Prior to living in China, Wittenberg, 46, worked as a computer software consultant in major corporations including J.P. Morgan, National Grocers and National Broadcasting Corporation. He has a Bachelor's degree in computer science from University of Toronto, and a Master's in public policy from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Introduction

Note: The letters refer to the China Foreign Affairs University by its name at the time the letters were written -- "Foreign Affairs College," or "FAC."

1. Darker, Deeper: Uriel in China 2002

My first China story (http://urielw.com/china), two years ago, could be viewed as a bit of a roller coaster ride. There were some thrills and chills. A bad guy was featured in the form of a petulant young woman, not yet out of her teens, guilty mainly of immaturity. University administrators would occasionally appear whose expedients might excite demurrals from idealists. There were vomiting episodes here and there.

This year, folks, we enter a different realm. We have left the amusement park altogether, and it would not be amiss for you to buckle your seatbelts. My new China story is truly a journey into the heart of darkness, with treachery and malfeasance writhing under every rock and behind every construction crane.

My story has SEX -- or at least, definite intimations thereof. It has violence and murder -- or at any rate, indubitable threats to commit same. It has hypocrisy, cursing, rebellion, dementia, mass hysteria, and sly manipulators pulling strings behind the scenes. You will also witness flagrant breaches of contract. And just yesterday (the story is ongoing), we had petty theft by a devious sycophant.

It is possible that there has also been a virtually omnipotent force rumbling through subterranean passages of this tale, although your narrator's limited perspective precludes a rendering of this subplot. Our setting is a university with unique significance for the nation, and the Communist government may not be indifferent to these proceedings.

For comic contrast you'll also be given a peek at the gibbering functionaries of the Canadian Embassy.

This is not fiction, and I will put you on notice right now that several loose ends will remain unresolved at our conclusion. There are mysteries here I've been unable to penetrate, despite determined efforts. But it might be unwise to sniff at my inquisitorial skills if you have not operated in this culture.

The backdrop for all this action is again CHINA -- whose rise, the Dec. 2 New York Times reminds us, may be "the most important long-term trend in the world."

One other thing remains unchanged: the author, yours truly, who has preserved his partiality for the simple truth, and his contempt for saccharine illusions.

2. The Cloudless Sky

I contracted last May, while still teaching at Tsinghua University, to teach at Beijing's Foreign Affairs College (FAC) for the 2002-3 academic year. FAC is a small but unique university in China, described by its website (http://www.fac.edu.cn/eindex/overview.htm) thus:

---

The Foreign Affairs College (FAC), affiliated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, is an institution of higher learning aimed at preparing high calibre personnel for foreign service, international studies, and other careers related to international business and law....

The College was founded in September 1955 at the initiative of the late Premier Zhou Enlai. Since then, the government leaders have accorded great care to the development of the College. Marshal Chen Yi, then Vice Premier and Foreign Minister, was concurrently President of the College between 1961 and 1969. Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice Premier Chen Yi made a number of inspections of the College in the fifties and sixties. In 1995, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary, President Jiang Zemin, Premier Li Lanqing and other state leaders wrote congratulatory inscriptions for the College....

Over the past four decades, the Foreign Affairs College has followed the code of conduct for foreign service personnel, formulated by Premier Zhou Enlai, as its guidelines in education, which reads: "Unswerving loyalty, mastery of policy, professional competency and observance of discipline." The College aims at providing the students with an all-round education which will upgrade their ethical and intellectual qualities as well as physical conditions. The College lays emphasis on integrating theory with practice, and nurturing among the students a style of study based upon seeking truth from facts. The pedagogical objective is to enable the students to develop a comprehensive intellectual capacity, including foreign language proficiency, professional knowledge , and analytical and research abilities. Ethically, the students are encouraged to cultivate their outlook on the world, life, and values; to understand the nature of socialism, foster patriotism, esprit de corps, and a sense of discipline.

In recent years, the Foreign Affairs College has made earnest efforts to implement President Jiang Zemin's instructions embodied in his congratulatory remarks written for the 40th anniversary of the College, gearing its operations to "serve the needs of the nation and open itself to worthy talents." It has also followed the guidelines put forth by Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, to orient its teaching to the needs of the outside world, the future and the society....

With China's opening to the outside world and deepening reform, the Foreign Affairs College has established contacts with institutions of higher learning of many countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Russia, The Ukraine, Canada, Australia, Japan, The Republic of Korea, Oman and Mongolia. Exchange programmes between the FAC and foreign institutions take a variety of forms. In addition, the College has an international speakers programme which attracts many well-known scholars, world-renowned statesmen, ambassadors, and other senior diplomats....

Over the past 40 years, the Foreign Affairs College has turned out more than 10,000 graduates, of whom more than 120 have served in the capacity of ambassadors and several hundreds counsellors in Chinese embassies abroad or directors of government departments or agencies; more than a dozen have been charged with ministerial responsibilities; and over 200 are professors or scholars with senior professional titles.

---

We were comfortably housed, my FAC colleagues and I, in what would be a "luxury condo" in Toronto. My circumstances in my successive China jobs were continuing to improve: I'd started two years earlier in the seedy "Shooting Hotel," remote from everything in Beijing other than the scenic mountain attractions known as Fragrant Hills and Badachu. I'd advanced the following year to ample though dilapidated quarters in the midst of the Tsinghua campus's lovely parks and lakes. At FAC I was now housed in a modern one-bedroom suite on the 7'th floor of a newly built building with an elevator.

Tsinghua had been in the Haidian district, an area in the northwest of Beijing which is home to many universities. Beijing University, China's other premier university, was a 5-minute bike ride from where I was living, and many other universities were also nearby. This advantage of Tsinghua was countered, in my new home at FAC, by FAC's proximity to the city centre. I could bike to Tiananmen Square and other attractions in the core of the city in 30 minutes. And although the tiny campus was not itself particularly appealing, I could occasionally visit the pleasant Yuyuantan Park to the west or Houhai Lake (tangentially connected to later troubles) to the east.

I had seven 90-minute classes weekly:

- FAC's third-year undergraduate law students (divided into 2 classes);

- FAC's second-year diplomacy students (divided into 2 classes). These students already have a 4-year bachelor's degree and are completing a second bachelor's degree which is of 2-years' duration.

- FAC's first-year, part-time, continuing education students (divided into 2 classes). These students have completed a 2- or 3-year diploma and are beginning a 3-year, part-time supplementary program leading to a Bachelor's degree in English.

- FAC's first-year, full-time continuing education students. These students have completed a 2- or 3-year diploma and are beginning a 2-year, full-time supplementary program leading to a Bachelor's degree in English.

The first-year, full-time continuing ed class was the only large class, with about 45 students. The other classes had only 15 to 20 students each. As in my two previous China teaching jobs, I based my teaching on reading materials I'd select -- typically New York Times articles, sometimes classic literature, occasionally other things.

My students' eyes were opened to important American public issues and controversies they'd had no idea about. And we didn't just gloss over them. We'd examine details of the conflicting positions of various parties -- their interests and motives, the logic of their arguments. There were universal lessons being learnt about both public affairs and logical reasoning.

I don't think it'd be a bad idea if there were more of this type of thing in the normal undergraduate diet, not just in China but everywhere. There might be more hope for the world if its citizenry were more enlightened about these things. But this kind of subject matter does not actually fit directly into any academic discipline. It's not "serious" enough -- there's no priesthood, no technical argot, no barriers to entry to stop any wise guy from threatening the established hierarchy.

Still, it's possible for a teacher to circumvent academic propriety and pursue useful and instructive stuff like this. He/she simply has to go to China (as a Westerner) and get a job teaching courses with innocuous-sounding titles like "Topical English."

I tended to choose readings in which the meaning was (1) not self-evident, yet (2) unmistakable once explained. The students' initial interpretations were almost invariably wrong. This brought them an additional insight which I think should be widely conveyed to students everywhere: how fallible they are; how prone to misconception; and the importance of reflection, if the objective is truth.

I don't think I flatter myself unduly in thinking my classes were exceptionally stimulating for my students. I received a fair amount of positive feedback, often mentioning my "strictness" and their "nervousness" in my classes. It seemed that my penchant for demanding full attention during the 90 minutes we spent together weekly, combined with my expectation that they actually engage their brains rather than merely regurgitating what I told them, was something quite extraordinary in their experience. These are excerpts from (unsolicited) emails sent by various students:

---

I think you
are very kind, intelligent and smart.although
sometimes we felt nervous in your class.we do learn a
lot in your class by working hard.

--------------------------------------------------

Your questions are effictive and active!they make us thinking all the time in your class.we run our head for your questions.so every time some students say,i feel nervious in the class.that is good .those quastions take our attentions to your class.

--------------------------------------------------

Maybe some of
us feel nervous in your class.... I think it is very
chanllenging for us, and we have to be always alert, and smart in your class, but I think that is OK, and we could learn a lot in your class.

--------------------------------------------------

you are quite an interesting teacher,although you are very strict with us.In class,you make us answer the questions with such a high accuracy.Sometimes I think I'm not having a discussion class but a calculating course.Anyway,I will try to be a more logical student at the end of this semester. I think you are a responsible teacher.If there is anything I can help,just let me know.My cell phone is ....

--------------------------------------------------

I think I can learn a lot of interesting things in your class. Your lesson is very good and your explain to the article is logical. I enjoy it very much.

--------------------------------------------------

I personally regard you as the brain among the teachers. frankly say, I learn a lot from you-the way of thinking, the way to argue and the way to fight back... I enjoy u class.

--------------------------------------------------

To be frank,you're a
really persuasive teacher.I like to argue with you in class,because every time
I can learn a lot.It's my luck to have a unique teacher as Uriel^.^

---

Recounting this later to some FAC colleagues, we reflected on how, in the grossly polluted culture of the U.S, this would never happen in a million years. They joked that I'd probably be arrested just for approaching the girls. They were Americans, Mormons, conservatives, they probably voted Republican -- in other words, we had totally different values -- but on this, an obvious contrast between China and the U.S., we could agree.

Life was good here. The work was stimulating and enjoyable; my students knew they were getting something unique and were appreciative; I'd discovered some really good local restaurants. Everything was generally quite pleasant.

How could I foresee the crash landing? The peremptory eviction from my comfortable quarters (not to mention the brief but obligatory exit from the country)? The downturned heads, the frowns, the carping and the sneers? And most of all, the absurd breadth of the opposition?

3. Exploitation and Dissent

"Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock" (New York Times, June 25, 2002) was one of the articles I did with my 3'rd-year law students at FAC. It's summarized by the opening paragraphs:

---

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- After finishing her 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. shift, Verette Richardson clocked out and was heading to her car when a Wal-Mart manager ordered her to turn around and straighten up the store's apparel department.

Eager not to get on her boss's bad side, she said, she spent the next hour working unpaid, tidying racks of slacks and blouses and picking up hangers and clothes that had fallen to the floor. Other times after clocking out, she was ordered to round up shopping carts in the parking lot.

Some days, as soon as she walked in a manager told her to rush to a cash register and start ringing up purchases, without clocking in. Sometimes, she said, she worked for three hours before clocking in.

"They wanted us to do a lot of work for no pay," said Ms. Richardson, who worked from 1995 to 2000 at a Wal-Mart in southeast Kansas City. "A company that makes billions of dollars doesn't have to do that."

But she and 40 other current and former Wal-Mart workers interviewed over the last four months say Wal-Mart has done just that, forcing or pressuring employees to work hours that were not recorded or paid. Federal and state laws bar employers from making hourly employees work unpaid hours. Wal-Mart's policies forbid such work. But many current and former workers and managers said an intense focus on cost cutting had created an unofficial policy that encouraged managers to request or require off-the-clock work and avoid paying overtime.

Accusations like these are at the heart of a wide-ranging legal battle between Wal-Mart and employees or former employees in 28 states. In class-action and individual lawsuits, workers assert that these practices have helped Wal-Mart undersell the competition, push up profits and become the world's largest retailer.

---

The article also offered this affecting anecdote:

---

Every morning at 6, Liberty Morales arrived at Wal-Mart No. 2066 in Houston to stock the store's restaurant with hot dogs, buns, chips and soft drinks. She said it was often two hours before she clocked in.

At 5 on many afternoons, Ms. Morales said, the store's payroll manager phoned to tell her to clock out. But she did not go home; the store manager, she testified in a deposition in the Texas lawsuit, ordered her to keep running the restaurant for another hour or two because nobody else could do it.

"They would call me and say, `You need to clock out,' " Ms. Morales said in an interview. "I knew I had to go back and work after clocking out. There was no way the grill could continue operating with no one there to run it."

Ms. Morales said she knew better than to resist the demands because she had heard that those who complained were often fired, given fewer hours or put on overnight shifts. "I put up with it because I needed to work," said Ms. Morales, a 28-year-old mother of three who worked for Wal-Mart from 1996 to 2000.

Like many Wal-Mart workers, Ms. Morales has only a high school education and limited job skills, giving her few options better than Wal-Mart's.

She earned $9.50 an hour and usually worked 50 to 55 hours each week. Occasionally, she said, the store manager paid her time-and-a-half for a few hours, "but most of the weeks, I didn't get overtime."

---

---

Wal-Mart officials insist that the off-the-clock phenomenon is minimal considering that the company has 3,250 stores and a million employees in the United States. The officials say the company, based in Bentonville, Ark., has a strong policy against such work, a policy that is spelled out in the handbook distributed to every employee.

"Off-the-clock work is an infrequent and isolated problem, which we correct whenever we become aware of it," said William Wertz, a Wal-Mart spokesman. "It is Wal-Mart's policy to pay its employees properly for the hours they work." [...]

Wal-Mart officials played down the extent of unpaid work by saying that employees often came forward to complain only after calling toll-free numbers that lawyers had established to seek information about off-the-clock work.

"Off-the-clock work is not prevalent at Wal-Mart despite the determined efforts of a few plaintiffs' attorneys to make it seem so," Mr. Wertz said.

Company officials note that few people have filed complaints about off-the-clock work with federal and state regulators.

---

And where did the Times find those 40 employees it interviewed? Were they selected from among the plaintiffs (a biased sample)? Are we talking about 40 people out of a million -- maybe people coached to lie by ambulance-chasers who hooked them with toll-free ads?

And why would so few employees report such violations to regulators if the problem is indeed widespread? One would think even lowly, uneducated workers would know that unpaid overtime is illegal.

The article mostly ignores these natural questions, but does offer:

---

John Fraser, who ran the Federal Wage and Hour Administration for 11 years before retiring last year, said it was unlikely that the small number of complaints indicated anything about the pervasiveness of unpaid work at Wal-Mart. Workers, he said, are often reluctant to complain to the government, fearing they might lose their jobs if investigators contact their employer.

Mr. Fraser noted that even though few workers had filed complaints against Food Lion, the supermarket chain, the Labor Department, in an investigation a decade ago, found pervasive off-the-clock violations.

---

Again, the Times is mute. But it was another question for students to consider.

It would be especially brazen of Wal-Mart to permit such breaches after having already faced legal trouble over these issues. The article reports that "[t]wo years ago, Wal-Mart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that asserted that 69,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had worked off the clock."

Whatever the truth -- and this article, as is so often the case with the New York Times, does a disappointing job of helping the reader form an educated guess -- one can at least conclude that something's weird in that land of America which so obsesses the Chinese. Either:

1. The charges are true, in which case it would seem there is something seriously wrong with the regulatory environment (otherwise such blatant legal breaches by the nation's top retailer could not develop into a widespread problem in the first place); or

2. It's possible for lawyer chicanery to bring about a lengthy feature article in a major newspaper which would give most readers the strong impression that the nation's top retailer is illegally cheating poor workers.

In the class discussion it transpired that the aunt of one of the students was in this kind of situation -- working overtime without pay, and afraid to complain lest she lose the job. (Several of my night school students, who worked by day, also worked overtime without pay.)

There were conflicting views among the students as to the provisions of Chinese law, but I asked them to check it out, and the following week they were confident they knew the exact terms. I found their report strange, but the class insisted that all employees, hourly and salaried, even managers and executives, must by law be paid (straight-time) for all overtime worked. How is hourly pay determined for salaried workers? It's inferred by dividing the weekly salary by 40 hours. Employees may sue within 6 months to recoup any unpaid overtime worked during that period.

So how to explain the aunt's plight?

The answer, of course, was that even if she recouped for 6 months, she'd probably lose her job; so she didn't sue.

This was clearly defective legislation in that it didn't achieve its ostensible purpose. I asked the students how to repair it. No one gave me a very good answer. Someone suggested giving fired employees access to a tribunal to determine whether they were fired improperly, as the aunt feared would happen to her. But of course that wouldn't work -- a company could contrive other reasons for firing someone.

The students didn't seem much impressed with the proposal I offered for repairing the legislation, but no one gave me a good counter-argument. The next week I had a test which included the same question -- how to repair the law to make it more effective. Almost no one got it right. But this time, in the discussion following the test, there was some ire in their objections to my proposed reform. An academic discussion is one thing, but grades are not something Chinese students kid around about (which is why tests were always a good way to restore flagging attention spans).

The contentiousness of this issue was unusual, as the students rarely disagreed much with me about anything, even though my written course introduction (distributed at the beginning of the semester) encouraged them to offer contrary views. It was strange to have the class so unified in its disagreement, yet unable to offer a counterargument that made sense. Of course, I didn't relent, since no one offered a decent reason why I should. So it was pretty much me against the whole class of law students, on an issue of Chinese law. We ultimately moved on without ever resolving the matter.

This singular episode was probably an element in the students' thought processes, a few weeks later, when they wrote their letters to the administration complaining of my intolerance for dissent (as one item among I don't know how many other grievances).

4. Anonymous Complaints

---

Is regulation really so ridiculous in the U.S. that poor workers have to risk their livelihoods to report breaches of such basic rights? There's no mechanism for anonymous complaints?

---

The slip-up is explainable. I've recently been attempting to address a slew of anonymous complaints targetting ... myself. The complaints were transmitted, by phone and email, to anyplace they had the best chance of causing harm: the presidents' offices, and the "foreign affairs" offices, of the successive universities where I taught. (At Chinese universities, a "foreign affairs office" is typically responsible for dealing with foreign teacher issues.)

No one has been good enough to let me see a copy of any of these email messages, but a sample from a series of emails sent to me by the same author, last June and July, serves to gauge his finer feelings and sentiments:

---

To: <uw@urielw.com>
Subject: fuck you
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2002 17:55:43 +0800

You are a head of ugly pig, bald donkey! Therefore you are not civilized enough to write me back.
There is a famous saying in China: Be a prostitute and simultaneously want to have an inscription of pudicity. You are just this kind of person!

---

Tan also busied himself, when not sending email to me or my employers, by harassing me at home with hang-up phone calls. The frequency of these calls intensified to the point that during my final month at FAC I resorted to screening all incoming calls through my answering machine.

Really, it was like something out of the U.S.

Unfortunately, because China is in some respects far less enlightened than the West, this individual succeeded in inflicting some damage. And he was able to do it without ever identifying himself, simply through anonymous swipes from the shadows.

He knows who I am, but I still don't know his real name, his address, or whom he works for.

What's Tan's beef?

In 1999, he met and began a relationship with a female university student referred to here as X. X was 21 years old at the time.

He met X randomly via a "wrong telephone number" to her dorm.

I met X during the spring of 2002 when she helped organize a public lecture I delivered at her university. We became friends, and I learned about her "boyfriend" Gary Tan. He would call her on the cellphone he had given her (which he retrieved after they broke up) with the same neurotic frequency that later characterized his calls to me.

He had told her they would eventually marry. But when she'd ask for information (e.g. financial savings) he would criticize her for not trusting him. She never met his parents, friends or colleagues. She did not know his address or have any identifying information about him other than his cellphone number.

He had obtained her email password and was reading her email messages without her knowledge. As a result she failed to receive some routine emails I sent her to arrange my lecture at her university.

Did she want to separate from him, I asked her. She responded: "He wouldn't accept it."

Did she love him? About 70%, she answered.

The man was known by her roommates to be obsessive and jealous. He discouraged her from spending time with friends.

He got information about me from her and harassed me via phone calls and emails, telling me repeatedly to "fuck off."

I did the right thing. I urged X to separate from him. Eventually she summoned the courage to do so.

In November, 2002, after learning of her ex's messages to my universities, I contacted X and she replied:

---

I lost touch with him several months ago. During the last call,he said he had changed his mobile number which was the only way I could get in touch with him. I said "Very good",and of course,I woud never want to contact a man who had hurt me so badly.I deleted his number,returned him the mobile,and photos and other things .I just tried to forget him.

---

I finally learned of Tan's many messages to the Tsinghua and FAC administrations during the meeting, in mid-November, in which FAC Assistant President Heng Xiaojun fired me. He stressed that the messages hadn't been a significant factor in his decision. But in the short list of justifications he offered, the one occupying first place was the anonymous phone calls and email messages he said FAC had been receiving "from all over Beijing" since the beginning of the semester.

I was frankly amazed to learn of these messages, which turned out to have begun last June when I was still completing my year at Tsinghua. No hint of the messages had ever reached me.

A short time after this discovery, I arranged with one of my top Tsinghua students from last year, a young woman who is also a superior science student, to go together, without appointments, to various offices at Tsinghua:

- the foreign languages department where I'd worked;

- the foreign affairs office;

- the president's office; and

- the software institute, where an offer of a short position last summer teaching database programming, which had been virtually finalized, mysteriously fell through at the last minute.

My objective -- to confront and repudiate malicious charges about myself -- was valid, reasonable, honorable. And, in China, probably doomed to failure from the start.

The foreign languages department chairman, welcoming and ushering my student and me into a meeting room, declared that he had never heard of such messages.

The two professors from the Tsinghua software institute, who'd all but signed the dotted job offer line 6 months previously -- who'd introduced me to my teaching assistant and asked that I send him preparatory materials for the database course -- had likewise never encountered messages of any such description. The summer job, they averred as we met them together, had failed to materialize simply because of timetable considerations. As for the abrupt cessation of communication at their end, they had a ready explanation: Chinese culture. One does not openly present a "no" response, they pointed out. A decision not to hire is conveyed by saying nothing.

At the president's office, they wouldn't even give us an assistant's name. A secretary gave us her email address and promised -- falsely, it turned out -- to respond when I wrote to her about the issue.

It can perhaps be rated a triumph that I got one of the people we ambushed -- the startled deputy director of the Tsinghua foreign affairs office, Li Hongyu -- to even acknowledge the existence of these anonymous emails. Following a show of ignorance, her defenses withered in the face of my open disbelief, and she reluctantly acknowledged that, yes, there had been messages. And the man had contacted "many people" at Tsinghua, including the president's office and some unnamed teacher in the foreign languages department.

I wanted something more: an admission that the Tsinghua foreign affairs office had perpetrated the foolishness (which would be actionable in the West) of passing these libels along to others, including my subsequent employer, FAC. But at this she drew the line, adamantly insisting that the information had not gone beyond their office.

That was a lie, almost certainly. Her boss, Xia Guangzhi, was unavailable then, but I called him later. He too insisted that the foreign affairs office had not spread the information. He asked me what made me so certain. I said I couldn't reveal my sources. He said come back when you have something more concrete.

I gave a ring to Li Jing, the deputy director of FAC's foreign affairs office. This was after my firing by FAC and I didn't expect much from her.

She was less than eager to talk about the anonymous emails, saying it had been long ago. She mentioned that messages had been received at the FAC president's office before her office.

I asked for a copy of the messages. She said they'd been trashed. (I'd have been surprised to get them from her, but I thought an initial refusal might make her more amenable to subsequent queries.) I then asked who exactly from the Tsinghua foreign affairs office had passed along the information from the messages.

She said she couldn't identify the person (thus confirming that the communication had occurred). It had been "waiban to waiban," she explained -- privileged communication. ("Waiban" means foreign affairs office.)

I told her the boss of the foreign affairs office at Tsinghua had insisted that no one from his office had called her office. I added: "I don't believe him, I believe you."

She asked why I trusted her -- maybe she was the one who was lying. Oh, it was all a fine joke to her, this affair. To quell her high spirits, I told her not to waste my time. And I said I wanted her to call Tsinghua and set Xia Guangzhi straight. She didn't want to, but she agreed to receive his call and let him know who from his office had called her.

I now had the "more concrete" information Xia Guangzhi had demanded. I emailed him:

---

Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 3:55 PM
Subject: Calls from your office to FAC

I have spoken to Li Jing of the FAC Foreign Affairs Office. She confirms that she was personally contacted by the Tsinghua "waiban" office, and that the person in that office passed along information received in anonymous messages.

You can confirm this yourself, and learn who in your office made these calls, by calling Li Jing directly at 6832 3348.

You can also confirm with your staff that at no time was I informed of these malicious messages. All these communications took place behind my back, without my knowledge.

Please email me when you have confirmed the information per above.

Sincerely,

Uriel Wittenberg

c.c. FAC Foreign Affairs Office

---

---

Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: Calls from your office to FAC

Mr. Wittenberg,
Thanks for your message.
I will look into the matter and reply to you later.
Xia Guangzhi
Deputy Director
Tsinghua University
Office for International Cooperation & Exchange
(also Office for Affairs of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan)
Haidian, Beijing, China 100084
Phone:(86-10)6278-1954
Fax: [...]
E-mail: [...]

---

Twelve days later I tried prodding:

---

Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2002 11:32 PM
Subject: Re: Calls from your office to FAC

You asked for more evidence of what I'd told you about your office's phone calls, and I gave you more evidence. Have you called Li Jing? Have you confirmed that your office passed along anonymous, malicious messages?

Will you apologize for incorrectly insisting that such calls were never made?

I had hoped you would follow up on your message below more promptly than this.

---

But even my young undergraduates, steeped in the ways of China, have no difficulty understanding this. The man has no reason to respond. I have no power over him. No superior will give him any grief for neglecting me. (This is borne out by the president's office's indifference.) No publicity will ever come of this. The course of least trouble is to ignore me.

5. Modern Handicaps, Timeless Injustice

"Error!" protests a correspondent. "I DID wonder what the right answer you had in mind was and would have asked you in my next message. I also wondered why you would expect your students to give you that answer, your answer, when it seems (at least this is how I understand your presentation) that they didn't agree with you that this was the right way??? And to be able to judge, it would have been helpful if you had provided the answer in question."

Since you ask: China's employment law should be fixed by extending the 6-month limitation so that employees can claim unpaid overtime as far back as, say, 10 years. Then an employee needn't risk termination to get paid for work done. He can simply wait until he's retired or has left the company for other reasons, and recover the money then.

The 6-month limit gives employers a rational incentive to cheat. With a 10-year limit, the money they'd otherwise be saving looks more like a liability -- an expenditure that's merely been postponed.

Obviously, practicability depends on a reasonable regulatory system (perhaps specialized employment law tribunals) that is accessible to workers; and fact determination is more difficult with the longer timeframe. But extending the time limit corrects the central flaw in the existing legislation as the students described it to me.

How could I demand an answer on a test which the students had already rejected?

The students in my two law classes were relatively interested, attentive, and active in responding to questions. But they're modern young people, plagued by modern handicaps. They prefer lots of kinetic visuals to the coldness of abstract concepts. Concentration of any duration makes them restless for the touch of a cellphone, the click of a mouse. Confinement to an intellectual space arouses the whispering voices implanted by the world's ubiquitous panderers: "Shuck all this. Live free. Be cool. Be your own person. Live life! Go for the extreme. Yeah baaaay-beeeeeee -- whooooo!"

Drudge work -- doing 10,000 exercises -- is, I have the sense, more familiar to the students, and more feasible, than serious reflection, since it consists mostly of shackling themselves to a desk and keeping their eyes pried open. But thinking, analyzing, weighing, exploring -- that's arduous combat.

A former Tsinghua student writes, a few days ago:

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merry christmas!
Do you still remember me--in your newspaper reading class? Although I don't think I perform well in your class but I do think you help me a lot.
you always set a different angle to look at things.
I used to think that something might not be right then I stopped ,and avoid thinking about "why"
so your class is really challenging
thank you for your excellent work

---

I often encountered this in my teaching. Students lacked mental energy. It was just one 90-minute class weekly that they had with me, with a 10-minute break in the middle (and this particular weekly class began at 8:00 AM), but it was too hard to concentrate for that long.

I don't think concentrating for 90 minutes would be too hard if their brains underwent adequate exercise in their other classes; but I gather they didn't.

I don't remember exactly the responses given when I posed my "How to fix the law?" question, but none were sound. Probably some were impractical, others unclear. Maybe I half-drew the proposal I was looking for out of one student.

I think most were hardly paying attention at that point. Some expressed disagreement with the idea but were weary and disinclined to argue. I pushed them to explain what was wrong with the idea but their interest was not engaged.

Well. Isn't this what tests are for?

Education should not be democratic. Student comfort is not the criterion. My objective was not to get them informed about Wal-Mart workers, or to fill mental receptacles with any other kind of data, but to improve their ability to think independently. So I didn't see a need to relent in my demand that these lawyers-to-be identify the critical defect in their own law as they'd just described it to me -- a law which patently failed to serve its nominal purpose.

We hadn't dwelt much on the proposed law fix, so when we had the test, at least one week later, apparently no one remembered what I'd proposed. And virtually no one got any marks on that question. However, I had their attention when we discussed the issue a second time, after the test. Unfortunately, while they stuck to their contrary attitude, they still didn't have any coherent arguments to back it up.

An American friend in Beijing came up with a wholly novel objection to my proposal on moral grounds. He felt it'd be sneaky for an employee to quietly plan to, as he viewed it, betray his employer years later, and that he should "take responsibility" and have the "courage" to confront his employer.

I quite disagree, but the thinking is at least clear enough that it can be articulated.

One reader endorses the insight of my young students, too worldly-wise to expect justice. "That's life," she writes. "Old La Fontaine said it best:"

---

Suivant que vous serez puissant ou miserable,
Les jugements de cour vous rendront blanc ou noir.

(According to your power or poverty
Court judgments will render you white or black.)

[Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695), French writer who produced the most famous fables of modern times. --Encarta 98 Desk Encyclopedia]

---

6. Vacuous Diplomats

There was enthusiasm and progress in most of my classes, sure. But not all were intellectual thrill rides. One group in particular stood out from the beginning for its unshakable mental inertness: my Monday class of Diplomacy students.

These were "double degree" students -- they already had 4-year Bachelor's degrees in English and had proceeded directly into their current 2-year Foreign Affairs (or "Diplomacy") program, which led to a second Bachelor's degree. They were in the second and final year of this program.

In addition to regular university exams, these students wrote exams conducted by China's Foreign Ministry, and selected students underwent extensive interviews to work there after graduation.

Shortly after the start of the semester, FAC held an "opening ceremony" before an audience of about 500. I and the ten or so other Western teachers were given front-row seats and assigned individual interpreters. A few dignitaries spoke, notably the Chinese Vice-Premier, Qian Qichen. He delivered a hard-hitting foreign policy speech (partly for the benefit of his front-row listeners?) enumerating many of China's grievances against the U.S. Among other things -- the U.S. spy plane, the Yugoslav embassy bombing, the 1989 sanctions (following the Tiananmen Square democracy movement), the 1995 visit to the U.S. by the Taiwanese president, America's general efforts to impose its ideology and economic system on the rest of the world -- he noted that the 1949 revolution establishing the modern Chinese state had been viewed by the U.S. at the time as "intolerable."

Of students heading for careers representing China in the international arena, the Vice-Premier said they would encounter differences, pressure, and that they had to learn to "stand firm." Several remarks by the Vice-Premier and other speakers indicated that the Diplomacy program represented the main thrust of the school's mission -- as indeed the name of the school suggests. At several points it was as if the speakers were under the impression that all of the school's students were headed for careers representing China (although Foreign Affairs was only one of the school's six departments).

But the vacuity of the Monday class was almost farcical. It was a puzzle why they were so much deader than the other group of second-year Diplomacy students, which I taught on Tuesdays. At one point it was suggested that the two classes had been divided according to ability, but it wasn't clear whether that was true. (I used to pursue questions like this in China but I've largely given up -- no one seems to know the answers (no one has asked the questions), and after battling a vortex of contradictions you end up with little more than when you started, except all around you people are nursing sensibilities bruised by your demands for unambiguous information.)

The various classes I taught indeed had different characteristics. FAC asked the foreign teachers for a report one month into the semester. Here are excerpts from mine:

---

I'm generally getting along well with all my students. One problem that's been manifest in most classes is a tendency for students to talk to each other while I am talking. Obviously this means that what I'm saying is being missed. This bad habit is fairly widespread at FAC. Strangely, I have heard several times that I am a "strict" teacher merely because I do not permit this.

The following are generalizations which do not apply to 100% of the students in the respective classes.

*** 6'th-year F.A. students: capable but blase and bored ***

"6'th-year" sums up the problem. The students have been in school forever and are sick of it. I would urge that FAC consider imposing an admission requirement for this program of one year of working experience after the first degree. That would lead to superior education for the students and better graduates.

The 2001122 class is the worse one but 2001121 also has the problem.

I have commented to the 2001122 class about its "deadness" and offered them my diagnosis above. The students who responded agreed.

Both the students' English and their reasoning ability is superior to most students I was teaching last year at Tsinghua (typically 3'rd-year undergraduate science students).

*** Night school: eager to upgrade ***

These are my least capable students here, but they are earnest and pleasant. My impression is that they are burdened with difficult jobs and typically have less privileged backgrounds than my day students. They seem grateful for the opportunity to be in my class.

*** Continuing Education: need to improve reasoning ***

This is a large class (about 46 students) which inevitably lessens the quality of the teaching I can provide individual students.

They are somewhat more capable than my night school students but considerably weaker than students in all my other day classes. I have noticed in particular that their logical reasoning skills are weak.

*** 3'rd-year law students: brilliant! ***

These students are really smart! I have been repeatedly impressed and surprised by their incisiveness. In addition to appearing to be the most capable of my FAC students, they also have plenty of mental energy. Please give me more classes like these!

*** Additional remarks ***

I have had a small number of problems with cellphones and similar devices causing distraction in my classes. This is one of my "pet peeves" and I personally would like to see FAC adopt strict measures against this kind of selfish behavior.

---

---

Professors Vie With Web For Class's Attention

New York Times, January 2, 2003

Universities are rushing toward a wireless future, installing networks that let students and the faculty surf the Internet from laptop computers in the classroom.

But professors say the technology poses a growing challenge for them: retaining their students' attention.

In a classroom at American University in Washington on a recent afternoon, as Prof. Jay Mallek lectured graduate students on the finer points of creating and reading an office budget, many students were off surfing. A young man looked at sports photos while a woman checked out baby photos that just arrived in her e-mailbox.

The screens provide a silent commentary on the teacher's attention-grabbing skills. The moment he loses the thread, or fumbles with his own laptop to use its calculator, screens flip from classroom business to leisure. Students dash off e-mail notes and send instant messages. A young man who is chewing gum shows an amusing e-mail message to the woman next to him, and then switches over to read the online edition of The Wall Street Journal.

"This is an addictive thing that hurts the students themselves," said Ian Ayres, a professor at the Yale Law School who opposes much of the Internet's entry into the classroom, saying that computer use is rude and that other students are "demoralized" by seeing their peers' attention wander.

"When you see 25 percent of the screens playing solitaire, besides its being distracting, you feel like a sucker for paying attention," Professor Ayres said.

Unless law students are fully engaged in the class, he said, they miss out on the give and take of ideas in class discussion and do not develop the critical thinking skills that emerge from "deeply tearing apart a case."

Professor Ayres tried to prohibit all Internet use in his classroom. The students "went ballistic," he said, and insisted that their multitasking ways made them more productive and even more alert in class.

Lately, he said, he has loosened the restrictions, telling students they could surf from the back rows, so others would not be distracted.

One professor at a law school in Texas became so upset by the level of student distraction in 2001 that he took a ladder to school, climbed up to reach the wireless transmitter in his classroom -- and disconnected it. The students protested. The administration told him to plug it back in. But the point was made, he said, and he regained the attention of the class.

In 2002, he told his students that they could not use laptops in his class at all, even for taking notes.

"It has made an enormously positive difference to shut those computers off," he said.

Dozens of colleges are going wireless, including Dartmouth, Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, the University of California at San Diego and the University of Minnesota.

---

7. Guilty Interlude

I sometimes call friends here, students, and have a conversation like this:

"Hello," my friend will whisper.

"Hi. Why are you whispering?" (Innocently.)

"I'm in class."

"Oh.... The teacher's giving the lesson -- now?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm. Well. When's class over?"

"What?"

"When is your class FINISHED?"

"Oh. At four o'clock."

"OK. I'll call you back after that."

"OK. Bye."

"Bye."

I hate cellphones. But they are convenient when someone you want to get a hold of has one.

Obviously one feels a twinge of guilt. But that's life. Get used to it.

8. Monday Mumbo Jumbo

In each of my 7 classes, I requested in the first meeting of the semester that they read a "letter to my students" I'd posted on my website. Weeks later I discovered that none of my Monday diplomats had looked at it. Asked why not, they told me they couldn't access the site.

Couldn't access it?!

The whole class gave me the quite surprising news that they could not access foreign websites from the FAC computer centre.

Had anyone asked the FAC staffer working at the computer centre for help?

No. No one had asked.

I asked one of the students to accompany me to the FAC computer centre after class. We found the FAC staffer, and I asked the student to ask her about the issue in Chinese.

The staffer listened to the student's question and promptly responded: "No, you can access foreign websites."

There was a short pause, and the student turned to me, wondering what else I wanted.

I was puzzled. Did the student not understand that the staffer's information was a DIRECT CONTRADICTION of what everyone in the class had told me minutes earlier?

"Tell her you cannot access foreign websites," I told the student.

The student conveyed this in Chinese, and again the staffer answered at once, firmly, indicating access was perfectly possible.

The student turned back to me with an embarrassed smile.

"Is this information not the exact opposite of what the class just told me?!" I asked the student.

The student told me timidly that sometimes she cannot access foreign sites. But the staffer insisted firmly that there was no problem accessing such sites. The student looked at me helplessly, obviously wanting only to escape from the situation.

Perhaps this scene gives you a sense of why so many things here are shrouded in confusion. And of how straightforward questions are not the routine way of going about things.

Not long after this episode, this particular student was selected -- as one of only four of the double-degree students graduating this year -- to work in the Foreign Ministry after graduation. I wondered if the kind of "standing firm" I'd witnessed was what Vice-Premier Qian Qichen had in mind.

I didn't want to spend more time arm-twisting the girl, so I gave her the simple assignment to resolve the foreign access issue and email me later. She sent the explanation shortly afterwards: there were 3 computer rooms; only one was designated for foreign access; students had to use the computers in that room to access foreign websites, not the other two rooms.

"I think I should apologize for my inability to reach your website," she wrote. "Most our classmates failed like me because, first, we seldom went to that room since the computers there are older and people always want new computers. Second, the teacher in the computer lab, actually no one ever told us about it. Anyway we know it now."

The Mondays. They were "Foreign Affairs" specialists, yet hadn't breached China's boundaries even virtually.

Put an obstacle in their path -- and they'd crash and burn.

Put someone next to the obstacle to point out the detour -- and they'd ignore her.

Inquire if any solution existed -- and they'd swear none did.

I unburdened myself of some of these sentiments in an email to all my classes which concluded:

---

Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 9:13 PM
Subject: Fear and Failure

[...] Here is an entire class, set to obtain a second degree in under a year, that silently accepted failure. An FAC staffer works in the computer room, but no one asked her for help. These students -- "Foreign Affairs" majors! -- were convinced they could not go beyond the 1% of the WWW that is in China. And judging from the exchange I witnessed, the reason none of them awoke to their error is that when they encounter information that disagrees with their false ideas, their tendency is to burrow into a hole and hide.

This is all the more significant in light of Vice-Premier Qian Qichen's speech at FAC less than two weeks ago, which was particularly directed to students in the Foreign Affairs department. He spoke of the personal qualities and characteristics students must develop in order to effectively represent China on the international stage. Other nations, he noted, often pressure China or make demands that are contrary to China's interests. What students must learn to deal effectively with other nations, he said, is to "stand firm."

In my various classes I do have (and am grateful for) many students who are intellectually alert, alive and curious. To the others, those inclined to languor, I urge you not to flee from different ideas, and not to quit on the first setback. An important benefit of higher education is to encounter and be stimulated by unfamiliar and even contrary ideas.

Might those ideas change you? Yes they might. And that might not be such a bad thing. If you exit with all the same ideas you had on entry, can you believe you have progressed?

---

---

Thank you for your suggestion in your letter. I want to express my comment and opinion.

I don't know who that classmate is, but I do feel puzzled why students in our college lack communications with each other so much. I think that's one reason for our ignorance most of time. Here in FAC we should meet higher demands, but that does that mean we have already been better than students in other universities. I have sensed the pressing atmosphere here because of the fierce competition among students. At the same time, I always realize the evil side of person, selfishness, reluctant to let others know of their inner world, know how excellent or awkward they are. Yes, it's fear, and it's failure, but I think such mindset will not stay forever. The situation you mentioned is just a proof for her total wrong understanding about learning. Learning is not a secret, but an interactive process. The more you share with others, the excellent you will be. Am I right, Mr. Wittenburg?

The National Day is coming. Wish you happiness dueing the one-week-long holiday.

---

---

Hi Uriel,

I my last letter,I mentioned that students in FAC should be better in the fields which are specially set for us,such as mastering knowledge of international relations,public relations and English communication,just name a few.It's nationally acknowledged that demands for students here is somewhat higher that some other colleges,especially in English.That's what I mean by "better".

I should say that I have known how to access into a foreign website since last semester.I'm sure that if she was a student in [my class],she would also know that.Maybe they haven't touched such a topic before,so it's understandable.I think it's not accurate for you to think all the 30 students of the double-degree students don't know how to do that.

I always let somebody know me,including the inner world.Just like what you have mentioned,"Debate is also at the heart of the intellectual life."I'd like to debate with others about what is right and what is wrong,and I think it's beneficial to us no matter how fierce the debate will be.You're a good debator,Uriel,asking affensive questions all the time(Please forgive my frankness),making us not knowing what to say.Believe me or not,no one of us don't want to improve out intellectual life,just because of some communication obstacles.

---

9. Social Harmony

---

From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
To: [Monday Diplomacy Class]
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 9:34 PM
Subject: Prepare class presentations for Monday!

Dear Students,

I've been thinking hard about what to do with an entire group of 21st-century university students (majoring in "Foreign Affairs"! --that's the cherry on top) who never realized they could surf beyond the borders of China, even though they had the WWW at their fingertips.

At last I've hit upon a suitable plan.

Part of each student's final grade will be based on a 10-minute class presentation based on web research. Your presentation need not be comprehensive but should be comprehensible, and you should be prepared to answer basic questions.

We will be meeting both on Sunday September 29 [exceptionally, because of Oct. 1-7 holiday] and Monday September 30. The first 3 presentations will be given by the first 3 students (alphabetically) on the class list and are due on September 30. The 3 students are: [...]

Hopefully these students will read this email before I tell them about their assignment in person on Sunday; otherwise they'll have under 24 hours to prepare. (Please tell them.)

Each of the 3 students must choose one of the following topics and present any aspect of it:

- Human rights violations in the U.S. (no China-based sources allowed)

- Recent reports on the world environment situation

- The positions of various national governments with regard to the prospect of war in Iraq

- A contemporary issue in Judaism, the Mormon Church, or the Catholic Church

- Suspicions of U.S. industrial espionage in other countries

- The recent case of a mother in the U.S. abusing a child in a parking lot.

- The problem of obesity

- The effects on children of viewing television

- Computer viruses

Additional topic choices will be available for subsequent presentations by other students.

Students must email me the URL's (webpage addresses) of the material on which presentations are based.

SEARCH ENGINES, like http://google.com and http://yahoo.com , are useful for finding information. You may want to use them.

Regards,

Uriel

---

Response was swift. Considering that even the central character of "Fear and Failure" -- the girl who'd accompanied me to the computer centre -- apparently didn't read that email until a month later, and then only when spurred, the promptness of the replies this time was dramatic:

---

To: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2002 10:00 AM
Subject: Re: Prepare class presentations for Monday!

Dear Uriel

Its a shock to me that I am supposed to give presentation on the coming Monday in your class.

Since I got anthor presentation in Chinese to do Tommorrow, I only have one Tommorrow night to prepare your assignment, which is too tough and too urgent for me to make a high-quality presentation based on the topics you chose. And I dont think its fair for three of us to do such work without good preparation while others have plenty of time, as you said in your email that part of my final grade is based on presetation.

So, could you please reconsider the schedule time for us. We would appreciate it if you could delay our presetation after holiday.

Many Thanks
yours
...

--------------------------------------------------

From: [another of the 3 initial presenters]
To: "'Uriel Wittenberg'" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2002 10:59 AM
Subject: RE: Prepare class presentations for Monday!

Mr.Wittenberg,

I read your e-mail this morning which really agitates me since there is only one day left for the preparation and at the same time we have to have classes all day(from 8 am to 5 pm) on that only day.So if you could be kind enough to postpone the presentation to the next class, you will be appreciated.

This is also good to the class since no classmates want to listen to an presentation which is not well prepared. And in light of the principle of fairness, each student should be given the same period of time for preparation. It sounds not so good that we have one day and the others have 6 or 7.

It is nice of you to inform us of this. Could we have a further discussion on this tomorrow? Thanks a lot!

Best wishes

Yours,

...

---

On that day, however, I soon discovered that my brilliant punishment for the class's Internet failures and false excuses had a flaw: during any given presentation, pretty much all students (all but the one presenting), absent a deterrent for inattention, would mentally slip away for the pleasures of idle daydreaming. Why hadn't I foreseen this? (I was also far from blown away by the presentations themselves.)

My openly sarcastic email, below, sent to the class after these first presentations, will lose me sympathy in some quarters. But that's just the kind of person you have to resign yourself to having as your narrator. Remember though, this was hands-down my worst class.

The style might also be considered a bit heavy-handed, but I was trying to be clear for non-native speakers.

I was offended not only by the students' extreme indolence but also by an exchange suggesting an insufferable willingness to pervert independent views for the sake of conformity and the avoidance of the least hint of contention with peers.

One presenter, addressing the topic of obesity, wanted to make the point that obese people suffer not only physically but also psychologically because of their lack of personal appeal. Seeking to informally substantiate the unattractiveness of obese people (presumably also to liven things up), she asked a couple of students whether they'd consider dating an obese person. (Incidentally, none of my students was obese.)

The girl she asked responded something like: "Well, it would depend on his qualities -- if he's a kind person; if he's compassionate. If he was, then maybe I would go out with him."

The presenter nodded, as if this was precisely what she'd been soliciting: "If the person is very fat, you don't want to spend time with them. You don't feel like getting close or becoming involved ...." She invited the girl to elaborate.

"Well, if the person is too fat, then you don't want to get into a relationship ...."

"That's right," the presenter agreed. "People don't want to get into a relationship with very fat people. And so that's why they also have psychological problems ...."

"Hold on a sec," I interposed. I pointed out that the girl had reversed her initial response as soon as she realized what the presenter wanted. (Such behavior was apparently so ordinary and unremarkable that no one else seemed to have noticed.)

And while it's great to solicit audience views, I added to the presenter, "you don't handle unexpected feedback by pretending it supports your point."

The two students smiled in acknowledgment. And the presentation proceeded.

---

From: "Uriel Wittenberg"
To: [Monday Diplomacy Class]
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 10:18 PM
Subject: the lovely clouds

Today's experiment with an alternative class format, my bid for resurrecting this class, can unfortunately not be considered a success. [...] offered the startling news that the obesity rate for Chinese boys aged 7 to 18 has doubled to 10% in an amazingly short time -- only the past 6 or 7 years -- but most of you could think of one thing only: your lunch.

At the outset of this course you calculated that you would probably not be punished for failing to access a foreign website. Today you calculated again: it was probably safe to ignore your classmates' presentations. Your minds drifted contentedly amidst clouds of nothingness ... awaiting lunch, glorious lunch.

There was a little bit of drama when I delayed the mid-class break slightly. Tremors of alarm passed through the class. Rambo, panicking as if his air supply had been cut off, almost attacked me physically. But calm was soon restored, and you were snugly back in your mental hammocks in time for [...]'s presentation. No one even bothered to ask her just what the mother at the center of the sensational child abuse story had actually done to her child. [...]'s idea that the issue she was presenting might generate discussion among her classmates (Were police justified in releasing a video depicting child abuse to the news media?) proved wildly optimistic. One might as soon expect the corpses in a graveyard to jump up and dance a jig together.

The general tendency was already clear in the first presentation. When a student realized that her sincere response to [...]'s question about accepting an obese boyfriend was "wrong," she hastened to correct it so it would conform to the point [...] wanted to make. Who could dream of discussion or debate among people whose only wish is to repeat what they're supposed to say?

[...] offered a statement that might have provoked a sentient audience when she said: "No one denies that we can't live a normal life today without video surveillance." But, though you are brilliantly alert when it comes to break-time or lunchtime, [...]'s assertion produced not the least stir.

I will have to ponder further the problem of what to do with you all every week. Suggestions are welcome.

---

10. Rousing the Recalcitrant

My sarcasm caused anguish and suffering for the Monday Diplomacy students. It was richly deserved, no question. But that made it hurt all the more.

I'd certainly tried to stimulate the students' interest. But their dedication to deadness was fierce. It had gotten to the point where my efforts were colliding with my Golden Rule: a teacher should never work harder than his students.

Resorting to sarcasm was the natural corollary -- with students like these, sarcasm was effortless. It was also the last remaining hope for conjuring life. One student was roused to wring out the following ode, likely his greatest expenditure of energy of the semester. The exertion left him too depleted to correspond any further after my reply.

[Note: I am not really violating the intent of his request -- "please don't mention the argument between you and me to the public." He's thinking of classroom discussions of issues in which the concerned students were identified -- e.g. the "Fear and Failure" incident.]

---

To: <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 9:19 PM

Dear Sir Uriel Wittenberg,

This letter reflects my personal opinions on your course. If you don't agree with me, you can argue with me by answering my letters. If you dislike this letter, you could discard it and forget it. But please don't mention the argument between you and me to the public.

Dear sir, I am very disappointed that you use the word "corpse" to describe your students. I do know you have very reason to blame your student for they ignore your instruction. Yes, they should be punished. Just punish them! But please do not use the dirty words to tease us, to smear us, and to shame us. I do not know if you believe in God, but everyone are born to equal is the fundamental proposition to be dedicated in your constitution.

We are your students as well as human beings gifted by Creator, we should be respected at least. In China, a teacher is regarded as the role model of his students, and he should teach knowledge and guide his students by his behaviors and influence them by his virtues. My classmates and I are astonished and angry to your words and behaviors, therefore we choose silence. Sometimes I am deeply sorrow for you because you are wise but you don't how to operate your wisdom. It seems you never want a different answer to your question. Could you kindly enough to tell me your comprehension is only correct one to the articles?Could you kindly tell me whether it is good to gamble with a student in the class? Could you kindly enough to tell me that "fuck" and "shit" is good words to teach students? Could you kindly enough to tell me that do yuu just want the answers that you want? You are here because you are wiser than us and knowlegdable in some fields. You are here because the college believe you are capable to guide the student in correct and good way and to stimulate the students enthusiam, creativity and wisdom.please undertake all these responsibilies and honors in your goodness.maybe we will miss you a nice guy in the future.

Please do not shout or yell to your students because they will reckon you are rude and uneducated. Sometimes you really scare them. I know you are really smart and responsible, however why don't you try to communicate with your students with a smile.I know that You needn't to please them but a relaxing class is good to all of us.

I am sad because you said "we are going to win the next war" I do not believe that you are fanatic to war and happy to see millions of people died. I like peace and personally I am strongly angry about this sentence. If my words offend you , I apologize. If my words is a bit reasonable, could you write to me and perhaps we can discuss more.

Best regards

---

11. Fukien Frazzlement

I am hoping my Monday Diplomacy correspondent's characterization of my classroom comportment -- shouting, swearing, drawing students into wagers -- raised eyebrows among my readers.

"This isn't the Uriel we know and respect," you may have thought.

You may also have wondered whether it's wise for a Canadian teaching in China to share with students an enthusiasm for their nation's upcoming military defeats.

Frankly, that's a distortion, and a remark I made was taken out of context. Generally speaking, my words and deeds have at all times been appropriate.

But did I utter the F word?

Now look. I'm an emissary of Western culture, Western civilization, in a faraway and very different land. I am paid to transfer not merely linguistic skills to my young charges, but cultural awareness and insight and general communications aptitude. It is my job. It's a responsibility I take seriously.

It is true I have strived to convey some level of appreciation for the flavor of American speech patterns. For example, a frequently heard Chinese response to "Thank you" is "Not at all," which many Chinese don't realize is really only fitting if you're a matron of aristocratic pretensions at the opera.

To take another example, imagine President Bush getting up in the morning, trudging down to the front door of the White House, stooping to swipe the New York Times from under the mat (with a sour look), trudging to the breakfast table to get his coffee from Laura, and turning the pages to the hated Prof. Paul Krugman's column:

---

On Tuesday, George W. Bush is scheduled to give a speech intended to put him in front of the growing national outrage over corporate malfeasance. He will sternly lecture Wall Street executives about ethics and will doubtless portray himself as a believer in old-fashioned business probity.

Yet this pose is surreal, given the way top officials like Secretary of the Army Thomas White, Dick Cheney and Mr. Bush himself acquired their wealth....

[T]he administration has so far gotten the press to focus on the least important question about Mr. Bush's business dealings: his failure to obey the law by promptly reporting his insider stock sales.... [T]he administration hopes that a narrow focus on the reporting lapses will divert attention from the larger point: Mr. Bush profited personally from aggressive accounting identical to the recent scams that have shocked the nation.

In 1986, one would have had to consider Mr. Bush a failed businessman. He had run through millions of dollars of other people's money, with nothing to show for it but a company losing money and heavily burdened with debt. But he was rescued from failure when Harken Energy bought his company at an astonishingly high price. There is no question that Harken was basically paying for Mr. Bush's connections.

Despite these connections, Harken did badly. But for a time it concealed its failure -- sustaining its stock price, as it turned out, just long enough for Mr. Bush to sell most of his stake at a large profit -- with an accounting trick identical to one of the main ploys used by Enron a decade later. (Yes, Arthur Andersen was the accountant.) As I explained in my previous column, the ploy works as follows: corporate insiders create a front organization that seems independent but is really under their control. This front buys some of the firm's assets at unrealistically high prices, creating a phantom profit that inflates the stock price, allowing the executives to cash in their stock.

That's exactly what happened at Harken. A group of insiders, using money borrowed from Harken itself, paid an exorbitant price for a Harken subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum. That created a $10 million phantom profit, which hid three-quarters of the company's losses in 1989. White House aides have played down the significance of this maneuver, saying $10 million isn't much, compared with recent scandals. Indeed, it's a small fraction of the apparent profits Halliburton created through a sudden change in accounting procedures during Dick Cheney's tenure as chief executive. But for Harken's stock price -- and hence for Mr. Bush's personal wealth -- this accounting trickery made all the difference.

Oh, and Harken's fake profits were several dozen times as large as the Whitewater land deal -- though only about one-seventh the cost of the Whitewater investigation.

Mr. Bush was on the company's audit committee, as well as on a special restructuring committee; back in 1994, another member of both committees, E. Stuart Watson, assured reporters that he and Mr. Bush were constantly made aware of the company's finances. If Mr. Bush didn't know about the Aloha maneuver, he was a very negligent director.

In any case, Mr. Bush certainly found out what his company had been up to when the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered it to restate its earnings. So he can't really be shocked over recent corporate scams. His own company pulled exactly the same tricks, to his considerable benefit. Of course, what really made Mr. Bush a rich man was the investment of his proceeds from Harken in the Texas Rangers -- a step that is another, equally strange story.

The point is the contrast between image and reality. Mr. Bush portrays himself as a regular guy, someone ordinary Americans can identify with. But his personal fortune was built on privilege and insider dealings -- and after his Harken sale, on large-scale corporate welfare. Some people have it easy.

"Succeeding in Business," New York Times, July 7, 2002

---

I'll allow I briefly staged a rendition of said reaction for educational purposes.

12. The Subtle Diplomat

I know my reply to the student, which I quote fully below, is going to push my credit with some readers to new lows. People are prone to a sense that an impassioned plea such as his demands respectful solemnity; that simple decency demands contrition, or at least sorrow, from the object of such a heartfelt petition.

But the key to this student's real passion was in his phrase, "a relaxing class is good to all of us."

It wasn't grief over my "smearing" of the Creator's creations that precipitated his feat of oratory, his woodpecker-like succession of Could-you-kindly-enough-to-tell-me's. It was nothing more virtuous than a hunger for "relaxation."

We'd spoken in person after class the day before he sent his message. He said some students were exclusively focussed on getting jobs (they graduate in July) and had no interest in their studies, and that I should accommodate them.

Some students. Not himself, certainly.

Some time later, also, when my job was fully into "Troubled" mode, he warned of "a conspiracy to overthrow you" on the part of certain other students. But the complaints I heard about sounded awfully much like his own.

In case his advice that I cooperate with students' desires to learn nothing did not persuade me, he had an independent objection to my style of throwing questions at them. Noting that my questions demonstrated how clever I was, he pointed out that it's sometimes smart to act stupid even when you're not.

Seems diplomacy school has taught him well.

I objected that this was after all a university -- not some kind of corporation or political situation where you have to position yourself to stab people in the back.

"Come on!" he said indignantly."This is not the Ivy League."

His words.

He'd come to my attention even at the very beginning of the semester, when he objected after class to our overly detailed examinations of readings. He preferred just to get the "gist." (My view, incidentally, is that just getting the "gist" generally means getting it all wrong.) But then another student spoke up and said she liked the way we were examining the readings. He hastily said he did too.

---

From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 10:04 PM
Subject: response to your complaints

>Yes, they should be punished. Just punish them! But please do not use the dirty words to tease us, to smear us, and to shame us.

Dear [...],

Has it occurred to you that that is your punishment?

If one wants to transform corpses into dancers -- as I do -- I cannot think of a better way than insults; particularly well-founded insults. What alternative punishment would have produced the beneficial effect of provoking you to apply your mind and express your thoughts in a letter? This might even produce some enlightenment.

Your grounds for demanding respect are very shaky. God promises damnation to sinners. The U.S. Constitution permits execution. Respect is earned, it's not a right.

>My classmates and I are astonished and angry to your words and behaviors, therefore we choose silence.

False. You chose silence and the comfort of your mental hammocks from the start -- before my insults began. You say so yourself: "I do know you have very reason to blame your student for they ignore your instruction."

>It seems you never want a different answer to your question. Could you kindly enough to tell me your comprehension is only correct one to the articles?

I will respond by asking you to finally do the homework I assigned in our FIRST class. Read my letter to students [which urges students to argue if they have a different viewpoint].

>gamble ... "fuck" and "shit"

Maybe you've been studying diplomacy too long. Maybe you think the most important thing in the world is to offend no one, to be totally orthodox, correct, scrupulous, discreet, boring. But my goal is to drag you out of your slumber and resuscitate your brains.

Anyway, what on earth could be your objection to an honest wager?

And why should Chinese students suffer the inequity of being the only people in America (if they go there) lacking fluency in the use of "fuck" and "shit"? Like you said, god made you equal.

>I am sad because you said "we are going to win the next war"

I don't remember the context.

>why don't you try to communicate with your students with a smile.I know that You needn't to please them but a relaxing class is good to all of us.

I'm not sure whether Machiavelli's dictum, that it's better to be feared than loved, applies to teaching as well as politics. But one thing is sure: to give your class the comfort you yearn for -- that would be abdicating my duty. That would be giving you mental death.

Best regards,

Uriel

---

13. Applauding Banality

It certainly seemed, didn't it, that that issue of foreign web access was thoroughly resolved. The students had swallowed my "Fear & Failure" rebuke; student responses had acknowledged the failures ("I think I should apologize ... Most our classmates failed like me ... actually no one ever told us about it. Anyway we know it now"); the Monday diplomats were giving presentations every week based on information obtained from foreign websites.

And yet ... about a month later my Law students insisted they couldn't access foreign websites.

Incredulous, I hauled one of them after class to the computer centre where we spoke to the same staffer. There was a lot of Chinese back-and-forth. Then it was explained that something had been fixed. Foreign web access had just started working again.

It hadn't been working before?

I struggled to get clear information. But after some time I gave up, once again. Like I said before, you gotta learn to live with ambiguity around here.

For those Diplomacy class presentations, I offered students these additional topics:

- junk food

- the fight against tobacco

- Chinese students who go to the U.S.

- scientific research about culture, its effects on thinking and personality, statistics on behavior

- the U.S. or European antitrust case against Microsoft

One student delivered a presentation on the topic of Chinese students in the U.S. He spoke easily, obviously confident, not nervous at all. (Most students were at least somewhat nervous.) He began with a couple of jokes:

"They say there are two reasons for going to the U.S. To see a doctor, or to get an education."

The students laughed.

"It's also said that if you love someone, you should send them to the U.S. If you hate someone, you should do the same."

The students laughed some more.

He proceeded with his presentation, which consisted essentially of these points:

- One motive for going to the U.S. is the lack of educational opportunities in China.

- The U.S. offers "first class hardware and software." [?]

- It's a happy, open and democratic society, where people lead "colorful" lives.

- However, some Chinese have bitter experiences and feel culture shock.

- Life is "colorful" there [again]. It's exciting, but not easy.

- About 15,000 return to China, where there are many economic opportunities.

Having relieved himself of these thoughts, the student concluded his presentation. It had taken about four minutes, while others had generally been about 10 minutes. His classmates applauded -- as they hadn't for any of the preceding presentations.

Why? Purely because of his confident delivery? Or was it that he was important, connected in some way? Or was he popular? If so, was it because he was unusually tall?

It would likely have been futile to pursue these questions. They probably wouldn't even know themselves. So I took another ambiguity pill. (Each one goes down smoother than the last.)

As for the presentation, I hate to be a skeptic, but couldn't a compendium of vacuous cliches like this be pulled off practically off the cuff, with zero preparation?

I'd proposed the topic because although going to the U.S., at least for university study, is a major objective for many students here, many who go undoubtedly have negative experiences. Learning something about these experiences-- something beyond a trite reference to "culture shock" -- is what would have been interesting.

14. Update on Xia Guangzhi!

"As I write," I wrote long ago, "that is the last I've heard from him."

The person referred to was Xia Guangzhi, boss of the Tsinghua Foreign Affairs Office. His deathless words had been: "I will look into the matter and reply to you later."

"The matter" was my complaint that his office had passed along anonymous messages about me to my new employer (FAC).

Prognostications from China and all over the globe were that Mr. Xia's silence would endure; that complete quiescence was the logical expectation in light of the man's incentives.

But the torch of human justice burns more brightly than many, apparently, believe. His conscience, if not his incentives, impelled him to produce this followup:

---

From: "Xia Guangzhi"
To: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: Calls from your office to FAC

Mr.Uriel Wittenberg,
I am writing to follow up your messages.
I have talked with my countparts at FAC, and get to know that you left the College due to what you did, nothing to do with the "anonymous
messages".
My office has done nothing wrong in your case. I don't think there is any reason you should complain to me.
Regards.
Xia Guangzhi
Deputy Director
Tsinghua University
Office for International Cooperation & Exchange
Haidian, Beijing, China 100084
Phone:(86-10)6278-1954

---

Admittedly, it's a bit of a strain to see the bright side.

The initial inclination is to say -- Hey, like, it's great that you've satisfied yourself that my ex-employer, with whom I'm currently in a contract dispute that's probably soon going to come before a government arbitrator, takes the position that I was fired because of something I did, but what about responding to the point -- your own office's actions -- which it happens you've left unaddressed?

But that would require perhaps more acuteness than it's safe to assume. There are those infirm perceptions to be breached.

There is something that should be more palpable for him than his office's relatively abstract offense of having communicated something it shouldn't have -- namely, the false information he personally gave me. That arrow, I thought, stood a better chance of surviving the vicissitudes of flight:

---

From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
To: "Xia Guangzhi"
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: Calls from your office to FAC

Xia Guangzhi,

You told me your office did not pass along anonymous messages.

In fact, your office DID pass along anonymous messages.

What you told me is therefore false.

And it's wrong to say false things to people.

Is this difficult for you to understand?

---

15. Freedom versus Valor

Now where were we before Mr. Xia's highly worthwhile interpolation?

Far short, perhaps, of where we should be by now. I admit it, I've indulged a foolish fondness for lingering. We've paused, too too frequently no doubt, to smell the roses ... yes, sometimes less savory odors too. And it's occasionally been only vague scents that have held us up, indiscernible whiffs, traces of je-ne-sais-quoi's that could represent white, black, sweet, sour, life, death.

I may have tested your patience, like a tour bus conductor taking too many payoffs from souvenir shops along the route. One passenger reports the sensation of watching a car wreck in slow motion. After -- what is it, 14 chapters? -- one feels entitled to the main collision.

And why? I ask myself. Why, for example, have we dwelt at such length on my "hands-down worst class"?

I think the answer must be that it was the most colorful.

The same correspondent (his eyes on the road, keeping watch for any calamity) adds that one would think the Chinese would recognize the "harsh" notion I embody of what a teacher should be: "it is one that has been, ironically enough, popularized by the Chinese themselves, or at least our mass market version of their culture. I'm thinking here of the Zen master, the sometimes brutal, mystifying teacher who pushes his students right outside of their skin, of their comfortable notions of themselves and the world, in order that they may truly see themselves and the world."

By way of an approach to the main collision, let me at this juncture introduce one person who was left entirely cold by my Zen mastery: Prof. Wang Yan, an exceedingly fine lady and member in good standing of the FAC administration.

I need to come out and make an announcement here. That is frankly a redirection of my original characterization of Prof. Wang. I was initially imbued with a wild sense of glorious freedom as I contemplated this next subject -- a freedom I've learned not to take for granted -- and the description that burst forth in my resulting flush of loquacity had, rather than the term "fine," a host of epithets I'd sprinkled with joyful abandon.

"I ain't in Canada anymore," I exulted.

Canada, a nation in which I resided for a time, is not particularly forgiving to writers who fail to observe the proper protocols when referring to connected folks. (The advantages of being "connected" in Canada are well known here. The Chinese even have a term for it -- "guanxi.") Scribblers on Canadian soil ignore the rules at their peril.

Wouldn't you know I personally came to the regime's attention during my time within Canada's boundaries -- and was threatened because of something I wrote? An intimidating "WITH PREJUDICE" letter was dispatched to me by one Julian Porter, Q.C., a rude fellow, warning that if I didn't shut up about his friends (the bosses running the Toronto YMCA), various arcane legal processes would be instituted that would leave me penniless. (Text of letter at http://urielw.com/ymca/action-porter.htm.)

What does "WITH PREJUDICE" mean, anyways?

So, with Canada far in the distance, I fixed my narrative sights on Wang Yan with relish.

But then I was suddenly struck by a somber thought: there may be no place on earth where a fellow is truly free to express himself.

True, the Tsinghua foreign affairs office stands as a testament to free speech in China. They're obviously at liberty to spread libels with impunity. But that could be a different kettle of fish.

It's fully plausible that Prof. Wang herself engineered my ouster from behind the scenes at FAC. And such may be her pull that -- maybe -- she did it merely out of personal pique.

One therefore has to admit the possibility, I reasoned, that Canada is not the only country where guanxi counts.

And if Prof. Wang has this kind of pull .... Well, think what an anonymous crazy man was able to do when he felt aggrieved. Maybe it'd be the better part of valor for me to go easy on an FAC director.

16. No Free Lunch

So anyway, I first met the excellent Wang Yan last March, before her promotion to her current position as director of the FAC foreign affairs office. She was then vice dean of the English department, and she conducted the sole job interview I was given prior to being offered my teaching position for the 2002-2003 year.

Her erect bearing, her style of sweeping into and out of rooms, her self-conscious superficiality and distance created an immediate impression of haughty arrogance, an impression that remained undiminished by the time of our termination meeting eight months later, when I watched her swoop to her boss Heng Xiaojun's side to wordlessly point to something I'd once written that was supposed to bolster his position in the exchange he was having with me.

In that original March encounter, I was left distinctly unimpressed by her conduct of the interview. She did most of the talking and elicited almost nothing from me.

I had virtually no contact with her once I moved to FAC and began teaching, but it was nonetheless clear that Wang Yan was special. She was unique among my colleagues, Chinese and Western, in her disdain for such elementary courtesies as smiling in acknowledgment when passing in the hallway or exchanging a few words when paths crossed. The grand lady would sweep by, apparently too preoccupied by affairs of state to let mortals in the vicinity distract her.

I heard also that she was a bit of a terror when dressing down colleagues or students.

What did someone like this do to get promoted, I wondered.

I had a fleeting encounter with Wang Yan early in the semester at the FAC "opening ceremony" at which Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen spoke. As I arrived, together with other Western teachers, arrangements were being made for interpreters to sit individually beside or behind us so we'd understand the proceedings. As we were milling about while this was being organized, Wang Yan approached and fixed me with a critical glare:

"Will you be needing an interpreter?"

What did this mean? If I were one of the exceptional Westerners who spoke Chinese anywhere near well enough to follow such an event, she would hardly be unaware of it.

At the time, I had no explanation whatsoever for her apparent hostility. Now I know it may have been because of the crazy man's anonymous messages that I learned about much later.

I gazed at her and calmly answered, after a pause of a moment or two: "Guess."

This unexpected audacity brought her a split-second of confusion, but she rapidly recovered, maintaining her regal aloofness with the retort:

"I don't know; you've been in China several years haven't you?"

"No," was all I gave her. I smiled to show insincere regret over the misunderstanding.

I'd been in China two years. Not "several."

One gets a query something like this occasionally -- a shyly smiling "Do you speak Chinese?" which usually means: "Hey -- you haven't learned our language. And we've learned yours. Shame on you."

It's too bad English is the international language. It's also too bad your universities exchange anonymous messages from lunatics maligning responsible teachers. That's life. Get used to it (like I'm trying to).

But the query doesn't generally reflect any real hostility; it's just part of the latent attitude of morose victimhood and wounded pride that some Chinese feel vis-a-vis the West. I usually bounce back with a cheerful, "Sure: yi ar san" (one, two, three), which unfailingly brings a laugh.

But those who most need to get used to Westerners who don't speak Chinese, I would think, are senior administrators at universities that hire such Westerners as faculty members.

In fairness I will insert some balance here, following a conversation last night with a bright young Chinese woman who has socialized with Westerners in China and is understandably bothered by some behaviors she's seen.

Lots of things are screwed up in the West -- think of banks, airlines, Bell Canada (if you know it), the SEC, many many other things -- but what strikes the Westerner in China are the novel (for him) screwups, the unfamiliar types of ridiculousness. What's also sometimes breathtaking for the Westerner in China is the unabashedness of some types of silliness. In the West, where there is at least some comprehension of what's expected, one is accustomed to false pretenses.

Some unreflective Westerners my friend has seen thus spend a fair amount of time carping and feeling superior. (I am gambling that this won't produce hoots from unreflective readers.)

Furthermore, the lady points out, some of these Westerners, often English teachers in private language schools, while enjoying unearned prestige with some credulous Chinese people as representatives of a superior society, may actually be bums or nobodies where they come from.

But to return to the charming Prof. Wang, I believe there is only one other occasion when we had anything to do with each other. One occasion, that is, prior to The Troubles -- which naturally brought us together again because, as it turned out, she seemed to be considered to be more or less my boss.

I was in the foreign affairs office one day, talking with her subordinates Li Jing and Yang Ning about problems with the FAC email service they'd arranged for me (which routinely lost mail). They said they'd report the problems to the responsible parties but they obviously considered it futile. The problems would never get fixed.

All right. They were powerless to change that. But why, I asked them, had they arranged this dysfunctional service for me in the first place, and why had we already spent time reporting problems, if they knew the service was hopeless?

Wang Yan was constantly swooping in and out of that office (her own was elsewhere, presumably nearby; I never saw it), and she entered as I was posing the question. She never bothered with the FAC service, she announced -- too many emails were lost. She used a different service from home.

She then presented a terse observation, a piece of wisdom which had possibly eluded me: "there's no such thing as a free lunch."

The merry Li Jing emitted a rich laugh as this point was scored. It was indeed true that FAC did not charge us for the email service. "That's right," she echoed, "no such thing as a free lunch."

17. Pain in the Chest

The FAC foreign affairs office was the source of some other irritations, beyond dysfunctional email. Various actions or omissions were at odds with the staff's superficial eagerness to help. Why, I wondered, could a little more effort not be spared for us highly valued "foreign experts"?

My wondering was done aloud, and the response was ...? Not reflection, repentance, repair -- but resentment. And it looked like it would persist unless I did something to take care of it. So I eventually arranged a meeting with staff member Yang Ning (Rebecca), whom I saw regularly and considered a friend. It was towards the end of this meeting that, out of the blue, I was given my first indication of The Troubles. But it was too unbelievable, so I dismissed it as one of the typical arbitrary misunderstandings that are so prevalent here and didn't give it much further thought.

One issue is shown in the following email exchange with Rebecca:

---

From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
To: Rebecca
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 9:15 AM
Subject: a few questions

Dear Rebecca,

http://www.fac.edu.cn/eindex/overview.htm says of FAC: "the College has an international speakers programme which attracts many well-known scholars, world-renowned statesmen, ambassadors, and other senior diplomats."

Is this true? I've been teaching here for about 8 weeks now and have never heard of any speaker, except the day of our opening ceremony.

I might mention that the website is substantially out of date, since it says: "The College plans to expand its student population to 2,700 by the year 2000."

Regards,

Uriel

--------------------------------------------------

From: Rebecca
To: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 1:51 PM
Subject: Re: a few questions

Hi, Uriel,

I am sorry for writing back late. Our college does invite some well-known scholars, ambassadors etc. to give lectures to students and teachers. But the notices for the lectures are in Chinese.

I agree the college should update the website.

Best regards

Rebecca

--------------------------------------------------

From: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
To: Rebecca
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: a few questions

Dear Rebecca,

Here is a test for you: tell me why "I agree the college should update the website" is not the answer I want to hear.

Regards,

Uriel

--------------------------------------------------

From: Rebecca
To: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 5:48 AM
Subject: Re: a few questions

Dear Uriel,

Thank you for your concern about our college. I can tell someone in charge of the website that they should update the information in FAC's website, but I don't know if they could do as what I suggest. I could do nothing if they don't update it. I am sorry for that.

Rebecca

---

If "world-renowned statesmen" were delivering English-language speeches on campus and we Western teachers were being left oblivious of the events, I felt that that indicated negligence, if not contempt, on the part of FAC.

How hard would it be for the foreign affairs office to routinely send an email addressed to all 10 of us to notify us of noteworthy upcoming lectures?

That's what Rebecca ultimately began doing, after further prodding. But the above exchange illustrates the resistance to real helpfulness.

Another of the irritations involved a physical irritation, a mild chest rash I developed in late September. I ignored it for a while but it worsened, so while travelling in Shandong Province during the National Day holiday week (Oct. 1 to 7), I stopped in at a pharmacy and got some ointment, which helped. When I ran out of the ointment, after returning to FAC, I was advised by Rebecca that the school had a medical clinic that supplied such medications.

At the clinic they examined my chest, and we agreed I should get more of the same ointment. However, they didn't have any in their supplies. The routine in such cases was apparently to send the patient to the pharmacy across the street, where he could buy the needed medication and then get reimbursed by the clinic.

I went to the pharmacy, where they also had a look at my chest. They also didn't have the medication I'd gotten in Shandong, but they gave me a substitute.

About a week later I'd run out of that too so I got another refill from the pharmacy, and got reimbursed a second time from the FAC medical clinic.

I was assiduously applying the ointment according to instructions, but the condition persisted, so I finally googled the medicine's name as shown on the package -- Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride Ointment.

To my surprise, the results indicated the ointment was used to treat eye infections (or sometimes ear infections). Surely there was some mistake.

I dug out the paper insert from the package and found the chemical formula:

C{17}H{18}FN{3}0{3}.HCl.H{2}0
[subscripts shown in curly braces]

But this exactly matched what I found on the websites.

I'd imagined I was carpet-bombing whatever bug had invaded me. But I'd merely been pestering the pest.

I shared my revelation with Rebecca, who'd sent me to the FAC medical clinic in the first place. She advised that I go see a real doctor, at a Beijing hospital she named.

I was generally pretty busy, but a couple days later I called Susie, one of my Law students, and arranged to go to the hospital with her the next day. She brought a friend, and the three of us set out in a taxi in the afternoon.

But on the way I wondered -- Rebecca had implied I should simply go there, but shouldn't some kind of prior arrangement be made? So I had Susie call her from the taxi (using a device possessed by nearly all students).

There was a somewhat extensive exchange. Nothing, it seems, is ever simple here. When the call was finished I asked Susie what it was about. She told me Rebecca had asked her to tell the doctor to avoid prescribing expensive medication.

The rash had persisted for over 3 weeks, apparently prolonged because of the school clinic's errors. But for Rebecca, it seemed, the school's economy came before my health.

I'd have undertaken carpet-bombing at my own expense if the school wouldn't pay for more than harassment campaigns. But if a cheap prescription could be arranged behind my back, the embarrassing issue of who should pay didn't need to arise at all.

It was I who'd been wronged. But they were upset, standoffish, silent, because I'd raised it (along with other issues).

It was up to me: I had to undertake a diplomatic initiative. This is what I set out to do when I arranged an October 31 meeting with Rebecca.

In the meeting, to her credit, she swallowed, admitted error and apologized. So I forgave her. But after we'd talked for a while, she abruptly warned that there had been a mid-term evaluation of my teaching, and that a report to the leaders, signed by all the students, said the students were dissatisfied with my teaching.

"Dissatisfied?" I laughed. "The students love my teaching."

Had her apology been insincere? Had the bug survived, to replicate further? Was she vexed at the directness that had brought her to an outright apology?

But she said it was true -- all the Law students had signed a negative report about me.

"I don't believe it," I said. (That didn't mean I didn't trust her personally.)

I mentioned that I had an agreement with the school under which I'd be reimbursed for my travel expense from Toronto if my student evaluations were above average. I hoped, I told her, there wouldn't be a dispute over these terms.

I asked her: "Were the students pressured in some way?"

She had no information suggesting that. But she seemed not fully informed. Perhaps unsure in the face of my skepticism, she said perhaps further investigation was needed.

"But Uriel," she added. "When dealing with the students, you should really be ...."

I completed the sentence for her: "More gentle."

"Yes," she said gravely.

What must readers think of me? I'm in fact a perfectly warm and fuzzy teacher. And it remains true to this day that not a few students really did love my teaching.

But this view of my ultra-strictness seems to reflect a condition of Chinese universities that is much at odds with what might be imagined in the West. Although certainly students don't have easy lives, and they're pressured by the system to work long hours, my impression of the way they are personally handled by teachers and school authorities is that it is exceedingly mild. It seems that they are hardly ever rebuked; that there is no toughness, no confrontation, no direct arguments, no demands that objective standards be met.

I put the question, neutrally, to a Chinese friend who graduated 10 years ago: how are university students treated?

It depends on the university, he says, but in many, they're treated very leniently.

Why? Because, he explains, the teachers are themselves under considerable pressure to publish articles, and they're relatively indifferent to their teaching. The students face little pressure and are fairly free to do much as they like. Even in their major subjects, students can go to the teacher's home if there is a risk of failing -- before the exam to get hints about contents, afterwards to wheedle for leniency or a few extra points.

The CET 4 (College English Test, Level 4) required for graduation is the main threat faced by students. That's run by the government, not the schools, and there's no leniency. And you don't cheat on that test -- the penalties are relatively severe.

In university courses, on the other hand, cheating is common and most teachers don't care.

My friend is struck by a sudden thought. He had a Western teacher -- a 24-year-old woman from the U.S.

"She was very nice, and a very responsible teacher. But she used to get very angry when students cheated," he adds with wonderment.

"She was very charming," he continues, "she often smiled, a very nice smile. But she hated it when students cheated."

He is wearing a sober expression: "I remember that very clearly."

The teacher's peculiarity has left a deep impression.

I guess an additional reason teachers might not want to annoy students is the ever-present possibility of anonymous letters.

Among the unresolved mysteries of China, incidentally, is my medical treatment (the only time I've been treated for anything in China). The insert for the Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride Ointment package I bought in Beijing says (in Chinese) that it's suitable for skin rashes (which helps explain why the pharmacy and clinic dispensed it to me). But how can the insert's information conflict with websites of Western pharmaceutical companies that produce the same product? Is Chinese physiology different? It's been suggested that Western people have built up greater resistance to various medications, but that doesn't explain it very satisfactorily either.

18. Uncertain Clouds Gather

---

From: Rebecca
To: "Uriel Wittenberg" <uw@urielw.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 02, 2002 9:13 AM
Subject: Our director wants to talk with you

Hi, Uriel,

Our director Prof. Wang Yan wants to talk with you this afternoon. Will you please come to R 130 at 3:00 pm this afternoon?

Rebecca

---

But isn't that just how you'd expect the imperial Wang Yan to inform a subject of his required audience?

If the gulf between my feelings for Wang Yan and, say, puppy dog love, had not been as vast, I might have ... no, not agreed to meet then, certainly not, I had a squash appointment ... but I might have replied.

It was regrettable, but please, people, let's fight the tears, worse fates have befallen hubris. Until she heard back, Prof. Wang had a one-sided commitment to present herself at "R 130" at 3 PM. And (although I was working at home and the message reached me promptly) I was unfortunately not disposed to reply til the next morning.

Anyway, one thing I learned from the message was that Wang Yan was the boss of the foreign affairs office. I'd never known that.

As I rushed out a couple of hours later to get to my squash game on time, I saw that a note had been discreetly affixed outside my apartment door, indicating that her majesty expected me at 3 PM. (Evidently it was known that I was at home.) But hey, I was in a hurry, so I let it ride.

That night was a special night. As at Tsinghua the year before, I had two student volunteers in each class (for a total of 14 volunteers) who assisted me by distributing the readings I emailed them and by emailing me student info for my database. I'd invited them for dinner and was meeting them that night at a nice restaurant near FAC. We had a private room with, of course, the obligatory karaoke music box.

The vagaries of Beijing traffic returned me to FAC slightly early after squash, so I had a bit of time before the dinner. I went to say hello at the foreign affairs office.

Li Jing was indignant. "We were waiting for you. Why didn't you tell us?!"

It's nice to have at least one memory of her not mirthful.

I was equally indignant: "I was in a hurry."

Wang Yan appeared, a slight smile of disdain assuring me I had not made her suffer: "It doesn't matter, we can meet Monday. It's not so urgent."

"I have five minutes to talk now, if that's convenient," I offered.

"No, I think that's not enough time. It's best we wait til Monday."

"Can you give me an idea what it's about?" I asked pleasantly.

"I think it's best that we wait til Monday to discuss it."

"All right. I'll have to check my schedule. Are you available Tuesday, in case I'm not free Monday?"

"That should be alright too. Please let Rebecca know."

I was genuinely curious about what we'd discuss. But it would have to wait. I went off on my bicycle to eat, drink, talk and sing with my students.

Monday, November 4, 3:00 PM. My phone rang. I happened to be working at home and I answered. It was Rebecca.

"Hi," I said, wondering why she was calling. I'd called her Saturday to set the appointment for Tuesday at 3 PM.

"Umm ... did we say Tuesday for the appointment?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered, surprised.

"Are you sure we didn't say Monday?" she asked plaintively.

It was then that I looked at my watch and realized: through some unaccountable folly, Rebecca had gotten it wrong and told Wang Yan to expect me on Monday at 3:00 PM. Her Highness, for a second time, was being kept waiting for an audience that would not appear.

19. My Goals

I assumed that what Wang Yan wanted to discuss was a situation that had arisen immediately before, on October 29, in one of my night school classes.

Several people in my present abode in south China, hearing of my FAC troubles, have nodded their heads and told me that FAC students are not ordinary students -- their parents are Party officials. (If so, that was never very obvious while I was there.) However, that would not apply to the night school students. On the whole they were a slightly beaten-down bunch, weary from day jobs, occasionally arriving late to class when I knew they'd be on time if they could. They were also distinctly older, most in their late 20's or 30's.

They'd previously acquired 2- or 3-year diplomas at colleges, some years earlier. They were in the first year of an upgrade program which would earn them Bachelor's degrees in English in 3 years. At this point, however, their English was abysmal -- markedly worse than any of my other classes.

Some time into the semester I was hit by the realization that these poor students didn't even know each other. Each week, on two weeknights and on Saturdays, the same students met and sat together in their various classes (including mine); but most never saw each other outside class. Truly theirs was an impoverished academic experience.

My toughest task in teaching was always to find good, short, snazzy, compelling, and generally appropriate readings. For my first class of night school, my more mature students, I'd chosen, before meeting them, a New Yorker piece that's so wonderful I present it here in its entirety:

---

My Goals
by Ellis Weiner
New Yorker Magazine
Sept 2, 2002

I wanted to make my first million by the time I turned twenty-five. By thirty, I was going to break into double digits. By thirty-five, I'd be executive vice-president--and by forty I'd buy the company. By the time I was forty-five, I would be acquiring other companies, with the aim of creating an international biochemical-entertainment conglomerate that could maybe, just maybe, make a difference.

Ambitious? Hey. Why not?

All along, of course, I'd be planning for retirement. How? By setting up a diverse portfolio of stocks and bonds, which I would then manage shrewdly, under the guidance of skilled financial consultants, dedicated professionals sensitive to my specific investment style--my tolerance for risk, my interest in particular sectors of what has become an increasingly global economy. They'd be knowledgeable about long-term strategies and committed to helping me realize my unique, individual vision for the future.

Then, at fifty-five, I would retire--just cash out and walk away, so I could concentrate on the important things. I'd want to spend more time with my family--good, solid time, really connecting with the kids, because our children are our future. And as for my wife, the woman who would have stood beside me during those years of hard work and sacrifice, and who would understand, better than anyone, how much I'd want to build a boat by hand and sail it around the world with my dog . . . well, I planned to get to know her, and fall in love with her, all over again.

I'd have other goals for retirement. I'd want to do something good for the earth, because this is the only planet we've got. And I'd want to do some "crazy" things, too--maybe learn to play the cello, or explore my creativity by writing and painting, to express myself, sure, but for other reasons as well. I figured by then I'd have accumulated a lifetime of experience (and perhaps even a bit of wisdom!), and it would be time to give something back--to the community, to our nation, and to the world. Because that's what I'm all about.

Then, at the end of the day, I'd sit on a dock looking out over a clear mountain lake, and fish, at sunset, with my wife and my children, and their wives and their children and maybe even their c