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Repeat After Me: a novel by Rachel DeWoskin

While China says women hold up half the sky, nothing could be farther from the truth when it comes to literature about China (especially foreign women in China).

Then I discovered Rachel DeWoskin’s Foreign Babes in Beijing. While it still isn’t in the top ten reading list of China nonfiction on Amazon (probably because it’s been written off as chick lit, thanks to its misleading cover and title), it deserves far more attention, and notice. That’s because DeWoskin really knows China, having lived there for much of her childhood with her famous sinologist father. And, she knows how to pen a great narrative.

Since then, DeWoskin has moved on to teaching creative writing at NYU, and has a family and home in New York. But I suspect that her love for China has hardly waned over the years — which is evident by her latest labor of love, a China coming-of-age novel titled Repeat After Me: A Novel, which focuses on the surprising love affair between a young ESL teacher and her Chinese student, post-Tiananmen.

For those of you who have read Foreign Babes in Beijing, Rachel DeWoskin’s imprint is unmistakable in the main character of Aysha. Like DeWoskin, Aysha is Jewish, from New York City, loves Tang Poetry, teaches, attended Columbia, and ends up falling for a Chinese man. And, like Foreign Babes in Beijing, the China parts of the story take place in Beijing, DeWoskin’s old stomping grounds. Plus, Repeat After Me: A Novel also delves deeply into the cultural divide and misunderstandings that inevitably occur when people from two distant cultures become involved:

“I’ll marry you if you want,” I said. I had considered us in love for weeks; he might as well, too. Marrying Da Ge would be sinister and safe at the same time, a sexy combination. And since I had never seen a good marriage, I had the wild notion that this might lead to one.

“Are you sure it’s okay you can do can do that for me?” Da Ge asked. His eyes were glittering with excitement.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I felt a rush of adrenaline. “It’ll be like an extension of teaching English. Extra credit.”

Da Ge stood up. “Thank you,” he said. He walked over and I thought he might pick up my hand or kiss me, but he did neither. “I will make it easy for you. So no work for you. And I can pay if you –”

“I’m not interested in your money.”

What makes Repeat After Me: A Novel different is the psychological challenges — and their outcomes — that Aysha and her lover, Da Ge, both confront throughout the story. Seeing mental illness through two different cultures lends a certain distinction to the book, particularly with Da Ge’s perspective:

My father became rich. He have big black car with black window and big hands and big house and big plan. I will be the management of a company. My mother will hate this if she know. She already hate my father before, even hate the way the world became. So she self-kills in 1982. Mao is dead. She know my father will never do the thing they promise each other to do. Because my father is cynic but my mother not. And he is right. The revolution fail. And many people regret later, especially my mother who believe in it so much. Because even she would realized what she do is not good, that it don’t work out so the country sinking. This become impossible situation for her. My mother is kind of person who care about the truth. She want to find the truth no matter it’s good news for her or not. But she cannot even do that. She is pretty and extravagant when she swallow many medication. When I find her, she was already dead in the bedroom. Before that happen, she cleaned up and made some food for me.

Psychology is not an easy subject to tackle in a story, and the psychological problems she delves into are pretty heavy handed stuff. But DeWoskin’s treatment is just right, as she balances the major drama with lighthearted neuroses.

And, thankfully, Repeat After Me: A Novel has taken a detour from Foreign Babes in Beijing in terms of settings — there are no scenes in bars or clubs. Of course, since Aysha is an ESL teacher in New York City, much of the narrative occurs in the classroom (I had flashbacks of the presentations and skits and idiom discussions of my own English students back in China). But there are also cafes, Beijing and NYC apartments, parks, hospitals, gardens and more. It was a relief to step into a world that was so accessible and unpretentious at the same time.

On the same note, I felt right at home with a quirky and feminist cast of characters, from strong-willed moms to precocious daughters. For once, I was reading China novel that didn’t gratuitously promote the importance of having sons (even if it still is, sadly, much the reality today).

Now for the politics. The backdrop of Tiananmen can feel cliche to anyone well-read in the area of China literature (fiction or nonfiction), and in some respects, Repeat After Me: A Novel is no different. We’ve all seen tankman, we’ve all heard about the dissidents…probably more times than we want to admit in the leadup to the Beijing Olympics. So DeWoskin’s character of Da Ge, a suspected Tiananmen dissident, feels a bit worn at first. Yet, the more DeWoskin reveals Da Ge’s true character, the less he has in common with the typical Tiananmen story.

Meanwhile, Rachel DeWoskin’s take on life in China and Chinese culture will make any former laowai in China (like me) nostalgic. The prying — but well-intentioned — questioning from Chinese about your salary, marriage, weight and more. The banquets where a strange uncle does all of the ordering, leaving you with an array of dishes you barely find palatable. The Chinese view of marriage as something so practical and sometimes altogether divorced from love. The idea of praising babies as pang pang bai bai de (fat and white) and the importance of zuo yue after giving birth (if you don’t know what this is, just read Repeat After Me and you’ll find out). DeWoskin even sets part of the story in Beijing during the SARS period, and her descriptions of wearing masks on the top of your head — like a headband — remind me of my days in Shanghai when I’d catch my coworkers with masks clutching their chins or foreheads, but leaving their mouths and noses wide open.

The only time I raised an eyebrow was with DeWoskin’s depiction of the green card and citizenship process. Green cards, and citizenship for that matter, can hardly be taken care of within less than a year — unless there was a post-Tiananmen expediting process in place. Still, it’s a minor flaw, and it does nothing to detract from an otherwise outstanding read.

If there’s one Chinese expression I could use to describe Repeat After Me: A Novel, it would be suan tian ku la (sour, sweet, bitter, spicy). DeWoskin deftly blends tragedy and triumph with heartwarming, and delicious results.

So, here’s the deal: Heilongjiang Province’s Environmental Bureau holds a meeting to discuss environmental law enforcement in 2009, and they invite journalists to attend. But the catch? They refuse to make public the list of companies who are illegally polluting the environment. A number of journalists were so incensed by the environmental bureau’s actions that they actually left in the middle of the meeting.

Here’s the gist of why the journalists are angry and an on-the-fly translation:

按照《政府信息公开条例》、《环境信息公开办法(试行)》均属于公开的内容。《环境信息 公开办法(试行)》第四条明确规定， 环保部门应当遵循公正、公平、便民、客观的原则，及时、准确地公开政府环境信息。 黑龙江省环保厅有何理由不公开违 法排污企业的情况?而且，记者想要公开的内容，恰恰是公众最想知道的内容，也是治理违法排污企业的有力武器。黑龙江省环保厅岂能向媒体保密、向公众保密? 这不仅是对记者采访权的干扰，也是对人民群众的知情权、监督权的破坏。

According to “Government Information Public Disclosure Regulation”, “Environmental Information Public Disclosure Methods (Draft)”, this is information that needs to be disclosed to the public. The 4th regulation of the “Environmental Information Public Disclosure Methods (Draft)” clearly states that China’s environmental bureaus should adhere to the principles of justice, equality, convenience for people, and objectivity, and, in a timely and precise manner, publicly disclose the government’s environmental information. What reason does the Heilongjiang Environmental Bureau have to not disclose the status of those illegally polluting companies? Furthermore, the information that the journalists are interested in is also the information that the public is most interested in as well. It is also the most powerful weapon we have for controlling those illegally polluting industries. How can the Heilongjiang Environmental Office keep this secret from the media and the public? This not only disturbs a journalist’s right to interview, it also undermines the general public’s right to information and right to supervision.

Perhaps it isn’t surprising this is happening, given the huge benzene spill that hit the Songhua River in late 2005:

HARBIN, China, Nov. 25 – A toxic 50-mile band of contaminated river water slowly washed through this frigid provincial capital on Friday, leaving schools and many businesses closed, forcing millions of people to spend a third straight day without running water and raising fears of a long-term environmental disaster.

Well, it’s Earth Day — as for the “Happy Earth Day”, I’ll leave that up to you.

It’s quite an oddity, isn’t it? When you think about it, when was the last time you saw a department in, say, the UK or the US touting the nationalities of its own faculty? But, when you closer, there’s nothing odd about it at all. It’s yet another reminder of how China still devalues being Chinese.

It all began with the Opium war in the 1840s, when the British seized Hong Kong, which remained in British hands up until 1997. That was the first time China was so humiliatingly defeated on its own soil. Soon, China was sliced and diced like a poor piece of Beijing duck by the foreign powers who were desperate to capitalize on trading opportunities with the Middle Kingdom, but despising of the harsh and limited legislation which had previously made it difficult for them to get in. Dalian, Tianjin, Shanghai, Xiamen, Hankou, Guangzhou — all, and much more, were conceded to the foreigners by China, which became increasingly fearful of the military might and strategy of the British, French, Russians and other foreign powers. By the time China did finally defeat a foreign power, the Japanese during World War II, for the first time in over a hundred years, there was such a depressingly long list of defeats at the hands of foreigners that somehow the damage had already been done, leaving the Chinese with one conclusion: foreign is better.

Not surprisingly, pretty soon being associated with something foreign meant higher status: getting a foreign degree to learn foreign technology and ideas, wearing expensive foreign fashions, living in a community named “Santa Fe” with foreign-style homes, driving a luxury foreign car. But topping this list has always been that coveted foreign citizenship.

To understand this in action, consider the movie Drifters, about a young Chinese man named Hong from Fujian who was deported from the US to his hometown and . The man fathered a son in the US, but even though the son is back visiting his hometown, he cannot see the son — a son that the grandparents call an “authentic American citizen”. In one scene, the grandparents even claim that the son is protected by American law. They are, in every way, far above the lowly Hong, who is not an American and only but a migrant laborer who failed in his attempt to stay in the US.

It is such a sad state of affairs that Chinese look to passports as a sign of status and value — especially so on this top-ranked university’s website. For them, it was not enough to boast of their faculty’s scholarship and research; they had to show how many Americans were on their staff to lift themselves up, because someone must have inherently thought that, if people considered them all to be Chinese, then surely their department would not have been nearly as good. It isn’t being Chinese or American that makes us better or worse — it’s what we do with our lives that counts.

I look forward to the day when China no longer feels content to look to foreign citizenship, items and ideas for their value, but instead to themselves — to the ingenuity, innovation and leadership that has distinguished China in the past, and bring them to a new and brighter future.

It takes a certain kind of person to live in China now….Someone who can see true meanings, someone who does not only want the world better but believes it can be made better, and gets angry because it is not done, someone who is not willing to hide himself in one of the few good places left in the world–someone who is tough!

While perhaps what Ted Koppel has dubbed the “People’s Republic of Capitalism“, and its fixation on wealth accumulation, may have a hand in it, this explanation seems far too simplistic for such a large country with 1.3 billion and plenty of diversity behind it.

I should know, as my Chinese husband studied moral psychology in graduate school at Shanghai Normal University. According to his studies, values are influenced by our family environment and our upbringing, and the record is not good for Chinese families, even those from well to do families. One of his favorite books, titled 教师与家庭教育 (Teacher and Family Education) listed common errors in parenting among Chinese families. At the top of the list was this one:

重视孩子的身体素质，忽视心理素质

Value children’s physical well-being, ignore their psychological well-being.

I have seen this reality play out time and time again in many Chinese families, including my own inlaws back in China, who seem to believe that it’s simply enough to feed, clothe and house their children. This is how many Chinese families show their love, and fulfill their duty to their household. But it’s often not enough.

My husband used to work with inner-city Chinese immigrant families in Cleveland, Ohio, and he saw the result of this error in action. These parents, usually high-school (or less) educated people from Guangdong, would keep their children well-fed and well-dressed, even buying them the latest shoes that they could barely afford on their meager salaries from restaurant or factory work. But the children were completely unsocialized and lacked any sense of morality. Many of them ended up dropping out of high school and becoming delinquent.  Sure, it didn’t help that the kids were attending inner-city schools, but ultimately, if the parenting is proper, it can help to counteract these effects.

One could argue that this is a trend that came along in the age of the iPhone and BMW in a new, modern China. But the thing is, Pearl S. Buck wrote about this more than 60 years ago in a book titled The Pavillion of Women.

Madame Wu, a beauty even in middle age, is the perfect Chinese matron and head of household. She is conscientious about the Confucian hierarchy of every member of the family, giving appropriate obeisances to her husband’s mother, and making sure that her four sons and their wives are always afforded the housing and resources befitting their positions in life. She, too, understands the importance of fulfilling her duty to her household and her husband — so much so that, at the age of 40, she realizes that one duty (sleeping with her husband when he so demands it) could have such embarrassing circumstances (getting pregnant) that she decides to arrange for the perfect concubine for him, against his will, and even the will of the family.

No one understands, especially not her friend Madame Kang, whom she grew up with, and with whom Madame Wu shares a certain friendship of convenience. Madame Kang, unlike Madame Wu, is not attractive, and, with eleven children and their thirteen grandchildren (the small ones are allowed to urinate and defecate freely about the house, to the displeasure of Madame Wu on her visits), presides over a home without the peace of Madame Wu’s, even despite Madame Wu’s decision. When Madame Kang needs peace because of her visitor, once she bribes the children with an offer to have the maids and nurses buy them unshelled peanuts.

Buying an orphan girl, Chiuming, to lay with her husband truly turns Madame Wu’s house upside down. When the girl arrives, Madame Wu’s third son Fengmo accidentally sees her, and she falls in love with him, prompting a hasty and tumultuous union between him and Madame Kang’s daughter Linyi to help bury the incident. Chiuming feels unhappy in Mr. Wu’s bed, and even Mr. Wu, after she becomes pregnant, turns from her to instead find the easy, breezy pleasure of the flower house girls. Madame Wu must even endure complaints from Rulan (the wife of her second son Tsemo), who continues the harbor the belief that Madame Wu hates her for her modern ideas of educating women and having an equal partnership in marriage, as well as being older than Tsemo and older than the first son’s wife (embarrassing for the hierarchy of things).

It is Brother Andre, the priest who she engages to teach English to young Fengmo, in an effort to make him more marriagable, and later his wife Linyi, that finally sheds light on the error of Madame Wu’s ways — that she never considered the psychological and spiritual well-being of her family. It could easily have been a page from the Teachers and Family Education book of my husband’s. Brother Andre says:

“You have no considered that man is not entirely flesh….You have treated him with contempt.”

“You have considered only the filling of his stomach and the softness of his bed….And even worse than this, you have bought a young woman as you would buy a pound of pork. But a woman, any woman, is more than that, and of all women you should know it.”

Ultimately, there is more to running a family then simply providing for the basic needs, as many Chinese families do — there needs to be something much more. In the end, Madame Wu makes a stunning transformation, and discovers that duty is much more than feeding, clothing, housing and mating her family members.
Her own transformation restores peace and unity in the household, and provides Madame Wu with the greatest freedom of all.

Clearly, the issues of family education are nothing new in China, as Buck’s novel will attest to. But confronting them may be the key to making social transformation in China — and going beyond the “getting rich is glorious” emptiness of modern life in the Middle Kingdom.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it? If only you weren’t sleeping with the enemy.

I should know. As close as China and the US have come in recent years, they aren’t putting their arms around each other like the US and Britain. And yet, even with all of the strides we have made, somehow somebody (such as Tim Geithner) has to pull out the China unfairness card (in this case, on the artificial value of the RMB) and, before you know it, we all feel like enemies again.

I wouldn’t necessarily mind it, save that this silent quarrel wreaks havoc upon our lives in curious ways.

As I think about my future — which currently means a move back to China with the husband after gaining his PhD — there are so many bizarre details that no couple should ever have to face…but we will. Take for example, having kids. If we go back to China and, say, decide to have children, the kids can either be US citizens or Chinese citizens, but not both (and if they are US citizens and then I take them out of the country, they need a visa to come back in). Then there’s the fact that merely being married to a Chinese man does not automatically grant me a green card. Fortunately, there is at least a Chinese green card system, but in China I have to live there continuously for five years before I’m even eligible.

I could only imagine how more horrendous it would be if our two countries were at war.

Except, I don’t have to — Pearl Buck imagined it for me, and for the rest of us, in her book Patriot, which follows the world of I-wan, a smart young man who faces the unthinkable: being married to a woman from Japan, a country invading China.

I-wan is not only married the the enemy – he works for them too.

I-wan’s father sends him to Japan, after being outed as a revolutionary, to work for his longtime friend, Mr. Muraki, an import-export businessman who lives in Nagasaki. His love for Muraki’s daughter (who eventually becomes his wife) blinds him to the reality behind the antique Chinese vases and scrolls and jewelry that pass through his inspections in the warehouse (let’s just say, this merchandise probably wasn’t bought gently, or even at a fair price). But by the time he realizes the betrayal, things are already headed for disaster. His best friend in Japan is sent over to China for battle, and, in a drunken stupor, admits to mindless acts of hatred, such as ravaging teenage Chinese girls to death. Meanwhile, once the war is underway by Japan, Muraki, who I-wan’s father had long praised as an upstanding citizen, is quietly confiscating letters between father and son. As for the media, the headlines in Japan are filled with mindless propaganda, such as how the Chinese welcome the Japanese invasion, leaving out footnotes of horror like the Rape of Nanjing.

As I-wan’s anger grows, it becomes even harder to reconcile reality with his domestic life. He dearly loves his wife, an obedient, thoughtful woman who eschews politics, and instead puts her energy into providing I-wan with the best food, family, and relaxation. Yet, can he see beyond her country to embrace her for the person she is, and not her nationality? Worse, he fears that his sons, growing up in Japan, will never love and experience Chinese culture.

While I-wan considers what to do for his country, his revolutionary communist past could jeopardize all of his efforts, and even put him at risk of being labeled a traitor by Chiang Kai-Shek.

There are ultimately no easy answers for I-wan, though I will say he follows his heart without betraying his family.

There are no easy answers for me and Jun, either. But one thing I know is this — he’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and he’ll never be my enemy.

Perhaps then, days such as these, there is nothing more comforting than literature that not only understands us, but uplifts us with the resilience of humanity in the face of hardship. Or, to put it simply, misery loves company.

If you’re looking for such a literary companion — and specifically a China-related one — you may enjoy Pearl S. Buck’s Dragon Seed. (Note to loyal readers — yes, I’m stuck on Buck as it were, and no, I have no idea when this love affair with her writing will end.)

Dragon Seed takes place on the eve of the Japanese invasion in East China (what seems to be the Shanghai area and surrounding environs), so it has all of the makings of a glorious disaster, far worse than our own. Yet, it is the perspective that gives the story its charm — that of Ling Tan, a farmer so fiercely devoted to the Earth that he even believes his earth stretches all the way to the other side of the planet (beware foreigners on the opposite side), and his family, which consists of his wife, Ling Sao, three sons (Lao Ta, Lao Er, Lao San) and two daughters (X and Panhsiao).  When the first signs of war — bombers flying over Ling Tan’s home — touch the land, no one, not even Ling Tan, believes there is anything of great concern to farmers like him. A country like China, with thousands of restless years of rebellion, infighting, warlords restling for power and the like, has endured regime change so often that people like Ling Tan only care for the safety of his land and family. But this time, it is much more than a new set of rulers sweeping out the old — it is ruthless destruction, completely divorced from all of the mores and values that, in good times, embody humanity. Soon Ling Tan finds his two prized possessions — land and family — in jeopardy, and can no longer hide from the pain of war.  It truly pales in comparison to our economic losses.

If the East-Ocean people (as the Japanese are referred to in the story) aim to dehumanize the area, it is Buck herself who saves humanity by bringing us such vivid, delightful characters who represent Chinese culture, yet have personality of their own. Naturally, being the feminist I am, I adore the strong women. There is the fiercely independent Jade, wife of Lao Er, who persuades him to buy her a book even if he cannot read, and who marches with her husband to the West, heavy with child, to escape the oncoming soldiers. There is also Ling Sao, Ling Tan’s wife, who, while occupying herself with many of the typical duties of a housewife is nevertheless stubborn and independent in her own right (refusing to leave the home, despite Ling Tan’s pleading at one point) and still the loveliest woman in the world to her dear husband. Panhsiao, while an unplanned child for the family, still longs to learn how to read and write even if she is a girl.

Along the way, complicated characters make trouble for Ling Tan in his fervent quest to save his land and family. There is a dodgy opium-addicted cousin, a somewhat traitorous merchant son-in-law, and even the war-torn personalities that emerge from his oldest and youngest son.

The story ends with Ling Tan asking “Is there not promise of rain?” — only to be told “only a promise” by his son. Things are never the same after a crisis, and so it must be for Ling Tan as he rises like a phoenix from the ashes of conflict. But just as we must face economic difficulties before us, no matter what, there is always a promise of something better, if only we have the patience to wait for it.

Happy reading!

Here’s the full story, for posterity:

New writers’ group formed here

POCATELLO — Jocelyn Eikenburg knew little about the culture and only a few words of the language when she moved to a city in Central China in 1999 to teach English.

After five and a-half years of living in the country, she’s now fluent in the language, passionate about the culture and married to a Chinese man. Since the end of 2007, Eikenburg, who now lives here, has been working on her first novel about that initial year in a foreign land.

She has plenty of material for her book, but to get the perspective and camaraderie that only another writer can provide, she’s starting a writers’ group with friends.

The first meeting of the group, called the Minnie Howard Writers, will be from 4-6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10, at Walrus & Carpenter Books, 251 N. Main St. The writers’ group is named in honor of an early Pocatello physician who chaired the committee that established the Pocatello Public Library.

A Web site has already been set up for the group, http://pocatellowriters.wordpress.com. A great-granddaughter of Howard’s posted a comment on the site expressing her gratitude for the name choice. Members will also be encouraged to post their work on the group’s blog.

Eikenburg said people are encouraged to bring champaign and hors d’oeuvres to the inaugural meeting to celebrate. The core members of the new group — Alice DeBerry Kane, Janice Anderson and Donna Jordahl — have met informally at the Main Street Coffee and News, 234 N. Main St., to discuss writing.

“I think Pocatello is really a writers’ town. I’ve found some of the most passionate writers, people who are so dedicated to their craft,” Eikenburg said. “I was living in Cleveland before I came here, and I never found some of that fellowship that I have here.”

Eikenburg hopes members will establish a direction for the group at the first meeting. She and her friends have mulled selecting topics for each meeting, such as how to beat writer’s block or how to get works published. The group will be open to authors of all types of writing, and Eikenburg said the main purpose is to connect writers with one another. Once they become friends, she hopes they’ll critique each other’s work outside meetings.

“We’re looking to create a group that is really nurturing for people,” she said. “Not everyone in the group will want to be a professional or published writer, but I was looking for that kind of support.”

So…here’s a short list of what I’d like to see in the Middle Kingdom in 2009, and after. It is NOT a prediction; I am not honestly sure if or when any of these will happen. This is also in no particular order:

Stop following the US

For years, China has looked up to foreign countries as a model, the way younger children look up to their older siblings. But most of all, they’ve looked up to the US. We’ve been one of their “model siblings” for years. So it isn’t surprising that, after goading and coaxing from above, China has embraced capitalism (with Chinese characteristics, of course) and moved towards privatizing EVERYTHING. Privatization was supposed to mean better transparency and better pricing (because of competition) for all, so big brother US told China.

Well, that was until we all found out this year that big brother US was peddling some rather dangerous stuff, and hanging out with the wrong crowd.

I know some might call me unpatriotic for saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway: Big brother US is no longer a model for China, and quite frankly needs to go into rehab. (I should have seen this coming, even when I was at Global Sources — somewhere in 2005 I started noticing that, for China exporters, they had to meet higher standards for the EU, but not the USA. Hmmmmm….)

If China is looking for a new model, I’d say, why not instead aim to emulate countries that embrace socialism (ie taking care of your own), yet also achieve a good balance of transparency and keep the economy running. I’m not 100 percent sure who would be best, but Canada, the UK, and France all come to mind

Residency Reform

Ask anyone in China, and they’ll tell you that one of the biggest problems in society is residency — or hukou. That ID that decides which city you officially are a resident of, and what benefits you get. Currently, if you live in a big city such as Beijing or Shanghai, you get better benefits. If you live out in the countryside, you get less. So, naturally, everyone in the countryside hopes to go to the city, just to live a better life, and they have to jump through extraordinary hoops just to get there. My friend Peter, for example, spent years studying for the postgraduate exam just to get into university in Beijing, all for the purpose of getting a Beijing hukou, so he could have the right to settle there

Instead of making people twist and turn just to live where they want to live, I’d love to see the hukou system reformed, so that people can decide for themselves.

Share Colleges with more Small Towns

If you’ve ever spent any amount of time in China, you’ve probably noticed that all colleges and universities (we’re talking higher education, here, not vocational/training) tend to be in the larger cities. In fact, arguably the larger cities hoard all of these great institutions. It’s a shame on many levels. Smaller cities miss out on the benefits of having a college or university within the town, which can be a much needed source of talent, culture, and even innovation that spurs economic development.

Cities such as Hangzhou have been moving colleges out to “College Cities” in their suburbs (which are still within the city limits). What I want to know is, why can’t they share their colleges with smaller towns in the region? For example, neither Fuyang nor Tonglu (two towns in Hangzhou’s jurisdiction) have colleges or universities. Wouldn’t it have been nice to move these schools out there instead, and share the benefits that they bring to the areas?

This model is very common in the US and other countries. Jun and I currently live in Pocatello, Idaho, a town that thrives because of the presence of Idaho State University.

I hope that the next time China considers moving around colleges, it will think of cities in the countryside as possible recipients.

Conquer Noise Pollution in the Countryside

This is a personal, but sobering, one — and a side of the environmental debate we don’t hear enough about. My in-laws live out in the countryside, but ironically suffer damaging noise pollution almost 24 hours a day from factories that were haphazardly built near residential homes.

I’d like to see China pay more attention to planning in the countryside, so that these honest, hardworking people do not need to suffer from the side effects of noise pollution. As it is, my mother-in-law has battled high blood pressure that is likely the result of the noise.

Love Little Girls More

This is social wish. We all know how much the 宝孙子 (treasured grandson) is favored above all in China — so much so that residents of the countryside can have a second child if their firstborn is a girl.

Abortion or abandonment are all too common for girl babies. The result is that the sex ratio will be so skewed by 2020 that many young men will be unable, as my Chinese friends say, to solve their “personal problem” (getting married). Think serious social unrest.

Traditions don’t change easy, and it’s not just peasants. I once heard my boss — a modern young woman from Taiwan — say that she wanted to sell desks in one of the rows in our office, just because every girl (or boy) who sat there ended up with a baby boy.

Let’s hope that women will no longer be seen as “water thrown away” from the family, but instead as treasured members of the family who do more than just give birth. If not, soon there won’t even be enough of them for the men who will grow up in a few decades. (Maybe I should consider starting up a business to connect more foreign women with Chinese men?….just kidding!)

Happy New Year, everyone! 新年快乐！