For China

 

On Sunday March 17th I attended the first year’s party on West Campus of JUST. Students were holding a party in honour of the soldier Lei Feng. Lei Feng was a soldier in the PLA (People’s Liberation Army). He has gone down in history as a selfless and modest character and was endorsed by Chairman Mao. In 1963 he became the subject of a nationwide propaganda campaign “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng” ( 向雷锋同志学习) and remains a cultural icon to this day, inspiring a host of events throughout the month of March which celebrate his legacy.

在3月17日（星期日），我参加了在西校区由新生举行的聚会。学生们为了赞美战士雷锋而主持了这一场聚会。雷锋是一名解放军士兵（解放军）。他在历史上已经是一个无私和谦虚的代表了，毛主席也批准了这一点。在1963年，他成为了一个全国性的宣传运动的主题：“学习雷锋同志”（向雷锋同志学习）直到今天这依然是一种文化象征，整个三月份，我们都举办了一系列鼓舞人心的事来纪念雷锋。

 

It is quite apt that recently in my classes we have been speaking about and nominating people that we think are heroic and have (or will) go down in history.  Were you in one of these discussions? How do you feel about it now? I learnt a lot about your views and contemporary Chinese society in the process. Some of the nominations included Lei Feng himself and amongst others the bus driver Wu Bin, Abraham Lincoln, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, government official Bao Zheng from the Northern Song Dynasty, journalist Chai Jing, Kuomintang soldier Dong Chunrui, scientist Yuan Longping, Hua Mulan and who could forget Kobe Bryant.

这是很容易的，最近在我的课堂上，我们已经谈论过一些我们认为是英勇的（或着会是英勇的）名垂青史的人。你也是这些话题中的一员吗？你现在有什么样的感觉？在和您谈论你对当代中国社会的看法的过程中，我学到了很多。有一些提名，包括雷锋本人，其中也包括公交车司机吴彬，亚伯拉罕·林肯，唐朝唐太宗，从北宋官员包拯，记者柴静，国民党士兵董何春蕤，科学家袁隆平，花木兰等，谁又能忘了科比呢。

 

I was invited to “perform” – never quite sure what this means as I can’t sing, I definitely can’t dance and anyone who knows me knows that I’m more of a ‘behind the scenes’ sort of person. I thought I would do a reading (surely I couldn’t mess that up?) I looked hard through my collection of books and articles for something to read, a passage that would sum up the meaning of this guy. I didn’t really have anything that I deemed suitable so went back to square one. One night whilst listening to some lectures about China online there was a discussion about the novelist Mo Yan who shot to international fame recently. If you have been living under a rock for the last six months then you mightn’t have heard that Mo Yan won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature. I read several extracts from his work, much of it auto-biographical; many jokes, idioms, often self-mocking or metaphorical. I felt that this would be hard to communicate on stage so continued reading. Eventually I found an extract from ‘Change’, from 2010. The passage was about how Mo Yan, a once cocky and mischievous student became alienated for his outgoing character at school. He was thrown out of his school repeatedly but would break back in every day by climbing the wall into the playground where he would hide from teachers, hoping to benefit from the knowledge of his peers. The sentiment of the extract is that despite these shortcomings, nobody loved school more than he. His bad behaviour and outgoing nature were misunderstood and that he did in fact care for and respect his teachers dearly. I felt the spirit and determination demonstrated by his persistence and self improvement summed up what the Lei Feng campaign was all about.

我被邀请去表演 – 我不知道这意味着什么，因为我不能唱歌，我也绝对不能跳舞，认识我的人都知道，我更倾向于做一个幕后的人。我想我可以阅读一些东西（当然我不能搞砸了）我艰难的通过我收集的书籍和文章中找一些东西来阅读，找一段可以总结雷锋的句子。我真的找不到什么我认为合适的，所以又回到了原点。一天晚上，在网上听一些关于中国在线讲座时，有一个关于小说家莫言引起的，最近谁对国际声誉开枪了的讨论。如果你一直在岩石下生活了6个月，那么你可能没有听说过莫言荣获2012年诺贝尔文学奖的事。我看了一部分他的作品，其中大部分是自动履历;有许多笑话，成语，常常自嘲或隐喻。我觉得，这个很难拿出来讨论，所以我继续阅读。最终我发现了一段摘抄叫做“更改”，从2010年中找出来的。段落是说莫言，一个骄傲和调皮的，被学校的学生孤立的学生，如何变得外向。他反复的被学校赶出去，但都每天爬墙进入操场，在那里他会躲着教师，希望从他的同龄人中获益知识。得到的总结是，尽管有这些缺点，没有人喜欢学校比他多。他不好的行为以及外向的性格被误解了，事实上，他很关心和尊重他的老师。我感受到他坚持中变现出来的精神和决心以及自我提升，总结了一下就是雷锋活动上要说的了。

Change by Mo Yan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2012.
 First published in 2010 by Seagull Books as part of its ‘What was Communism’ series and translated by Howard Goldblatt.

改变，在2012年诺贝尔文学奖得主莫言的书。
 海鸥图书的一部分，首先在2010年出版的“什么是共产主义”系列，由葛浩文翻译。

I wanted to write this because I was so nervous about speaking in front of that many people. For the first few minutes, my voice ebbed and flowed. I scratched and squeaked a bit, I felt my face go redder, redder still, hands shaking … but eventually I found my rhythm and began to enjoy it.

我想写这个是因为要在很多人面前演讲我好紧张。一开始的几分钟，我的声音时紧时松。我的声音快速划过，有时候变成尖叫了，我觉得我的脸更红，红得更加厉害，手在颤抖……但最终我找到了我的节奏，并开始享受它。

I don’t think most of the audience were very fluent in English and there were less language students than I had expected – but this was not the point. The point, as always, was to be understood, so I dug deep and tried to give it all a bit more stage presence by moving about a little, adding gesture wherever I could and involving the audience directly by looking up from the printed notes as I became more confident and tried to make them feel the story, make them laugh and think. It worked and I could see the crowd begin to understand the context of the piece.

我不认为大多数观众英语都非常流利，而且这里学语言的学生比我想象中的少， 但是，这不是重点。跟以前一样，这是可以理解的，所以我决定往深层次挖掘，试图在舞台上变现更多，我小小的移动了下，在任何我能添加手势的地方添加手势，直接和观众互动，仰视印刷好的笔记，我变得更加自信了，我试图让他们体会到这个故事，让他们开怀大笑，让他们思考。它起作用了，我可以看到人群开始理解上下文了。

 

Speaking of Lei Feng and his legacy, this made me smile … a selection of photographs by artist Dai Xiang (戴翔) recently featured on the Beijing Today website, entitled ‘What if Lei Feng served today?’ See also Dai Xiang’s blog.

对于雷锋以及他留下的精神的演讲，让我很想微笑……一系列照片由艺术家戴翔拍摄（照片由戴翔）最近上传于，“今日北京网站，题为“如果雷锋生前的今天？”也可以在戴翔的博客上看到。

 

 

 

Each class was asked to pick a famous international tourist destination and to design, plan, build a miniature model of the landmark. The materials used for the actual model had to be recycled and the landmark recognisable. Bellow are pictures of the participants and event which was held at Jiangxi University of Science and Technology Located in Ganzhou City.

每个班都被要求选择一个著名的国际旅游目的地，然后设计，规划，建设一个具有里程碑意义的微缩模型。在实际的模型中所用的材料必须被回收，地标必须是可识别的。以下是在赣州的江西理工大学所举行的参与者和事件的图片。

 

Wednesday Class 1:

 

Wednesday Class 2:

Wednesday Class 3:

 

Thursday Class 4:

 

 

Friday Class 1:

 

 

Bellow are the pictures from all the classes that took part in this Competition.

 

 

On our second day in Manila we woke up early and made our way to the walled city of Intramuros (meaning: within the walls) which is one of the oldest, historical and protected parts of Manila, It was at one point home to the Spanish government during the Spanish colonial period. Outside the wall was known as extramuros (meaning: outside the walls). Arriving there one of the very first places we saw was the very impressive Manila cathedral after which we headed directly to the walled city to see the gate of Fort Santiago which had gone through a lot of reconstructed after nearly being completely destroyed in World War II. There’s a museum which was home to a Spanish governing officer, the old theatre and guard post towards the end near the river. Thought it is worth visiting, I suggest that you only go if you are really interested in colonial history, an architecture enthusiast or if you have some extra time/or a day to spare and like walking. The place is vast and tiring, you can hire a horse and carriage or go for the White Knight Electric Chariot Tours. My friend and I walked and explored both the inner and outer walled area, there are some great restaurants and museums dotted around. At one point I even ended up skating with some local kids and in a wedding inside San Agustin Church.

这是我们在马尼拉的第二天，我们早早起来，前往围墙的城市伊塔（意思是：在墙壁之内），这是马尼拉最古老的，最具历史性的以及受保护的部分之一，有一次，参观了西班牙在西班牙殖民统治时期的政府。外墙砖被称为校外（意思是：外面的墙壁）。到达那里后，我们看到的第一个地方是非常令人印象深刻的马尼拉大教堂，之后我们直接到城墙的城市去看圣地亚哥城堡的门，在第二次世界大战中几乎被彻底摧毁后，经历了大量的重建。这里有一个博物馆，有一个西班牙语的管理人员，附近的河边有老剧院和哨所。虽然这是值得一去的，但我还是建议你，除非你真的对殖民地历史感兴趣，是个建筑爱好者或你有一些额外的时间/或每天腾出一点时间，喜欢走路，不然还是别去了。这个地方非常大，很累人，你可以租马，马车或去搭乘骑士电动战车之旅。我和我朋友探索墙的里里外外，在周围有一些不错的餐馆和博物馆。有一次，我甚至在结束前和一些当地的孩子们溜冰，与此同时在圣奥古斯丁教堂内正在举行一场婚礼。

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Spring is finally here and everybody is out and about. Here’s a few pictures from in and out of Ganzhou.

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Lost in Thailand is the first Chinese film to make over 1 billion yuan, It is a Chinese comedy directed and co-written by Xu Zheng. Two competitive Chinese businessmen (who where once best friends) go searching for their boss in Thailand in order to win a contract, whilst there they meet a naive Chinese tourist and embark on a funny, scheming and at times unbelievable journey across Thailand.

人再囧途之泰囧是第一个票房超过1亿元人民币的中国电影，这是一个由徐峥导演并参与编写的中国喜剧。两个有竞争力的中国商人（曾经最好的朋友）为了签到一份合同，去寻找他们在泰国的老板，与此同时，他们遇到了一个天真的中国游客，在泰国各地开始一段有趣的，诡计多端，有时甚至令人难以置信的旅程。

This film will have you laughing out loud so keep it for a cloudy or rainy day.

这部电影绝对会让你笑出声的，所以留着它，等到阴天或雨天的时候拿出来看。

Lost in Thailand Directed by: Xu Zheng/ 徐峥

Starring: Xu Zheng, Wang Baoqiang, Huang Bo and Fan Bingbing