Cross-Cultural Crash

My students turned in their final papers a few weeks ago. With 130 papers to get through, I got started immediately. I was soon reading information that was written with a style and diction that was beyond their evident ability and expertise. So I started Googling... Plagiarism plagued the research papers. I further discovered that even the papers that appeared as if they were written at the same skill level were copied from blogs and amateur websites. Of all my students, fewer than ten wrote their own paper.

I felt awful. What had gone wrong? I devoted most of the semester's last two months to final paper preparations. At the start, I even discussed the definition of plagiarism, the importance of giving credit to authors and how it is a serious offense in Western universities. An entire lesson was devoted to avoiding it by practicing paraphrasing and reviewing the use of quotations. The criteria sheet I handed out also stated in large, bold print "Purposeful plagiarism will result in a zero for the assignment and possibly a failing grade for this class."

After some online reading and talking with others, I then learned that plagiarism is actually very common, labeled by some as a problem with Chinese academia. Several Chinese professors have plagiarised the works they published in academic journals. Chinese friends informed that even graduate students oftentimes copy their thesis. Some stated that when they turned in papers, they hoped that their professors did not even read them - an idea that my Western perspective blocks me from grasping. Such news caused me to conclude that I was encountering not only lack of effort and sincerity on the part of my students but, moreover, a cultural barrier.

While I consciously did my best to not become angry, it proved difficult. My students are fluent English speaks for whom which a lack of understanding was not the issue. The issue seems to have been the disregard of my expectations and guidelines. However, then I reminded myself - How can I blame them for doing what they have been taught and following the examples of their teachers? Culturally, Chinese are taught that to copy the works of great artists is the best way to improve oneself and eventually become great too. Hence the strong emphasis on studying the Chinese classics in all subjects.

Obviously not going to fail everyone, the final papers couldn't be graded. After much deliberation, I decided to just make the mid-term exams worth a larger percentage of their course grade. I sent an e-mail to all students informing them about the change and expressing my disappointment. Because many of them had mentioned that they want to attend graduate schools in the U.S. or Britain, I reiterated the Western stance on plagiarism and warned that it would cause them to lose all potential for acceptance into any program. After spending a long time on my wording, I hit "Send" and hoped that they would understand I simply cannot issue grades for papers they didn't write. Surprisingly, I only had five or six responses, most of which offered apologies. Interestingly, a few seemed to acknowledge that we were facing a cultural difference, which just made me wonder why these seemingly self-aware students didn't bring such important information to my attention earlier.

One thing is clear - next semester's syllabus will need a lot of adjusting. I am quite certain that I will not be assigning research papers. I can't break down educational and cultural barriers in a four-month term. But I can definitely craft other practical lessons that will benefit them in the future. With that said, I still think that many of my students are incredibly smart and wonderful. Live and learn. Taking all the experience I've gained so far, my goal will be to reconstruct the class to hopefully create a classroom in which both the students and I can appreciate our cultures and engage in valuable learning (& teaching!) - living and learning.

Mmmm Food

Being in mainland China, there are not many meal options beyond Chinese food. Only in the bigger, coastal cities will you find any international cuisine. The three Western restaurants here are McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut, all of which are expensive by Chinese standards. There is one Korean restaurant near the campus, but its menu has maybe five entrees. As for grocery shopping, there is one super market in Sha Shi (the neighboring city) that has a few western items, including butter, cheese, french bread (which is usually stale) and spaghetti.

So I've been eating lots of Chinese food! That means I eat rice just about everyday. The basics are rice, meat (chicken, beef or pork) and vegetables. The most commonly eaten veges are cabbage, peppers, onions and tomatoes - you find at least one of these in almost any dish. My favorite food here (which was new to me four months ago) are lotus roots. Everything is cooked. When I explain how Westerners eat uncooked veges (i.e. salads), people are just aghast!

Some other new and weird foods I've eaten: duck blood, milk bean soup, rotten tofu (called "stinky tof"), donkey, snake, chicken feet, and pigs blood, ear, tongue and balls (yes, balls...)

The spiciest Chinese dishes come from far Cantonese south or Sichuan province but, in general, Southern China is known for spicer foods relative to Northern China. So many dishes here are quite spicy. Most, especially meats, have chili peppers and/or peppercorns in them. Even now with it being 90 degrees and high humidity, people still indudge in these hot dishes. Us foreigners just get uncomfortably hot and sweaty!

Chinese do not consume a lot of dairy. Many of them have never even tasted cheese and most don't drink milk. Yogurt cups are very popular, but the servings are only a couple ounces. I assume the lack of calcium is why they are all so small, and why three of my students had broken bones this semester. Milk is sold warm in cardboard boxes. Frankly, I don't like it and I miss my 2%.

At restaurants the food is served family-style. Everyone shares the dishes, picking up the food with their chopsticks and placing it in their bowl of rice. Below is a pic of a typical dinner. The middle dish in the back is lotus root.

All in all, I really enjoy the food here but, admittedly, I sometimes overwhelmingly crave non-Chinese foods. I took it for granted that in America people can eat any ethnic foods they want. Within just a few blocks from Bren's & my apartment in Chicago we could go to a Thai, Mexican, Japanese, Italian, Ethiopian, Irish or Middle Eastern restaurant. Awhile back I actually had a recurring dream about eating a taco....