the Sam Jackson College Experience

I decided to try to write a column for the Yale Herald this spring semester about my time in China, since it didn’t end up working out that I would write one while there. It’s been a strange experience readjusting to Yale, and I’ve come to appreciate many things about it that I once took for granted. At the same time, there are certainly lessons learned from China that are worth applying here, and there is plenty worth missing about Beida. This first article falls more into the latter camp, and is reposted below.

Original Publication: January 29, 2009, in the Yale Herald.

Time spent abroad reveals volumes about the world left behind. I had the pleasure and privilege to study in the Peking University-Yale Joint Program last semester, and my experience both defied expectations and eludes easy explanation. In this column, I will share some of those reflections formed abroad and narrate the everyday rediscoveries in a life newly reunited with Yale.

I’d like to talk about one of the first unique features I noticed at Beida, the school I attended in China. It’s a feature that Yale lacks in a very quantifiable way: animal camaraderie. Yale is lacking in the four-legged friends department, while China’s flagship university has a surfeit of semi-domesticated animals that roam its grounds. Never have I met so many different cats in so little time: big cats, small cats, feral cats, and more recombination still. Outside of campus, I would meet felines in temples, restaurants, and alleys; on campus, they roamed the grounds, as fearlessly and assuredly as any of the students. One cat liked to sit by the window and listen to East Asian demography lectures; another occupied special turf next to a noodle shop. I learned to recognize these different cats by their territory and their habits­—the same was true for dogs, though they were fewer in number.

At Yale, however, our visible animal life appears to center around rodents. During my freshman year, devious squirrels plotted a grand invasion of several Bingham rooms and managed several reconnaissance forays before students rebuffed their advances. Though obnoxious, these Old Campus squirrels are key contributors to the inter-species dialogue here at Yale, and we welcome their presence as a check to impressions of overwhelming urban sterility. Recently passed New Haven ordinances now allow enterprising residents to raise chickens, but I have yet to see any campus examples thus far.

While I was in China, there was one cat in particular that, through charm and good looks, stole the hearts of all who met her. She was called Xiao Huang （小黄）meaning “little yellow,” and she proudly wore her golden-orange coat every day as she and her on-again-off-again boyfriend Xiao Bai, （小白） “little white,” lazed about their turf outside our Chinese class every day. While some of the semi-homeless animals at Beida suffered and begged for the attentions of motivated bystanders, Xiao Huang knew how to work the system to her advantage. The little minx and her beau were fed every day by staff at the building they frequented, and in return they offered their adorable services—usually in the form of purring—as a pick-me-up to anyone who had just bombed a Chinese test. I was a frequent patron.

But there were also the animal-welfare situations that left me at a loss for action. One such recurring experience would pass at night on busy streets: As I walked, I’d spot a small crowd forming, bottlenecking the sidewalk with interested bystanders. Getting closer, the crowd would thin and reveal a man or men in nondescript parkas, vending merchandise from a cardboard box at their feet. Only when it’s too late to escape without heartbreak does the occasion’s interest become clear: puppies for sale. Of course, in Shanghai one could buy live ducks a block outside our downtown hotel. I was discouraged from doing so, perhaps, by the startling variety of other animals—alive or otherwise—available for purchase there. But its being commonplace didn’t erase its impact.

Xiao Huang’s sad story came together in bits and pieces as I learned more about her. She lived outside one of the foreign student’s dorm, and she had originally been rescued by a foreigner, but left behind when that woman’s stay in China was up. Those strays outside Beida appear to manage with their feline wits, but for every Xiao Huang being taken care of, there are a dozen more that struggle. The more helpful comparison between Yale and Beida comes when considering the relevance these cats have for Chinese students. One official club devotes its time creating shelters for—and feeding—the hungry cats on campus: Plenty of people want to help. What do we have at Yale?

I wish there were fewer cats lounging in Beida’s bamboo groves. As Beijing’s winter took a bite, I saw so many suffering—kittens shivering and groups of cats huddled together for warmth. Like so many ephemeral observations about China, closer analysis revealed a more complex problem. I bought catnip and lamb kebabs for my feline friends, but I learned that just because they speak Chinese doesn’t mean Chinese cats like spicy food. I also recognized that it was human feeding of these cats which allowed so many to survive on campus.

What does it mean to surround ourselves with animals? It’s important because it helps to ground us. I appreciated the increased presence of animals not just for the daily dose of adorable cat behaviors, but simply because nature in this active embodiment captures the attention and reminds passersby that no matter what color the sky is, how much homework you have, or what personal struggle you face, nature still exists all around. When you watch animals play, the exigencies of student life fade away like magic.

I couldn’t take Xiao Huang back to Yale, so how can that wonderful appearance of the wild be recaptured? The answer starts with you, readers: If your Master or Dean doesn’t have a pet, start a petition to insist on real-life college mascots. If professors at Harvard can graze cows, why not a real life Trum-bull?）

I will keep this short and focus on the content here, folks, because it’s amazing. A few years back I wrote an angry letter to Yale Dean of Admissions Jeff Brenzel for not being forward-looking enough with the admissions office. I will soon have to draft him a letter of congratulations for his support of this great  student-led, student-created effort to create a fantastic Yale admissions music video. Much of what I’ve ever said on the blog about engaging branding and effective marketing comes together here in one fell swoop. More analysis of this later, and praise for the enterprising students who developed the video. For now, have a look and share your comments! You won’t regret it.

After each semester, we have an opportunity to review classes before we receive our grades. These evaluations are multipart and one aspect is to provide a summary for other students to read in future semesters. As I search for classes to shop this semester, the evaluations of past students are very helpful. One course I was looking at (principally in order to fulfill a Quantitative Reasoning requirement [QR credit, more on that later]) was Electrical Engineering 201, Intro to Computer Engineering. This course was generally favorably reviewed but there was one person whose comment was so singularly wonderful I  just had to share it with the world. It is reproduced below.

How would you summarize Electrical Engineering 201 01 for a fellow student? Would you recommend Electrical Engineering 201 to another student? Why or why not?

Stay away. This course will cause you nothing but misery. You’ll spend hours on end slaving away in a lab, using software called “Xilinx” that’s prohibitively buggy. It’s so buggy that I doubt I can convey, in this short paragraph, an accurate impression of how poor it is. Maybe I can describe it by analogy. Imagine a sculpting course that requires you to chisel replicas of ancient masterpieces at the middle of a frozen pond during spring thaw. The ice is just barely thick enough to support the weight of you and the marble block for a few minutes at a time, but it keeps cracking and your work keeps falling through. Diligently, you begin again each time this happens, but you know it’s just going to happen again in ten minutes. There is no hope. There is no escape. There is only anguish.

That being said, the course is overall rated as pretty interesting, but that software doesn’t sound like too much fun. The lab, however, does seem to have some serious problems, not least the software program referenced above.

Shopping continues, for better or for worse…

First, let me say it’s a pleasure to be back at Yale. I had a good time at PKU but it’s still nice to be back on home turf. That and many many many other observations and mentions aside:

I’m shopping a lot of classes this semester, mainly because of the terrible consequences of trying to fit a QR (Quantitative Reasoning) class into my schedule. This wouldn’t be a big problem if I’d just consent to take something easy and/or mundane, but instead I want something which will be truly interesting, so I keep trying hard and shopping classes that are on the edge of my abilities — and, so far, well over them. I have enough of a technical background and understanding to appreciate the value of the subjects and problems covered in “Intelligent Robotics” or “Computational Vision” but not the Group Theory / miscellaneous post-multivariable calculus mathematics and/or programming required to pursue my interests, which is frustrating.

More on all this soon, but for now, sleep. Have to get up early to finish Chinese homework and get to my first class at 9:25am. Today I was shopping from 9:25 -> 9PM, and tomorrow looks like it might be similar. A schedule constructed entirely from pain…! Things are not made easier when the troubles (and real pain) from last week’s 4x wisdom teeth extraction rears its head. Oh well – no excuses, for now we forge onwards!

Photo from Flickr user Dexell1827

It’s Thanksgiving time of year, and I’m not sure that exactly that will mean here in Beijing. This is the first time that I have been away from home for Thanksgiving (!) and I certainly am missing all the proper accoutrements of Thanksgiving. What matters most about Thanksgiving to me, of course, is not the food or any particular thing — what matters is, of course, the company. While my peers here at the Yale-PKU program are very nice, it’s not the same as being at home with my family. I miss cooking all day and then having a nice dinner, loyal dog at my feet to dispose of extra brisket and turkey and make sure nothing that falls to the floor goes to waste.

Of course, Thanksgiving in real life is never as rosy as its made out to be in certain movies – conflicts among relatives, problems with turkeys, canned cranberry sauce, and who knows what else can go wrong. But the essential tradition remains, and it’s a good one. It is interesting here in China to try to explain Thanksgiving – or as one roommate called it, “The Thanksgiving Festival” – to people who have no connection to it. The modern construction of Thanksgiving is closely tied to efforts to form a collective national American identity and so Thanksgiving definitely has a resonance to it beyond any single home.

Aside from the football games and tacky decorations, Thanksgiving has remained (to me) remarkable immune from the marketing and rubbish that spoils so many otherwise perfectly good holidays. Some people in some places do go overboard – deep fried turducken, anyone (chicken stuffed into a duck into a turkey)? As someone from Massachusetts (birthplace of Thanksgiving!) I am happy to tell people more about the history of Thanksgiving, and I try to explain matters without ruining things. Obviously, the original story of Thanksgiving has a lot of myth associated with it which was invented much later, and much is unknown. Not everything about the image of the Pilgrims as plucky pioneers out to build a new world is perfectly accurate; for example, few remember the fact that Plymouth was built on top of an original Native American site which was only just recently before their arrival wiped out by European-originated plague. Still, that shouldn’t stop us from appreciating the history.

This afternoon we are going to go to some hotel in Beijing, alongside Stanford and no doubt many other expats here from Beida and other places in the city. The food should be pretty good, but I can only hope to capture some of the sense of home and community that I would have back in Boston at this time of year. I’m thankful for the chance to be here in Beijing, but I wish most of all I could be back at home right now to be with my family on Thanksgiving, perhaps the best family-related holiday in the American pantheon. To celebrate, last night I made some very delicious banana bread in our toaster oven here. I might not be well positioned to bake a pumpkin pie (oh but that I was!) but I’ll do what I can to try to capture the holiday spirit.

I wish I could be at home, making spiced apple cider and sitting by the fire with my dog while my family and relatives cook up a storm, but since I can’t I’ll have to settle for sending warm wishes to everyone celebrating back in North America or wherever else they may be.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Sam

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Photo from Flickr user Dexell1827 – check out the page for more great golden retriever photos!