On Lighting a (small) Existential Fire

It’s the first week of classes. I spend about five minutes introducing myself and another twenty five reviewing what we’ll be doing for the semester. Showing the book I use, my method of teaching, class expectations (a Chinese-English dictionary, notebook, and a pen for every class), and such. I end with this:

“There’s one more thing about this class. If you don’t want to be here, stay home next week. Really. Meishi. It’s no problem. If you don’t want to be here you don’t need to come. Come to a few classes and take the test and you’ll get a C-. Sleep, play computer games, chat online, or come to my class – suibian (it’s up to you). I’d rather have a small class of students who want to be here than a large class who doesn’t.”

The End of the Hukou? Educational Context

It looks like we’re about to see the end of the hukou. A dozen different papers across China had an editorial saying it was time to ditch the social engineering relic that I think played a key part in making the Chinese urban experience what it is. The Party is sending a pretty powerful message that things are about to change (I wonder if this has anything to do with the labor shortages in the cities?). I wrote a paper defending the hukou‘s role in education development in China while studying at Hong Kong University.