first place it is problematic to define what a native speaker really is, especially when there are now way more "non-native English speakers" than the so-called NSs, and there are so many speakers of English who grow up in different places/cultures. Every speaker of English should be called English user as least, because there is no owner of English, and there is no good or bad English.

One thing that I like my master's program is that people that I work with, i.e. my program-mates, are NOT typical americans who are monolingual and know nothing about other cultures. They have worked and lived in a lot of different countries-not even the ones that we always think of like England or Australia. They traveled to east Europe (prague, Bulgaria, etc), mid-east (israel, kuwait, etc), asia (japan), central and south america (venezula, mexico etc.), africa, and even iceland where there is aurora and all-night-winter. They speak more than one language, some times even 10. Morever, they come from different background as well: some worked as NYC journalist, some are activist organizing protests, some are rock band singers, and etc...Discussion with them is always interesting:)

One thing about this discourse analysis i am taking this quarter: it is very intellectually stretching and culturally embedded-mostly about America and mid-east since it's what the famous prof is looking at. It is very difficult if you don't know much about politics and social issues. We talk about gender (including gay culture), race, globalization, media, presidential inauguration speech-which we r going to watch on Tue, 911, war, to name a few. I have to say it is way more interesting than memorizing pragmatics theories and conversation maxims as I did as an undergrad...but still, difficult for me the only "outsider" of their culture~but i am trying to provide them another perspective

Xmas in china and new year at Seattle; they are different, shockingly.

 jet lag让我难得在新年的凌晨还可以清醒如白天。。疯狂的美国人在转钟的时候碰杯亲吻相拥under the fireworks。。。对他们来说这就是过年了，而且都是和朋友一起过的。可我们还有一个年可以过，只是到那时估计又在忙学习工作了。。。

 They say there is no place like home; but where is my home now? When i was back in china i felt a little isolated and overwhelmed by the huge number of people, the speed of development, the sense of unstableness, the bad traffic, the badly polluted air, and even the customed way people treat each other. The things you say in China are different than in the US, not only because it's a different language, but aslo because of the way you are expected to say it. When i was back in seattle i felt as if i have never left. The weather is still wet and cloudy; people are still drinking coffee and go to bars; i like the environment here in general; but then, this is not my home either.

 But that is the way it is. That's what you gain and lose when you decide to move to another world after 20 years. Weigh it. Let the time tell the result.

 Here comes 2009.

Photos at my friend's party for the new year: http://picasaweb.google.com/xuan.flowerxuan/NewYear091109201PM#

Photos back in china: http://picasaweb.google.com/xuan.flowerxuan/Wuhan08Xmas#

http://picasaweb.google.com/xuan.flowerxuan/081212beijing#

快回中国那几天，每天都激动得睡不着，心里就开始盘算要说的话，有好多好多，想把这一年半在国外的所见所感告诉每一个国内曾伴我成长的人。可是回来了，一天天地过去，想说的也忘了，很快就适应了这里的生活，在美国学的东西是如此难的本土化，而且大家忙忙碌碌，都有自己的事情，没人愿意耐心听国外的情况。。。学了那么多有趣的东西，国内的导师也不见得就觉得你学了很多了，还是说要拿博士学位才跟你好好谈的样子。。。我不是说国内这样不好，这就是一个cultural adaptation 的过程，回到home culture和我想象的不一样，仅此而已。

国内一派经济繁荣的景象，尤其是平安夜的时候，与美国形成鲜明对比。找工作依然不易，各个领域皆如此，关系还是要找的，全世界都一样。我以前自我感觉出国了成长巨大，现在发现大家都在成长，从出大学的一刻起，就融入了社会，就不再是孩子，就在靠自己打拼漂泊，就要计划自己的未来，家庭和工作。。。到现在看来还是我成长的最慢啊～～不过在美国没有年龄的压迫感，这点倒不错

这次回来短，很多人都只见了一面就不知道何时再见了。希望大家都好好保重。

希望家里也一切安好。

A friend's 8 year old daughter in Seattle gave me this book Twilight last Xmas and I was absolutely attracted to this vampire story. The whole setting and atmosphere is totally wet and foggy and mysterious, like our adolescence, and like Washington state. I know it's going to be on screen sooner or later. Now here we go.

 

Last Friday when i went to watch the new James Bond movie, there was a huge line of loud American teenagers who were waiting to see Twilight. That was the opening night. I totally understand why this is so popular among them.

 

Maybe I am not grown up yet so i like it too...but everytime when there is a book and a movie, i always like the book better.

 

anyways, luckily i like the actress Kristen Stewart. She is very attractive; although very young. I cant forget her since I saw the movie Into the Wild.

 

the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1GbukZnl1Y

amazing findings: for anyone who knows something about corpus linguistics:

Type in "Chinese" in the "Collocation Sampler" on this Cobuild corpus page:

http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx

Tick "Mutual information"

Then you will see a list of words that show up most frequently with the word "Chinese" from the texts in british or american newpapers or other media.
The first one is some chinese company's name; the second one is "Qian qi chen"!!and read on you will see Peking, takeout, meatballs, and etc...

You can try the same thing with the American corpus at : http://www.americancorpus.org/; Kangxi shows up as the most frequent word appearing with Chinese, and the second is a theater's name, then there is "laundry"(seems to be a big business for chinese immigrants in US), and then jiabao and jintao are very frequent too...

very intereting

最近慢慢悟出一个道理，原来学术这个东西，越学得深就越发现自己孤立无援。 所谓曲高和寡，说得可能就是这个吧。本来大家的认知层面和知识结构都在一个水平上（在中国国内接受完高中教育尤其如此。。国家统一教学内容和升学考试的结果）， 交流起来彼此没有什么障碍，但是一旦你学得多了深了， 尤其是在某个领域接触的新概念和术语多了，就会发现自己知道的东西其实很难让其他人明白。可能这就是为什么很多教授经常互相嘲弄，说你研究的到底是什么东西？然后你就发现你得从基本概念解释起。。。可人家要是没这个兴趣，谁耐心听你讲？

现在看的很多书，要花很多功夫才能明白作者到底在说什么，而且明白的时候才发现原来他说的东西我原来都知道，只是他非要用一种很复杂的表述方式，或者非常 formal的术语（还包括他自己发明的）。原来学术界各种理论流派，只不过是把已经发现的原理换了个说法。。。痛苦了我们这些研究生。。。

最近学的很理论。伯克力毕业的教授老头依然还是喃喃自语上课，不时分析一些涉及S**的用语（比如讲语料库搜索语言搭配，他举例竟然是： her breasts和swell），这在国内不可想像，估计可以下岗了。可是在这里，也就是一种文学体裁的分析。。。所以我就很无语，装作听不懂。。。

its so hard to survive in academia*.*