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Just got off my 16 hour flight from Shanghai and am now safely back in New Jerset, USA.
Today, a friend of mine and I went to the 50th Anniversary Show for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, an award for exceptional story writing and artwork in children's literature. Once every two years the International Board on Books for Young People will award one artist and one writer a Hans Christian Andersen Award for their work. At the last awarding of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2016, Chinese children's author Cao Wenxuan (曹文轩) won in the literature category, making him China's first Hans Christian Andersen Award winner in ether category. Consequently there was a showing of the art award winners in Shanghai. Many of the artists who work on pictures for children's literature are actually very talented artists in their own right. It was actually really interesting to see some of the original drawings for this stuff. They had quite a number of the lithographs from the 1970 illustration winner Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are along with lithographs for some of Maurice Sendak's other works. I remember reading Where the Wild Things Are when I was little so it was actually really neat to be able to see some of it in person, My friend particularly liked the images from the 2000 illustration winner Willy the Wimp by British author and illustrator Anthony Browne, because my friend grew up with the Chinese versions of his works. It was a small exhibit that was a bit pricey, but I guess it was worth the money just to see the Maurice Sendak stuff.
Last Saturday, some friends of mine and I decided to check out Mr. Pancake in the French Concession. As the name would imply, Mr. Pancake serves Western style breakfast items; no 包子 or 炒面, only a rather large menu of Western style diner foods. The actual pancakes were OK, not great, but my omelet and my potatoes were good. What was strange though is that Mr. Pancake gives you a fork and knife, the first fork and knife I used since I got to China. Most of the Western food I eat in China is stuff liker burgers or pizza that can be eaten with your hands. The Thai use forks but they do a fork and spoon combo, not a fork and knife combo. Since we went for a kind of late brunch, I also got a decent Bloody Mary and a good coffee. Overall, a good breakfast for someone who haven't eaten a Western breakfast in some time, though not as good as a proper Jersey diner.
Note: This is just my observations of English in China, I didn't do any research into the subject nor did I run a scientific test on English in China. A few days ago I ordered a dish at the ECNU canteen called "Beef and Mushroom Rice" and this is what I got. As I read over the Chinese on my receipt I discovered that this dish should have been more properly called "Beef and Mushroom Soup." I am not sure why the translator made the decision to call this "Beef and Mushroom Rice" but it did get me thinking about Sino-English and English in China. There is a surprisingly high level of English proficiency in China. Even if people can't read, write, or speak in English they have a command of the English alphabet since English letters are use for labels. For instance a Shanghai licence plate might be something like "沪AB12345." Furthermore, many young Chinese are taught the characters using Pinyin, which is a system to romanticize Chinese which uses Latin letters. I have noticed that most people's readings stills are above their speaking skills since China's national college entrance exam, the Gaikai, only tests English reading and writing. Chinese high schools will usually focus on only English reading and writing before the test. For the Chinese who can speak English, I have noticed three accents which I will call Sino-British, Sino-American, and Chinese-English (I am not sure if there is an official name for any of these so I just made one up). Most people who speak with a Sino-British or Sino-American accent have studied in ether the UK or the US (sometimes Canada or Ireland but mostly the UK and US) and have kind of picked up the accent of the place where they studied. I have noticed that most of the people who speak with a foreign twinge to their accent are younger and wealthier, since they could afford to and were permitted to study English abroad. In a kind of random note, some Chinese have full received pronunciation British accents like they just stepped out of a P.G Wodehouse novel or a BBC Masterpiece Theater production. When my class asked a visiting professor with who spoke with this accent where he picked it up he said he taught it to himself because he didn't like his Chinese accent and now kind of regrets it. Finally, those who don't study abroad speak with a standard Chinese-English accent. Speaking with a Chinese-English accent doesn't indicate English proficiency though, while people who speak with Sino-British or Sino-American accents have very good English, people who speak with Chinese-English accents English proficiency varies form "I know how to say Hello, how are you" to "I can discuss complicated teaching methods with you in English." On a final note, I noticed that people in a Starbucks anywhere in the country have a descent grasp on English. I don't think this is because Starbucks coffee improves your English skills. I believe that the type of people who can buy 30RMB coffee are also the type of people are more likely to speak English. Starbucks, trying to look cool, hires English speaking Chinese to cater to the English speaking Chinese. Even in Changsha I found several English speakers in the local Starbuckses (Starbucki?) Last Friday my Chinese film class watched Beijing Bicycle (十七岁的单车), a film in part about the struggles of a bike courier trying to make a living in Beijing. While the movie isn't really about planning the optimal path for making deliveries it does highlight the ubiquitous nature of couriers in China. In the US, if I want to send a letter I will probably send it through the US Postal Service. The Postal Service actually has a monopoly on most first class mail (letters and the like), unless you need to get a letter somewhere extremely quickly or with extra preconditions you will probably just use USPS. I am not sure if China Post has a similar legal monopoly to USPS, but what I do know is courier services are far more common in China than in the US. While most courier companies ship large packages and envelopes like FedEx and UPS do, they also ship letters for very affordably prices. Chinese couriers will even ship small letters in relatively small cities. My friend's husband works for a courier company in a small Hunanese town. American cities and towns of equivalent size probably don't have companies willing to sent your letter form one side to another within the day. Last semester in my Chinese Economic Impact class, we discussed how easy it is for online marketplace companies, like Alibaba or Amazon, to ship stuff since they can just assume that every city has in place already a large courier system. Since dealing with couriers is something you probably have done if you spent a good deal of time in China my Chinese class had a whole unit on mail.
I am a man who likes a good stew, a dish that is somewhat hard to get in China. Forentually last weekend, a friend of mine felt like bangers and mash so we went off to find Irish/British food. We found an Irish-American style pub and dug in. According to my Irish friend, real Irish pubs don't feel the need to hang Irish flags, buy signs that say something like "☘ It's Guinness Time ☘", and serve Irish Car Bombs. Still, my Steak and Guinness Stew was nice and my Flying Fish IPA (Chinese flying fish not American flying fish) was cold so all was well
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
November 2021
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