Comments on: The China Synopsis

By: My Second Week in China - Beijing | Cosmic Variance

My Second Week in China - Beijing | Cosmic Variance — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:14:42 +0000

[...] A few days ago I promised I’d report on my second week in China, so here goes. [...]

By: Cosmic Variance

Cosmic Variance — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 09:10:53 +0000

My Second Week in China – Beijing

A few days ago I promised I’d report on my second week in China, so here goes.
On Saturday the 21st, we flew to Beijing and checked into the Jade Palace Hotel, near the Institute for Theoretical Physics, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The same…

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 18:26:42 +0000

Yes Hektor, ludicrous indeed. That’s why I’m not doing it, and instead am just reporting on what I experienced. Try to read what I wrote before putting fingers to keyboard please. Don’t put words in my mouth or assumptions into my head.

By: Hektor Bim

Hektor Bim — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 17:52:42 +0000

Mark, I don’t really want to get into a long political discussion about China either. But it is ludicrous to assume that the larger political and cultural forces in a country won’t have an effect on the way education occurs in that country. So if you are genuinely interested in how and why Chinese education works, you can’t avoid the larger political, cultural, and economic currents in Chinese society.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 17:45:40 +0000

I don’t wish to get into a long political discussion about China, Hektor, but let me just point out one clear observation. In my very short experience with students these last two weeks, what was very clear to me, was that the Chinese faculty in the two universities I visited were bending over backwards to encourage the students to ask questions and questions the speakers.

By: Hektor Bim

Hektor Bim — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 17:27:52 +0000

I imagine part of the reticence one sees in Chinese students probably results from growing up in a dictatorship that in the past systematically murdered millions of its own citizens. It’s pretty clear that rebelling against authority or asking questions are not encouraged in China.

By: Moshe Rozali

Moshe Rozali — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:46:10 +0000

Oh boy, I certainly did not mean to say anything deep, just recalled not being able to express myself very clearly at first (though apparently things have not improved much…) .

Anyhow, the trip sounds fascinating, I’ll look forward to reading more.

best,

Moshe

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:16:38 +0000

You’ll have to disrupt the supply of tinfoil, leaving your enemies hatless.

And order more black helicopters.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:06:29 +0000

Adam, you have perceived the deep meanings hidden behind my politically correct rhetoric! How can we forces of leftist hegemonization hope to prevail in the face of such powerful truth-telling?

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:02:27 +0000

So what you’re saying, Sean, is that Mark is an old-fashioned racial supremacist?

Reading between the lines, and all.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:00:48 +0000

Mark, you’re giving Trevor far too much credit for a sensible query. Only an ideological hallucination would cause anyone to read anything about “innate difference” into what you wrote.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 15:46:42 +0000

No, most certainly not a good paraphrasing (I don’t think one could read it into what I wrote). Rather, I suspect there are many different forces, including something of a more hierarchical structure in the education system, which means that students are very respectful, which can also translate into being less comfortable challenging professors.

I agree partially with Moshe that language plays some role. It is certainly true that the students change quite quickly when they attend our graduate schools – I wasn’t suggesting it was a long-term issue for us. The only point I was making was that giving these talks in China, to students who are graduate students there, meant that they had had less exposure to English and to our educational system that students we see in the U.S., and yet I found them refreshingly interactive.

I don’t have a deep point to make here, since I don’t pretend to fully appreciate all the different forces that lead to the trend that many U.S. faculty notice.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:23:17 +0000

Hi Mark!

For a lefty your comments about chinese grad students are not politically correct enough. May I paraphrase you as saying that there is an innate difference in the ability to discuss between Chineses and Westerners? If not, please clarify what you meant to say.

Best,
Trevor

PS: No doubt you are right. I have been aware of this for a long time…

By: Moshe Rozali

Moshe Rozali — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 04:04:54 +0000

Hey Mark,

Hope you had fun in China. One comment on the Chinese students (though my experience is somewhat different)- I suspect language limitations may be part of it, many have had much less exposure to English than you would in western countries. This problem usually disappears pretty quickly (as I can testify, you need to learn pronouncing about a dozen words to start communicating about physics).

(Also,something about summer schools makes students more relaxed, or at least that is the hope…)

best,

Moshe

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 03:47:52 +0000

Hi Chris. I didn’t hear about this – thanks for pointing it out. I took a look at the site you linked to – great picture!

By: Chris W.

Chris W. — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 02:34:13 +0000

Did you hear any mention of the Qiantang River Tidal Bore while you were in Hangzhou? Some photos of it (at its most extreme) were mistaken for tsunami photos shortly after the events of December 26, 2004. From TravelChinaGuide.com:

The soaring tide of the Qiantang River is such a marvelous spectacle that only the Amazon River's surging tide rivals it! Annually, millions of people from both home and abroad flock there to watch the magnificent tide on the eighteenth day of the eighth lunar month (also around the Mid-Autumn Day). When the surging tide comes, the water can rise up to a height of 30 feet and the noise it generates sounds like thunder, or thousands of horses running. Various activities will also be held to celebrate the annual Tide - Watching Festival, according to local custom. In terms of its history, the custom of watching the bore tide has happened for more than 2000 years. It first appeared during the first century. Then, it became popular in the Tang Dynasty (about 7th -13th century). Yangong town in Haijing 45 km (about 28 miles) from Hangzhou is the best place to watch the Qiantang Tide.