A World of Walls

Did you know that the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago? Modern European history (including Germany) was one of the topics I studied the most in college. I studied German for nearly six years and even went to Berlin twice - in 2004 and 2005. Each time I visited a section of the Berlin wall or Die Mauer in German. (See pictures).

It was amazing to be standing next to a piece of history that had literally formed the "Iron Curtain" during the Cold War. In 1989 the divided city became one again. I think most people in the world were pretty thrilled that this symbol of oppression had crumbled.

I loved Germany and all things German. Hmmm... I wonder how I ended up in China? Now I'm in a country of the Great Wall and the Great Firewall (so called because of the government's fondness and ability to block numerous websites). There are many other "walls" that you can't even see.

In other news, the heaven's opened up and torrential rainfall began today. It was like the whole earth breathed a sigh of relief. I think it has only rained once in the past 2.5 months. I was pretty glad for it, even though I got drenched running around campus and on the city bus.

This afternoon I had Chinese tutoring with my friend Amy. We always eat a big lunch and ice-cream together. No one has to worry about me starving here. Then we headed over to the dance studios on new campus. Amy was my translator and we won over the hearts of the building supervisor and dean of the fine arts department. I brought them oranges and tried to charm them.

In China, people who have any amount of power (even holding the keys to a dance studio), like to leverage that power. If, for example, you want to use a dance studio, you can't just go in and start using it, even if nobody else is using it. You have to go to the top of the power pyramid (like the dean), which is what we did. We visited the dean and the secretary and sat down to chat, while they debated the matter. Then we worked our way down to discussing the matter with the man who holds the keys. It is a time consuming process, and you can't demand your way. But that's a little picture of how you go about to get things accomplished in China. China is all about relationships.

Anyways, everyone conceded and agreed to let my use one of the dance studios for ballet on Monday afternoons. It was a wonderful accomplishment.

That's probably all for now. We are in the midst of giving midterms. I'm leaving you with an additional picture of me with one of my students. They all have red fans for a performance coming up soon.