I will begin with the beginning.
I originally created this website to log a rather abrupt, week-long trip to Beijing in December of 2010, but as it turned out the trip fell to pieces because of its abruptness. Easy come, easy go, I suppose. But in the late winter/almost spring of 2011, the Chinese music ensemble that I play in was invited on a subsidized, two-week trip to Shanghai and Beijing to better learn our instruments and, of course, to learn more Chinese. For me, that will need to be a lot; I took one semester of Chinese in the fall of 2010, but did not continue the following semester due to time constraints.
I am, by training and vocation, a teacher of the English language. I teach academic English at INTERLINK Language Center, housed at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. In January I celebrated my third year of teaching there. I love my job. I discovered for myself just how much I love my job when I considered leaving it for something that appeared to be more stable, but in that process, I realized that I never dread Mondays and always look forward to my time in the classroom. I love meeting and spending time with people from other places. Spending time with my students, I like to say, is the next best thing to traveling to their countries. I also love the English language; not because it makes any sense or because it's easy to learn, but because it is rich and convoluted and quirky. It is like some living, breathing beast that we English speakers ride; not really in control, not completely understanding, and never really knowing where it will take us or when it will try to throw us off. I love English because it is a scavenger, like me, who "borrows" words and ideas from anywhere it can find them and makes them its own. I love English for the same reason that I love dogs of no particular breed. I believe that pedigrees and purity are fictions of other people's imaginations. There is nothing pure about English, but it is mongrel qualities that makes it great and will ensure its survival for a long time to come. But I digress.
Before I was a teacher of English, I was (and still am) a musician. I have played flute since I was ten years old and hammered dulcimer since I was eighteen. From my graduation from Earlham College (in Richmond, Indiana) in 1985 until I began graduate school in the fall of 2007 at Valparaiso University, I was making some part of a living from music. I played a lot of weddings and festivals, but mostly I played music for contra dancing. (You can find some excellent examples of Contra Dancing on Youtube.com, but sorry, my star set before it was common for people to post those sorts of videos, so you won't see me there.)
Last August (2010), I enrolled in a Chinese Language class. I chose Chinese because I wanted take a language that was completely than English in order to experience something like what my students experience as they learn English and to reflect on the second language acquisition process as well as learn about a language that is the first language for many of my students. Since about half of the students at Interlink-VU are from China, and VU offers Chinese classes, I chose Chinese. I have also been talking and thinking about trying to teach abroad with my family sometime, and there are a lot of opportunities in China for people like me.
A few weeks into classes, my Chinese professor, Professor Jianyun Meng, asked the class if there were any musicians who would like to learn a Chinese instrument. I have (as I have mentioned) played flute for a long time and love the reedy sound of a Chinese flute (more on this later), so I raised my hand and told my professor that I was interested. However, I was unable to attend the first two practices and and in the meantime I manged to let slip that I also play hammered dulcimer. When I finally arrived to rehearsal, there were three flute players, no more flutes to be issued this semester and... a Chinese hammered dulcimer, called a yangqin (杨琴) all set up and waiting for me. My number was up. Instead of playing an instrument that would have been terribly easy for me to play, not to mention carry, I get to play the heaviest of the heavy instruments in the Chinese milieu.
"What's the big deal?" you may ask. "You said you have been playing the American version of this instrument for decades!"
Imagine, if you will, a piano in which someone has seen fit to rearrange the keys. I know how to hit it, but I don't always know where to hit it. Furthermore, when I play either instrument, I don't actually touch the instrument. I hit it with little sticks. Consequently, I use my eyes to find my way around; even more so on the less-familiar instrument. Learning new written music on an unfamiliar instrument has posed some very interesting challenges not unlike my new language experiences.
After a few weeks we performed on stage at Valparaiso University's Great Lakes Confucius Institute Music Festival along side some world-class musicians from the Shanghai Conservatory. I can claim to have not embarrassed myself, which was a challenge considering the red pajamas I was given to wear for the concert. You can see a video of us if you follow this link. It's easy to spot me; just look for the guy in the bright red suit standing on the right side of the stage. After you are done laughing, click on the civu2010 videos link for some beautiful performances by the professionals.
Several times during Chinese class and during rehearsals, Professor Meng told the class that he was hoping to get an invitation from the Confucius Institute in Beijing for our ensemble to go to China. To be honest, I never really took it seriously because I thought that even if the Ensemble could go, that I would not be able to go, but on the morning of Monday, November 15th, 2010, that all started to change. I checked my e-mail before my first class and found an e-mail from my professor marked "Urgent: Good News!!! Need
your Response ASAP !!!"
Here's what the e-mail said:
Full disclosure: My trip has been deeply underwritten by the Confucius Institute, a Chinese government organization whose mission is to promote Chinese culture through language and the arts. This is a great opportunity for me to visit a place I normally could not afford to visit and we will be staying in places and in contact with people not usually accessible to a mere tourist. While China has not been on my list of “must go” places, I am becoming ever more interested in China and Chinese culture as I learn more about them from my Chinese students and my studies. I want to be clear that I am not going to China blinded by the generosity of the Chinese government. I am aware of and concerned by the many injustices in Chinese society, but I also believe that, like in America, there is a difference between what individuals believe and what governments do in those people’s names. Indeed, if I was a foreign national looking in at our culture I would have some deep concerns about both our foreign and domestic policies, but I think that Richard Nixon got it right when he decided to engage the Chinese people through cultural exchange in hopes of finding common ground. It is one of his best legacies.
I have found, through my interactions with my Chinese students friends, and acquaintances, that the Chinese people and we Americans have many common values and sensibilities. In many, many respects, the Chinese students that know express values that remind me of what I know of post-WWII America. As a whole, they value hard work but like to have fun. They want a better life for themselves than their parents had before them and show a genuine optimism about achieving that for themselves and their children. For most of them, one or more grandparents (or even parents) grew up on a farm, but moved to a city to find work and a better life. (Many of them are slightly embarrassed to mention or admit to their agrarian roots, but like Americans, it is a strong and still relevant part of our culture.) They acknowledge their traditions while embracing the new. The vast majority of my students have no intensions of staying in America. Their goals are usually to get a good education here, acquire some marketable skills and then return home to find a good job. I find that they exhibit values that remind Americans of values that are beginning to slip away from us here. Many Americans today have a sense of entitlement and a lack of drive that flies in the face of how our parents and forbears build this country. Ultimately, I think that having them visit America is good for Americans and, of course, it is my hope that as the Chinese come to understand Americans better, they can see the value of the freedoms that our Constitution has provided for so many years now. We could win that ideological battle sooner if we lived out our democratic/ Constitutional ideals better, but that will have to wait for another time and I have said much of this now because it is unlikely that I will be writing these things while I am in China. That is to say, I intend to enter into this experience as a cultural immersion experience and not a political/human rights debate. There will be plenty of time for that later. I am a student, a teacher, a musician, and an adventurer. For this trip, I will leave the politics and policy decisions to the professionals.
