Pity

"India seems so beautiful but I don't know if I could handle seeing the poverty." We seem to love to pity people. Look at those women who are forced to live inside and have very strict restrictions when they go out, how awful. And the poor, what a disgrace. It's not that I don't see them as pitiful, I do, you're right, there is a part of it that is awful. As for the women it's their life. We may want them to be free but freedom comes with its burdens as well. Freedom to express yourself amongst women in countries which we see them as "not equal" is to some extent even greater than our own freedom. These women look at us and see anorexic and bolemic people who don't embrace their weight, or who are obese because they can't stop their depression from being overweight and just continue to eat, and say to themselves "how awful, what poor women". Poverty is something difficult to accept anywhere in the world but personally it's harder for me to accept that there is such poverty amongst people who can do something about being poor than accepting it for people who can't do anything about their being poor. People here are poor because they have no jobs ... look for a job! Poor because they are badly educated ... go to school! Yes, it's difficult and yes, it may be close to impossible but it is still possible. In India you are born poor and will die poor, nothing you do will change that, no matter how much education you get or anything else. It's a fact. It amazes me way more that people just won't look for a job, or won't try to not be addicted to drugs or go to a mental hospital or take care of themselves than that life is life and it's fact. I don't know if I'm doing a good job of explaining myself....

Stuff & Architectural Anthropology

I hate stuff. Why? Why do we need a new computer every 3 years? Such a waste. I'm one of those people who would rather wait till things die and then get a new one. While I have them I take the best care of them possible and then I'm excited to get a new one. Unfortunately my husband isn't that way. My husband would rather get something new every year at the very least. This year it's an I-Pad, computer and camera. Noted that he already has a computer and a perfectly awesome DSL camera. It's just the act of getting the stuff that "makes him feel like a man". I'm not a big shopper ... at all ... so I just don't get it.

I feel like I've written about this already but I don't seem to be able to find it. Architectural anthropology is an interesting subject, even from how people react to it. Architects love it, they completely understand the idea that they create buildings based on culture and based on ideas therefore buildings must affect people in some way as they are all different and we spend our entire lives in them. However for an anthropologist the idea is completely foreign and the reaction I get every single time is "oh, space, I don't think that's a good idea" or "i know nothing about that." It's a complete conversation killer. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to approach the career. Getting a masters in architecture doesn't teach me enough about people, but getting a masters in anthropology means I surround myself by "non-believers". I seem to be trying it from the anthropology view first, we'll see what happens.

Hard

It's hard to sit here alone ...
And know that I'm sitting here because of what I've done.
What I've done to myself.
I've become a person that no one can understand.
No one can be at my level.
Good at languages, understanding cultures, anthropologist.
Yes, anthropologist.
But an anthropologist who enjoys architecture.
Something most anthropologists frown at.
For the study of architecture is not the study of culture.
As we know it it is the study of inanimate objects, buildings.
Buildings that don't live and have no culture.
But any architect will tell you true to their heart that buildings do live.
They do indeed have a culture.
The scary part is no one realizes.
No one realizes how much their culture affects ours.
Architects create without knowing.
Anthropologists research without seeing.
Without seeing what's around them ...
Everywhere.

Tibet & Vietnam

"What do you think about the Dalai Lama?"
(Being super careful with my words.) "I almost saw him twice."
"Where?"
"In India and Nepal."
"You think he's good?"
(Again guarding my words.) "What do you think?"
"I think he's not a real man."
"What do you mean?"
"Real men wouldn't run away from an argument."
"Do you know his religion believes in not fighting?"
"But they believe in having slaves. They had a lot of slaves living there."
(No comment at all.)
My husband continues by telling me that Tibet has always been part of China as has Mongolia, the British just stole Tibet away from China for a while.

It's really interesting how much something can be drilled into your way of thinking. Chinese have been drilled from birth basically to believe that any place that China has ever conquered (in any of the past dynasties) is really part of China. Some people mean this includes Mongolia, Tibet and Taiwan but others include all of Southeast Asia and there are a few people who go to extremes like believing Germany is part of China (I've only ever heard one person I know say this). Throughout my time spent in China and throughout my relationship with my husband I have learned that when he asks me these kind of questions the only thing I can do (without getting us into a fight) is to keep my mouth shut. Thus the three T's during teaching in China have become the three T's of my life - Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen (specificially Falun Gong). These are things that I can only discuss with people who are not from China.

Interestingly I am currently taking a class entitled the Peoples and Cultures of Southeast Asia. It talks about how China really never conquered any part of the area except Vietnam and says "The more they [the Vietnamese] absorbed of the skills, customs, and ideas of the Chinese, the smaller grew the likelihood of their ever becoming part of the Chinese people. In fact, it was during the centuries of intensive efforts to turn them into Chinese that the Vietnamese came into their own as a separate people with political and cultural aspects of their own." I find this fascinating but it's the kind of thing I could never discuss with my husband.

ingeniality

So I figured out how to maneuver the system of binders. Do you buy one notebook (with pages) for each class? No because you'll never use it all. Buy a 5 subject notebook? Again it's so many pages you'll never use it all. Buy looseleaf paper to take your notes on? Just doesn't feel right. Just buy one regular sized notebook to take all your notes in and then tear them out and separate them in a 3 ring binder after class!

On another note this trying my best not to spend anything is resulting in not having friends, not that I'm good at making friends here anyways. For some reason this is the one city in the world where I can never make friends.

statistics

Stats are some of the most interesting things ever. As business people one comes to rely on statistics for everything, to show profits, how the business is doing, how much it is making, how much it is selling, almost literally every small bit of information. But for anthropologists we learn not to trust statistics. The percent of foreigners in a given area. First of all any statistic can be manipulated to show what one wants to show. Want to state that the city of Dalian, china has very few foreigners? Simply define the word foreigner as someone who has never owned the land there or who doesn't have any ancestors there. By doing so you determine the number of foreigners by only the expats that live there from outside east Asia. All Japanese, whether or not they have ever lived there before wouldn't be considered foreigners because Dalian used to be a part of Japan. Same with all Russians. Similarly compare the population of china with that of the USA. You will get an outcome that china is x percent larger than the USA. However this percent doesn't take into consideration any of the illegal immigrants who haven't been counted, nor does it take into account all the people in china born to one parent and thus have no identification in china and not considered Chinese at all statistically. But anthropologically they are still there, they exist and haven't gone anywhere.

Arrogant and Chinese

So I suppose I'm a little arrogant. But then again isn't everyone? I have absolutely no problem for people telling me what to do in areas that I clearly don't know anything about (or clearly know much less than those around me at least). Architecture? Please, teach me, I beg you. Flags? Know very little. Business? Again with the same. But don't come up to me and know something clearly less than I do and try to teach me about it. That's ridiculous. Yesterday I had a woman trying to show off how much she knew about using the internet in China. Hmmm .... wrong thing to show off around me. It's like someone trying to teach me how to live in China. If I had never been there that would be great, I would probably welcome the opportunity to learn. But I lived there three years and this woman hadn't even been there a semester. Give me a break.

Anyways, so much for my arrogance. Many people don't understand two things about me, both related to Chinese but in indirect ways. One people don't understand when I say that my Chinese class is hard for me. "You know Chinese why should it be hard?" Yes, I can speak every day Chinese but that means little to nothing in terms of learning how to write and read Chinese and even with speaking if you sat me down to watch a news broadcast (in Chinese) the probability that I would understand is very little. The second thing people don't understand is why I'm learning Japanese. Believe it or not I'm learning Japanese to help with my Chinese (among other reasons). Japanese has at least three different writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji (also Romanji and a few others that aren't "as important"). Kanji comes from old Chinese, it's literally old Chinese characters. Some of these are still used in today's Chinese but some aren't. So the ones that are used in today's Chinese I can learn and the others will be helpful if I have to read historical texts in Chinese. Most anthropologists or people who study Japanese and Chinese know this but the every day person doesn't tend to.