Eric's Beijing Diary

Stopped and picked up my Chinese granddaughter at the subway station outside the East Gate of Beida (Peking University). She is in Beijing for a few months studying Czech, so that she can go to the Czech Republic and get a free education (tuition in the Czech Republic is free if you are willing to learn the language and study with the natives).

"You're late, Grandpa. Woman!"

She was giving me some of my own medicine.

The Christmas program/party was held in a rented room on the campus of Peking University, but it was put on by a student group from the National Forestry University.

I usually go to the Christmas program at Haidian Church, but standing outside in the cold with thousands of other people waiting for a seat that is not to be had is just not that much fun. Actually, I have managed to get in every year--last year because I was given a ticket by someone who works for the church. Fair enough, but when I entered, I was berated by a young lady who assumed that I was getting in just because I was a foreigner. She was partly right, I suppose, but not completely, because, after all, I was given a ticket by someone who urged me to come.

Anyway, this year I found a way to avoid the hassle. I have been to these informal type Christmas events before. The best one I ever attended was a beautiful Christmas program at the Chaoyang Hotel a few years ago, put on by a local house church. The problem with programs like that is that they don't tend to happen twice. We'll see about this one.

Bought myself a Christmas present today. My new front tooth. It's a good tooth, and it sure is nice to be able to talk without whistling, but the price of gold is up, so I think that may have affected the price. 2300 RMB. More than 300 US dollars. That's less than what it would cost in the US even with dental insurance, but it still seems high. My friends are convinced I am being cheated. I don't know. Perhaps they are right. It is hard to know to what extent the fact that I am a foreigner influenced the price the doctor charged me. Most of my friends have never been to a dentist. Chinese people don't like sweets that much. So they are not necessarily qualified to know what a crown should cost. Most irritating to me is the fact that I have put off crowning that tooth for more than 30 years, and it had to go now. It's kinda unnerving, too, because I am running out of original teeth in case I need a bridge. The tooth to the right of it was root canaled at the same time. If that root is good, I will be alright--I can crown it. But if not, I am in trouble, because the tooth on the other side is a cantilever bridge I have had since I was in junior high. And it is glued to the tooth next to it, which, fortunately, has never had any problem. You see my point. If one of those teeth goes bad, I could end up doing a major rebuild. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Today, in the PL/SQL class, I was explaining functions, and how they differ from procedures. Without boring you with the details, a function is a specific type of procedure that always returns a value. I made the statement, "All functions are procedures, but all procedures are not functions."

One of my students corrected me,

"Not all procedures are functions."

He was right, of course. But so was I. If we say, "All that glitters is not gold," we do not mean by this that if something glitters, it can't possibly be gold. But the statement could be taken to mean that if we are not careful how we say it. And in writing, it can be hard to express the distinction. If we say instead, "Not all that glitters is gold," this removes the ambivalence, but it doesn't sound as good, you know what I mean?

I always tell students that you don't need backup until you need it, and then you better have it. What I mean by this is that system administrators often neglect backup, because everything runs well without it. But when something completely unforeseen like this happens, you are really in trouble. Years ago, I was working for an Irish company called CBT Systems, and one of the company's salesmen recklessly deleted a Lotus Notes database. Three years of work. Frantic, he called the California office, desperate to restore his database from backup. Unfortunately, the California office had been saving money by hiring temporary IT staff. Nobody had taken responsibility for making sure that the Lotus server was backed up. Not a problem at all. Until something goes wrong. It was chaos. The ripple effect from that once incident resulted in a reorganization of the whole company.

Friday afternoon the IT department wiped out my testing system. I had installed Server 2003 on the instructor machine in the lab. I put it in a special partition. No one else used that operating system. But no one told me that when they bought new computers for the lab recently, they set up a network based system restore. It's a good idea, in a way, because they can make adjustments to the master image, and ghost all the machines at once. But the guy doing it neglected to turn off the instructor machine. So the system restore wiped the computer clean, totally obliterating my operating system, which had my testing system and my database. Fortunately, I had done a backup two days earlier. It only takes a few seconds to make a backup script, using a third party utility called PL/SQL Developer. This utility is not made by Oracle, but it is designed to work with Oracle. And the script it makes can be used to recreate all the tables and insert all the data in less than a minute. Not only this, but it is pretty easy to edit out the Oracle specific stuff if you wanted to recreate the table schema on some other system, such as Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, IBM DB2, or whatever.

Grace called me last night and said there was an acquaintance of hers who had some questions about Christian schools in America, and wanted to ask some questions.

Not quite. I met them at the Bridge Cafe. The guy came with a couple friends of his. He had a list of schools that his son was applying to, but his main question was how to fill out the forms. These were not application forms. They were recommendation forms that are supposed to be filled out by his teachers. He was planning to fill out the forms and have the teachers sign them, and he wanted me to give him some idea what Americans would want to hear. Basicly, he was asking me to help him fill out bogus recommendation forms.

I told him I couldn't help him with that, and I also told him that he was much too worried about those forms. If his son was a good student, that would show up in his recommendations. It's a problem, because many times Chinese teachers don't feel comfortable with English, and the recommendation forms all have to be filled out in English. So the candidate (or his parents) will fill out the forms and have the Chinese teacher sign it. Their predicament is understandable, but I don't believe that is the right approach. There is nothing wrong with having the Chinese teacher fill out the form, and then translating the teachers comments. But what this becomes is a sham--trying to figure out what the admissions officers want to hear.

But there is another issue I confronted rather strongly. These folks were really conscious of trying to get this young man into one of the best prep schools. I told them that Chinese students already are quite strong academically. But they are very weak in two particular areas: Independent thinking and character. They are told all their lives what to think, and they are taught from the time they are young that you must do what you have to get ahead. I am very afraid my words fell on deaf ears. They just couldn't stop asking, "What other things could we say," as they held up the form that was supposed to be a teacher's comments about their son.

Broke my tooth last night. My two front teeth were root canaled when I was in college. They have done pretty well over the years, but recently, the left one has started to come apart. I should have crowned it as soon as I saw it happening, but I was putting it off--hoping to make it last until a more opportune time. Sunday evening, I foolishly bit down on something hard with my front tooth, and it gave way. Hopefully the root is still intact, so that I will be able to crown it. My dentist's phone number was in my cell phone that got fried at the Portland airport, but fortunately I had given it to a friend who was looking for a dentist, so I was able to get it back.

My dentist at the Air Force hospital is pretty good, but he doesn't speak any English. In the past I have always brought someone with me, but I really didn't know who I could bring this time, and that's probably a good thing. I have been in this country for almost six years. It's time to sink or swim.

When I came to Beihang University, I set about to design a course for undergraduates that would teach them the fundamentals of Structured Query Language, while at the same time helping them to transition to an English language learning environment.

In the fall semester I teach two sections with about eighty students in each section. The key to faciltating learning in this type of situation, is to evaluate frequently, and give fairly immedate feedback. I am using a text book with twenty review questions at the end of each chapter. If I have the students turn it in on paper, it is too easy for a group of students to each do a few questions, and then combine their work. But if I make it a blind test, I am requiring too high a level of memorization to be practical every week. So what I do is to tell them they are going to have a test, invite them to study the questions all week, and then take the test online without the benefit of the book. This effectively makes it a worksheet they have to memorize.

In a given semester, I give ten chapter tests. With 80 students in two sections each taking 10 tests with 20 questions each, that comes to 32,000 separate answers for my TA's to check in one semester (not counting the mid-term and the final). But that is only half the problem. Data entry for 160 students is a tedious process that lends itself to error. Students sometimes have numbers that are very similar. The last few digits might be the same, but the first few would be different. I am not good at this kind of work. And if I make one little mistake, I often have to start all over. My TA's can do this work for me, but I have no way of checking whether they have entered the grades accurately. Even if the papers were all graded by computer, the data entry process is a nightmare. Needless to say, I have to have a computerized system in order to do this effectively.

When I first came to Beijing, I was using a free online testing system that I had employed when I was in Arizona. But a couple years ago, this company announced that their testing system was no longer going to be free. They left the .html files in a special location on their website, but the database was no longer available. So when students took the test, I would get an email with their answers. But there was no longer any automatic scoring system. I had to have my TA's go through each test and compare the student's answers to the key. Fortunately, I had one TA who was a very fast and efficient young lady. She could check through a bunch of tests in a very short period. The other TA didn't like doing this. So he spent his time designing a program in C# that would read the emails, check the tests, and give the students a score. Using this program, it took me seconds to check all the tests. But the other thing he did, which saved my neck, was that he copied all the .html files for the tests, and went to work to develop a system that could function entirely independent of the Internet. Unfortunately, he had some stuff to do, so he left in the middle of the semester, and recruited another student to take his place.

Last year, just before the fall semester was going to start, I discovered that the online testing system had discarded all the .html files. Fortunately I had all the files that Titan had copied, and one of my new TA's was a good friend of his. Justin went to work right away to finish the program that Titan had started. What we have now is not really completed software. It is software in development, but it gets the job done.

Click picture for larger image.
The students go to a private intranet web site on my server and take an objective test by clicking on the radio buttons. When they submit the test, the testing system that Titan and Justin built creates a .sql file with their score. Titan was worried about possible concurrency problems (a file being locked and the system crashing if two students submit at exactly the same time) if the results were entered into a single file, so Justin set it up so that I get a separate file for each student. When I open the file, I see a statment that looks like this:

update gradesheet set CHAP_05 = 85 where student_id= 'AM37211406';

This statement, when run, enters the student's score in the database. They were apologetic about having to create separate files for each student, but I told them it was a non-issue. I simply created a master file called loadscores.sql that calls the other files. When you open it, here is what you see:

@@AM37211404
@@AM37211405
@@AM37211406
@@AM37211407
@@AM37211423
@@AM37211408
@@AM37211409

So I call that one file from the database, and that file calls the others. This process takes about 3 to 5 seconds. Actually, it's closer to ten seconds if I run both classes at the same time. I spool the output to a .doc file so that I can check the results of this process. If a student is absent, I can tell right away, because their is no file for them. So the tests are scored by the system as soon as the tests are submitted, and the data is entered with I run the loadsores script. Less than ten seconds to have all the data in the database. The only thing on paper is the final exam. I give ten chapter review tests, and the mid-term in the lab using my automated system. At the end of the semester, I use Structured Query Language to create a view that subtracts the lowest score for each student (I don't allow makeup tests, so this effectively allows each student to miss one test without penalty), and gives them a grade based on the remaining 9 tests, the midterm, and the final exam. Here is what the SQL code for my final report view looks like:

create or replace view sqlreport as
with labgrades as
(select student_id, sum(score) LabTotal, min(score) Lowest
from sqlrecords group by student_id)
select student_id, labtotal, points bonus, labtotal+points Total, lowest,
(labtotal+points)-lowest NetScore, round(((labtotal+points)-lowest)/9) labavg, midterm, final_exam,
round(((((labtotal+points)-lowest)/9)*.5)+(midterm * .2)+(final_exam * .3)) Final_grade
from labgrades natural join bonus natural join gradesheet
order by student_id

This takes care of my end of it. But, as I mentioned previously, the most vital component of this system in rapid feedback. If students get constant feedback about their progress, they will do much better than if they are left to guess how well they are doing. What I do to facilitate this,is to create a user for each student, then create a view in each user's schema that will allow them to see their own grades at any time. I have the students register by entering their own data in the database at the beginning of each semester. Then I copy this list from the database to Excel, and use Excel to write repetitive statements to make a script that creates the users and views. This takes about 10 or 15 minutes at the beginning of the semester, and I usually do it in front of the class so that they can see how the process works. When I run this script, the users are created, given the needed permissions, and a view is created for each of them. When the log in and execute the code to look at the view, this is what they see:


SQL> select * from mygrades;

STUDENT_ID GRADE_ITEM SCORE
------------ ---------------- ----------
AM37211### Bonus Points 60
AM37211### Chapter Two 75
AM37211### Chapter Three 70
AM37211### Chapter Four 85
AM37211### Chapter Five 85
AM37211### Chapter Six 100
AM37211### Chapter Seven 95

7 rows selected.

SQL>


Every class period, I give students a chance to earn bonus points by doing hands on exercises in front of the class. They are hesitant to volunteer at first, but when they see the effect of the bonus points, they soon get bold enough to take the opportunity to improve their score.

After I had implemented this system last year, Alina observed that we there were fewer students in the room at test time than the number of tests would indicate. I told her that she would have to require the students to sign in so that only students who actually who had come and taken the test themselves would be given credit. But Justin told me he could fix the problem. He added a feature that creates an answer file for each student named by the MAC (Media Access Control) address and IP (Internet Protocol) address of each computer. If a student tried to take a test twice, the presence of the answer file from the previous test would block submission, and the student would get an error message:

Some clever students discovered that they could change the IP address and submit another test. But they were not clever enough to realize that the minute they did that, they would have red dye all over their hands. Here is what the results of that mischief looks like (the student_id's have been partially masked to protect the guilty):

50-63-1C-15-D0-B9_192.168.0.189_36211###.txt 12/17/2008 5:35 PM
50-63-1C-15-D0-B9_192.168.0.178_36211###.txt 12/17/2008 5:36 PM
50-63-1C-15-D0-B9_192.168.0.179_36211###.txt 12/17/2008 5:36 PM

You can see that all three tests were taken from the same computer (note the MAC address), but that the IP address has been changed so that the test could be submitted three times. I put the corresponding test scripts in a separate folder so that they would not upload, effectively giving all three students a 0 for that test. The student who had actually taken the test came to me and complained. I showed him the results. He insisted that this must be three separate people who couldn't find a free computer, so they had to change the IP address. I then pointed out the times to him. Not enough time for three separate people to take three separate tests. Just enough time for one person to copy the answers from his test to two others, change the IP address, and submit them separately. He finally admitted that his classmates didn't come that day, so he had taken the test for them. He conceded that they should not get a grade for the test, but he insisted that he was entitled to a grade, since he was the one who had actually taken the test. I disagreed.

I grew up in Japan, but this is the first time in my life that I even thought of having Thanksgiving dinner at a Japanese restaurant. This evening the members of the Eastside Fellowship gathered at a Japanese restaurant in Liangmaqiao that Charley found for us.

The whole idea of the Eastside Fellowship grew out of the fact that as people finish university and begin their career, they tend, very often, to find work in the Chaoyang District. Several times I have seen people try to live with the daily commute from the university district (Haidian), but it usually ends with them giving up the idea of trying to live both lives. So they move to the east side, and I never see them again. So I decided to have a dinner once a month or so for folks on the east side who don't seem to have as many opportunities for fellowship as they did when they were here.

I have said it several times before, but the best place in the world to live if you like Japanese food is Beijing. Plenty of Japanese restaurants in Tokyo, of course, but who can afford them? The all you can eat place we went to this evening cost us each 69 kuai. About 10 US dollars. Certainly not an every day thing, of course, but not that bad for an occasion like this. An American English teacher came along and had a Power Point presentation about the history of Thanksgiving.

In modern China, a Mongolian wedding is actually a Chinese wedding with Mongolian costumes. It pretty much follows the pattern of Chinese weddings I have been to throughout China. If you only attended a wedding, you might be inclined to think that Mongolian culture had pretty much been absorbed by Chinese culture. This is, after all, the history of the Han people. They have always defeated their enemies by absorbing them.

But a closer look gives a more complete picture. In fact, Mongolians growing up in Inner Mongolia go to Mongolian schools where they are taught entirely in Mongolian, except for one hour a day, when they study the Mandarin language. Mongolians in Mongolia (which Chinese Mongolians call "Outer Mongolia") use the Russian script to for their own language, but Chinese Mongolians still use the ancient Mongolian script, sometimes called the "Uyghur Script," because they originally got it from a Uyghur scribe eight hundred years ago at the beginning of the 13th Century.

So there is an entire educational system--elementary school through college--built around the Mongolian language, both spoken and written. And, of course, this necessitates a publishing system also built entirely around the old Mongolian script. Echo's father is a professor, and he gave me a couple books he had written, both using the vertical Mongolian writing system that has been place for almost a millennium.

The result of the government policy is that the Mongolians are native speakers of Mongolian, but also, basically, native speakers of Mandarin. But with two languages to think about, very few of them speak English, unless they (like Echo) have been sent out to study. But another result of this policy is that most Mongolians do not express the same animosity toward the Chinese that you sometimes hear from other minorities. There are exceptions, of course. Last fall I traveled to Inner Mongolia, and met a guy who grew up in a town that did not have very many Mongolians, so he had to go to a Chinese school. He really felt that he had been robbed of his language, and was rather bitter toward the Chinese.

Took the light rail to Xizhimen last night, and caught the train from Beijing Bei (North Railway Station) to Chifeng in the northeastern part of Inner Mongolia. I stood looking out the window as we passed Wudaokou, and saw the crowd of cars, pedestrians and bicyclists waiting for me this time. Had a hard sleeper, but it was a bottom bed, so quite comfortable. But the cabin was not heated very well. No worries, they give you a heavy quilt, and I came prepared.

I am here for the wedding of one of my former students. This morning, we went to Echo's house and had a Mongolian breakfast. Millet and cream, roast lamb, and really tasty fried bread. But if you ever come to Inner Mongolia, don't eat too much for breakfast, because lunch will follow shortly.

Echo had lined up a place for me to stay in a quaint little Chinese bath house. Believe it or not, this little place actually has a computer in each room with a high speed internet connection.

Sophia invited me to share some thoughts about the development of religious freedom in China for a group called FACES at Peking University. As I understand it, the group is composed mostly of young people affiliated with Stanford University in the States.

This seminar had to do with the development of religious freedom in China. They had lined up a professor from Canada, and a professor from Peking University, and then they wanted to find a Christian, so Sophia recommended me.

There are basically two types of churches in China--the Three-Self churches, which are regulated by the government, and the family churches, which are independent.

The main point I made in my presentation is that, while religion in China is controlled by the government, and churches are required to register, in fact, house churches are exempted from this requirement, as per Chinese government policy from which I quote:

"There is no registration requirement for, to quote from Chinese Christians, 'house services,' which are mainly attended by relatives and friends for religious activities such as praying and Bible reading."

This little clause within the larger policy is more significant than may be originally apparent. The reason for this is that while government figures list the number of Christians at about 15 million, the fact is that most Christians in China do not worship in the Three-Self (government regulated) churches. So how many Christians worship in churches that are exempt from the government registration policy? This is a question to which nobody knows the answer. I have seen estimates as high as 100 million (by Christians), and as low as 50 million (China Daily). I really don't know. But it is safe to say that the vast majority of Chinese Christians worship in churches that are actually less regulated than American churches. Of course there is no Religious Affairs Bureau in America that monitors sermon content. But American churches do need to register for tax purposes, in order to establish that the stuff they are doing fall within the limits established for their 501(c)(3) tax status.

In China, churches take offerings just like they do in America. They pay their pastors and handle their affairs, all completely without any regulation from any government agency. That is, again, if they stay small. But how small? This is the $64,000 question. Nobody really knows the answer. The policy I just quoted says, "mainly attended by relatives and friends." But how big is that? A few people gathered in someone's living room? But in China, pretty soon "family and a few friends" becomes anther family and a few more friends, and pretty soon you have quite a crowd. This generates two questions which define the issue:

1. At what point does the government step in and tell house churches that they have become too big to be unregistered?

2. How do the house churches respond to this government interference.

The answer to the first question is that it varies. I have been to several house church meetings in Beijing that are clearly more than just a few friends in the living room. Most of the time the government looks the other way. But there is no guarantee that they will. After my presentation, a young lady came up to me and mentioned the name of an unregistered church (can't really call it a house church, because it doesn't meet in a church) that had just been shut down by the government. She asked me what would happen to them. I think she really wanted to know, but perhaps her question was also intended as a polite reminder that all was not as smooth as my presentation might have implied. I said to her, "They will disperse, and then reemerge." If I am not mistaken, I think that church had about 500 members.

This leads, of course, to the second question, which his how house churches respond when the government tells them they have to cease and desist. Some of them resist. They keep meeting, get arrested, and then hope to generate international support for their cause. But most of them respond by staying small. They don't want trouble. They aren't protesters. If what they are doing is getting unwanted attention, they fold up or split up and continue in a manner that does not cause problems for them. The result of this is that the church in China is strong and growing very rapidly. In America, churches get bigger and bigger and bigger. In China, they spread by a mitosis which is much more conducive to healthy rapid growth. As a result, the Christian movement in China is unstoppable. China will one day be the largest Christian country in the world.

Bulu took me to a little dump of a place in Guloudajie, where this guy sells clothes he has gleaned from various warehouses. I picked up an Air Force flight jacket. 77th Fighter Wing. No idea how this guy managed to get a hold of military surplus from the U.S. My guess is that it is part of some inventory left over after on of the recent factory closings. But that is only a guess. I really don't know. Better not say anything. If word got out that American pilots are wearing flight jackets manufactured in the Pearl River Delta, it wouldn't look good. It's dated 2002, so perhaps it is a style that has been replaced. No matter to me. Don't care that much about the style. What I do care about is that it's new, and it is warm as toast.

I am always hesitant about buying stuff from places like this, because so much of it is just fake brand name stuff. But this jacket is not fake. It had the American price tag (19.99), along with the U.S. government procurement number. They wouldn't have any reason to fake that. Couldn't bargain with this guy, though. I made a feeble attempt, but I really didn't put that much effort into it, because from everything I could tell, his take-it-or-leave-it price was less than what I would have ended up paying in a market where they start with a ridiculous price, and let you gradually whittle them down. 65 kuai. I can spare ten bucks.

Saw this sign when I got to the little coffee bar where we usually have our Sunday afternoon Bible study. The place was booked for a wedding party, so we had to go downstairs. Struck me funny, but it seems strangely appropriate for China. So many people tell me of the pressure they get from their parents to "Just Marry."

Young ladies everywhere are interested in finding "Mr. Right." So I guess you could say that the internal pressure is the same everywhere. It's universal. But family pressure to get married is definitely much stronger in China. One result of this pressure is that young church women are often tempted to marry someone who is not a Christian just because the young gentleman in question (and they really are gentlemen) is a nice guy with a good job.

The problem with this is that they enter into a relationship with the unrealistic expectation that they are somehow going to "Christianize" their husbands. It's an unreasonable expectation, of course. People don't just start believing something because someone they know, even someone they love, wants them to. These women are not being fair to themselves, and they aren't being fair to their husbands, either.

I don't think I have ever told a young lady that she was marrying the wrong guy. But more than once I have told one of these very well meaning sisters that they were getting married at the wrong time. I am convinced that many of these young men would have become Christians if the young ladies they loved had stood firm, each showing her man that, although she really loves him, God must always take first place in her life.

The dean of the Software College called me into his office today and informed me that he is building a new University in Guizhou Province. I have been here at Beihang University for almost six years, now, and I have grown to really like the students, and the office personnel are pretty good people to work with. But Beihang University has a rule. They will not give a Foreign Expert Certificate to foreign professors over 55. The Software College could continue to hire me, but they do not have the authority to give me a visa. Bottom line: I need to go somewhere else. According to the dean, the new university in Guizhou is going to be built with non-profit funds. Not sure exactly who is behind it, but it does seem like a good project. The problem is that this time, I wouldn't just be going down there for a few weeks. This would involve moving lock, stock and barrel to the Southwest. Not sure if I'm ready to do that. But I told him I would give it some thought.

As a matter of fact, I had originally planned to go to Western China when I first moved here almost six years ago. I ended up moving to Beijing instead, because I got an offer from the software college, of which there are none in that part of China. But now, you know, I have gotten used to living in Beijing. Beijing is a very convenient place for a single person. It's hard to describe the phenomenon to someone who doesn't live here, because if you read much of the literature aimed at foreigners, they will talk about the cost for foreign business people who are trying to live an American lifestyle here in Beijing. That, of course, is expensive. But if you are single and a bit flexible, you can get by for a lot less. When you position yourself in the middle of a developing country that also happens to have a booming economy, you get the benefit of exponential job growth and prosperity along with the lower costs for stuff you buy or even for a place to stay, as long as you are willing to live in a local Chinese neighborhood.

But as the economy grows and the boom develops, the insidious inflation that always comes with it slowly stretches its tentacles into every area of life, and the economy eventually becomes more rigid, like Japan or America. Beijing is still in that development stage, with a fairly flexible economy, especially in the university district. In Western China, you do have the benefit of the lower cost, pre-development lifestyle, but without the advantages that come with living in a large, international city.

Back at the cheap school. I signed up just before the October holiday. I had gone back to my former tutor at Sinoland, but she was busy this semester. She offered to help me find another tutor, but I was hesitant, because I don't know any of the other teachers there. I decided to stop by one of the cheap schools I had attended in the past. I went to where it was located the last time I attended, but there was some other business occupying their office. I asked them about it, but they didn't say anything specific. Fortunately, as I was getting on the elevator, a man who had seen me asking questions came up and told me where they had moved to. They are in a much smaller office above McDonald's. I assume they have lost a little business due to the deflation of the Won against the dollar.

There are several private language schools in Wudaokou. Generally, they fit into two broad categories:

• Schools designed for foreign business people.
  
• Schools owned by Korean businessmen, which are designed for Korean working people.

In addition to those two, there are, of course, the various university programs. The university programs attract students by appealing to people who are not familiar with China. It's really easy to enroll in BLCU by signing up on their web site. But the university programs tend to be lecture oriented, with larger classes. They are also more expensive, although you save a lot by enrolling directly rather than going through an international exchange program.

If you live in Beijing, especially if you live near Wudaokou, the private language schools are definitely the way to go. The ones designed for foreign business people tend to cost a little more, but they also employ more sophisticated learning methods. I had a tutor at Sinoland before last semester, So I went back there a few weeks ago to look her up, but she told me that she was really busy this semester. That's why I returned to one of the cheap schools I had attended before. The lower cost is attractive, and, even though their teaching method is not as sophisticated, there is something to be said for a course that facilitates an hour and a half of language interaction every week day. 30 kuai for an hour-and-a-half. My tutor at Sinoland was very good, but last year I paid 80 RMB per hour, and this year the price has gone up to 100. So a two hour session once a week cost more than going to class five days a week at the cheap school.

Rode my bike down to the old street near Houhai park today and spent the afternoon in a little rooftop cafe. I met a guy from Germany who was originally from Vietnam, but actually originally from China. Actually, he was born in Vietnam, but his people come from China, and his wife is from Beijing. He told me that the new Haidian church was designed by a German architect. I told him I had heard that, and I asked him how he knew. He said that the architect was the same one who designed the Disanji Book Building, and that he had to design the church as part of the deal. That was news to me, but it is not surprising. When that part of Zhongguancun was developed, the city people didn't want an old run down church to contrast negatively with the surrounding buildings, so they decided to build a new church building. I am not sure who paid for what, but the result was a building that surely cost someone a significant amount of money. It seems to have come just in time, though, because with the permission granted by the Religious Affairs Bureau to start an English service, the demand for space has increased. That combined with the fact that the Chinese government severely restricts the establishment of new churches in any community, make for a situation where the building, although very nice, is not really a luxury.

Coming up in the elevator this afternoon, I asked the elevator lady where she went for the October holiday. She told me she didn't go anywhere. She had to work. Typical for a lot of working people. Holidays come and go, and they don't know the difference. Except, of course, for Chinese New Year.

Then she asked me where I went for the October holiday. I said, "Dazhongsi." She burst out laughing. I suppose she was expecting me to say, "Shanghai," or "Xi'an," or some other well known tourist destination. Dazhongsi is a little dump of a place two stops down on the light rail line, between here and the city center.

But there is something in Dazhongsi that is not ordinary and mundane. It is the old bell museum. Fascinating place. I read about it in Bill Porter's book. I have been here for six years and had never heard of the place, so Wednesday James and I took some time and went to see the place It is not widely visited, but it is really worth seeing.

The old bell museum at the Dazhong Temple (Da means "big," Zhong means "bell," and Si means "temple") houses a large assortment of ancient bells, the oldest of which go back to the Yuan Dynasty. But it is the Ming bells that are the most interesting, especially the large one.

There is also a special collection of church bells, including an original Gillete and Johnston church bell, and an old bell from Finland. If you're ever in Beijing, I encourage you to take a little side trip to Dazhongsi, blow 10 kuai, and get the inside view.

Couldn't get down to the Square today. The place is sealed off so that they can put on a performance for foreign dignitaries. If they get this worked up about the 60th anniversary, I shudder to think of what it's going to be like at the 75th.

Kai Kai invited me to have lunch with her and her friend. I took the subway to Liufang and met them. They asked me where I would like to eat. I suggested we head down to Dongzhimen, because there is a street there that is famous for its restaurants. Her friend had a Honda minivan, so we all got in and found a restaurant built according the pattern of a classic Siheyuan.

After we ate, they were going to take me back, but I noticed a subway station, so I told them to just drop me off. It happened to be one of the stops on Line 5. Not that it matters. Anytime you see a subway station in Beijing, you just head down under and it's pretty easy to figure out where you are. I was just ready to do that, but I decided to stop at a coffee bar and do some reading first. I started asking around for a coffee bar, and ended walking right by the old Confucian temple. I was interested in this, becuase Chinese people are fond of saying that Confucianism is not a religion, but a philosophy. But this temple was very religious. And it was built in the early 14th Century. Yuan Dynasty. That's going back a ways. When they built the temple, they planted a Cyprus tree. It's still there. Ever seen a 700 year old Cyprus tree? Pretty impressive.

After going through the temple, I walked around and finally found a little sidewalk cafe. I decided that this was a better way to spend the afternoon that standing in the crowds down at Tienanmen. I was ready to forget about National Day and get lost in a good book. But it was not to be. Right up on the wall was a flat screen playing the events of the day, and Hu Jintao was just getting ready to speak. I listened for awhile to him repeating the old line about how there is no hope for China except the pathway of Socialism. Rubbish, of course, and nobody believes it. Well, I guess somebody must, because there has to be some reason he feels compelled to put on a Mao Jacket and recite Marxist pablum. This is the dilemma of Modern China. It is no longer politically correct to take a Marxist position. But it is also not politically correct to publicly acknowledge that we no longer follow what Marx teaches. So whatever political system China employs, we must call it socialism. This is why the young people are so confused. They say, "Professor Eric, what's the difference between capitalism and socialism?" These are the brightest kids in China. They have taken all the required Marxism classes to get to where they are at a National Key University. But they don't know the difference between capitalism and socialism. And the reason is plain. They look around them, and think, "If this is socialism, what is capitalism." And I have to tell them, "This is not socialism. Your grandparents had socialism."

I was debating this issue at the English corner at Renmin University once, and one guy told me that the reason for the confusion is that this is a very complex issue. Not true. Socialism has the simplest definition in the dictionary: "Public ownership of the means of production." In today's China, most of the businesses that an average citizen encounters are not publicly owned. There are exceptions, of course. Raymond is a Beijinger, and he takes me to the traditional Beijing eateries. One time he took me to a little place in Old Beijing that was kinda little dark and dingy (although the food was good). It was about 7:30 or so, and Raymond told me that we had to hurry, because they were getting ready to close. I was surprised. So early? Then Raymond told me that this was a State owned cafeteria.

I have been in Beijing for almost six years, and in all that time, I have been in one state owned restaurant. Most of them are private businesses. I guess I should mention that I have eaten in campus cafeterias, so perhaps that would put a few more marks in the socialism column. But my point is that today's China is not really socialist. China actually has a very Republican economy. Low taxes, and lots of emphasis on business development and market economy. Anything but socialism. But the ancient tendency for leaders to "point to a deer and call it a horse" prevails. So we cannot say "capitalism." We must call it, "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

My colleague and I in front of the Great Hall of the People.
The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs hosted a banquet this evening at the Great Hall of the People. I have been there once before when they did this five years ago. I guess they figure every five years is a historical milestone of some significance. The Great Hall of the People could be called the political center of China, at least as far as government meetings are concerned, because it is the home of the National People's Congress. Government leaders actually live at Zhongnanhai, so that might be the real nerve center, depending on how you view Chinese government, and where power really resides.

At any rate, it is a very interesting place, because you just know, sitting there, that it would not look anything like this if it were built today. The grandiose Stalinesque architecture is clearly from a bygone era. Spacious, though. The Vice-Premier gave a nice little speech, and then we all ate. The food is usually pretty good in that place. They try to give you combination of Chinese and western food.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the "founding of the Republic," and the government is going all out. I generally take the subway down to Tiananmen sometime during the day on National Day (October 1st), but this year I have heard they are going to seal the place off. Security concerns, I guess. So this might be the only National Day event that I can be part of. I guess I won't shed any tears over it. The subways are really super crowded on National Day, especially on Line 1.

I went back to the cell phone store today. I didn't say it when I walked in the door, of course, but this was the day. I was determined that I was going to buy that phone today. I stopped by the bank and got just enough money to pay the price I had offered.

I told the lady what her competitor had offered me. She told me that their phones were not genuine. I told her that I had examined the phone and it was exactly the same model. She told me that her competitors phones looked real, but they were actually fake. I said, "He told me yours were fake." That was the end of that game.

I took 1400 RMB out of my wallet and handed it to her. She was adamant. 1550. OK, I took out an extra 50. I told her that was my limit, and I prepared to leave. She said she needed more. I took out 10 kuai. She looked in my wallet and saw another one. What could I do? I gave it to her. Sold. One thousand four hundred seventy. Eason would probably say I paid more than I had too, and he is right. I could have bought the online version. But that is not without it's problems. For one thing, China is a cash-oriented society. Online shopping is not done with credit cards. You order, it is delivered by a courier, and you pay for it. But I am also concerned about how you might deal with any problems you might have. Not as convenient as walking into a store in my neighborhood.

So what is a fair price? Sometimes it can be hard to determine this. I don't like to be cheated, but I don't want to cheat anyone, either. In one sense, the price I paid should be more than fair, because it was close to 150 kuai more than the online price. But, of course, I don't have any idea what her commission was. After all her haggling about the price, I am convinced that the store still made a decent profit, if not a killing. But I am not sure about the sales lady. I just don't know.