Xi From China: Culture

Chinese Culture (2) Traditional Philosophy

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:45:34 GMT

Taoism

The Yin and Yang is a concept originated from China. So far as I know, westerners know Yin and Yang too. My friend Dan has a picture of Yin and Yang in his bedroom.

Yin and Yang

Yin and Yang originally denoted different terrain in sunshine and in shadow respectively. Then this concept extended to everything. Yin and Yang describes two opposing and, at the same time, complementary aspects of any one phenomenon or comparison of any two phenomena. They are universal standards of quality at the basis of the systems of correspondence seen in most branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy.[1]

Taoism, the systematic view of the Yin & Yang, is an objective philosophy, kinda like a preliminary version of Dialectical Materialism. It believes that everything is in constantly motioning and transforming, so, nothing lasts for ever. It provides a holism that we all belong to some thing bigger than us, namely the Tao. According to this theroy, nothing happens alone. Everything in this world is correlated.

This philosophy is still pretty active in Chinese thinking nowadays. You can constantly see some people refer something as Yin or Yang, or their derivative. Also hereby Chinese believe in collective responsibility, like: Every Chinese is responsible to the rise and fall of China (天下兴亡, 匹夫有责).

Taosim contributed materialism, holism and objectivism to Chinese philosophy.

Confucianism

Another important original philosophy of China is the Confucianism. Confucianism was concieved by an educator lived in 5th BC, the Confucius. When he was alive, he was just an one-among-many not-so-important philosopher in China. However, after his death, as the First Emperor of China established Confucianism as the offcial theory of the Empire, Confucius and his theory started to become immortal.

The importance of Confucius to China is no less than Jesus Christ to the West. The book, Analects of Confucius (论语), summarized the dialogues and stories of Confucius and his students, was the most influential one in ancient China. We have a saying that "One can rule the world by half book of Analects of Confucius" (半部论语治天下). This book exists in every aspect of Chinese lives, even though most of Chinese haven't read it.

For example: Knives and forks as transformations of weapons of hunting, seems to be a straightforward way for eating utensils. Some scholars report that Sino-Countries use chopsticks instead of knives and forks is instructed by Confucianism. It's from where Confucius says "Righteous men should be away from kitchen" (君子远庖厨). So Chinese chop food to bitesize before serving to table.
Chinese-world map. Dark green: Chinese world (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Taiwan). Light green: Areas with strong Chinese cultural influence (Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam).

This is just an example of how significant Confucianism to China. Several specific things brought by Confucianism:

Hierachical Society. Under the influence of Confucianism, all Sino-countries have hierachical social structure. People are tightly linked by parental, supervisory and teaching relationships. Everyone knows one's own position in the big picture. There is strict order of the whole society, and competition, a kind of waste, must be minimized.

In a hierachical society, people are not equal. Here, they are classified by age/experience, gender, education and occupation.

Age/Experience: In Canada, it is impolite to refer somebody as "old". Another word "aged" should be used. Well, in Chinese, the word "old" is positive. Like, if you are younger than me then you can call me as "Old Zhang", which is a title of respect. Further more, if you call me "Zhang old", it not only means I'm old, but also I'm somebody very important. Another example is in Sino-countries, senior students have power over junior students. When I ran the association in Chinese University, kids called me "elder brother in study" (师兄), which sounds very weird in English but normal in Sino-countries.

Gender: Like other ancient cultures, traditionally males has power over females.

Education: Since Confucius himself was an educator, he took the education as a standard to judge people. I think this exist in all successful cultures, because education is really important for development. Western culture too are crazy about the title "Dr.".

Occupation: Generally speaking, headworkers are considered prior. Today, you can still observe people behave meanly to waiters or cleaners, whom are seen as lower class. People rarely talk to others in lower classes. Most Chinese even unware this themselves, but it does exist.

Atheism & Pragmatism. I am very happy to see that Confucius wasn't a religious, so we can be spared from those God crap. Everything he discussed was focused on people, kinda like the ancient version of "for the people, by the people, of the people". Comparing to illusive God, ghost and afterlife, he cared more about living people.

Influenced by him, we Chinese are atheists inside. All Chinese dynasties have historians specified for recording the history. In those history record, all Chinese emperors who are religious are scoffed as clowns. On the other hand, those who banned religions are described as wise men.

Asceticism. This part of Confucianism believes in self-control and self-questioning. One should quit all enjoyments and fight tempters before greatness is achieved. There is no easy way to success. I guess the diligency of Chinese nation is from this point.

Confusionism has more and stronger other influences on politics since it was applied as the official theory in the first time. But to the nationality, hierarchy, atheism, pragmatism and asceticism, those are all I can get.

Buddhism

Although the Buddhism to China is considered as one of three most important traditional ideology along Confucianism and Taoism (儒道释三家) , I don't think it's as influential as previous two.

The reason is, when Buddhism came to China, it's too late. Confucianism and Taoism had deeply rooted in Chinese culture already. So it had to change itself to be accepted. Actually, that happened all over the world. There are differences between Buddhisms in different culture backgrounds. Let's see it by comparison.

Japanese monks can get married, while Chinese Buddhism cannot even have sex. On the other hand, Tibetan Buddhism, incorporated with local Shamanism, is the most primitive one of all.[3] Actually, it is too brutal so that some Buddhists refuse to call it Buddhism, intead, they use the word Lamaism. Lamaists not only can have sex, but also include sex as part of their ritual. By the way, those rituals too include sacrifice people alive.

A statuary of Buddha having sex

Unlike Lamaism, Zen (禅) the Chinese Buddhism, mixed by Confucianism and Taoism, is a very peaceful branch. Zen cares more about inside peace. It's definitely not political. While Lamaism, is theocracy. Zen monks have to work. They say "no working, no eating." (一日不做,一日不食). Conversely, Lamaism monks make their living by praying. (and of course, enslaving serfs.) Zen also provides pragmatic and holistic world view. Asceticism is also another characteristic of Zen. Zen has the most strict commandment that Zen monks cannot have sex, cannot drink, eat meat or even spicy food like onion and ginger. For Lamaism, even Dalai Lama himself is not a vegetarian. All these are believed form Confucianism and Taoism.

A token of Zen. Kinda like Yin & Yang?

The only new concept I know Buddhism brought to China is karma. Nonetheless, Buddhism still has its impact on China. Today, most Chinese consider sutra as wisdom words instinctively. But for Christian Bible, it's just some superstitious madness.

To sum up, Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism are three major ideologies in ancient China. But now, it has been changed so much, due to the upheaval in the past 50 years. And this will be my next article of this series.

Coming soon: Chinese Culture (3) Democracy and Communism

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_yang
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_China
[3] http://energygrid.com/spirit/free-tibet.html

Chinese Culture (1) The World View

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:27:14 GMT

A western scholar wrote: "All nations claim they are the best in the world, but only Chinese really believe that." It makes sense.

Chinese culture, by all means, is arrogant. It's straightforward. Chinese civilization, in most of its long history, is the sole superpower in its own world, and far more advanced than surroundings. Once being strong, arrogance comes along. Let's take a look at American for better understanding. US has been leading the world, like, only 100 years? They are arrogant this much already. So how about leading the world over thousands of years? It must have some influence in the culture.

Chinese world view is simple. The world is divided into two part: what belong to China, and what do not. The word "foreign" or "foreigner" in ancient Chinese language, Yi (夷) , is the same word means barbarian or even contempt. On the other hand, the word China or Chinese, Hua (华) , also means prosperous or splendid.

The comforting part is, Chinese identity is not based on blood. To be a Chinese, you don't need genetically being one. Traditionally, you are a Chinese as long as you accept the culture. One can draw this conclusion from the origination of the China totem, the Chinese dragon. The Chinese dragon is an imaginary animal combining the resemblances of many others, include eagle, cows, camel, horse and others. Some scholars report that the first legendary Emperor of China Huang Di (黃帝,Yellow Emperor) used a snake for his coat of arms. Every time he conquered another tribe, he incorporated his defeated enemy's emblem into his own. That explains why the dragon appears to have features of various animals.[1] Chinese culture was tolerant and open. In the golden age, when the GDP of China was 70% of entire world, there were over 1,000 foreign families living in the capital of Tang Dynasty, Chang An. And many of ministers and generals by that time were not ethnic Chinese. It was the diversity made Chinese culture imperishable.

However, as it's being said, pride makes empires fall. It is literally what happened to Chinese Empire. Succeeding in certain way blocks other probabilities. China began to lock herself and be hostile to outside world. She thought she was almighty, thus refused to progress anymore. Also the intrusion of nomads, the Nazi or Communism (if you are a Westerner) to agricultural civilizations, weakened the China too. That's when China began to fall.

The half-colonized period is refered as humiliating history by us, which was the dark time of Chinese history. Chinese found China wasn't the "Heaven Kingdom" anymore. On the other hand, she was one of the poorest and most benighted countries in the world. The Chinese world view was changed. People started to doubt on their own culture. They start turning to the West and Japan. That's when foreign ideologies like the Democracy and Communism came to China.

Once fell, the "Chinese or Not" dualism conversely became a huge burden. In subconscious, most Chinese think there are only 2 countries in the world: one is China, and another is "foreign country". And apparently, people in "foreign country" live better lives. The inferiority complex spreaded. I even heard a kid asked me (exact translation) : "What's wrong with our country? Why foreigners have high quality? And whay foreign countries are so wealthy and fair." ---- Well, if you talked about the Western countries and the Westerners, I would say it's a controversial question and let's discuss it. But, "foreign countries"? I don't really think the life in Afghanistan is better.

That's all water under the bridge now. The pride of being Chinese was somewhat back. I am delighted to see China is rising again, with more realism. We have new words for foreigners with no contempt. "Wai guo ren" (外国人), is a exact translation from the English word foreigner. For example, I am a "wai guo ren" in Canada. Correct. Well, to some extent, I think the Sino-Centralized view didn't change too much. The word "wai guo ren" is too formal to say in real life, so when we mention foreigners, usually we use another word "lao wai" (老外) as colloquial expression. It is this word reveals the way of Chinese thinking. According to Chinese grammar, "lao wai" is just an abbreviation of "Wai guo ren". However, if you think about it, the meaning is not as the same. Instead of "foreigner", "lao wai" actually means "not a Chinese". For instance, in China I'm Chinese, but in Canada I'm still not "lao wai", Canadians are.

Since there is no counterpart for "lao wai" in English, many Chinese use the word foreigner instead, which makes jokes. I saw several times, when Chinese refered Canadian as foreigners, they opposed: "I think you are the foreigner here." Haha, sometimes I do that too, subconsciously. This word doesn't mean anything negative. It's just a certain way of thinking. Should I invent a new word like "non-Chinese" in English? It sounds nationalism though. But ... why do I try to use the word anyway? There is no "non-Canadian" or "non-American" in English, but my "lao wai" friends can handle it. ^_^ Anyway, it's bad. It means I do not think in English when I speak.

Another interesting thing to observe is how Chinese use the word "lao wai" when talk in Chinese. The definition of the word actually varies according circumstances, which shows the flexibility of Chinese nation identification. Who have Chinese citizenship are definitely not "lao wai", plus people in Hongkong, Macao and Taiwan. For those ethnic Chinese from South Asian, they passed the Chinese culture as well as the language from generation to generation, they are too not "lao wai" to us. That's understandable. What surprise me is, some Chinese Canadian, they don't speak any of Chinese languages, they haven't been to China and they don't know things about China. To me, they are definitely more Canadian than Chinese. But still, they are unlikely to be called as "lao wai". Nonetheless, this is not based on ethnicity, at least not too much. Tibetan Chinese, Korean Chinese and Mongol Chinese are not "lao wai" neither. To sum up, the meaning of this word is really inexplicit.

As I said, Chinese world view is dualistic: Chinese, and non-Chinese. It doesn't mean we are nationalism enthusiasts. It may be annoying, like Jews claim they are the only chosen ones. Well, what can I say? You cannot make everyone happy. I believe all superpowers in the history of mankind have the same ideology, like today's United States. The only difference is their history is too short to has impact on the language.

To be continued ....

Coming soon: Chinese philosophy in the past and present.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_dragon

Half A Year

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:57:53 GMT

I've been here half a year. Actually, half a year plus 2 days. I forgot my big landing anniversary. People say you need half a year to acclimate a foreign country. I think they are correct.

There are things I learnt from Orientation. When you start a new life in another country, you have to been through the following phases:

1. Honey Moon.

When you first come to a foreign country, within around 3 month, you will feel excited and interested. You are like a tourist in this stage. People are friendly and open and air is clean, everything seems to be so wonderful. You cannot wait to embrace your new life.

In my 2 weeks after I landed, I did feel pleasure. I walked around, took pictures and talked with people. It's like the best free trip I'd ever had. Even when I was in bus stop waiting for bus, I saw the exotic suburban view in front of me, I couldn't help myself from the exciting feeling. "I'm in Canada, unbelievable!"

PS: Some people say when you just came aboard, culture shock would overwhelm you. I don't think so. Maybe for young kids, that's true. Too many unfamiliar things make them nostalgic. For me? No. I'm too old to be overwhelmed by living circumstance. Besides, globalization largely diminishes the culture difference. There is nothing out of my expectation. You can know everything from the internet today. Further more, Victoria is such a beautiful and peaceful place, how come would I be overwhelmed by this? Unless I came to Iraq.

2. Frustration

After wedding Honey moon, new couple should set their feet back to ground and start living. So is it for Honey Moon of going abroad. After 2 weeks, the new term started. Oh, that was definitely overwhelming, for everyhing. People say this stage lasts for another 2 or 3 month.

There are 3 main tasks for grad students, study, teaching and the most important one, research. For study, I took senior courses in English, which I'd never done before. However, I would be really happy if this is my only job. In fact, it's like the easiest part. Research is much more intense. I didn't know too much about the research area of my supervisor, so everything is fresh new. I had to start from beginning. But that's OK too. Since I changed my major before, I could do it one more time. While, for teaching, that was ... I don't know what to say. I really want to ask the officer that how could you let a person who has never been in a Western class in his life, but to teach one in front of native speakers. It was beyond ridiculous. Anyway, it was the water under the bridge. I made through.

I don't wanna pretend to be an invincible hero. I admit that I did feel painful and anxious during this stage. But like I said, water under the bridge.

PS: The reason of my frustration also because I overreacted to everything. For example, when I did my math homework, I proved the same lemma with 2 different ways, tried to get more score, which is so stupid. I won't do that anymore.

3. Boredom

My uncle, who is a professor in US and used to be a student in Canada, wrote me a letter said I will miss my first term abroad afterwards. The most time of my first term was anxious, it's not pleasure. So do I miss it? To some extent, yes. I know exactly what he meant.

As I said ,I was excited as well. I was still in the excitation of new life so the frustration stage was not totally painful, it's bittersweet. Working 12 hours a day, hoping for some unexpected good things, it's actually happy life.

The real problem happened after 3 or 4 month. I became realistic after being here for such a long time, so I knew my fantasy wouldn't come true. Hope was gone. And the bus stop view wouldn't cheer me anymore. On the other hand, although I gradually got used to the school work, I still needed to work from 9am to 9pm. Picture the feeling of being bored and busy at the same time, that's what I had. I need to find my new life.

PS: Boredom didn't really hurt me, perhaps because I'm such a boring person.

4. Adaption

Like people said, within half a year, the boredom would be gone. School work is still tough, but not overwhelming. If I rank the difficulty of my tasks again, that will be: research>courses>teaching. Teaching is the least hard one now.

In this stage, you have new friends, new life and maybe new personality. Scientists say the same people in different circumstances shows distinct characteristics. So you may see a person being differently in another country. However, I'm glad to see that I'm still the guy I used to be:

Kidding around with sarcastic jokes, both in Chinese and English, while most of them are self-mockery. Several of them are funny while most of them are not. Practicing badminton with enthusiasm and hoping I could win a local champion someday, while actuall I'm still in beginning level. Working all day, while hate it.

You see, I didn't change at all. Oh, maybe I changed. But I can't tell because I'm living inside myself. The picture showed above tells us that when people come back to their own country after being abroad for a long time, there will be a reversed culture shock as well. We will know it by then.

Westerners and Easterners see the world differently

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:17:27 GMT

The difference between them and us could be greater than you thought. On one side it is Easterner, like Chinese, Japanese and Korean, namely Greater China or Sinic World[2]. On another side it is westerner, European and American.[3] A serious psychology study shows that.

"Chinese and American people see the world differently – literally. While Americans focus on the central objects of photographs, Chinese individuals pay more attention to the image as a whole."[1]

"Western and East Asian people have contrasting world-views, Americans break things down analytically, focusing on putting objects into categories and working out what rules they should obey. By contrast, East Asians have a more holistic philosophy, looking at objects in relation to the whole"[1]

“Harmony is a central idea in East Asian philosophy, and so there is more emphasis on how things relate to the whole. In the West, by contrast, life is about achieving goals.” [1]

[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7882

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_China

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

Christmas

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 06:13:46 GMT

Again, I was invited to Christmas dinner of Norman's familiy. They are nice. Before it started, Dan drove me around, showing me the Christmas of Victoria. Since he is local, so he knows something. Thanks to him, I saw some fantastic lights out there. It was a pity that I forgot to bring camera, otherwise, I can show you some good pictures now.

On the way, Dan asked me: "Do you have Christmas in China?"

Yes we do.

The meaning of holiday is that in a given time, everyone stops working and have some fun together. In China, the most important one is Spring Festival. It is a holiday about reunion of families and friends, just like Christmas to Westerners. It is nice to be with families, however, sometimes young people need to spend time with each other. So here comes Christmas. Unlike the West, Chinese Christmas is a carnival of young blood. Friends, couples, especially students couples, spend the romantic night together.

Christmas is becoming more and more important in China. What should I say? It is no denying that Western culture is the dominant one today.

My first Christmas was in high school. Before that, I didn't even know the date of Christmas. I went to girl friend's place on that day. Oh, It was like a century ago. Now I cannot even recall her face. I am so grown up.

Forgettery is not totally a disadvantage, scientists say. Prone to forget indicates easier to comprehend, because forgetters are better at filtering useless information. In other words, they use brains efficiently. I buy the story, so I can properly explain why I am so forgetful.

Let me try to recall the details. In my first Christmas, her mom was there with us. Since in my memory, I have a picture of we having dinner together. My gift was a sweater. I had worn it for years before it.... OK, I don't really remember what had happened to the sweater. There was a dog too, a big one. It could be either a Labrador Retriever or a Golden Retriever. And there was a fancy Christmas tree in the living room, which was even better than most of what I've seen in Canada. I am not sure about this but, I want to say it was a wooden one....

"Hoo, a wooden one? " Dan was surprised. "Are they European?"

"No, they are Chinese." I answered with a smile. "But they act like European."

Discrimination

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:04:15 GMT

As what I stated before, discrimination is a very reasonable thing of human being. Actually, it is for all intelligent creatures. As long as a species wants to survive in the epic of evolution, it has to be protective of its own kind and be against to others. For human being, it's more complicated. You should not only protect your DNA, but also your beliefs, your ideology and your social group.

Some people always talk about the vanity of nations. They say there should be no wall between us. What's it called? Oh yes, internationalism. And they also claim that men and women should be treated equally. They are really big fans of equality, aren't they?

I say they are cheating themselves. It's difference which leads discrimination. Since differences always exist among people, there is no way to diminish the discrimination.

I tried to find a new apartment lately, but I can not get one. It doesn't matter actually. I've already made the decision to stay. I'm not going to talk about housing. The thing is, when I was browsing advertisements, I found something interesting frustrated me: All the landlords are prefer female tenants.

It's nothing new. This phenomenon exists in China as well, and it is understandable. Females want female roommates for safety concern, males want female roommates for romantic concern and landlords want female roommates for sanitary concern. So everybody wants female and nobody wants male. Wait a minute, choosing one gender over another, it sounds so familiar... um, may I call it sexual discrimination?

And the racial discrimination appears on the advertisement too. However, in this time, I am the one who benefits. A large amount of advertisements say they prefer "Asian students". Oh no, the racism, call the police! hurry up!

Occupational discrimination is also worth mentioning. Again, the advertisements are prefer engineering students. Another type of discriminations? Gosh, what terrible advertisements they are!

You can see it clearly that why the landlords are doing this. I mean, who doesn't want a good tenant? Asian are quiet and have less parties. Engineers are too busy to be trouble makers. Not to mention the females, the favorite of the entire world. Landlords are innocent. If there is any evil, that will be the essence of life itself. Being a self-organization system, the soul of life is prefering similarity and discriminating difference.

As what you have seen, the discrimination on different people is reasonable, both logically and anthropologically. Men are different from women. Asian are different from North American, and engineers are different from ... what's the opposite of engineers? I want to say artists. The funny thing is, some people try to eliminate the diversity by simply applying ostrich policy. Those moralists, they just bury their heads in sand and pretend the problem doesn't exist. They couldn't be more wrong. I'm sorry but it's not a perfect world, and it can not be that harmonic, forever.

Difference On Food

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:04:57 GMT

When I was on the retreat, we talked about food. As Daniel the Canadian priest heard that Chinese use knife and fork to eat pizza, he laughed out loudly. Not only him, all the Canadian thought it is a very funny joke.

I don't know. I used to eat pizza with knife and fork in Chinese Pizza Hut too, I didn't realize that was abnormal. It's because in China, we consider pizza as "western food". So when you eat western food, you should use western utensils like knife and fork. Pizza Hut in China is considered as nice restaurants, sometimes you need reservation to have a piece of pizza. To Canadian, pizza is just a everyday food.

However, if you try to think on their feet, this could be funny. My Chinese friends, if you want to comprehend this, just try to think about this scenario:

Two well dressed people, usually one young gentleman with one young lady, are eating in a fancy restaurant, elegantly. They whisper to each other softly, surrounding by fascinating music and light. Neat waiters serve nice soup, salad and dessert to them. But among these side dishes, the main course provided to this graceful couple is:

Isn't it crazy too?

Go Making Some Foreign Friends

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:43:23 GMT

Before I came, what I heard is: don't be too close to Chinese people. There was a guy in Uvic Alumnus even told us: "Get away from Chinese!" I know. Chinese friends won't help with your English. If all your friends are Chinese, some people will think you don't have the ability to survive, and you will be considered as a loser.

However, I don't think so.

First, it is a very nature thing to be with your countrymen. It's because not only you guys speak the same language, but also you have exact the same culture background. Wherever you go, you meet Chinese. When you go to play badminton, you meet Chinese; when you go to Bible exploration, you meet Chinese; when you go shopping in Chinese style supermarket, you meet Chinese. That's because we are similar inside, and we have common interests. It is actually very difficult to "get away from Chinese".

And also, it's hard to find foreign friends, especially Canadian. That's because I don't have the opportunity to meet them. People won't be nice to others for no reason. The only Canadian I know are Norman's family members and Daniel the priest. Norman's family are nice to me because they are friends of my dad, and Daniel is nice to international students because he is doing his job. I do know some foreigners in my department, but they are basically Iranian or Indian. And the only thing I can talk with them is academic stuffs. I think it's because culture difference. I feel better with Asian like Japanese than native Chinese descendance.

If you are a hot girl, you can easily make many friends. Unfortunately, I am not. Furthermore, If you have lots of time, it will be easier too. For instance, if you are an undergraduate student who majors in business, study won't take you too much time. Not to mention those who study in language school, studying aboard is like a vacation to them. But to us, it's like a war.

One of my Chinese roommate, he came to Canada 3 years ago, and he majors in business. When I first met him, I thought he is a Canadian Chinese descendant. First, his English is really good, I can't distinguish his accent at all. (The wierd thing is those native speakers always can tell the accent.) Second, all his friends and even his girl friend are not Chinese. Besides, he plays guitar in a local music band, and he uses skateboard instead of bicycle to go to school. In a word, he is totally North American style.

He is really good. I confess I am jealous, but I can't be like that. I don't have the time to do those things, and I'm a bit too old to change myself. I am not that kind of people who afraid of change. I changed my specialty without hesitation in the past 3 years, twice. But this is different. This is the 25th year of my life. I am a mature person already. More than half of Chinese in my department are married in this age. (Maybe I should get married sometimes later.) I don't think I can change my life style so much anymore. In fact, I don't want to change it at all.

Not everybody has such a good opportunity like my roommate. Some people flatter hard to be with Canadian, which make themselves look bad. I know they just don't want to be losers. Me too. But I don't like it. For my point of view, rejecting your people but flattering foreigners, isn't it another kind of losers?

I don't want to judge anyone here. In fact, I totally understand them. It's a dilemma. Perhaps, for people from the Third World who live in developed countries, whatever you do, the fate of being losers is inevitable.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:08:07 GMT

I went to a Canadian thanksgiving dinner tonight, and it was great.

I have to say that I am so lucky to have friends thousands miles away from home. Actually, they are friends of my dad. Well, not actually. Because none of them knows my dad directly. Here is the thing: my dad's friend Norman is a relative of them. Although neither Norman nor my dad was here, they still invited me as a close friend. I think that's because my dad is always so nice to his friends as well as Norman is a nice person too. I am really thankful for that.

It was a very traditional North American style thanksgiving dinner. We've got a big turkey, pumpkin pies and many other traditional food. Thanksgiving is about familiy members and their lonely friends away from home. These people gathering together and eat like insanely. The host, who is a brother of Norman, he told me: "Try to eat as much as you can, then you won't eat for 2 days." We have 9 people in this dinner. whom are all families except me. My friend Dan told me this is the smallest thanksgiving dinner ever. Once they've had more than 20 people in thanksgiving dinner.

I brought a bunch of flowers, played poker with boys, ate as much turkey as I can, drunk too much home-made wine and had lots of great talking today. It was a really fantastic experience for me. They are nice and friendly. I really enjoyed it.