I’m Staring at You Too, Nanchang

The capital of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang is famous for three things (I say this because in Beijing when I made mention of my imminent move, people remarked only of these wonders and absolutely nothing else). Number 1 is spicy food. 你能吃辣的嘛? 南昌的菜以辣为主! It appears that this is something I’ll just have to get used to. Number 2 is Nanchang’s standing as one of the four ‘hot stoves’ of China. 南昌是中国四大火炉的城市之一, 知道吗? This means that in the summer, it becomes especially hot; apparently breaking 40˚ Celsius is common fair. Number 3 is revolutionary history. In the center of town is a square dedicated to the Communist Uprising of August 1st, 1927. It’s big enough to fit 5 (yep, 5!) KFCs around its perimeter without seeming overly crowded.

Over the course of the past few days, however, I’ve discovered that Nanchang has more to offer than most of Beijing would be willing to admit, even if they knew about it. The first thing I noticed, which is impossible to miss as a person of my complexion, is the curiosity and enthusiasm (at times, some might even call it a furor) with which I’m approached by locals. Monday evening, as a matter of fact, a mother came to the table where I was sitting and placed a bowl of rice alongside a bowl of fish and vegetables next to the seat across from me. She then forced her young son to “not waste this opportunity to speak with a real American.” As this kid sat at arm’s length, he shyly mumbled the few English words he knew: “Hello, I’m Zheng Wei. I’m fine, how are you?” When I responded with the same question, his cheeks turned an even darker shade of red than they already were. The rest of our dialogue was in Chinese. As I paid the bill and left, the mother was excessively thankful. When I stepped outside, I caught the gaze of a passing construction worker. And just as he passed, he shouted as if an airplane was right overhead and he otherwise couldn’t be heard: “HEY-LOW!” It’s with this kind of passion - both of mother and son in the restaurant and construction worker out - that people pursue their dreams, societies hunt progress, and countries prosper. It’s something I wish I had more of.

As of recently, I’ve also had a wonderful opportunity to put into practice all that I learned while at Tsinghua’s Inter-University Program* (read the end of the post for more). Four months of intensive language study at IUP is apparently enough to provide one with language skills sufficient to floor almost everyone he speaks with in Nanchang. I’m sure the same goes for basically every city more than 100 miles from mainland coastline. It goes without saying that my Chinese is light years from fluency, but I’ve been told several times already that in terms of pronunciation and tone, my Mandarin is more standard than many of the locals’. This means one of two things is true: Either my Mandarin really is more standard that many of the locals’, or people in Nanchang are especially modest. While I’ll need more time to investigate to what degree each allegation holds water, readers of this blog who have yet to visit China must know of the diffidence and humility expressed by its people. It truly is something to write home about and it’s something I am sure to expand on in a later entry. But for now I’ll wrap with a rhetorical question…

China is the factory of the world, but why can’t it export a little of the modesty that it so abundantly produces? While it’s hard to change old habits, perhaps it’s more suitable to feed the younger generation this stuff than poisonous toys?

*Tom Gold, a professor at UC Berkeley who runs the Inter-University Program (IUP), was quoted in a NY Times article about the flourishing of study abroad programs, especially in China. The article can be read here. IUP is one of the best academic experiences of my life. Everything from teachers to staff to curriculum is all top-notch. With a reputation as the best program in the world for helping foreigners obtain fluency in Mandarin, my expectations were high coming in; but they were all exceeded. The progress I made in just 4 months is hard to measure, especially in terms of confidence built. For those of you with a very serious interest in learning and using Chinese, check out IUP’s website, which is linked in this entry.