Trading Cultures in the Classroom: Two American Teachers in China (review)

Reviews 191 reader the many threads ofemancipation that these narratives simultaneously weave into the cultural text. The potential moves for liberation are thus always already contained within the material reality and explain, to a large extent, this genre's continuing popularity and tenacity within a highly competitive Hollywood film industry. Overall, Marchetti's study must be considered a very valuable contribution not only to film criticism but also to such related fields as Chinese and Cultural studies. Her interdisciplinary approach to the subject matter allows for a subtle, informed reading of the ways in which race, gender, and class are intricately intertwined in a complex network ofpower relations. Her nuanced analysis of die many issues involved, tìie multilayeredness, and the contradictions render this study an outstanding piece of scholarship. Ming-Bao Yue University ofHawai'i Lois Muehl and Siegmar Muehl. Trading Cultures in the Classroom: Two American Teachers in China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1993. xiv, 255 pp. $18.95. In September 1987, two retired professors from the University of Iowa traveled to Nanjing to teach English to twenty young teachers in a local university. They stayed dirough the following spring term, and from their experience comes this delightful book. Not intended to break new ground in scholarship (there are no footnotes or references to other works), it is nonetheless a unique contribution in the tradition ofmemoirs written by foreign educators in China. While the authors share their impressions ofChina in ways reminiscent ofother short-term visitors unfamiliar with that culture, they do not dwell on these observations. Instead, tiiey allow die reader to glimpse China through the creative prose and poetry of their students. This view of China gives us more than a view ofChinese education. It is, rather, more ofa case study ofdaily life in China, as told by those living it. We see young adults in China struggle with inflation, with colds, and with the opposite sex. We see them struggle with professional problems, and with the probofHawai 'iPress^ems brought on hy an authoritarian leadership. In dieir introduction the authors state their purpose: 192 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 In the amalgam of narrative, journal, and formal/informal student responses that makes up this book, you will hear the voices ofyoung contemporary Chinese adults as they wrote and talked freely, with increasing fluency, during two semesters. We used a range of interrelated assignments—essays, stories, poems, skits, letters, speeches, and frequent discussions—encouraging our students always to value and to express their personal views in English .... These writers and speakers, whose willingness to share grew in proportion to their trust, led us gradually, with seriousness and humor, to see their country, its culture, customs , problems and delights, from a diverse but always Chinese point ofview. Early on the authors learn about the nuances of Chinese life outside tiieir own foreign compound. Assigning their class to comment on a popular Western adage , in diis case Cicero's "He plants trees to benefit another generation," one student wrote, The walls of our dormitory were terrible. They were really colorful: Red for soy sauce, yellow for cooking oil, green for vegetable leaves, blue for writing ink, and black for foot marks. It is our achievement offour years. But when we left it on graduation, the walls became as white as snow again. Why? We whitewashed them. We did it for new students. The audiors bring us traditional Chinese festivals through the senses oftheir students. On the Mid-autumn Festival night we went to Xuan Wu Park. Decorated with multicolored flags and lanterns, the Park looked exciting to us. We sat in the circle as round as the moon, near the Xuan Wu lake, waveless and wide. We felt intoxicated, watching the moon, full and bright in the sky. While eating sweet and delicious moon cakes, we talked and laughed, sang and danced to our hearts content . . . Sitting in a corner, speechless and happy, I stared at the moon. AU ofa sudden, I seemed to see Chang Ethe female celestial, more beautiful than ever, flying gracefully onto the moon. At lightening speed Wu Gang appeared, the mythological old man, Reviews 193 holding a...