Jiaotong and HKU
You know, when I thought about conducting a survey of university students at Jiaotong and Fudan for HKU, I couldn't have imagined it would be this easy.
And while one has recently told me, "I don't think it should be hard because you are a foreigner and cute." Cuteness alone cannot account for the sincere student willingness to talk that I encountered today in the cafeterias and lawns of Jiaotong.
There is something almost intimate in going to others (in a foreign culture) and asking them to comment on your school. It makes you vulnerable. But there is also something amazing in asking mainland Chinese to situate your university - as it exists uniquely on the periphery of the mainland (experience).
But perhaps the real intimacy is in those students that immediately speak to me in Chinese, asking me to translate for them (and, of course, indicated on their appropriate survey). They do not ask, "Do you speak Chinese?", begin speaking their own language as a cultural power-play or an attempt to shake me off. But instead with the intent to express thought in a genuine desire to communicate with this foreigner.
Yet, the mystery comes in how they know I might understand and a sense of trust in allowing me transcribe their thoughts into English.
So from the mainland, I come away knowing a little more about my English-speaking university. A very different activity from interviewingto see if it is worthy to attend. And that is a cool way to spend a couple of hot Shanghai afternoons.
[Blogging from a Shanghai Motel168.]