Rise Up?

Hey all,

So the University of Bordeaux III officially voted in favor of blockading all buildings last week. This means neither I nor my professors literally cannot get into the buildings where we normally have class because the students and professors have set up barricades at entrances, stopping people from entering.

I couldn't cut through a building today to go eat lunch because of the blockade! Tomorrow at 12:30pm there will be a General Assembly to vote on what could become a second consecutive week of official barricading of the buildings. All this, in addition to marching in the streets once or twice a week, to protest an educational reform being imposed by Valerie Pécresse and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Pretty extreme, right? Apparently... not. According to most of the people I've spoken to, this kind of striking/blockading is pretty normal and happens every other year or so. In which case, is this a good or bad thing? I spoke with my 17-year old host brother, who thinks it's a good thing; poeple's voices need to be heard. I agreed with him: good thing French students and professors can together draw boundaries of what they are and aren't willing to accept.

But I wasn't happy with the fact that striking is overdone: bad thing that it has gotten to the point that peers (and the government) have grown weary of easily-agitated political action, resulting in being ignored which results in turn in more drastic measures taken to get attention. Sure enough, listening to the news on the radio this evening, my host brother talked about the picky students "qui lui ont fait chié" because they call for reform, but reject it outright when it doesn't meet their terms, with no room made for discussion.

As far as classes are concerned, the professors have every intention to hold make-up classes during the summer; I've heard people suggest that, thanks to the two months of striking preceding the blockade, the 'rattrapages' might go all the way into July. Timothée, my host brother, seriously doubts that will happen (his mom is a professor). All I know is that I've got a front-row seat for this show, and it's not ending anytime soon.

The whole thing is beginning to leave a sour taste in my mouth, considering I am paying UC tuition (approximately 20x what French students pay) for public university courses I can't go to.

In any case, I'm doing quite a bit of reading on my own; this weekend, I got ahead of my assigned reading and started some outside reading, as well as finishing A History of Chinese Literature, which I started before heading off to Morocco. I have some written work that's eventually going to be due, so I'll have to force myself to put the books down and pick up a pen in the next couple of days.

Reading Giles' A History of Chinese Literature, published in 1900, the word 'Chinaman' kept popping up, which really bothered me. I knew the term was outdated, and figured he was simply a victim of his time, but it kept nagging at me. After giving it some thought, I decided that the term was probably developed as a very literal translation of "中國人", which means "China person". Maybe that poor translation can now be put to rest.

I can't wait to start reading in Chinese... After reading about the three milennia of classics waiting for me, my heart beats with presumptuous anticipation... I've been very diligent with the characters I already know, practicing five a day, like I did last year. I've joked with my Chinese friends, asking them to 'lend' me their ability to read; they respond in the affirmative, entreating me to promise to give it back as soon as I'm done.

Haven't even started a post about Morocco/Madrid yet. Good things are worth waiting for, is all I can say... hahah.

Best,
Ben