CULTURE, LEARNING and TEACHING

The car ride from Shanghai to Hangzhou is about 2.5 hours, and the hotel where the conference speakers were booked in Hangzhou is amazing. It's so new that you can't even google it yet. I have a beautiful large room overlooking a large expanse of woods and lake! The hotel is ultra luxurious and very glitzy; and inside, right at the front door, is a huge tank of the beautiful red coy fish supposed to bring luck and good fortune.

The first day at the conference was busy with conference sessions, tea break, conference sessions, lunch, conference sessions, tea break, conference sessions, and then a long dinner where I was introduced to the Chinese wine culture. Now, the Chinese sure can drink wine! And traditionally, many a business contract is signed at the dinner table after going around the table and toasting each other multiple times. I actually lost count of the number of times we toasted each other...It's a typical way of conducting an official or business dinner here. My own wine consumption was limited to a tiny sip as each toast was made but one is supposed to empty the entire glass of wine or beer with each toast - and accompany each toast you must to avoid offending anyone.

The official meals have been pretty typical as well going by all the lunches and dinners in the various restaurants where we ate. We sat at large round tables with a huge lazy susan as an unending stream of piping hot dishes kept appearing and being placed on the table. And as "susan" spins gently around you keep helping yourself to whatever you want as it passses by you, dipping into the serving bowls and lifting out with your chopsticks greens, peas, broccoli, spinach, eggplant, lotus roots, all forms of tofu, crab, shrimp, fish, clams, squid,chicken, pork, beef, duck, etc. in various preparations... It's quite a lovely experience as you share a table with a large group of colleagues and associates, dip into delicious food, sip wine or beer, and enjoy good conversation.

Underlying it all was my acute awareness of how many developmental skills (to use the language of early childhood education) are being called into play at these meals: listening and speaking, responding appropriately, going around the circle toasting each other in appreciation and with gratitude, carefully reaching out for foods, being attentive to whether someone else is helping themselves to a dish before spinning the lazy susan, handling the chopsticks deftly without dropping food all over (!), attending to your neighbors and asking if they would like something you were helping yourself to, asking them if they'd like more wine if a glass appeared empty, the importance of trying a little of everything to show recognition, respect and appreciation to the host... There was a clear sense of the self as being more a member of a larger group rather than an individual, and the importance of cultivating relationships rather than just signing a paper contract...

October 27th:

Landed at Shanghai’s Pudong Airport at about 10 pm last night. Have to say that the airport is fabulous and the customs and immigration process was efficient, painless and not at all intimidating. Right from the immigration officer to the hotel staff and the public have been nothing but friendly in the few days I have spent in China. I reached the hotel close to midnight and checked in. It’s comfortable, clean and felt very safe and friendly. Couldn’t sleep as I was still on US time so I went down to the hotel massage club for a body massage at 1 am! Yes, the massage club in the hotel is open till 2 in the morning and it was glorious to have a massage after such a long flight.

I woke up late this morning since I went to sleep only after 3:30 am. I am on the 36th floor of the hotel and the view I have is of the rooftops and skyscrapers of Shanghai as far as the eye can see! It was like looking at a huge version of Manhattan. I went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast - was so hungry I could eat anything. That’s what happens when you don’t have dinner and opt for the massage instead. I was craving for my usual breakfast of eggs and toast and coffee (we are all such creatures of habit). Unfortunately, since it was after 10am they had closed the breakfast menu and I had to choose something from the vast array of Chinese food early in the morning. The staff in the restaurant couldn’t speak enough English and I had absolutely no knowledge of Mandarin and was beginning to wonder how to place an order. But the menu they brought out was this large, glossy, colorful photo album kind of book which presented a gallery that included each item offered in the restaurant. So all I had to do was to view this tantalizing gallery and order what looked like the mildest and most familiar dish for that time in the morning - noodles and green vegetables. It was delicious and I wolfed down everything.

Walking around the neighborhood I found it to be busy – with plenty of roadside eating places, stores, high rise buildings, wide roads, heavy traffic and lots of people. Eating, banking, and technology seemed to be the dominant businesses here. On my first day in metropolitan China I definitely got a sense of high energy, growth, development, all mixed with human friendliness and warmth.

One day during my stay in Bali I got ready for the long drive to Celuk, Ubud, and the still-active volcano in the north-west of the island. The day was filled with long stretches on the road interspersed with several interesting moments. The landscapes were remarkable and I couldn’t get enough of the Balinese images that lined the roadside: the intricate pagoda-style architecture of the rural homes; rice paddies steeped in water; fruit stalls that lined the roadways with colorful heaps of watermelon, mango, durian, lychees, oranges, jackfruit, dragon fruit, and more; the wood and stone carvings on sale all along the roadsides; figures of gods and deities everywhere; people walking holding flowers in their hands to offer at the alters in their homes, in their cars, on the roadside, and at their place of work...

The most exciting moment came my way almost serendipitously. While driving through one town I spotted a simply huge banyan tree. My eyes were focused on the hundreds of magnificent roots that cascaded down to the ground like Rapunzel’s long locks falling out from the window at the top of the tower. I excitedly asked Ketut to stop the car so that I could take a photo. It was then that I noticed the scores of school children sitting on the low stone wall built around the massive circumference of the tree trunk, and shaded by its profuse foliage. I had stumbled upon a school! I couldn’t go inside the school but did get a good look at its exterior. The structure of the main school building was again very traditional with a large ornately carved gateway in the front, guarded by a statue of what looked like Hanuman on either side, leading into an open courtyard with a statue of Ganesh in the center. There seemed to be two other buildings that were part of the school as well. Outside was a large sign displaying the name of the school and a flag post with the flag fluttering in the breeze.

There were at least 200-300 boys and girls in blue and white uniforms hanging outside the school compound, freely moving in and out of the buildings. It seemed to be lunch time or some kind of break. There was a small dilapidated canteen outside the school serving snacks, cold drinks and sate dishes. The school kids were swarming all over the canteen as they got something to eat and drink, standing around, sitting on benches and at tables outside the canteen, or on the low wall around the base of the banyan tree. They were chattering, laughing and speaking in Bahasa Indonesia. I tried to ask some of them questions like the name of their school, and which classes they attended. Between sign language and spoken language they understood enough to give me some of the answers. One girl, who must be about 12-13 years old and was standing with her friends, said Class 1. But communications broke down when I asked what Class 1 was, or how many classes there were to finish school. My guess is they must have been in the beginning grades of high school. Clearly, we couldn't understand each other, and at that moment I so wished I knew Bahasa Indonesia to be able to understand more about the school life of these children I ran into that sunny afternoon in Bali...

One of my goals while on sabbatical was to start this blog and post brief descriptions of the places I knew I would be visiting for my research. For the longest time I was undecided on whether to make this a professional blog or a more personal blog. I realized eventually that many of my cultural and social experiences would indeed serve to frame my professional insights into the topic that I was researching - early education and teacher preparation in South Asia. The blog would be my attempt to reconcile these experiences. So far I have posted descriptions of places and experiences and now I hope to make the shift into discussions related specifically to education, against the backdrop of the socio-cultural-historical images already presented in previous  posts.

"Intimate connections are seen to exist between a culture's philosophical values and its educational values that shape schooling and curriculum in that society...Educational philosophies are usually expressions of a society's deepest beliefs and values...A system of education is most commonly derived in response to questions such as: What is the aim of education? What are the activities that will achieve that aim? What are the learning theories that will govern the activities? What are the teaching and assessment strategies that will be used? What is the nature of the role of the students, teachers, and administrators? The answers to such questions form the educational philosophy of a school or society."

    From Going to School in South Asia

Sri Maha Bodhi Tree and the Ruwanwelisaya Stupa...

Read an earlier post titled "Sri Lanka: The Sri Maha Bodhi Tree".