单班课的事情

Well, I just got out of my dan ban ke (one-on-one class) and I want to write this partly so I don't forget all of China's craziness and because I want to share this craziness with all of you. First of all, youtube has been prohibited here (starting yesterday), which does not have a big effect on my daily life, but it another reminder of how much power the government has over the people. Secondly, today's kewen (lesson text) was about protecting endangered animals; pandas and tigers especially. So in dan ban ke, my teacher started out by saying that she thinks China should not protect pandas because they do not help the country's shehui fazhan (society's development/growth). At this point, I said that pandas did in fact help society's growth by attracting lots of tourists and making a lot of money for China. But, I found this comment surprising partly because Chinese people hold pandas as their national symbol and their "national treasure". Also, I'm pretty sure what she says is actually her opinion, and not just said so we can have a conversation--she seemed to have pretty strong feelings. After a while, she brought up Darwin and "survival of the fittest" and how today's people are innately smarter and more capable than those who lived thousands of years ago (Maya, Egyptians, etc.) because of it. Also, she said lots of Chinese are criticizing Darwin (partly because of his recent 200th anniversary) and saying that evolution is bu kenengde (impossible) because people could not have slowly evolved from lower forms of life over a long period of time, but must have over a fairly short period of time made a few huge advances, resulting in where we ae today.
She also said that since kong long ("scary dragons," literally, or dinosaurs) went extinct so long ago, but humans did not develop fazhande (developed) societies until fairly recently, there must have been something going on in the middle. At which point she said, some people (I don't know if she included herself in this group) think there were very advanced alien civilizations on earth, but archaeologists just haven't found any evidence yet. She said that the Maya and Egyptians also must have been waixing ren (aliens) because how could such unadvanced people create such advanced civilizations and build such huge pyramids? And because the pyramids aligned with the sun and stars and such, that must have been too complicated for ancient people to create. I asked her what she thought of Stonehenge, but I don't think she had heard of it.
I'm not really sure what to make of all this, but it was probably one of the most interesting dan ban ke I've had. And I don't think all of our teachers have the same opinions regarding these issues.
My roommate is an art major, and they often ask her any and all art related questions, and assume she must know the answer because she's an art major. For example, why are all of China's buildings gray and brown? Why don't people paint with more interesting colors? She said they also assume that since she's an art major, all of her opinions are completely different from other peoples'.

Yesterday's kewen was about euthanasia (I know, heavy subject) and in danban ke we were talking about religion, and how you religious beliefs can affect your position regarding euthanasia (and other issues). My teacher said that most Chinese people don't follow any religion, and asked me if Westerners always seem happy because they have religion. I said that may be one reason why people are happy, but not the whole reason...and so on. After class, she said when she has children, the best gift she will give them is religion-- make them go to church every Sunday.

We went to Wangfujing and Xiushui today; both markets. Wangfujing was attractive because they have scorpions, which one of my friends desperately wanted to try. They also sell lots of fake really expensive brands.
photos: http://s591.photobucket.com/albums/ss353/klebling/