Like many of you, I am
also asking myself: who am I? What am I up to? I live on a one-year contract in
Kalajoki with you guys. Naturally, I often have to answer the same question from
different people: what’s your next plan?
At the very beginning,
I was so much struggling that I replied without ever thinking: I simply just want
to survive this year, really! Plus, the sudden and thorough darkness sucked
away my remaining energy. I was very surprised to listen back to the audio
file I made some weeks ago: extremely slow speed and it makes me believe
that there MUST be some technological problems.
Nevertheless, I start
to think: What have I done with your group? What have I learned from you? What
am I going to do with you in the next 4 periods and what am I up to after it? To
answer those, I would like to bring the question I have mentioned in the audio
file and the same question I have asked many times in Merenojan Koulu: how are
you connected to the world outside yourselves? But before answering that
question, I want to ask one more: “who we are and how we are connected?”
By meeting me nearly
once a week for 2 periods, I think you somehow start to know me more. If not, I
would like inviting you to read this part of introduction
of me. By meeting you nearly once a week for 2 periods, I slowly start to know
each of you a bit more. I started to laugh in my seat when I feel like I get to
some of you more by reading the sticky notes (see photos below) you didn’t want from the class. It’s
the certain level of curiosity, respect, trust and more importantly the humor (see photos below), I received from you, that I
decided to write this letter, which I believe is one way to build the
connection between us, which meanwhile help to answer the first 4 questions in
the previous paragraph.
If you remember the
Middle Autumn Festival we celebrated together, then you must remember the moon
cakes: the samples for tasting, the experience we did in the home economics
classroom and the final batch of over 200 mooncakes I prepared for that Day. I
wasn’t ready/confident/comfortable enough to ask for help from you at that time
so I spent almost one month by myself in researching, experimenting, AB testing,
optimizing the mooncake recipe and baking. In the end, I even managed to build
a production-line for myself in the home economics classroom. It was a very
exciting moment to me, at the same time frustrating. Frustrating in terms of
frequently failures. No matter how strictly I control the variables, the final
products weren’t the same. Exciting in terms of constant learning experience. I
have never noticed there were so much I could learn from baking: it’s the first
time I had to use oven on my own; the first time I had to use different kinds
of precise measurements in baking; the first time I did many times experiments
in order to observe the changes of final products if I changed certain variables;
the first time I had to plan on the level of scaling the production; and the
first time I started to admire the process of making something, even as simple
as a mooncake, not even mentioning a car or a software.
I guess all those what
I feel excited is very normal to you. It’s like I have to worry about where I
will be after my work visa is ended, because my passport has a very high
restriction in terms of traveling or staying in other countries. Whereas, the
passport that you are holding ranks number 2 around the world. Likewise,
the education in Finland provide you equal opportunity to learn what is
necessary to know, at the same time leave you so much freedom and autonomous to develop
what you are interested into. By the way, I think this is the best part of Finnish education.
It’s not the case in
my country. I was very excited about my discovery and learning experience in mooncake
making and I told my friends and colleagues in China that I plan to bring the Home
Economics subject into Chinese secondary school curriculum after finishing my
work in Finland. Most of them again surprised by my rash idea. They said: secondary
school students are too busy to learn how to cook because they have to prepare
for Zhongkao (high school entrance exam) and then Gaokao (National University
entrance exam); upper-class parents will hire helper to cook and do housework,
why do they need to learn this course in school; middle-class parents will do
everything for their kids and even their grandchildren, why do they need to
learn this course in school. I asked my aunt, whose son
is now 8th grader in Shenzhen, whether she wants to let her son attend
this lesson. She said: Xiang, I think it’s a good idea. But you may want to try
in primary school or high school, because junior secondary school students are
too busy. I know what she means. All those criticizes pour into me. I feel suffocated.
I decided to read some
news to distract my attention after waking up. There are so many things happening in the world every second, and I
normally clicked into the ones which are related to China. On Monday
morning, two big news related to China. One is that “In
China, Desperate Patients Smuggle Drugs. Or Make Their Own.” And the other
is “Young
Activists Go Missing in China, Raising Fears of Crackdown.” I read it and I
feel deeply ashamed and sad. Finns often feel proud of being Finns when you are abroad, I guess? But
being a Chinese, I feel so ashamed. Compared with my friend in New York, I am
much fortunate in a way that people in Kalajoki don’t really care about China
that much. But my friend in NY often has to face the conversation regarding “what
do you think of what is happening in China”… Deeply shameful! Especially when lots
of people in my family or my village died of cancer or suffer from cancer; especially
when you know some of the people who went missing and you admired and still admire them very much. They
were the graduates who fought their way to the so-called top-tier universities
and they kept fighting for what they have learned and believed in. For instance, this group of young
activists are fighting for ideals of Marx and Mao and align themselves with
workers’ right in China. However, in the end, they went missing... One of
them were dragged into the unknown car in his university, the Peking University.
I haven’t studied there but I have known many people graduated from there.
I don’t know how much
you could relate to my anger and helpless. I walked around in the staff room. I
don’t know what to do next. I have a job, I know. I can always work. But what’s
next?
Many people developed
a safe coping mechanism. My sister is one of them. She said: I look down upon
people like you, sister! You can’t change anything. Why can’t you just be like
me, shut up, work hard and live in the moment? I replied: You are a complete
nihilism. Shameful that we have so many people thinking like you and we will cry
when the crisis hits us. It’s not our turn yet but it will come!
I learned that nation is a “imagined
community”. But it’s in our blood, intertwining with language, culture, taste
and so on. I can’t get rid of it because I can’t change all my blood. Can I?
Should I try to go back to that Risky Land with my surreal goal? Should I try
to find a Wonder Land but change my blood? It’s such a dilemma that I have no idea what’s the next. Fortunately, I still can stay here and have fun, in the darkness but not really as cold.
I like writing. A
friend said, by writing, we are looking for people who are similar to us. I
agreed so much. I guess you all have you own ways to find people like you. What
are your ways? By which ways, we are able to connected? May you please let me
know you by your own way? If you don’t mind, of course.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading and looking forward to hearing from you.
