Chinese Democracy

Chinese Democracy is the name of a long awaited never released album by the 80's rock band Guns N' Roses, the theoretical album cover is pictured to the left. But I also thought it was a good title today for the things I wanted to talk about. I sent my request in yesterday for an absentee ballot for the Presidential Election. I have no idea if they'll actually be able to send it to me here but what the hell it didn't' take long. There's actually something sort of inspiring about voting in a country where the people can't and if they actually send me a ballot I'm going to show it to my classes. On the other hand there is the usual lack of inspiring that comes from voting in a state who's electoral votes are already decided. I received my first piece of mail today which was partially a test if an address written in English characters would get far in China. I put the address in an earlier post I think but here it is again:

Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology
International Office
1801 Zhongwu RD, Changzhou 213001
Jiangsu, China

江苏技术师范学院
国际合作与交流处
中国江苏省常州市中吴大道1801号
邮编：213001

You don't have to have the Chinese characters but I think if you wanted to print them out and use them also it wouldn't hurt. Note that if you can't see the characters you probably need to update the browser you are using to see the internet.

The other interesting experience I had was in mistakenly mentioning Taiwan. I had my students tell me something about people in Chinese history and one wanted to tell me about Chiang Kai-shek, he is called by a different name in Chinese, who was general who opposed Mao and lead Taiwan until his death. My students have a tendency to mumble made all the worse by the fact that they like to look at the floor when they talk and that they hate to repeat themselves for some reason. The student, who is probably the best in her class started by asking me if I knew what Taiwan was, only she mumbled Taiwan so I had to keep asking her what she was saying. Finally I figured it out blurting out, "you mean Taiwan, like the country?" Which immediately got a small gasp the student shooting back "the country?!" and a couple of laughs at my embarrassment. I waved it off saying "whatever you call it just go on," but it's an odd feeling to wonder if you'll get in trouble with the government over what you say. It won't actually be any problem unless you go around looking for trouble there pretty laid back here. You would think it would be really noticeable to live in a country with such limited freedoms, but really there little noticeable difference. Even if you won't get in trouble with the government there are plenty of things people don't talk about in America and it's really no different here. Maybe the thing I notice most is how it's not really possible to follow Chinese politics since you can't trust a word written about it in the papers. People rise and fall in the party but there's no really good source of information on it. The sort of political restriction they have here just seem to more or less stay out of everyday life.