Inaugural Post, 8/31/2009 – 学期开始 - 开学 (The Semester Begins – Classes Begin)

I have now been in China for about 6 days and all I can say is that it’s been one experience after another. I always knew that it would be something completely foreign from the way I’ve lived in the United States, but it is almost impossible to understand the degree of otherness which has characterized my time in China so far. The (shameless) stares, the (loud) sounds, the (bad) smells, the (disgusting) hocking of spit into the street, it’s as though they have taken every bad habit that could manifest itself in a person and multiplied it by 1.4 billion. Then they took 5 million of those people and put them into a city where you have to wear a light jacket during the day in late August, let alone what you have to wear in the dead of winter. But despite all these things, you can find something to enjoy in Harbin, such as eating for less than a dollar; being able to enjoy a big bottle of hapi (Harbin Beer) with a big plate of dumplings and baozi or ma la mian; or also explaining to the Chinese that even though she is White and I’m Black we are both still American and yes, my entire family is American.


I’m looking forward to the start of classes today. These past six days have made me feel a little bit useless, as we’ve been moving from city to city and from hotel to hotel, eating out in big groups and walking aimlessly around the city to pass the time. However, given the fact that I can’t speak any English, I’m a little nervous. Even just starting the pledge last night I felt myself fading fast from all of the entra energy I had to expend just to get myself to have a five-year old level conversation with my classmates. It is frustrating when you can’t figure out how to express yourself or understand what your teacher or your roommate or the people on the street are trying to say to you, and when you don’t have English as a safety net you lose any remaining sense of comfort that you somehow would have retained despite being on the opposite side of the world from everything that you’ve known. But I took a pledge and I’m stuck with it until December 12 when I complete all of my exams. I figured that if I work hard for the next two weeks my Chinese will improve to the extent that I won’t get so tired just from trying to have a semidecent conversation with my roommate or my classmates. As for the professor that I have to do research with, I just hope that I can somehow understand him and slap something together to present to the teachers by the end of the semester.

3 days and counting...

I really can't believe that I'm going to be in China in 3 days. It is utterly nerve wracking and overwhelming and, frankly, I don't like thinking about it. I'm not nervous about the normal aspects of traveling to another country, particularly one as foreign as the Middle Kingdom, like exchanging money or worrying about food and the possibility of contracting crazy diseases that could only originate in China. I'm very nervous about my placement test. I'm nervous about the Chinese people adjusting to me, rather than me adjusting to the Chinese people and their culture. I'm nervous about just being able to communicate in general when I get there (we can only speak in Chinese because of the language pledge we take a couple of days after arriving in Harbin). It's a little disheartening. I'm going to be there with 24 other CET Harbin students, 4 of which are Georgetown students, 2 of which I am good friends with, not to mention the 1.3 billion plus people that live in China. Yet I feel like being there, surrounded by all of these people, could still be very lonely. But regardless of my trepidations, unfounded or not, I will still be taking off from Newark at about 8:40 on Tuesday morning, heading for what will be one of the most momentous experiences of my life.

Crass Injustice and Inhumanity Continues in China

Anyone who takes a brief glance at the paper has probably seen the coverage of the Chinese Government crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang province, bringing the already tense relations between the Uighur ethnic minorities in China and the Han majority to a fever pitch. In the wake of all of this unrest, twitter and blogger have been banned, joining youtube on the Great Firewall of China's black list. I leave for Harbin, China in 21 days and a handful of hours meaning these posts will be my final opportunities to easily access blogger and write a post that is somewhat subversive in the paranoiac eyes of Beijing and it's keepers in the government.

Human rights have never been the strong suit of the PRC but these recent events in Xinjiang surely bring tears to the eyes of even the most hardened Republicans who would rather toss human rights issues to the side in order to continue to pursue persistent economic dialogue with the CCP. What some fail to recognize is that the human rights violations in these parts seem to go hand in hand with Han racism toward its ethnic minorities, particularly Uighur Muslims, which the Han Chinese often believe are synonymous with Anti-China separatists. But what we have seen in Xinjiang are really just race riots that the Chinese government has manipulated to project to the international community that the government is cracking down on Uighur separatists and their subversive protests. Race riots between the majority and disenfranchised minority or mass arrests and persecutions of the disenfranchised minority. Neither reflect well on the PRC but as they have seen, there are many in the US who are able to look the other way in order to maintain a working relationship between the two countries that promotes any kind of economic partnership.

So, perhaps rather than insisting on a dialogue in terms of human rights with China, the US needs to look at its own legacy of racism and apply that in how it helps the PRC to come to terms with its ethnic makeup and allow for a rapproachment between its 54 minority nationalities and the Han majority nationality.

Here is a piece in the New York Times about how the PRC can learn from the US and its history of race riots.

A Full Night's Sleep May Not Be the Right Kind

I am not a sound sleeper. I am prone to waking up one to three times a night. A couple of nights ago I woke around 1:30 and found a friend was still on gchat. This friend went on to tell me that I was probably suffering from a sleep disorder and I should see a sleep specialist. I was hesitant, not only because these kinds of sleeping habits are common on my father's side, but also because I've spent a ton on co-pays and vaccinations and prescriptions already.

While browsing through my google reader, catching up on news headlines from the morning, when I came across this little tidbit on sleeping habits of the modern day versus sleeping habits of the past. In an article on NPR, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr explains that there are historical records of people sleeping in two shifts. "They called the first bout dead sleep, and the second bout was called morning sleep. The wakeful period in between was referred to as watch or watching." I think it legitimates my sleeping habits. Maybe my body wants to reconcile the two sleeps of my ancestor with the streamlined efficient sleep model of modern day. Or maybe I am just a weird sleeper.

Words from the Woman Who Lives Down the Street

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I was slight unnerved by the long silence from the woman who made the call into 911 after seeing Henry Louis Gates Jr. and his cab driver struggling with Gates' front door. However, she has finally voiced her reaction to the situation and thoughts on what has turned into a virulent debate on racial profiling in what many wish to be a post-racial America. Unfortunately this whole situation may reveal that the only people living in a post-racial America reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Racial Profiling in a Post Racial America

Last week Henry Louis Gates Jr., a distinguished African American scholar who heads the W.E.B Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, returned from a trip in China working on his documentary. When he got home his door had jammed and he asked his cab driver, an African American, to help him with the door. A white woman who lived down the street saw two men struggling with the door and, thinking that they were trying to break in, called the police. When Sgt. James Crowley had arrived Gates was already in his home. Sgt. Crowley requested that Gates show identification and Gates grudingly obliged, after an initial exchange of heated words. However Gates was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Since Obama commented on the situation, calling the arrest "stupid" (he has since apoligized for maligning the Cambridge police and said that he should have waited to hear all the facts before commenting; he also extended an invitation to both parties to come to the White House and resolve the situation over a beer), this situation has exploded into a debate on racial profiling in America and whether it's possible that America has not become the Post-racial America that Obama dreams about. I believe that the situation was escalated due to a misunderstanding between the two parties, created by generations of hatred between the Black community and law enforcement. Moreoever, I've been a little disturbed by the fact that no one has commented on the fact that this White woman who saw the two Black men struggling with the door assumed that it was a break in. Perhaps that is a different debate, as to the movement of Blacks into White communities and how they deal with that demographical phenomenon.

When Gates saw the police officer approach him the first thing that went through his mind wasn't "Shit, I'm a Black man and that police officer is going to tear my Black ass up and get away with it." He was thinking, "I'm an educated intellectual and a major faculty member at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. This man can't say shit to me. And if he does, Imma call him a racist." There is a sense of entitlement that I believe he feels in that he doesn't have to deal with law enforcement in the way that every day citizens have to. He believes that because he has accomplished so much, that should be his bail. And his sense of entitlement may be even more so by virtue of the fact that he is an African American who has climbed to such a high status in academia. I feel that this experience humbled him and his ego, because while it is impossible to ignore the racial undertones of the situation, much of it was precipitated by a clash of ego and authority.

Here is a great opinion piece in the Kansas City Star that does a better job at iterating the idea of classism as the main cause of the conflict between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley.

Summary of my views on the situation (typed to mike over skype)

[2:44:14 PM] Cortne Edmonds: because I think the issue of racism is moreso concetrated in the part of the story in which the white woman down the street saw two black men on the doorstoop and assumed it was a breakin

[2:45:08 PM] Cortne Edmonds: I think he was offended in that he felt he was entitled to better treatment as a scholar, and he was able to just apply a thin veneer of racism to hide that sense of entitlement

A Recent Lapse In Blogging

I know it's been a while since I've posted and I'm sure it pains my faithful readers so. Last monday I started a full time job in NY and have dived head first into my preparations for leaving for China in August. I can't promise that I'll be blogging more from now on but I can promise that when I leave for China it will get better. And, frankly speaking, blogging may be the only way that I can keep my English up to par.

So keep checking. I promise I will post soon!

Sarah Palin, Future Former Governor

This afternoon Sarah Palin announced that she would be resigning from her position as the Governor of the State of Alaska on July 26, 2009. One of her excuses choosing to resign was the fact that she did not wish to assume "conventional lame duck status" now that her term was coming to an end (it ends in 2010), as this was one of the many things that constitutes "politics as usual," something that apparently the McCain-Palin campaign fought against last year. I'm assuming she ignored the fact that by excusing herself from completing the job that the Alaskan people elected her to do undermines the decision of the people and the capacity that they have to ensure that their chosen leaders lead. And also she would just be replaced with a "lame duck" lieutenant governor who would have to finish the rest of her term.

It could just be that she is wary of the nosedive that her popularity figures in Alaska have taken since the particularly partisan presidential elections last year. Last July, before the nomination, she has an approval rating of 80%. The latest poll numbers have her at 59.8%. And many speculate that she'll use her new-found free time to begin formulating a possible run for the presidency in 2012. My guess is this isn't the last we've heard of Sarah Palin.

BTW: Did anyone read the profile they did of her in Runners' World? You know, the one where she talks about being able to run circles around Obama?

Moral Conflicts in the Party of Family and Moral Values

I know I've taken a recent hiatus from blogging, mostly due to getting complacent after losing internet in my house for over a week. But I feel like recent events deserve some more attention. Not to mention, is there a better way to spend the last couple of minutes of my internship writing a post that no one will read?

In less than two weeks, John Ensign, a G.O.P. senator, and Mark Sanford, a G.O.P republican, have admitted to committing adultery. Has Social Conservatism hit rock bottom, and if so, what does that mean for a political party that has largely tied its successes to that very idea? Infidelity transcends the divides of political parties but Republicans should expect more criticism because they portray themselves as the party protecting family values and marriage.

Lucky for Mr. Sanford, the death of Michael Jackson has taken up all the space of every major network and with the recess of Congress for July 4th next weekend, will the recent affairs lose the limelight that they should be getting?

The Asian Fro?

I was looking up some hair conditioners this morning as I woke up at 6 in the morning and I had nothing better to do. While reading some posts in a forum I came across this little gold mine. Apparently the "Afro Perm" (please click on this link as it brings you to a salon that performs this treatment and shows a lot a lot of pictures of Asians with goofy-ass afros, the other hair styles are good too) is a popular hair style among Asian people in which Asian men and women chemically process their hair so that they can have a hair texture similar to those with curly, kinky, nappy hair, generally those of African descent.

This blog post I found shows a bunch of pictures of men and women with their new hair and there are a lot of comments, particularly on the huge presence of Chinese and Taiwanese people in the Caribbean (something I discovered when my dad came back with Chinese take out on a trip to Jamaica). Here is a post on a forum where African Americans discuss this phenomenon.

I won't lie. I got excited when I read this thinking, "I won't be the only one in China with a fro." But apparently while the "Afro Perm" is hugely popular in Japan and Korea, this is one disease that has not spread to China. So I guess I'll just have a lot of Chinese people putting their hands into my hair asking me "how do you get your hair like this?" while all the Japanese and Korean exchange students saying "well I can make my hair do that too..." What is this world coming to?