Introverted Tigger Eisleys

I live in Chengdu: Tigger hunt. That's right.

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I've had my PC for almost 6 years. I'm really quite proud of that. How much money have I not spent? A lot.

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I've recently been thinking about why exactly I generally feel rather disappointed with my time at ASU, and more specifically with my Chinese class during my last semester. On the whole, it was alright; I don't hate... but I think the root of my disappointment stems from the gap between the China that I know and the China that I was learning about in Arizona. I believe a number of factors were involved, including but not limited to: the uniqueness of Chengdu compared to the rest of China, the shortcomings of the Chinese program at ASU (there, I said it), and, of course, my own knowledge of the fact that I was disappointed and general disillusionment with China and the Mandarin language.

There's no blame. Chengdu's just weird. And I'm weird. And the ASU Chinese program must not be.

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Standing up to family and friends is a challenge for many Americans. Based on my experience, however, the situation is exponentially more challenging and complicated for Chinese people. Chinese society traditionally idolizes family above all. There are webs and structures in seemingly every aspect of life which are meant to ensure the adherence of all to certain thought processes, methods, goals, etc. You're probably thinking, "Well... yeah. It's China, Chris." The thing is, we normally picture government forces enforcing this sort of system. In reality, I find that it's friends and family- the ones closest to a Chinese person- who tend to keep the individual "on track". Loved ones have essentially become the instrument by which the individual's choices are kept in line.

This is, of course, just what I see. Furthermore, change may be on the way.

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I could upload all of these things to the blog, but I'd rather just give you links:

To begin,

...Something else...

And now, this.

Well, that was fun, right? A little bit of something for everyone. Maybe.

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I like the music I listened to in high school.

I sometimes miss practical jokes. (Not common in China.)

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Teaching story alert:

I now have a student named Leo Liu. Chinese speakers will know that's the stupidest English name ever to give someone with the family name of Liu. Why? Because "Liu" is essentially just pronounced "Leo" but with the emphasis on the second vowel. In fact, it's just "Leo", but spoken in one syllable instead of two. So, maybe it's not the stupidest name. Honestly, I quite like it. What doesn't seem too wise is the fact that class now has two girls named "Lily" (Lily Love and Lily Rong) and two boys named "Leo" (Leo and Leo Liu). Yeah.