Les miettes des idées

     Recently, labor reforms in France provoked many agitations on streets. In the beginning, I sympathized with lots of French people who were worried about their job security. In our modern society, having a job is the first concern to keep us physically and mentally safe. France has always been the ideal place to work and to retire since most of employees have a permanent contract CDI. My husband still hopes to move to Canada or France to seek for a good retirement and better social policies.

    But I understand also the urgency to have reforms in job market. Our society is undergoing significant changes. Competitions are everywhere. They make us nervious but push us to adapt new developments.  One should keep learning to make himself always valuable. For many sectors, better skilled workers and new staff members deserve their places. The dynamic job market explains why big morden cities function more effectively and people receive better services. But in France, you should bear the poor service and the worker's arrogance.

   According to my friends, in France, people cannot jump to a relevant rival to work. This is weird since your expertise only can be valued in the same sector. In China, companies try to attract new employees from their rivals. If you don't do career jump, you cannot be promoted quickly. But changing work isn't a sign of insecurity. For most of times, it gives the employee better choice. A young person who remains in the same company for 10 years might easily be regarded as lazy.

   Why are we so afraid of CDD, the contract of determined periods ? We are just reluctant to make ourselves believe in our good performance. In this case, we do need keeping learning. It's good to have a secured job, but are you sure that your company will not be shut down? I'm almost sure that I will not get a permanent job later, but I'm optimist. Try everything.

   I finally got my evaluation of Toefl, which confirmed my self-evaluation of English proficiency. I did well in reading and listening. As to the speaking part, I had problem in pronunciation and my vocabulary was limited. The writing part was also terrible, since I just wrote an essay with simple phrases and common words. 

   I've been here for 4 months. If I don't change my learning habits, I will never surpass my deficiency in English. For my daily life, I have no problem in understanding others. But when I try to express myself, I always use simple words. The communication was smooth because of lots of other facts, as the clearness of context, the gesture. 

  My ten years' experiences in teaching French show me the same situation in many students. We always have more difficulties to improve our writing. Although students can easily communicate with foreigner at the end of the first year, most of them remain in daily small talks. If you ask them to do a presentation or an analysis, they will feel frustrated to make it as good as native speakers. 

  Why? There are so many good materials to help us to achieve progress. I think that the main problem is our laziness. We tend to seek the easiest way to express ourselves, thinking that the complex structure is a deal for writers. As for me, I wrote my blog in English, using often common daily communication words. I never tried to rewrite things neither to improve the accuracy. 

  It's not the time that can decide our progress. We cannot take it for granted. If I live here longer and continue to neglect the hard part of learning, I will always stay outside the barrier of a good command of foreign language. It's the mindset that needs to be changed.   

  So I should take an intensive training to improve my writing and try to write everthing with accuracy and variety.

     Before bedtime, we always play educational games with Claire. Theses games are always simple and it's just the chance that lead to the result. Claire doesn't want to be the looser and enjoys a lot in winning the game. Sometimes, if we win, she turns to be very mad and begins to cry. She even becomes nervous at the beginning of the play. "Give me some magic to let me win", demands our daughter anxiously.

    We tried several times to tell her that results are not important and it's fair to let everyone win. But she refused to listen. She couldn't accept the failure. If she doesn't make any progress on something, she will just give it up. 

     Yesterday, I talked about this problem with her teacher. She pointed out that Claire had a big sense of competition and wanted to be competitive. It's not bad to be competitive, but for her age, it's too early to focus on it. Why she sticks to it especially ? is it related to our culture? or to our family education? 

      According to the teacher, kids in America are not very competitive, since they always play with siblings and participate in team games. They enjoy different parts of game. Teachers don't focus on the importance to be the first one. Children receive praises for different reasons. 

     On the contrary, we Chinese people indeed pay much more attention on competition, sometimes we are even unconscious about it. For example, in our family, we ask Claire to be obedient. By earning points of good behavior, she can get a toy as recompense. It goes well but Claire gets used to aim at doing wrght things only for the present. When she was little, all our family spoiled her with the praise like " your are the cleverest girl in the world", "you are the most lovely baby", etc. The comparison is overwhelming.  

    It's very encouraging to have a competitive girl. We believe that she will dream big and make her efforts to realize her dreams. But in her childhood, we only want her to be happy. If she focuses a lot on the competition, not only she lose the pleasure of enjoying the middle but also she has biased opinion about her classmates. 

    Her teacher suggested us to play more games focusing on middle part and team work. We also need rethink more about our behavior. The change should be great but subtle in our daily life. 

    Plagiarism is considered as a serious problem in research and now we all learned that citations should be accurate. But it seems that plagiarism is not a big deal outside university. The tolerance is so big that magazine editors and columnists enjoy their freedom to profit it. 

    For some magazine writers, the main part of their job is reading famous foreign newpapers in order to spot some interesting subjets. I canot use the word 'develop' the subject to describe their work, because they just translate half of the article, add some researches given by google, and write in other words the same conclusion. Sometimes, they didn't forget to mention the author of the original article but then telle the story in paraphrase. They use the data as if they collected the info by themselves. 

   For readers, it's interesting to follow this kind of report. Not every one reads foreign newpapers. The subjects are always brand-new and attractive. For example, recently, there was a long article discussing why it is so difficult to lose weigt. I fortunately read the origin article two days agos in New York Times. In fact, the whole China doesn't suffer from obesity, which is the first concern of American life. By following the trends of mainstream newspapers, our magazines, I mean the most popular and serious magazines, have less and less interest to focus on local issues. It's easier and more fashionable to copy than to command a real discovery. 

  I wonder if there are statistics to show the percentage of such plagiarism in one numero of a magazine. That's a big problem in journalism and what a shame.    

    Complains made by the UK Queen about Chinese delegation's rudeness have been a viral subject in social medias. Some tried to explain the misunderstanding by culture difference while others high lightened the arrogance of the actual government of China.

     For me, it's not a culture diversity issue. We do have many cultural differences that can be interpreted as weird. for example, speaking loudly in restaurants or fighting to pay the bill. But things like spitting on the streets are more relevant to the level of civilization than to the origin of culture. In a big city like Shanghai, people do such things randomly while in the contryside, old people still keep this habit. One of my former colleagues said that English people spitted also a lot two hundreds years ago and they just forgot it. It's true that before 19th century, the sanitary condition was bad for all countries. But bad actions which harm people's health can be improved with the emphasis of education. In big cities, people are more civilised and understand easily the limit of their freedom. They will try to keep themselves healthy and make others healthy too, both in physic and mentality. It's advocated to be polite in public area, like subway stations or airports. 

     Civilization can be achieved by a nation's efforts and attention, but cultures are not comparable. American people like cultural studies, but sometimes, they generalized too much. I began to hate the word Identity, which defines excessively one person. The stereotypes live with you wherever you go. As labelled Chinese, we are not proud of many things, especialy the noisy communication. But we are considered as nice people in whole.

      I saw lots of criticism of islamic culture but sometimes I wondered which wouldl be the best way to communicate with them.  I recently fell in love with Hummus, a special sauce from Middle East. It makes me willing to understand more the people there. 

      Try to understand different cultures but try to be civilized everywhere. 

     All kids like the zoo but parents may not. We three were all reluctant to discover the zoo in the city, because we had bad experiences in other zoos. The animals were stinking, too many walks, noisy people and parking difficulties. The worst thing was most of animals were sleeping and didn't want to show nice images for photos. We tried serveral times in Shanghai to see the awaken panda, which ended with disappointment. But we finally went to check out the ReidPark zoo this weekend, the last place on our list of exploration.

    At the entrance, Claire began to hold her nose in front of one big poster of the elephants' family. She didn't want to see elephants and belived that they were always dirty. It turned out a different experience and we were so happy to find this amazing zoo.

    There are many animals, distributed in three different zones. Each area is big enough to let the animals enjoy their freedom. The peacocks were walking accoss the path, curious to peek the visitors. The big rhinoceros and the gazelles are put together although it can attack them. Nice giraffes. Children can feed them at a certain time, with small carrots. Claire was excited to feed one but also stunned by his big black tongue. She was also allowed to pet a bearded dragon, which looks like a big lizard.

    Yes, she had a lot fun. And we two grown-ups too. For the first time, notices in front of each area attracted us and became interesting to read. Instead of describing the information of the species, the staff tried to make the information simple and funny. For exemple, they put forword curious questions which were followed by simple response. At the area of rhinoceros, we learned why it loves the mud. In the bear area, it is written on a pannel that "a fed bear is a dead bear", with funny images showing the danger to feed a bear.

    Children can easily be amused only by the view of animals, but if they can learn a little, it will be a greater discovry. They are prone to be tried after several stops. In the middle of the zoo, there was a learning center. I wasn't ready to enter this building, beliveing that it would be as boring as other learning centers that we visited. We just walked in to have a rest and seek a shield of sun. We never could guess  that there were so many activities for kids. Claire got a face painting and chose to have an elephant on her cheek. Other kids were making animal masks or drawing.

    Of course, children cannot remember all that they have seen. By focasing several funny informations and interesting activites, they love animals a litter more and forget all the stinky things.

     J'étais assez étonnée d'apprendre que beaucoup d'Américains ne considèrenet pas l'apprentissage d'une langue étrangère nécessaire. Mais à bien y réfléchir, ils ont peut-être raison, si l'on est dans l'optique pragmatique. 

     En Chine, l'apprentissage d'une langue étrangère, en particulière l'anglais, est primordial. En effet, il est évident que l'on gagne plus en travaillant dans une entreprise étrangère. C'est la motivation la plus réaliste et la plus courante. En plus, aller étudier à l'étranger constitue une autre cause majeure. Rares sont ceux qui manifestent d'abord la curiosité pour une culture étrangère avant le contact avec une langue étrangère. 

     Si le raisonnement reste le même, les avis des Américains n'ont rien à critiquer. Pourquoi se torture-t-on quand il y en a le besoin ? L'arrogance aveugle n'est pas leur faute vitale. Pour les gens d'ici, il vaut mieux apprendre l'espagnol, vue qu'on vit avec de nombreux descendants des Mexicains. Le chinois devient aussi populaire à l'école, étant donné que la Chine se montre assez forte ces années-ci et pourrait être le premier concourrent des Etats-Unis. Comme les Chinois parlent souvent très bien l'angalis, les Américains ne trouvent pas la maîtrise du mandarin assez urgente. Et le français ? C'est pour plus tard, quand on sera en retraite. Le niveau basic sera suffisant. 

     La situation est désolante, d'autant plus que rares sont des Américains qui pensent à étudier à l'étranger, malgré l'avantage des frais d'étude. Quant à la recherche, la littérature, l'art, c'est pour une petite minorité assez aisée dans ce grand pays, en particulière dans le nord et à la côte. 

      Il me faut alors changer de mentalité, si je continue à enseigner le français quelque part. Cibler le besoin des apprenants, s'adapter à leur attente et prendre du temps à explorer le plaisir. 

    Ces jours-ci, toute la nation est aussi furieuse que soucieuse. La mort d'un jeune père au près des policiers de Beijing a provoqué de nombreuses interrogations. On est toujours dans les mystères, ne sachant quoi croire. D'après la famille de la victime, ce jeune père allait à l'aéroport chercher ses parents qui venaient fêter la naissance de sa fille, mais ce qui les attendait, c'est la nouvelle de la mort de leurs fils. D'apèrs la police, M.Lei a été arrêté dans un salon de massage, suscept de se faire prostituer. Pendant le trajet vers le bureau de la police, il a résisté et a sauté de la voiture, ce qui a causé sa mort immédiate. L'explication policière paraissait absurde, d'autant plus que M. Lei était en bonne santé. 

    La toile a été d'abord stupéfaite par l'accentuation de la prostitution dans cette affaire, comme s'il s'agissait d'une cause impardonnable qui comdannait M.Lei par la mort. Cette stratégie de la police a vue la colère aggrandir parmi les anciens camarades de M.Lei, qui ont refuté les informations biaisées de la police.Les sites sociaux ont été bombardés par divers commentaires sur l'affaire. Puis, toutes les grands médias se sont mis dans les chaudes discussions. L'opinion publique était presque homogène, menaçant la crédibilité du governement. 

   C'est une preuve claire que l'on ne croit plus au governement. Qu'est-ce que c'est la police pour le peuple? C'est celui qui a toujours raison. On prévoit que dans l'avenir en Chine, la profession la plus brillante est être policier, au moins, on peut être sûr de ne pas mourir dans une condition inconnue.

   De nombreuses sollicitations ont été lancées dans les médias pour que la justice s'intervienne dans cette affaire, pour que les différentes voix puissent s'entendre devant la cour, pour que certains policiers, comme ils étaient déjà appliqués dans l'affaire, arrêtent de faire disparaître les données importants. Mais presque une semaine s'est écoulée, aucune autorité s'est présentée comme la troisième partie pour mener l'enquête. 

   Cependant, la police s'est expliqué davantage, voulant toujours approuvé leur raison. Cette fois, ils ont fait parler la fille qui était au service de M.Lei. D'après elle, le victime s'était fait prostitué, par sa main....Cette confession en vidéo s'est diffusée dans une chaîne nationale. Or, le peuple n'était plus si enfantin pour croire à la grave conséquence du vice de la prositition. Cette vidéo n'a fait que blesser davantage la famille de la victime. Pour la vérité, on est toujours dans les nuages. 

    Comment est-il mort ? La question est simple et ne peut être encore détournée. Le mensonge n'est jamais trimphant, sauf dans une nation absurde. 

   Finally, I took the English test last Saturday. It was frustrating, especially for the speaking and the writing sections. But I knew already that the most difficult part to acquire a foreign language is the output, which demands more efforts than the input. By input, I mean the vocabulary, the reading and the listening abilities. If you practice a lot, you will achieve a great progress. The main method is to memorize. While in order to speak well and write correctly, you should need more efforts.

   Nowadays, the majority language courses still emphasize the importance of grammar, which depends on the explanation of the professor. In my former university, the oral courses were always attributed to foreign teachers. In addition, local teachers always encourage students to pratice the language with a foreigner after class, believing that the time on class is limited. For the writing courses, in order to have less work, teachers prefer analyzing good examples of essay to correcting the essays written by students. In this way, students will be happy with less papers to write.

   Unconsciously, I followed the traditional learning process. I do have realized my problem but I tended to believe that memory could help me to pass the test. Reciting some patterns is the most common way to prepare for the writing, and unfortunately for me too. But the result will assert this mistake.

   Ma preparation for this first test could be a good example to illustrate how the self-learning can be efficient. I need to ponder the experience. With a clearer idea of the differences between diffrent skills, the frustration can be stimulating.

    It's time to plan summer vacation. With the sunshine, pool, mountain easily accessible, why do we still need vacation ? Because there are many better places to visit, such as California ? If it's true, but I wonder whether people living in California are looking forward to having vacation in an other place?

    We traveled a lot, but took so little vacation. We traveled for work, for study, but when our brains were so busy with serious things, traval cannot be identified with vacation. Vacation means relax, kill time and let the body rest. Soaking in sunshine on the beach or hiking in the forest are the two stererotype but we still stick to them.

     More and more Chinese people spend money on vacation and I believe that tourism will be the most prosper fields in China. For exemple, ma mother traveled a lot these years, due to the compensate policy of her company. But like most of people in her generation, she seeks to take pictures with the emblematic things. Last time when we were in an island, enjoying the beach and hotel service, she said that it was wasting time. She has been to that island and believed that we should first visit the biggest status in the city.

    In fact, the most efficient way to rest is sleeping. But we still need to go out. Besides, when others are taking vacation, you can easily be attracted by the trend. I know that summer will be very noisy in some tourist areas and that we will be exausted by driving a long distance. Anyway, to have or not to have is a big question.

   So I spent a whole morning in reserving hotels, with the hope that the idea of vacation will bring us much energy to a month's work. Sometimes. it's more beautiful to have the idea then to realize it.