Eric's Beijing Diary

Everyone in China knows who Ernest Hemingway is. Everyone who has been to school, that is. The Old Man and the Sea is used in English classes throughout China. I read The Old Man and the Sea, and it didn't set the world on fire for me, but some of Hemingway's stuff on the crisis of battle and how it affects men is unparalleled.

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. You will meet them doing various things with resolve, but their interest rarely holds because after the other thing ordinary life is as flat as the taste of wine when the taste buds have been burned off your tongue." (from 'On the Blue Water')

What is it that makes a great writer. Or scholar. Or better put, what is it that makes an educated man? Mark Twain, one of my favorite American writers said, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." Twain's writing came from life. Jesse Stuart, another one of my favorites, was the son of a mountain man who signed his name with an "X." Jesse Stuart dearly valued education, because he was the first person in his family to get one. But he, also, had trouble with formal schooling. Not that he wasn't a good student. He was a very good student. He became a teacher, high school principal, and later, a school superintendent. But in college, he always had trouble with formal writing assignments. He would be assigned to write a research paper, and turn in a bunch of stories instead. Professors didn't know what to do with him. And when he went to graduate school, he really chafed at the idea of writing a thesis. He would go to the library and try to read a few of them, but he was bored silly. He never did get a graduate degree, but his writing is full of life, and paints a richly colorful picture of life in the mountains of Kentucky. He became an accomplished writer and lecturer. His daughter earned at least one PhD, but never came close to her father in terms of creative output.

Winston Churchill said that, "a man's life must be nailed to a cross of thought or action." He was talking about himself, and Churchill was definitely action with a capital "A." Yet, many do not realize that Churchill actually made his living as a writer. He went to Sandhurst (British equivalent of West Point), but he actually spent his time in the battlefield as a war correspondent. Churchill's account of the Battle of Omdurman could not have been written by a scholar who learned everything in the classroom.

But on the other side, I have met with people who seem almost to believe that there is an inverse relationship between formal education and true learning. They are taking the point too far. I once met a guy who told me that when he was in college, his best professors were the ones with the least education. Made me wonder why he went to college at all. It's all about balance. And that is something I struggle with here in China. My philosophy of education is very simple: I do not live to teach; I live to learn. Don't get me wrong--I do like teaching. But I don't live for it. I can live without teaching. But I cannot live without learning. So I tend to identify easily with learners. And the students I have are good learners. But in the Chinese educational ethic, I sometimes encounter folks who seem to be pursuing an advanced degree merely for the sake of the title. I don't relate well to folks like this, because they don't seem to have much interest in learning. I should be careful to emphasize that this value is by no means limited to China; I have encountered it everywhere. It's all over American society. But in traditional China (going back to the time of Confucius), where educational achievement could mean the difference between working in the fields all day in the hot sun, and holding a respectable public position, the problem seems to be accentuated.