I gave a few lectures in universities in China, like the famous Nankai U (Chu Enlai's alma mater) but I was so excited that didnt pay much attention to the terrible state the country was after the Cultural Revolution. Ten years later I am still digesting my impressions. The students seem to have been herded into my lectures, some slept, others seemed bored. There was no real interest, no questions. I forced them to activity by direct questions, but I didnt follow up to avoid losing them face. I visited libraries and they were empty shelves, extremely poor. Examined textbooks and I was shocked by the low quality of the printing - they were like toilet paper. I'm a bookworm and bought up a quantity of cheap (for me) Chinese textbooks (mostly for the pictures) and they were thirty years behind. That was surprising because many of the best textbooks in my area are by Taiwanese professors. Attendance in China's universities is not obligatory, many appear to never had the opportunity to choose what they study, professors are underpaid and have second jobs, the teaching is frontal from a textbook (the teacher reading from the book, no one asks anything) and the all-important exam follows the textook. That was then, the universities had been destroyed and paralyzed for ten years, they were in a very bad shape after the Cultural Revolution. Hopefully, now are better.
18 comments:
I think you would find that like a lot of things in China, things have changed (for the better). Also that there is a lot of unevenness but that at the top Univ. in Beijing and Shanghai , teaching, facilities, etc. are close to Western standards.
No questions is standard in a Chinese classroom - teachers are highly respected figures and it is disrespectful to question them. If the teacher wanted you to know something, he would have told you already. If the student didn't understand what was said, he would lose face by asking a question and therefore admitting his lack of understanding. This dynamic is hard to break and is the biggest impediment to Chinese education, not lack of books, etc. The money situation can change but Confucian culture has outlasted the Emperors and Mao.
K
Compare the number of textbooks by Taiwanese vs Mainland Chinese. It must be 100 to 1.
Studying to pass exams is not a good system to prepare engineers. You get clever parrots.
I think it is not respect, it is FEAR. Chinese are hierchical and the student has no power at all.
I have lectured there quite frequently and mainly the Professors ask the questions afterwards.
I find the facilities in the main centres are quite good, but the amount of originality expressed by students, at least to me, seems minimal. What's actually in their minds is difficult to divine.
That having been said, I find the amount of original thinking by Western students to be likewise minimal.
Anon.
I am used to agressive, criticizing Israeli students, always fighting the teacher till they are convinced that what he/she says makes sense. Sometimes they dont let me go till they are fully convinced that things are like that. To explain a simple hydraulic jack I have to go back to Newton and Pascal to show them that the whole system is consistent. The bright side is that they force me to study and study. Maybe other teachers can rely on their immanent authority, I cant. Students have a website that I discovered, in it each teacher has a nickname and they recount cruel anecdotes about their mistakes and so on. They take pictures too. Since I know this I come always super-prepared.
Compare the number of textbooks by Taiwanese vs Mainland Chinese. It must be 100 to 1.
What do you think of Japan compared to Taiwan?
Israeli culture is very different from Chinese but there is more than one way to skin a cat. Japan and Korea are also Confucian face cultures and they have done very well over time. Hard work makes up for a lot of sins. Originality is not an expectation in their culture - you excel by taking existing forms and copying them and if you are good the copy is better than the original (one of the ways they can detect the counterfeit N. Korean "supernotes" is that the printing is better than on real US $100 bills).
Not every culture has to be all things to all men - in Poland (when things were going well) it was understood that the Jews, the landowning nobility and the peasants each had their role to play in life and no group tried to execute the functions of the other group. Only in America do we imagine that all races and classes are identical and must all do the same work. One white Steve Jobs has enough creativity to provide work for 100K Chinese factory workers.
K
K
Yes, I think it makes sense in evolutionary terms that even in a small group of people, say hunter-gatherers, there is significant variation in the type of talents that each individual is endowed with by genetics. Thus the group as a whole is more adaptable than if everyone was exactly the same in their behavioral repertoire.
This I think is particularly important in a species whose main weapon is the brain.
The corollary is that different ancestral environments would select for different traits, and therefore populations that had been isolated from each other might be expected to vary considerably not only in intelligence but also in temperament.
This of course is a perspective that the MultiKult finds particularly unattractive.
Anon.
As for what's on the mind of the students, it's some variation of "the tallest blade of rice gets its head chopped off first" or "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down". The worst thing you can do in China is stand out in the crowd by drawing attention to yourself. That China is still a totalitarian state where people are still subject to arbitrary arrest does not help but this is deeply rooted in their culture to begin with.
The flip side of the Israeli way is that it is a miracle that Israel was able to establish an effective military. I've read for example that the early days of the Israel navy were a big mess because of lack of respect for rank which is essential in a military organization. But as I said before there's more than 1 way to skin a cat - even though it would maybe be better if Israel had soldiers more inclined to follow orders unquestioningly and if Chinese students asked more questions, somehow there are still Chinese universities and an Israeli military.
This reminds me of the joke that heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and it is all organized by the Italians.
K
By the way the MultiKult ideology has been around for a long time. I recently read about Benjamin Banneker, an African American who lived in the late 18th century and who had some modest mathematical skills (he published an almanac based on astronomical observations and acted as a surveyor's assistant when the boundaries of Washington, DC were mapped). Immediately he was touted (by anti-slavery types at the time) as evidence that there was no difference in intelligence between the races (ergo slavery was immoral and criminal). Jefferson (representing the pro-slavery camp) responded that Banneker's gifts had been greatly exaggerated by the anti-slavery types and his actual accomplishments were very modest (which was in fact the case). Of course the Banneker legend has only grown over time and now he is recorded as virtually having designed Washington, DC all by himself and has monuments, postage stamps, etc. dedicated to him.
K
Nankai is in Tianjin - my general impression is that Tianjin was well behind Beijing and Shanghai in certain matters (but not others - it had a brand new subway and KFC's on every street corner). The zoo, for example was a horror show of filthy dark iron cages right out of the 19th century. I did see a very entertaining Russian circus style animal act at the zoo (bears riding bicycles - that kind of thing). No doubt you have to beat a bear within a inch of its life to get it to ride a bike so I've since read that these acts are now being banned as cruel. At the end of the show they opened the circus ring and you could come down and have your picture taken with the tigers, etc. I declined.
K
I love K's commentary. Wish you had your own blog K.
Russ
Too lazy. I'd rather leave comments on J's blog.
K
I Agree. Between J, K, and Anon, this blog rocks.
ram
ram,
Big Mistake. You forgot to mention Koko the Talking Gorilla and she does not suffer to be ignored.
For your information, Koko is a celebrity and many books have been written about her. She started talking in sign language at an age when you and me were in diapers. Someone discovered her psy powers and took her to the horses and bet large sums on the basis of her advice. Soon she raised from slavery and started playing the stock exchange on her own and became rich and independent.
Koko is well connected and moves on the highest circles. She will go to great lengths to take revenge on those who ignore her. Her feelings have been much hurt by the Oslo Nobel Prize committee, that granted the prize to females less deserving than Koko. Now she is eyeing Beijing, soon the next Politburo will be selected. I'd not be surprised to see her picture standing near (future ex) Premier Hu.
I'm so sorry. Wow, I'm toast.
ram
Koko-the next Madam Butterfly?
Or-the next Madam Mao.
"Let a hundred flowers bloom", says Koko, inscrutably.
Anon.
Li Sunying wrote:
天河夜轉漂回星
tiān hé yè zhuǎn piào huí xīng
The River of Heaven flows in the night and carries the stars floating around
(My interpretation: As the stream of China silently gathers strength, Koko - the star - is attracted and lets herself to float along Hu.)
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