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Tag Archives: Ralph Jennings
Dating 101: change majors?
Meeting members of the opposite sex of course doesn’t just challenge the youth of China. But a bouquet of social pressures that start from childhood nip off most of the nation’s female-initiated romances before they bud: you’re too young for a boyfriend (mom talking), we sent you to college for education not messing around (parents talking), women appear too “easy” if they make a move (society talking) and you’re not good enough for the rich, handsome, charismatic guy who everyone else has eyes on (society again).
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged dating, Ralph Jennings, teaching
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Real English fluency: just for fools?
Why study English in China vexes the masses who study for years without mastery. It baffles foreigners in China who find it hard to communicate even with college grads who have studied the language for more than a decade. This despondent letter from a cynical Chinese guy teaching English to fellow country people suggests that mastery isn’t the point. Language study is about memorizing just enough of it to pass standardized tests, and teaching means taking whatever steps needed to get there.
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged foreign agony uncle, Ralph Jennings, teaching English
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Mainland clowns on Taiwan TV
Taiwan has known for a decade or two, before the rest of the world figured it out, that mainland China was a place to save money on factory work or make it by selling mass-manufactured stuff. More than 750,000 Taiwanese and their families live in China and do just that.
High price of a free lunch when parents treat
Ralph Jennings is a journalist and long time resident of China. He currently lives in Taipei. From mid-2000 to 2006, he had an advice column in the 21st Century weekly newspaper in which he answered letters from thousands of students and young professionals. Below is a letter from the archive, with an introduction by Jennings
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged letter to a foreign agony uncle, money, Ralph Jennings, university
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Imperfect day for a perfectionist
Here’s where members of China’s only-child generation start paying dues. Children smothered in the formative years by parental compliments imagine it’s impossible to do serious wrong or to fail against public perception. Then they go off to a faraway college where no one really cares. Elizabeth, who I’d guess grew up sibling-free, explains.
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged only children generation, Ralph Jennings
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Corruption starts in the classroom
When is the top student in a Chinese university class not the top student? When a second-tier student outsmarts No. 1 by brown-nosing scholarship committees or paying them off. What’s the point of studying to be No. 1? You get a lesson in real life in China. Wenwen tells this classic story. The best advice: her own concluding words.
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged letter to a foreign agony uncle, Ralph Jennings
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Can of Cold Blue Crush with extra ice
An introverted personality can be a Chinese undergrad’s worst classmate. It follows only-child students to college from homes where parents discourage conversation and from middle schools where teachers forbid the same. In college they suddenly want dates but don’t know where to start. Some guys dump ice on the hots for a girl:
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged agony uncle, Ralph Jennings
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Fear of being an informed fool
Chinese college students who show for lectures, sit in the front rows and finish their homework naturally know the answers to questions raised in class. But they are so afraid of the humiliation that would follow from a wrong answer, or from unpolished delivery of the right one, that they freeze up when given chances to shine.
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged foreign agony uncle, letters, Ralph Jennings
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Rich-poor gap: Poor pays?
Ralph Jennings posts a letter he received when he was working as an agony uncle for a Chinese newspaper: “I’m a freshman at a university in Nanjing. Recently, some of my roommates’ parents went to see them with a lot of new clothes and food.”
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged agony uncle, income gap, Ralph Jennings, workers
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Dorm storm: Share and beware
Ralph Jennings posts a letter he received when he was working as an agony uncle for a Chinese newspaper: “Last term, a student was killed by one of his roommates because of disputes when playing cards.”
Posted in Newspapers
Tagged agony uncle, dorm, letter, Ralph Jennings
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