Welcome to week seven! Are you still fighting for your exams or papers? Throw your books away for a couple of minutes and enjoy another culture shock!
I hope you guys liked the Traditional Chinese Medicine articles I wrote the past two weeks. There is still lots stuff to talk about, but due to my knowledge limitation I have to stop there for now. Traditional Chinese Medicine is still a developing technology and it is borrowing knowledge from Western medicine. We do have some medicines that combine Chinese and western medicines together. They work efficiently on your body and don’t have many side effects to other organs.
Before starting this week’s topic, we need take a quiz first. Have you guys ever noticed that there are two words very similar to each other? China and china. Do you know how this came to be? In ancient China, China was famous for china and silk. They were exported by enormous amounts every year. Because of they are so popular and the way to make them is so unique, mid-eastern merchants named china from the country that made it. However, the Chinese meaning for my country is not just a kind of porcelain. In Chinese, it means the “the center of the world”. Maybe it sounds arrogant, but it does tell something about China 600 hundreds year ago.
During the 14th and 15th century, when North America was still a mysterious land, China was the most powerful country in the world. It was the economic center of East Asia and its products were shipped to the entire world. After a couple hundred golden years, the leaders of the Chinese empire were too self-confident to learn new technology from other countries. When western countries were having an industrial revolution, China was still making handmade silk and china.
The efficiency of machines made a huge challenge for Chinese traditional manufacturing. Compared to western advanced technology, our own technology seems to be falling behind and the production speed is much slower than machines. Many of the manufacturing business went bankrupt and lots of traditional manufacturing skills were lost. My grandma was a tailor, but she lost her job after companies imported machines. When she lost her job, her fantastic sewing skill was also lost and didn’t get a chance to be passed to others.
As China becomes more and more involved in worldwide business, the Chinese culture is changing slowly year by year. At the beginning of 21st century, China began to worry about losing her traditional culture. Nobody wanted to learn old-school stuff anymore. The Life style has changed and the culture is becoming more and more westernized.
Culture shock is everywhere and it is somehow changing the world. People from different cultural backgrounds respect each other and make their life better by taking benefits from other living styles. I think the diversity of culture is the key to making the world colorful. Do you agree with me?

Welcome to a new week! I know some of you guys are still busy with exams, but don’t be upset. Take a break and learn about some Chinese culture!
I hope you enjoyed the article last week. As I said, this week I’m also going to talk about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). There are over 20 different methods. I think acupuncture treatment is the most famous one you are familiar with.
Let us do a very quick review and background. TCM is largely based on the philosophical concept that the human body is a small universe with a set of complete and sophisticated interconnected systems. And those systems usually work in a balance to maintain the healthy function of the human body. TCM has a unique model of the body, notably connected with the meridian system. Unlike the western anatomical model, which divides the physical body into parts, the Chinese model is more connected with function. In this complex human model, the body is divided into a couple hundred points according to their functions. Chinese ancestors named all the points and passed this knowledge from one generation to another. Now I wish I had been born in a doctor’s family…
That is the basic theory of acupuncture. Since the human body is defined as having many kinds of bodily fluids going through it, humans would get sick if these fluids couldn’t escape through certain points. That’s why acupuncture was invented, to dredge those points and refresh the fluids.
Acupuncture is the procedure of inserting and manipulating needles into various points to relieve pain or for therapeutic purposes. Acupuncture is an amazing physical treatment and nowadays technology still cannot explain some of its concepts.
At the beginning of 20th century, as modern, western medical treatment methods were introduced to China, fewer and fewer people actually learned this skill. In my hometown, as far as I know, there is only one doctor who knows acupuncture and he’s already 80 years old. Compared to western medicine, it takes more than three times the amount of time to learn TCM. People prefer to take pills when they are sick instead of putting a bunch of stainless steel needles into their bodies.
Why don’t we have an example here to make it more clear? Let’s say one of your friends has a headache because of four exams in a row and he studied too much. In Western medicine, the typical treatment will be an analgesic, such as aspirin, to dilate the affected blood vessels in the scalp. But in acupuncture, a common treatment for such a headache is to stimulate the sensitive points that are located roughly in the center of webs between the thumbs and the palms of the patient’s hands. These points are described by acupunctured theory as targeting the face and head which are considered to be the most important points when treating disorders affecting the face and head.
Although Western medical theorem replaced most parts of TCM, the medical system between China and America is still quite different. When I was filling out a safety form for my spring break trip last week, I asked my friend what a family physician is. He was surprised that I don’t have a family doctor. Only rich Chinese citizens can afford private doctors.
Well, that’s all I know about acupuncture and I hope you at least get some idea from my explanation. See you next week then!

I hope all of you had an awesome Winter Carnival last week and are ready to switch the gear back to studying. I know this week and the week following are exam weeks for most of you. Work hard and get a score that you deserve to have.
I apologize that I didn’t have time to continue my column last week. I was busy with my school stuff and tried to finish them before Winter Carnival. Are you ready for this week’s?
When I was in class last week, I felt a little bit sleepy and took out a small red container. “What’s in it?” my friend asked.
“Smell it.” I open the cap and handed to him. He smelled it and bent his brows.
“What is this? It smells weird,” he asked again.
“My mom sent it to me. It is a Chinese medicine. It can help you stay awake. You want to try it?” He gave it back to me with his head shaking. Are you curious about this? This is just an example about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
China is a country with 5,000 years of history. Medical care is a big reason that China has survived in East Asia for thousands of years. Much of the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine derives from the same philosophy that influences Taoist and Buddhist thought and reflects the classical Chinese belief that the life and activity of individual human beings have an intimate relationship with the environment on all levels. Based on this, Chinese academics of various schools have focus on the observable natural laws of the universe and their implication for the practical characterization of humanity’s place in the universe. Chinese doctors usually spend their whole life trying to discover new medicinal plants. They travel through the whole country and test unknown plants on themselves. Some of them even lose their lives because of poisonous plants. The most famous Chinese index book of herbs is Bencao Gangmu. It includes over 3,000 plants with their drawing and medicinal functions.
Even now, TCM is still popular in China. Approximately 500 Chinese herbs that are in use today, 250 of them are very commonly used. Rather than being prescribed individually, single herbs are combined into formulas that are designed to adapt to the specific needs of individual patients. An herbal formula can contain anywhere from three to 25 herbs. This is a complex theory. We even have TCM major in Chinese medical colleges.
Compared to western medicine, TCM is a long-term treatment. However, because it’s 100 percent natural, it has fewer side effects to the human body. Western medicine can heal your body very quickly, but those combined chemicals will stay in your body and harm your organs, especially the liver and kidneys. My grandma has had nephropathy since her 40’s and she has been taken prescription medicine for 20 years. Her kidneys are still in a good condition and haven’t had any more trouble.
The Chinese medical care system is a combination of science, philosophy, and culture. Herbal medicine is just a small part of it. To most Americans I think acupuncture is most familiar. Want to know more about it? I will follow up the TCM in the coming few weeks. I really want to introduce this great culture to you guys. Hope you like it and I will see you next week!

Welcome back to snow town Huskies! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I know break was a little bit short, but we have more ex­citing stuff to do this semes­ter. Are you ready for Winter Carnival? I’m ready for sum­mer already.

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It’s that time of year; the time when we lighten up, the time when we all let go of a little bit of that Scrooge in us, the time when we sit in class daydreaming about the weeks to come. But not all Michigan Tech students are daydreaming about evergreen trees, homemade cookies, and Christmas carols. In fact, some of our students will be going home to winter holiday traditions that are much different.

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Dear Huskies,
Here is my last article for this semester. First of all, I really appreciate that you guys like my stories. It makes me try to write better articles and gives me confidence. Thank you everyone. You make me keep going.
Today’s topic may not be that funny, but it is a real screen shot of Chinese society. It is the idea of intellectual property.
I still remember that I spent $368 only on textbooks at the beginning of the first semester in Michigan Tech. I never knew that textbooks were so expensive in America. The rate for Chinese currency (¥) to U.S. dollars is 6.8 to one right now. However, I never spent over ¥200 ($29) each semester on textbooks before. Later on, I noticed that American society is very respectful toward knowledge, especially in the form of books and computer software. Those products contain authors’ and computer engineers’ priceless knowledge design. They deserve to have a good payback. But in China, intellectual property protection is still a weak point. For example, Adobe CS4 Photoshop is worth a couple hundred dollars here, but only costs ¥10 to buy an unlocked version with a fake serial number in China. That’s why Bill Gates said that Microsoft lost billions of dollars in China every year.
Regardless of intellectual property rights, this also happens on Chinese networks. I think I only need a single word to describe it: free. You can absolutely download everything from Chinese websites without being caught. Music, movies and computer software are three most commonly downloaded things. They are so cheap and can be found everywhere. Even the Chinese government cannot control this situation. Who would buy those extremely expensive certified products? Because of the incomplete law system, such actions are beyond government control. The whole society prefers to buy these products because they are affordable. Thus, on the other hand, it helps spread knowledge. As someone said, if China took intellectual property seriously in computer software, the Chinese software technology would have been at least 10 years behind western countries.
Until now, China is still struggling with this problem. On one hand, pressure from other countries and companies push China to add new laws in the field of intellectual property. On the other hand, China’s development needs knowledge to be spread in a cheaper and faster way. It’s really hard to make such decision. What do you think?
As the title of this column suggests, there’s no way to talk about all the culture differences in several articles. What I can do is give you guys a general idea of China, a country from Far East Asia that has 5,000 years history. Maybe you feel funny and joyful when you read it or maybe it makes you think China is unbelievable and ridiculous. Once you gain some new faces about this mysterious country, that’s all I need from you. Thank you again and Merry Christmas!

Houghton, long time no see! I hope all you guys had a nice break visiting your family and enjoying the last break of the semester. A week off is too short for me to go back to meet my family. It takes more than two days. Then did I spend a week in Houghton? No way! You can’t imagine how boring life is when all your friends are gone. Curious about where I did go? Actually, I went to a four day Bible camp in Chicago. I have been to that camp a couple times before. Every time we have a different topic to discuss. This Thanksgiving, it was called “Jesus Journey”. It is always good to learn some new stuff.
I usually avoid to talking about religion in public. It is considered a personal opinion and I don’t think it is a good idea to talk about it since people have different religions. However, it is another huge difference between China and America. Thanks to my friends’ encouragement, I will try my best to let you know how we think of religions back in China.
First of all, communists don’t have religion. As we all know, China is the biggest communist country in the world that absolutely follows Karl Marx’s theorem. His view of history is called historical materialism. He believes that human history is characterized by the movement from the fragmentary toward the complete and the real. In this way, the development of human society was powered by natural law instead of God’s strength. Secondly, you have to be a communist if you want to apply for a job from Chinese government. Government is usually treated as the heart of a country. Since I was in elementary school, my teachers told me there’s no God or demons in the world. Although my country doesn’t forbid citizens to practice a religion, most people still follow the communists’ instruction.
Other than that, I think the biggest religion in China is Buddhism. It was imported from India by the Tang dynasty and has been in China for thousands of years. You can find temples everywhere in China. Nowadays, those big temples are becoming famous attractions. It is not exactly what a religion is. Compared to temples, churches are much fewer. Maybe because it is from a western country, we just think it is another style of capitalism. You can’t even find a Bible in Chinese bookstores. I sent a Bible to my parents last summer, but they haven’t gotten it yet so far. I’m afraid it didn’t pass the Chinese customs because I wrote Bible on the envelope. Communism won’t allow second thoughts to control her people.
Do you guys know there’s a Chinese church here in Houghton? It’s called Houghton Chinese Christ Disciple Church. Thanks to the pastor and members in that church, I got a chance to know this God. From the Bible, I learned many things. It is a good book teaching you how to live better.
Well, I hope my article gives you a short break from busy studying hours. Keeping going in the last two weeks and good luck on your exams!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Please allow me to say this a week early. Because next week, you will be in your bedroom and enjoying break instead of reading my story in some lecture hall. Did your mom tell you a huge turkey is already in the freezer? Does the lucky bone still belong to you this year?
I had my first Thanksgiving with my roommate’s family last year. It made me feel like being with my own family. All the family members came back from different places. Thanksgiving dinner was the most delicious meal I have ever had. After the dinner, everyone sat in living room talking about his/her own story. Although I am not one of them, I still enjoyed the time to be with them.
Would you believe me if I told you that we don’t have turkey in China? Or, I should say we don’t have the Thanksgiving holiday. All the western holidays are so fresh to me. I had heard of them but never celebrated them.
Want to hear a funny story that happened to me last Christmas? I saw children standing in line to tell Santa their wishes when my friends and me were shopping in a pretty big mall. They had the idea that I should have a picture taken with Santa. Instead of paying the money, I had to lie to Santa that I came from China and had never heard about Santa before. I could see the incredible feeling from Santa’s eyes when I got the photo. Poor Santa…
What kind of holidays do we have then? The most famous Chinese holiday I think is Chinese New Year Eve and Spring Festival. People would like to call them Chinese New Year, but actually they are different. I just checked the calendar: 2010 Chinese New Year Eve is on February 13th. It is the last day of lunar year. Spring festival is the day right after that, which is the beginning of another year. 2010 will be the year of tiger. I believe Chinese student organizations will have some special events waiting for you, like Chinese night last year. Besides that, mid-autumn is also a pretty popular holiday. In the Chinese calendar, the moon gets most full among the whole year on August 15th. It is a family reunion holiday. Family members get together to celebrate it. Even if you can’t go back home at that time, you can still share the same full moon with your family. Isn’t that sweet? It is one of my favorite festivals. Because moon cakes are the most yummy food in the world!
I can give you a list of other Chinese holidays, see if you’ve heard about them or not. For example, Magpie Festival, which is Chinese Saint Valentine’s Day, Lantern Festival, Dragon Festival, Mourning Day, Chung Yeung Festival… Do they just blow your mind? Well, if I get chance, I can describe them for you later.
In the end, hope you all have a wonderful break. Drive safe and I’ll see you again the week after Thanksgiving!

Hey guys! Miss home already? You are only two weeks away from Thanksgiving. You can take a break at that time and get ready for your final exams.
Last weekend, I hung out with a couple of my best buddies. We shopped at Wal-Mart, had a great meal in Applebee’s, and played Call of Duty for almost five hours. That was a crazy night. We talked about almost everything. During the conversation, they were curious about the high school life in China. I did talk a little about that in my previous articles. However, there are more rules that exist in Chinese high schools that probably will freak you out. Are you ready?
As I said before, we spend 90 percent of the time studying. Parents and teachers expect us to concentrate on schoolwork 100 percent. Anything that can take away our concentration should be gotten rid of. Video games are the first enemy of school. High school kids are so easily addicted to video games. I think this is a common problem everywhere. If you play too many video games, you probably won’t get good grades. Because of this, video games were not a part of my life in China. Also, no relationships are allowed in school. I believe each of you had at least one boyfriend or girlfriend when you were in high school. You should recall how much time you spent on him or her. When you guys broke up, it might have been the worst thing you could have imagined at that time. To have a relationship in school is just like stealing fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden. “When you eat of it you will surely die.” You must think I’m telling a joke. Take it seriously man. Once your teachers find out that you have a boyfriend or girlfriend in China, I guarantee you will receive an official warning from you school next day. If sex happens between you guys, I have to say you’d need to transfer to another school then.
Is that scary? Let’s talk about something interesting then. In Chinese high school, each class is fixed. Students have the same classroom and classmates all the time. We have different teachers that come in at different times. For example, in my class there were 64 kids, and there were 16 classes in my grade. We have nine classes from eight in the morning until five in the afternoon. Math, Chinese, English, physics and chemistry were all I learned in my junior and senior year. After freshman year, students have chance to choose whether to focus on science or art. However, Chinese, English and math are required for all students. Besides those you can select another two subjects from physics, chemistry, biology, politics, history or geology.
Senior year was like nightmare for me. We only had a half day break once a week in the last semester. I spent over 15 hours at school every day. As I said before, because we have such a large population, I had to do my best to stay at the top among another 10 million graduating students. If I had known I had a chance to study abroad, I swear to God that I would play Starcraft all day along. Who cares about homework!
Compared to the American education system, Chinese colleges are hard to get in but easy to get out. If you are not in those top 10 colleges, you will probably waste four years doing nothing. I think that’s the main reason my parents sent me here.
As far as I know, Michigan Tech has a program with couple Chinese colleges. It is really a good experience for you guys to experience another totally different culture. Why don’t you take some time and think about it?

It’s nice to see you guys again! How was your Halloween weekend? Hope you guys didn’t do too many crazy or silly things. However, I did hear some funny stories about my friends. It’s understandable. Halloween is one of the biggest party nights during the whole school year. You guys deserve to have a good break from a stressful college life.
This week, I’m going to talk about some difference in food between America and China.
First of all, we don’t eat raw vegetables. During the first week of my new life here, I couldn’t swallow salads at all. Unfortunately, that’s the only way to import vitamins into my body. Even now, I eat salads only because they are nutritious instead of tasting good.
Secondly, I don’t have too many chances to have fresh water products such as fish and shrimp. My hometown is located close to the downstream of Chang Jiang River, which is the third longest river in the world. This river feeds millions and millions of Chinese people who live along it. The water is used to irrigate farms. Also, it provides hundreds of water species for us to eat. Compared to here, Michigan is famous for her Lake Superior, which is the biggest lake among five great lakes. However, I haven’t seen any fishing boats on the lake yet. Is this a fish-free lake then? Chef Eric from MUB dining service told me that they do have a fresh fish market up the hill over Hancock when I complained about this to him. I think I should take a look sometime. Oh, by the way, cheese is another incredible food for me. I can’t imagine that there are thousands of kinds of cheese. One of my friends even says that he cannot survive without cheese! Hope it doesn’t make you fat pal!
A year of dorm life made me begin getting used to American food. But now I live off campus, which gives me a chance to cook some hometown dishes. In China, our main food is white rice. Cooked vegetables are also a big part of daily food. We separate meat into two kinds: red and white. Red meat is like pork, beef and lamb, while white meat is like fish and shrimp.
I believed everyone knows there are two Chinese restaurants in Houghton. One is Ming and the other is Hunan. One is named after a powerful dynasty in Chinese history and the other is the name of a province. What do you think of the Chinese food there? I can say that food is 90% close to real Chinese food. One of my housemates is working in the Ming restaurant right now. He says they have a pretty good business here. It seems Americans like Chinese food. I wish I could have learned some cooking skills before I came here. Otherwise you could come to my house and have a Chinese dinner with us. I can teach you how to use chopsticks too.