Don't Ask "Why?"

Something I have noticed recently, and especially in Beijing and on my flight home, is that when announcements are made in Chinese, no good information is given. For the most part, Chinese people just do what they're told and don't ask why. It's so different in the U.S.

When my flight out of Beijing was delayed, the English-speaking announcer would say, "We have to remove some cargo from the aircraft because we are too heavy. First the crew will have to come from the other terminal, so the wait could be up to an hour." Another time he said, "We are being delayed because there are about 10 aircraft in front of us. Each one is taking about 2 minutes to take-off, so please be patient and expect another 20 to 25 minute delay." But, the Chinese announcer would just say something like, "In order to meet the airport's standards for take-off, we are being delayed an hour," and, "Thank you for being patient, we will take off in half an hour." Absolutely no explanation was given in Chinese. It's possible that the Chinese announcer didn't understand the English explanation, but I see this lack of explanation other places, too.

A final example that sticks out to me is a sign I saw in a restaurant in Beijing. The English said "Employees Only" but the Chinese said "Do Not Enter." Yes, we foreigners like our explanations and reasons, thank you very much.

The International Festival

The International Festival was actually great. My part was not, but the other students really went over-the-top.

My display board was pretty sharp. I had some graphs comparing the U.S. and China’s economy, geography, people, and military, as well as map of the U.S. with China placed on top (I got these materials from www.mint.com). I also had some pictures of famous places in America, President Obama, and U.S. symbols.


Me with my display board... lame.

I had made a pretty good PowerPoint presentation, too. I skipped a whole day of classes to work on it, in fact. I even rehearsed giving my presentation in Chinese. But, welcome to China, they told us at the last minute that we didn’t need the presentations because it would be too bright outside for people to see and there would be no screen, anyway. Thank you, Lanzhou University.


Korean students perform Tae Kwon Do

The main participants in the festival were Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, and all of the Arabic-speaking students worked together for a good performance. Because these groups each had 20-50 students, I felt really left out standing beside a poster board by myself talking to Chinese students about politics and economy. I ditched my display and instead learned about the cultural differences between the Central Asian countries.


A young man and lady from Kyrgyzstan dance together


Girls from Uzbekistan wear traditional dresses and dance

During the festival, sometimes I felt extremely happy and sometimes kind of sad. I felt happy when I watched my good friends sing and dance, wearing traditional clothes. They are so proud of their countries and cultures. On the other hand, I felt really awkward because America is so lame and we don’t know it. I felt a really intense longing to be part of a distinct culture and to have such a strong national pride. These Central Asian countries only recently became independent from Russia (most around 1991) and they really have a lot to celebrate. Many of my friends remember when their countries were part of Russia and how hard life was for their families.


Me being interviewed by the Tashkent news station