Coltrane and China

After I finished my blog yesterday I went and had some instant noodles and then took an unplanned three-hour nap. I think instant noodles are the best for instant msg gratification. My nap was a surreal trance of crazy dreams involving spaceships. Where else can your 10-cent meal throw you into a catatonic, hallucinogenic bliss for the next 3 hours? MSG, the other dime bag.

So China is probably one of the most racist countries I've been in. And I'm saying this after spending most of last year in Australia and South Africa. I've been getting pretty tired of hearing about how black people are dangerous and hip-hop artists are all criminals. Especially since Chinese hip-hop is so big. So, in what may be my only edifying moment as a teacher, I decided to try and do something about these stereotypes. Unfortunately stereotype doesn't translate very well in Chinese, and the Chinese in general don't seem to grasp the meaning very well.

Last week we watched 'The Terminal' in class, because I was too lazy to properly teach and it was the cleanest dvd I own. I don't actually care for the movie that much. Anyway, if you've seen it, there's a bit of a jazz theme. So I used this jazz theme that had already been introduced to elaborate a bit and introduce some culture. Since everyone gets caught up in the Tang Dynasty and Buddhism in China, most people forget to realize that most Chinese have very little culture themselves. Also, Chinese popular music sucks. I'd like to listen to some decent stuff in public for a change. So I introduced the history of jazz and then kind of moved into stereotypes, etc.

I don't think all of them got it. I tried to have them name some stereotypes about China. They got ping-pong and short and thin right, but then they tried to add, "China is the most populated country." No, that's a fact. So I tried to make the distinction between fact and stereotype but I still think most the class left without a clue. Oh well, whatever. There was a thought.