After reading Monica’s article” Where is your confidence from” I have been thinking about why, general speaking, relatively, Chinese tend to lack confidence, even when doing something that they know is their strength, even sometimes they know they are better than others. Early this morning when I opened my eyes, the answer seemed to be coming clear in my mind.

China has experienced a feudal period of more than 2000 years, in a feudal society traditional culture which emphasizes humility and modest takes charge of every aspect of the society. For women, ignorance is virtue. For a child, who acts humble is always a pearl in the eyes of his parents and teachers. It’s 2000 years, not 200, within such a long time the dropping of water can wear a stone, such a wrong thing when have been repeated millions of times, it’s the truth, or a rule, that anyone who acts against is a bighead, and would be despised or isolated. Everyone takes the truth for granted, and no one dares to break the rule. It goes on and on, even today, we don’t always feel free to say “I can”.

Then who is the second to blame? Our education, exam-oriented education! The only days as I remember when I was often praised was in my kindergarten. As I grow up, the compliments I receive are getting less and less. And the truth is I am not the only one suffering from this circumstance. Big boys don’t need praise anymore? It’s ridiculous! Why are you always picking on me? In exam-oriented education, teachers only praise those nerds who burry themselves in books, only praise you when you got a No1 in a test (we know No 1 is only one). You will never get too many marks, you are never satisfied!!

On the other hand, they don’t care if we have learned something real. Take learning English for example, they don’t care whether you say it right, write it right, all you should do is master grammars and recite paragraphs and glossary, and then get a high mark in exams. That’s enough!! So that most of us can’t “speak”, and what we have learned for years turned out to be mute English. “sorry, my English is poor”, ”sorry, I don’t understand very well…” why? Not that we are slow, not that we are lazy in learning English, but that we are not educated properly.

Today the government says they are sparing no effort in making-education. But as I see it, if they have really done something, the trend of making-education only can be seen in colleges or universities. There we are given lots of time at our mercy, granted freedom that we couldn’t imagine before. But, everything seems to be too late. Just like a tiger that has been living in a zoo for ages, one day he is told “you are free, please go back to the forest and make your own life”.

To see it from the perspective of population. Rumor has it that “rules” don’t apply to china, a country with a huge population of 1.3 billions (in fact, much more than that). I think it’s true. Sometimes we can’t work out the problem by analyzing in a simple way, a rational, logical way. In such a big but crowded country, that happens thousands of candidates compete for a post in civil service examination. It’s obvious that people are being divided into two parts in such fierce competitions, increasingly confident winners and increasingly self-contempt losers (and they are the majority).

    Now you see where is your confidence? If you see it somewhere else, tell me then.

    Busy, I am busy!!

    I have been busier than ever before with lots of things, preparing for the upcoming BEC, papers, and assignments. All the assigned writings are required more than 1000 characters.

    These mornings I got up a little earlier than I did last week, opened my book and did some reading, of course the read out loud kind, despite I am taking pills for my throat sickness. I would have a dialog with my partner who is also my roommate, choose a topic and talk about it all as is required in the test. We all feel good and have a faith in ourselves to believe it’s gonna be a small potatoes. But I think I really need to do more homework to make it easier to pass the exam, cuz BEC is after all quite different from what I learned before, from all English test I had taken. I have to know some words that may be familiar but with different meanings in the biz area, and how to write a fax massage, how to take note of a meeting, things like that. So it’s really a challenge to me. I have been taking a course of BEC, twice a week, 3 hours for each, in hope that I will learn a lot from those excellent teachers and pass the exam smoothly.

    On top of this, I have too been taking a course which is set for those who want to join the Communist Party. Though it seems boring sometimes, I have no choice but to take it. Hey, yesterday I learned how to sing the internationale (国际歌), haha, I wrote down the lyric on my note book so as to sing to it whenever the training class begins. Believe or not, most of the trainees around can’t sing this song.

     As is scheduled, we are going a pay a visit to 农讲所 in Guangzhou this Saturday. There we will learn more about how our ancient martyr (烈士) devoted themselves to the revolution, and tried to save the nation in this hard period. I am looking forward to it !!

     Following I am gonna talk about the assigned writings. We trainees are demanded to hand in four essays 2 weeks later, about how we think when taking this course, and after reading the books about the history of our Party. It’s kinda perverted !!!

Busy, busy, busy!!

I didn't update my blog for many days, since I have been busy throughout this week, preparing the PPT presentation for Thursday's class, stuffs about the sports meeting today, things like that, busy but meaningful.  I suddenly came to aware of gifts from god, at least one or two gifts, that maybe most of us never notice or just take any surprisingly good thing for granted.

Let me recall what i did yesterday.  I didn't have any class to take for the whole day.  Early in the morning, I got a short message from my sister, in which she told me a kind of medicine *** might have a specially good effect to my throat sickness.  Actually I heard about it, but I hadn't thought about it until she told me.  So I went out for the medicine and felt it obviously worked after taking the drugs.

After lunch, I went to bed just intended to take a nap, but I slept for almost 2 hours and had a strange dream, a dream so vivid, like those happening in the night.  I was so sleepy that i reluctantly opened my eyes when i came to myself.  I had to, beacuse of the awareness of a speech that was to be held at 3:00 in the afternoon, and it was about time. I thought I would be regreted if I miss it, though the speech turned out to be a little less wonderful than I expected, it was worth having after all.  Cuz i learned what a college scholar is meant to be.

After the speech, I thought I could relax myself for the whole evening. but at the front gate of the dining hall, I came across a alssmate of mine.  He asked me whether it is in the classroom 312 that we are going to have the ceremony launching the Party course( the course is for those who want to join the party in my college).  Oh, my god, the course should be the order of the day, I even forgot!!   Fortunately it was not too late, haha.

Seems that I am making a list of what I did for the whole day.  Actually I am telling you of three gifts from god.  It was a wonderful day, because of this. What life means depends on how you take things that happen to you.  When you receive a gift, don't you feel happy?  Guess what i am doing now?  I am counting how many gifts I received today, HAHA...

Fall is said to be a season when leaves turn yellow and fall down. but I don't see this in the real world. I sense its arrival by smelling its subtle flavour, so acid that I wanna cry.

I wonder I am the fallen leaf in this season, or, it's a leaf about to fall down, shaking in the chilly breeze, when it blows strong it will be gone, with the wind, dancing in the dry air to complete its life, and start its mission. I am not myself today. I don't even know what makes me feel like a falling leaf, maybe it's the season change that brings me all these. sore throat,a slight fever, feeling uneasy, anxious...

The sky is gloomy again.

        Yesterday afternoon when I was sitting around, feeling bored a little bit, my computer reminded me that my QQ tool needed to be updated. So that I clicked the given link, then the QQ official website took on in front of my eyes, but the first thing caught my eye was the title “ English QQ version,2005”.  I have never heard about an English version of QQ, so it must be cool.

       With a series of clicks on my mini-mouse, I downloaded and installed the software within less than 5 minutes. Later on when I login my QQ, it really turned me on, wow, all in English!! That’s really cool! Look, this is my QQ!

       Look at the photo on the left, it’s the main panel. There is no difference from the Chinese version, except the language, you see, my buddy, stranger, black list, all are so familiar to us. 4 modes to be chosen, online, away, invisable, and offline, haha, invisable is my lifestyle. 

     Ther following is the QQ settings,icluding Personal settings, System settings and Security settings. Very interesting, right?

    Speaking of its interesting things, i am to blame if i don't mention the window of QQ group. Here is one of the english learning groups i am in. You see the bottoms chat, bbc, ablum... things like that, seemed kinda old-fashioned, but qeite different from those in common use. Right, it's the 2005 version, which is the latest English version we can find on net.

    We need to add some fresh air to our life, thst's what a diffrent version can bring us. with this version, i feel close to english!!

    The first impression home left us was where we were born, where we were heading after school, and where you feel a sense of belonging especially when you are far away from it. When you get hurt, you wanna find a shelter where you can feel safe. when you are tired or sick, you need a place to take a rest and be nursed better. When you are frustrated, the first thought flow through you mind is home, you need to go home.

    After years away from home, I became more independent, instead of being homesick when I first came here two years ago. But it's not until I was asked whether I was too bush those days by my mom that I realized it had been a long time I didn't make a phone call to my family, more than a month. Hearing the obviously trembling voice on the phone, Suddenly, I felt kinda chocked in my throat. Somehow I even forgot my father's birthday last month. What's wrong with me?

    We always take it for granted that it's mom who makes everything ready for us, prepares the dinner, does the laundry, and it's dad who pays the tuitions fee for you, pays for your NOKIA or DELL. Maybe we would write an assigned composition entitled "my father" or "my mother", stories about how they love you and how you love them back, but some of us never know how important we are to them, and what they want most. They don't require you a lot, but to keep them have the knowledge that you are safe and happy. To the world you are someone, but to someone you are the world.

     East and west, home is best.

     I am writing my diary in front of the screen, with my fingertips knocking on the keyboard, so fluently. I like this way of writing because I can correct any slight mistake with the help of the computer, delete a line or a paragraph without making the page space messy and dirty. What's more, I can put them onto the web if I feel like it. 
     But when we feel fulfilled with something, we may be ignoring or losing something that may be more important. We are getting more familiar with the keyboard, but less with pen, more friendly with cyber pals, but less with people around you, more passionate to the games but less to your won life, more patient to logging on to the websites but less to opening the books.
     Some people like wearing a mp3 or mp4 player, completely lost in his musical kingdom, despite how the world goes around him. Some even sing to the earphone, dance to the rhythm, yell like the people around were transparent. I often see the black act this way on TV or movies, which make me think of the sentence "don't act black". Undoubtedly, they are talented at this entertainment, and I am not saying this in any discrimination against the black. It's no more than a case attributing to the phenomenon that more and more people are mind distracted by personal stereo in work and life.
     We didn't plan to be born in this electronic world but here we are. We were not intended to be the slave of computer but here it goes.

What's my ideal? I thought about this question when I was asked to tell everybody in the class in my grade 2, elementary school. A scientist, a teacher, a doctor, or a drawer? A series of nouns I had learned in the class flew through my mind, but I didn't know what they really meant, let alone chose one as my ideal. At that time what ideal could mean was only a kind of job that you liked best.