Happy Holidays

I will be visiting my family in New York from December 22 till January 5. See you in 2005!

Love and Peace,
Airchild

Letter from a Young Chinese Friend (4)

This is the fourth in a series of correspondence between me and my Chinese friend flypig, a university student at Nankai University, Tianjing. On the left is a postcard that flypig printed at his local post office. It says "Welcome to Flypig's Blog," written in eight different languages. I'm very thankful that he sent one to me.

In the previous post, flypig talked about studying abroad. I became curious about how many Chinese students actually do that because I have seen so many of them in the United States as well as in Europe.

Flypig wrote: "It is rather hard to pinpoint the proportion of university students who actually study abroad. For those who want to study pure science subjects, such as theoretical physics, chemistry and pure maths, they have a pretty good chance of getting into an overseas university because those subjects are not so popular among the locals there. So I would say at least one out of ten has a chance to study abroad. Of course, they all go for ph.D. programs. The most popular country is the U.S. After all, most who decide to study abroad aim at improving their material lives. Besides, the academic standard in the U.S. is higher, and the amount of scholarship is also relatively larger. Tuitions in the U.K., for example, cost 30,000 yuan--something that most Chinese families cannot afford.

My major is finance. My chances of studying abroad are much lower since finance is a popular and high-status subject among local students. To be able to get into a finance program requires an extremely high GPA score. Thus it is almost impossible to get a student visa. So my preparations for the GRE exam is actually mainly for improving my English, so that I will be more equipped when applying for foreign-invested companies in China.

As for my own preference for profession, it would be mass media, such as journalism. Perhaps it would be less boring as finance, ha! Once, an American professor suggested me to study film. I guess it would be a lot of fun! But both subjects are not too practical in my situation. Among the people I know, only those from extremely rich families can afford to study these subjects overseas, because it is very hard to get scholarships in these fields.

Even though I am attempting to study abroad, my success rate is not too high. I have even considered studying German, because I heard that it is easy to get a student visa, and the tuition is free. However, the rumor goes that studying German is a pain in the neck, so I have studied English instead. And that has been ten years already."

Archive of correspondence: 1, 2 , 3

Letter from a Young Chinese Friend (3)

This is the third in a series of correspondence between me and my new Chinese friend flypig, a university student at Nankai University, Tianjing.

Here is my reply to flypig's previous letter:

"I enjoyed reading your letter yesterday. I was surprised to find that your parents have their own ICQ# and MSN#!!! My parents can hardly use the computer. But of course my parents are of an older generation than your. They are in their 60s and 70s.

I feel relieved that exchanges of email are not controlled by the 'watchful eye.' Now I don't have to feel so paranoid! Mainly I don't want you to be in any kind of risk since you live in mainland China.

Also, I want to tell you that I'm very impressed of the video Omnipresent. I downloaded and watched it today. The production is well done and the editing is smooth. I keep on feeling surprised by what young Chinese people can do nowadays. You are a very creative person, and so are your classmates, I imagine.

The people of my generation were not brought up to be creative--well, at least not in Hong Kong. Everyone was told to study subjects that would help them make a lot of money. And studying was what everybody concentrated on, nothing else. There was very little interest for other creative things in life. But I refused to follow this path, and so I'm doing things that are completely different from what my friends are doing."

Here is flypig's reply:

"Actually, most college students of my generation have the goal of 'study hard and earn lots of money.' Compared with their counterparts overseas, Chinese students still have a lot to catch up with their creativity and ability to challenge existing ideas.

One reason why I could complete shooting the short film Omnipresent is that filming is a passionate interest of mine and the couple of friends who collaborated with me in the production. Another reason is that we got a lot of support from our teachers, who took the unprecedented step of lending us advanced equipment.

But activities like this still concern the minority of students. Most are busy preparing for graduate studies or GRE and TOEFL exams for studying overseas, living very boring and monotonous lives. But faced with the tough employment situation in China, most people have chosen this path.

Perhaps I have not persuaded myself after all, that I can rely on creative work to have a good life--meaning, owning one's own home and car, which is the most common plan of China's university students nowadays. That's why I have also jumped on the bandwagon of preparing for the GRE exam, regurgitating endless English words and killing my brain cells... sigh!

So I am very envious that you have a different kind of profession, and enjoy what you are doing at the same time. I often daydream about going into a profession that I love, but daydream is daydream after all.

I might seem to sound a bit sentimental, as a third-year university student, I inevitably worry about the future. It is also what my classmates are going through at the moment."

To view flypig's short film, click on the image above. Omnipresent has recently received the grand prize of Intel (China)'s DIGGI Award. Congratulations to flypig and his team!

Archive of correspondence: 1, 2

Light amid Darkness

Yesterday was Saint Lucia Day, an Italian tradition borrowed by the Swedes, who celebrate it in an even more elaborate manner than the Italians themselves. The story behind this tradition has to do with a girl who lived in Sicily during the 3rd century A.D. Her name was Lucia. She became a martyr because of her Christian faith. She was engaged to a man who was not a Christian and he became angry with her as she gave money to poor families. When she refused to marry this man, Lucia was sentenced to die by fire, but the fire did not harm her. So they took her life by sword instead. Later on Lucia was deemed a saint by the Catholic church.

In Sweden, Saint Lucia has turned into a celebration that suits the Swedish conditions--a celebration of light on one of the darkest day of the year. The ritual calls for a girl dressed in white dress and waring a crown of candles on her head to leads a procession of girls and one "Star Boy". Together, they sing the Lucia song and several other Christmas songs, and then serve coffee and Lucia buns. This can take place in a church, at home or in workplaces. You can read more about this Swedish tradition here.

This year I went to see a Lucia concert in a church for the first time. The Lucia girl was the daughter of my good friend. It was a charming and wonderful experience.

There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
~Edith Wharton

Letter from a Young Chinese Friend (2)

This is the second in a series of correspondence between me and my new Chinese friend flypig, a university student at Nankai University, Tianjing.

Curious about the screen name "flypig," I asked my friend what it means. He said it comes from the English expression of "when pigs can fly," meaning something that is impossible. Turning the meaning around, he wants to express his belief that "nothing is impossible."

After reading his previous letter, I wrote to him:

"Thank you so much for your long letter. I appreciate reading about the 'thinking patterns' and trends of the young generation in China very much. Indeed, the economic development has been much written about in Western media, but not so much about the thoughts, ideas and feelings of the young people. I wonder also about the gap between your generation and your parents' generation. Is there is big communication gap, since the two generations experience such different social environments?

I also wonder about censorship. I am aware of the big firewall the Chinese government has set up. What I am wondering about is whether exchanges of email like ours are monitored by the State as well? I am a bit leary about discussing certain things openly, if you know what I mean."

Here is flypig's reply:

"Currently, those in power in China has a motto: to catch up with the latest trend. I think this is quite meaningful. My parents read my blog every day. Their 'Internet age' is roughly the same as mine. They have their own ICQ and MSN accounts. So we don't really have problems understanding each other. I believe they accept my way of thinking. For one, this is because they have a high level of tolerance. For another, I am not a very rebellious boy--rather traditional I might say!

However, my parents sometimes do have ideological clashes with me, especially when it comes to the freedom of expression. They would tell me the inevitably tragic fate of those who tried to express their opinions during the Cultural Revolution and June 4th Student Movement of 1989. But my generation is more inclined toward a democratic environment where expressing one's ideas and opinions is tolerated."

As far as censorship is concerned, flypig told me that the Chinese government usually employs a url-based screening, which means that certain Web sites that are known to have "questionable content," such as Hong Kong newspaper Web sites, are blocked. "If the government decided to filter the hundreds of thousands of emails traveling in and out of China, then the amount of manpower and money required would be astronomical," he says. That means our correspondence is "firewall-free"--thank goodness!

Letter from a Young Chinese Friend (1)

A while ago I came across some beautiful pictures of China on flickr.com. The photographer's nickname is flypig. I followed the link to his Weblog, and found a new world opening up in front of me. It is the world of a 20-year-old university student in modern-day China. Equipped with all kinds of modern digital divices and Internet connection, flypig is gifted with advanced knowledge of the computer and of Web programming, on top of digital photography and design skills. He writes in Chinese but he also has an English-language Weblog called China Tunes. His understanding and ability to write English is excellent.

I have not visited mainland China since 1996 or 97 when I paid my last business trip there, so my understanding of the current social developments of my home country is rather limited. Being very curious, I asked flypig a couple of questions about life in China. I will post his answers in a series here to give you a glimpse of how a modern young Chinese thinks about his own society and the world around him.

Here is flypig's first answer to my general inquiry of recent developments in China (translated from Chinese by me):

"There have been enormous changes in mainland China in recent years--not only has the economy been growing rapidly, people's thinking pattern has also been evolving in tremendous speed. As the country opens up more and more, communication methods have developed very quickly, and this in turn ushers in a new, heterogeneous culture. Through the Internet, young people's way of thinking and ability to pick up new trends can be comparable to that of their counterparts overseas. In some cases, the special wisdom possessed by Asians has allowed us to excel in certain innovation areas.

However, there is a great man-made obstacle to stop the flow of information into China. An example is the "Great Firewall," set up to block Web sites deemed to hold different opinions from the Chinese government. On one hand, the concept of democracy and the rule of law is something that is lacking in mainland China. On the other hand, Premier Wen Jiabao has said, "steadily we construct, whole-heartedly we aim at development." Indeed, "stability above all else," a good social and economical environment is very important for today's China. Without a good economic foundation, polical diversity does not have enough persuasive power.

From the perspective of Chinese university students, we are enjoying a level of economic abundance and excellent study conditions that have never been witnessed in previous generations. But because of the fundamental changes in global politics and economy, we are faced with the challenge of diciphering all kinds of different opinions and standpoints.

With all kinds of ideas and concepts meeting in our minds, we are uncertain of what to adopt and what to discard. This is the summary of a typical Chinese university student's thinking pattern today.

Well, I have randomly chosen this subject; I don't know if it is too boring to you. But I feel that the world has a certain understanding of our modernization process, but not much of what is going on in our heads."