I had hoped to avoid the royal wedding, by dint of being in China. It seemed a fairly good bet, given other side of the world, foreign language, communist disdain for monarchies...

No such luck - it is being broadcast live on Chinese news, and my host mother is glued to every second of it, and needs my assistance for such weighty issues as who Elton John is. Ah, well. Not like the dissertation proposal is due in tomorrow or anything.

Dissertation Woes

I have an ability to get interested in almost anything as it turns out (currently 19th century Chinese ghostly satires). This is making choosing just one dissertation topic challenging.

Ten days to go. Any suggestions welcome.

Rant

This is a rant that has been brewing for a while.

China, on the whole, does rather well compared to countries with faintly similar twentieth century history for sexism (well, India. Yes, I am aware the two are really not that alike). One of the advantages of a reform movement which completely rejected the past, and one of the few better points of the CCP - perhaps a little swamped by a few of their other issues - is that they are reasonably progressive with regards to women's rights. At least on the surface, China trumpets the equality of women, and their right to careers on an equal footing with men. This message is occasionally undermined a little (search for pictures of the PLA's crack female regiment on parade, say, or the occasional city which believes appointing attractive female police officers will lead to the more harmonious resolution of disputes), but things could be worse.

Which its why it is so very disappointing to find that Chinese society appears full of a latent, creeping sexism, driven by the weight of family expectation. Young women are indeed expected to be highly educated, attend university, and find jobs post graduation. But they are also expected to find a husband, and come 30 odd years, expected to have children, thereby ensuring the continuation of the family name, and provision for when elderly... It is subtle, yet inexorable. Independent, highly talented women settle down, and abruptly find themselves expected to give birth, and having had children, to take a set back from their careers to concentrate on home life. It is assumed by all that they will be happy to do this, content with childraising, and a life revolving around the kitchen. The idea that they might prefer to let their husband do the child rearing, or return to their jobs appears semi-unthinkable. As a result, women tend to find themselves passed over for jobs, or promotions, as managers assume they will  inevitably leave to have children. More and more women are being encouraged to marry well instead of working - find a man with a BMW, rather than acquire the BMW themselves. It is perhaps not coincidence a Chinese business recently started offering classes in 'How to Marry a Billionaire'.

It is currently making me quite angry. Especially for my student, who at 32, married, working for a research company and childless finds herself in a minority. She complains she has no-one to relate to, as all her friends already have children, and begins to wonder if she should too, to fill the emptiness in her life...

Rant over now, I think. For now.

Today, my ayi got up at 5am, as per normal, and when I dragged myself out of bed to try and once more stagger to my 8am lecture on time, she decided that the thing to do that day before I went to class was to measure my blood pressure. It is apparently 105/72.

On a slightly less surreal note, last night I dreamt I was mad King George, and spent most of my dream running up and down corridors so my ermine cloak streamed behind me, and commanding courtiers to bring me felt.

My life bemuses me sometimes.

My apologies for the long silence - I have been suffering from a phenonomen known as 'Dalian fatigue'. Its not precisely been a bad few weeks, although it has involved increasing amounts of preparation for my various dissertations, but it has simply paled by comparison with the months I spent travelling. Subsequently, everything has felt very routine, despite a collection of birthday parties, and various outtings, as well as the more usual drag of classes. Dalian continues to slowly get warmer, my host family remain delightful and infuriating in almost equal measure, and my Chinese continues very slowly to improve. Due to recent international affairs, I am now also remarkably well acquainted with Chinese vocab relating to Libya. My attempts to explain to taxi drivers that technically China is involved in it all as well, via the UN, have fallen on somewhat deaf ears though, no matter how well I think I explain that.

In other news, the political situation here is looking dire - Ai Weiwei being merely the latest in a series of disappearances or arrest of prominent dissidents and intellectuals. I did try explaining to my host family about Ai Weiwei (unusual in the list of the missing as there is a reasonable chance ordinary Chinese will know who he is), who were not in the slightest bit surprised, before my host mother interrupted to tell me and my host father to be quiet, 'just in case'.