things not appropriate for blogging

I was just thinking about all those things that are bugging me, things I can only (mysteriously) refer to here as “things not appropriate for blogging.” But I realize that lately I’ve been incredibly fortunate. Last night my friend, Jessie, invited me to dinner with her parents and then we went to an “open mic nite” at a bar. Really lovely people. And although it wasn’t exactly Chinese practice (they are Australians) it was so relaxed and normal. I don’t think I need to remind you, but “normal” isn’t always so “normal” around here. Living in a constant state of being “the other” can really wear you out.

Last night I also had the good fortune of finding a collection of books and course packs abandoned by some American students that were studying here. Oddly enough half (!) of the books were ones I’d already read and I passed them on to Jessie and her dad. But I think the course packs are the real gold mine. They are labeled: Orientation Readings (introductory material for their big study abroad semester), History and Religions, and Minority Issues/Field Study Seminar. It’s all in English, of course, and it’s all so… USEFUL. I mean, I haven’t really dug into any of it, but skimming the first two packs, I’m really very interested in spending some time reading through them. Here’s the abbreviated bib included as the table of contents for each pack:

[UPDATE: Full bibliographies available on SIT website (see course syllibi).]
Orientation Readings -
1. Behind the Facade (Manfred Morganstern)
2. Introduction to Your College Semester Abroad (SIT)
3. The Green Banana (Donald Batchelder)
4. Creditable Study Abroad (John Sommer)
5. Traveling as a Vegetarian (Costas Christ)
6. Big Bad China and the Good Chinese (Jeffrey Wasserstrom)
7. The Chinese Character (Lin Yutang)
8. Confucianism and Western Democracy (Hu Shaohua)
9. Encountering the Chinese (Hu Wenhong and Cornelius Grove)

History and Religions Seminar -
1. Approaches to Understanding China’s History (John King Fairbank)
2. Patterns from the Past (John Bryan Starr)
3. Political Development in Reforming China (Tong Yangqi)
4. China’s Political System (John Bryan Starr)
5. China and Its Religious Inheritance (John Chamberlayne)
6. Sino-Muslim Identity in Modern China (Johnathan Lipman)
7. Mad Dogs and Englishmen (Craig Storti)
8. A Traveler’s Guide to the Chinese History (Madge Huntington)

Minority Issues/Field Study Seminar -
1. The Two Chinas (Kevin Sinclair)
2. Representing Nationality in China (Dru Gladney)
3. Sex Tourism Practices in the Periphery (Nancy Chen)
4. Ethnic Identity in China (Dru Gladney)
5. China’s Many Faces (Susan Blum)
6. Against Authenticity (Susan Blum)
7. One Drop of Blood (Lawrence Wright)
8. Interviewing Informants (Julia Crane)
9. Participant Observation (Julia Crane)
10. Collecting Life Histories (Julia Crane)
11. Fieldwork Under Time Constraints (John Hoddinott)
12. Fieldworking in Kunming (Susan Blum)
13. The Return of the Foreign Anthropologies? (Gregory Guldin)
14. Sinicizing Chinese Anthropology (Gregory Guldin)
15. Thinking About the Ethics of Fieldwork (Ken Wilson)