Today, I'm going to throw out a story about a fieldwork fail, before I strike out for "the field" for 2.5 weeks. Hopefully when I come back, I'll have something more positive to talk about.
My dissertation fieldwork has taken a real hit recently, as a person I thought I would be able to meet declined the offer. Ultimately, it's not so much choosing to decline meeting me, as it is receiving the news by text message that drives home to me that I've been making a fundamental error. 7 months in to my F-H grant, and I have yet to meet the major players. I have passively waited for people who have offered to help. What I have not done, however, is actively try to maintain my guanxi and relationships. I have not hosted a dinner in over a year (we've been short of funds, but ultimately that's poor excuse). I have not maintained, let alone cultivated the sorts of relationships that one needs to get things done here. I have met with friends, but not really tried to move upwards. This must change, I suppose. The above point drives home why this project is so ambitious for me. I've always been good at having friends in low places (shout out to Garth Brooks), but not so good at networking, and cultivating relationships with those one might term "a big deal." This was highlighted, retrospectively by my inability to really get in and network with a scholar who was recently passing through town. There's no real use in crying over spilt milk, but there is use in trying to learn from these mistakes. And what I'm learning is that I'll have to throw fiscal responsibility (sort of) and my liver to the wind if I really want to get where I should. I don't know if people will be around enough in the summer to really make this work, but starting in the fall at the latest, I need to up my game...
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ཨོ་རྒྱན་པད་མ་འབྱུང་གནས་ལགས་པོ་ཧྲི་དུ་ཡོད་མ་ཤེས་ན།* པོ་ཧྲི་གཅིག པོ་ཧྲི་གཉིས། པོ་ཧྲི་གསུམ། etc....
Pronunciation: orjyan pema jungnei la buosh du o ma she na buosh zai buosh nyai buosh so(n) Translation: If you don't know how many books Padmasambhava has: one book, two books, three books Performance: The first part is to be spoken relatively slowly, while the the listing of the number of books he has should be spoken as fast as possible. I'm still not sure when one might perform such a tongue twister, this is the first I've heard of it in khams, so that's exciting. If I can get my act together and purchase a pro account, I might throw in a recording of the wife performing this. *པོ་ཧྲི་ནི་དཔེ་ཆ་ཡི་དོན། མྱི་སུམ་ཅུར་བསམ་པ་སུམ་ཅུ།
མཛོ་སུམ་ཅུར་རྭ་ཁ་དྲུག་ཅུ། myi sum cur bsam pa sum cu mdzo sum cur rwa kha drug cu Thirty people have thirty ideas, and thirty mdzo* have sixty horns. Basically: everyone's got their own opinions *mdzo: a yak-cow hybrid Xining is being invaded by tight pants, square-rimmed glasses and fixed-wheel bicycles. The first two (the pants and the glasses) have always been fairly popular in Xining. Not just among the thin people, but among all parts of the population. It diverges from classical hipsterism in that it's not necessarily supposed to be ironic, and it often is more akin to peacocking (try to look as different as possible so that girls will notice) , but what about the fixes? Where are they coming from? I have no idea, but it's a fascinating trend, particularly considering that the traffic patterns are such that I wouldn't dare to ride any bike (let alone ones with unconventional braking systems) on these streets...
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About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |