six four

This post is long overdue, but at long last it will be shared.

June 4, 2009

After a busy day of teaching English to local elementary students, I was lucky enough to catch mass transit to the city square, otherwise known as Tiananmen Square，天安门 (tiān'ānmén), before it closed.

Quite literally, I arrived just minutes before the Square closed. I couldn't recall the square closing so early before, not even 8p, but sure enough the square was closing. Was it an early closing? A typical closing? Only another visit at a later, less memorable date could answer this question.

the Square after closing, looking south

To reach the Square, you must enter through below the ground security checkpoints, finally taking a set of stairs up directly onto the Square. Below ground, a bag check (X-ray) conveyor is there to make sure no dangerous or hazardous items are taken to such a public place. These electronic bag checks exist at every single subway entrance, and it is a rare bag that walks unnoticed past the security guards (but it does happen).

The underground channel was filled with people coming, slowly, and leaving, freely. I dropped my bag onto the conveyor and matched my pace to gather it upon its exit.

On this particular day, June 4th 2009, at this particular security crossing, there were approximately 15 guards -all uniformed but one, who was talking with a uniformed and swinging a closed umbrella (it was not only not raining, but dusk and underground!)

Without so much as a hesitation from the guards, I proceeded onto the square, ever curious as to the waiting demographics of the crowd.

a waning crowd at dusk, looking south across Tiananmen Square:
Sobriety and irony on the 20th Anniversary of the June 4th, 1989 Incident
at and around Tiananmen［天安门], literally, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, Beijing

It was busy with people, but not a solid mass. There were foreigners and locals, male and female, the elderly and babe alike. It was a visual cross-section that made it impossible to really identify their purpose for coming. Was it just a random visit on a random Thursday evening? Or a silent commemoration with simply presence?

When our voice is lost to those who listen, our presence is not lost to those who see.

The sun was beginning to set. I noticed a large crowd gathering at the north end of the square, with a police car patrolling the area with a broadcast message. Upon closer inspection, the crowd had gathered for the daily flag lowering, as is usual at the close of each day. A set of [uniformed] soldiers filed out and crossed the Chang'an Boulevard (长安大街) towards the Forbidden City.

police on guard while soldiers transport the flag across Chang'an Boulevard (长安大街)

Back on the Square, I wandered around during the final minutes of the Square's opening, took a few pictures, but the dusk [and my limited camera] prevented me from capturing more. Police vehicles circled and weaved through the crowd like remotely controlled toy cars, which may not be too far from the truth.

a police car warns of the Square's closing

A German woman approached me, inquiring about the message being broadcast from the vehicles. And so, with her in tow, I approached a vehicle. Unfortunately, its speed was faster than my walking pace, and the clarity of the speakers not so... clear. My translation was nothing more than a few broken words, but I gathered enough that it was simply an end of day message.

Then the sweet English came through loud and clear, as only one's mother tongue is capable of transcending even poor speakers. This recording doubled over itself tirelessly, first in Mandarin, followed by English:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Tiananmen Square is now closing for the night. Please take all your personal belongs and leave the square as directed by the police officers on duty. Thank you for your understanding and for your cooperation. We hope to see you again. 游客你好。今日广场...

I shot a few video clips, not realizing that I would later be grateful for it. In fact, nothing spectacular happened, but it still proved to be a memorable evening.

June 4th, 2009 - a view of Tiananmen Square on the 20th Anniversary of 'Six Four'

Interestingly, the plain-clothes soldiers were quite easy to identify in the crowd. Typically sporting a polo shirt and jeans and sun visor, they all carried a bag across their shoulder or around their waist. And as they joined the uniformed soldiers and filed out at the close of the day, no secrecy was worn as they 'kept the peace'.

plains-clothes soldiers line up with uniformed soldiers

Six Four is still a hushed topic, which is how it is referred to by the Chinese. It is hardly a topic of conversation for a public setting, and even a private setting may bring no more transparency. It is not clear how many locals are aware of the Incident, some twenty years on.

Websites referencing June 4th, 1989, have been and apparently will be blocked until an unknown date of truthful admission. What knowledge is available here in the Mainland is spread by verbal stealth, of memories carved and of foreign journalism.

While there is much uncertainty and even greater speculation about the details of the events of that fateful day, the elder generations acknowledge it with solemn remembrance or staunch denial. The younger generation, yet born or still toddling about, now either acknowledges it with removed curiosity or is quite totally unaware.

Taken from an earlier posting:

...As any good story might begin, a friend of a friend shared this experience: She is a college student, masters student, and part of the Communist Party. On occasion, they have participation 'homework', which could be in the form or attending/planning meetings or writing a rather nationalistic essay. This year, for June 4th, 2009, she was given a special assignment: she was informed that she would be the

"Supervisor of the Prevention of a Commemoration for an Event that Never Happened".

Needless to say, such a delegation had the student, previously and otherwise oblivious to and uninformed of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, asking a few difficult questions of her own. If an event didn't happen, why would anyone be commemorating it? And more importantly, why would anyone spend time, energy, and resources to prevent the commemoration of something that never happened?

'logic' is a borrowed word, 逻辑 (luóji)

There is more than solemn irony in the name of this square, for Tiananmen quite literally means 'the Gate of Heavenly Peace'.

But for at least this June 4th, Tiananmen held true to its name, with the peaceful commemoration of an event -an event that did happen twenty years earlier.

Note: Access to Blogger is still blocked within China. Without access to a much appreciated VPN (proxy), I would be unable to write such a post and publish it to my blog from within mainland China. Thus, I am blessed and grateful to be sharing.

toasting 2009

A fool changes to become someone who he is not.
The wise changes to become someone who he is.

tawdry New HSK

（考新汉语水平考试还是不考）

monkey business: to HSK or not

There comes a point in every Mandarin student's lifetime when they must brave the ultimate test of notes, ink, and chords. And pay out the pocket for it, ¥500 to be exact. Some call it the Mandarin Proficiency Exam, aka HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi , i.e., 汉语水平考试)

For those of you who are not students of Mandarin or have no intention of HSKing, you might want to continue surfing the internet.

Out of 99% curiosity and 1% it-might-be-usefulness, I signed up 2 weeks ago to take the examination. Even mentioning the exam is enough to widen the eyes and wrinkle the face of even the most studious.

I didn't do any special studying for the exam. I honestly wanted to see what my current level of Mandarin proficiency is. And so, I went, as is, on a short night night of sleep.

准考证：my ticket to HSKland

The new HSK is supposed to be new and improved. After taking the exam today, I can only imagine what it used be.

The entire [new] test is broken into three tests, which can now be taken individually at the intermediate or advanced level. Basic Comprehension, Writing, and Oral. Or so the tests are labeled.

I'll detail below how at least two of these tests ought to be described as Written & Oral History, or as most call it "story-telling".

Since there was no post-exam evaluation form, I thought an online, public one would do justice.


monkey listen

The Listening section cannot accurately test or verify listening comprehension, due to its method of delivery. High tech headphones are stationed at paired desks, adjacent to a blue, but listless, flat-screened computer monitor. Dialogues and stories are played over the headphones, and the student can listen clearly. So far, so good. I approve.

The trouble with the listening exam (as is) is that the exam paper is in text. Mandarin text. If you understand 100% of what you have heard -and could even paraphrase it-, but can only read 50% of the characters from the set of possible answers on the page, then your response, accurate or not, is essentially left to luck.

At this point, I was thinking it might have been useful to do a Mandarin dance or perhaps even better I could [still?] buy an HSK-reviewer voodoo doll and give it nice massages and cook it some fancy food, in hopes of increasing my chances. That ought to help my luck too, right?


monkey read

The reading comprehension was fine, almost. Written questions or paragraphs with blanks and A, B, C, D answer sets. Then again, character recognition and material comprehension are two entities in itself, which could also be tested separately. Enough said.


monkey write

The written exam consisted of 2 parts. The first section proposed the first and last sentence of a story. It also provided several vocabulary and clauses for the middle section of the story, in a way that you had to fill in the spaces with must-have words or phrases. By the time I figured out the directions, I had lost 10 minutes of precious time. Still, I was proud to have understood such complicated instructions in Mandarin (or even if they had been in English.) [The 8-sentence story? In summary: went to a store to shop for a jacket, but lost my wallet instead; staff kindly helped me to find it, and I was ever so thankful.]

The second section consisted of 4 drawing blocks: some apple trees, two workers harvesting apples with a ladder, one worker putting apples into a basket, and the two workers carrying the basket -suspended on a pole- away from the orchard.

Perhaps this test would more accurately have been named "written charades". At first glance, I wish I had studied the words for fall, orchard, apples, basket, harvest. Of all the things to test me on, here in one of the biggest cities of the world, at the beginning of winter, the exam wanted to test my knowledge of fruit farm labor practices. This is somehow to deduce my written proficiency level in Mandarin?


monkey talk

Last but not least. The oral exam. How best to test the oral proficiency of a student? If one could close their eyes for a moment and imagine a rigorous and critical exam, would it look like this?:

30 students at desks sitting in a single room. One teacher to read instructions. One teacher to pass out the exam booklet. A third teacher with IT background to run the recording equipment. Students (all 30, all at the same time) don headphones with microphones and speak into the mic when prompted by a bell. Answer 4 questions. You will have just enough time to think about the question after it is asked that you almost forget the question.

Now look at the four pictures (1. Little Johnny with gun in hand approaches a big tree with a little bird; 2. The bird flies away and the branch is snapped in two; 3. Little Johnny chases the bird who is flying away; 4. Little johnny stands over a broken gun next to a big rock while the bird flies away.)

30 seconds to compose your thoughts. Now speak into the mic (and ignore the other 29 students talking away over you) and tell a story. You have 2 minutes. What? Didn't study up on those vocab such as hunting, poor aim, chasing, ranting, raving, bad temper, ignorance...

Why is story telling (in any language) indicative (in any way, shape, or form) of my oral proficiency?

Looking back, I wish that I had the 口才, or eloquence, to ask Little Johnny's parents about letting him run around in the wild with a gun, wildly shooting at anything living, chasing after wildlife, throwing a fit when not pleased, and furthermore throwing weapons around carelessly so that they break against rocks. We can't be sure that Little Johnny unloaded his gun before he threw it against the rock. And if I mistakenly took a grown man for Little Johnny, then I'll save my list of questions for another entry...

And my goodness. I'm in China, of all places. The People's Republic of China do not allow their citizens to own guns here. They don't even hunt (per *official* record). Other than the random waiter who, upon finding out I'm American, wants me to confirm that America is dangerous because we have and like to shoot guns there, I've never had a conversation about hunting or even killing of farm animals for food.

Why this topic of hunting? Unfortunately this scenario put hunters in a bad light (Maybe that is the [local] attitude of anyone with a gun?) Why, Hsk? ...why HSK?


why HSK does not get my vote

In the end, how true it is that I did not participate in the HSK examination to confirm my Mandarin proficiency, which seems it is not truly capable of capturing. It seems I took the test to simply understand the testing method, if that is even possible. Even (and even more so) if I test well, I will not be impressed with the testing or evaluation methods of HSK.

Yes, I took their test. But did it really test my Mandarin proficiency level?

I hope I will not be required (by future employers) to take the HSK exam again. My time is much better spent reading a book in Mandarin, watching (& listening) to local TV, or talking with the local veggie sellers. This tells me indeed how my Mandarin is coming along.

I applaud the efforts to separate the HSK into 3 parts - Comprehension, Writing, and Oral. Yet without critically analyzing the method of separation and testing, it is rendered a failure.

After one of the exam sections, a student exclaimed "And I paid money to take this?"

This monkey couldn't agree more.

the sandwich goes east • 三明治往东方走

Student life in Beijing is certainly nothing to complain about, though it can be a challenge to weave a meal-plan into a schedule with the equivalent of 6 bosses and 6 offices. Tuesdays and Thursday afford no break for me; just thinking of lollygagging between classes means I could miss a quiz delivered at the ring of the bell.

It is the fourth week of my first semester at Peking University (PKU). In China, college classes are sectioned into 2-hour blocks, each with a blink of an intermission. When class lets out, you have 20 minutes to take care of necessary business and navigate across campus, over the hills, and through the crowds (!) to your next class. The journey requires another, more demanding, level of [physical and mental!] skill than is typically required at such intellectual hubs.

Hunger lies in wait, with nothing passive about its expectations. It isn't that food is not readily available here on campus ... the 'intermission' snacks cater to carnivores and starchites, with processed cookies, so-called pastries, and -if you eat of meat- the 'convenient' burrito (yes... the Mexican specialty has landed in Beijing, if not only where foreign shadows fall.)

And sure, canteens and the questionable dives are readily available. The food is even likely to be cooked that day, if not in right front of you [read: no foodservice giant pushing frozen variations of the same flavor!] The problem lies in that the queuing itself, which not only is a hazard (imagine elbows, chopsticks, slick floors from spilled soup, etc.), takes more time than it does to ingest the hard-earned meal.

What to do and what to eat on such a day with no time for cooking or ordering out? The good ol' sandwich has come to the rescue once again - even here in Beijing. In fact, my Chinese apartmate (apartment +mate) even prepares a locally-flavored version when she is pressed for time!

Below is the sandwich that I whipped up in defense of a long 9-hour stretch of classes:

... the music of Anaheim zingers between
sweet miso and ripened tomato ...

The Recipe: Miso Tickles the Tomato [Sandwich]
note: such a name could easily be found on a menu here in Beijing!


SWEET•EGG•BREAD•THICKLY•SLICED
slivered•salted•butter•slices
crunchy•green•cabbage•leaf
red-miso-smothered-liberally
hot!•green•Anaheim•slices
ripe•red•juicy•tomato•slices
fried•egg•sunny•side•up*
crunchy•green•cabbage•leaf
cream•cheese•slathered•freely
thickly•sliced•aged•cheddar•cheese
SWEET•EGG•BREAD•THICKLY•SLICED
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

*Admission: there was no egg in my sandwich today, an addition forgotten that was sorely regretted.

I will, however, take a moment to expound upon the good qualities of this sandwich's composition. Thickly sliced egg-bread is a great variant of the more traditional (but hard to find in Beijing) whole-wheat bread and was actually quite pleasing to a hungry appetite. The tomatoes couldn't hold onto their juice and had mixed quite nicely with the salty miso. That said, the sweetness of the miso in turn was complimented by the layer of cream cheese for a satisfying balance of sweet and salty. The crunch of the cabbage added just enough masticatory texture for spiking the serotonin levels. And the thinly sliced Anaheim pepper threw a heat tough enough to take on the chill of Fall... or another lecture!

Looking for another Eastern influenced version of the ol' standby? Below you will find another take, all too influence by the local Chinese bakeries: the open-faced broiled sandwich.

My friend Debbie and I concocted this original on a desparate afternoon a few weeks back, though unfortunately there is no "final" picture to show; just this mid-preparation before-the-broiling snap:

The Recipe: Open-faced "Beijing" Broiler

thinly•sliced•pink•Chinese•turnip
thinly•sliced•white•Chinese•cabbage
fried•egg•sunny•side•up
tomato•sauce•ribbon
red•onion•slivers
aged•white•cheddar•cheese
fresh•spinach•leaves
slivered•salted•butter•slices
SWEET•EGG•BREAD•THICKLY•SLICED
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

If the above image isn't tempting enough, then I'll try to persuade you here. Vegetarian and full of flavor - the roastedness of the melted cheese laced with onions and spinach, topped off with the crunch of fresh turnip and cabbage. When you use what you've got on hand, the combination can bring a surprise that is worth repeating!

If you dare, I'd be honored if you tried either of these... and furthermore, I'll challenge you to substitute ingredients from your pantry - and let me know how it turns out!