Gisela Jia 07/15/2026
I’m writing this China trip report on the flight from Seoul to JFK. While transferring at Seoul, the line was extremely long. I learned that because Japan and China had stopped many direct flights, more travelers between these two countries needed to transfer at Seoul, and travelers between the US and China who used to transfer via Japan also needed to transfer at Seoul.
Why do I start the report with this detail? Because it highlights the context in which many of you, your children and grandchildren are studying the Chinese language and culture.
China, as every nation, is an ever evolving patch on an ever shifting globe. The patch and the globe have a mutual impact on each other. The more a learner has a real feel of the patch as well as of the globe, the more likely the learner will move forward on a path that is meaningful to oneself and to the larger communities.
Embracing traces of history
The PRC China map looks like a rooster with its wattles, the red and flashy flaps hanging below a rooster's beak.
Three coastal cities form a strategic triangle that guard the nation. On the lower tip of the wattles is the port of Lu Shun (旅顺). Across the oceans from Lu Shun, positioned on the upper chest of the rooster is the port of Wei Hai (威海). In the position of the rooster’s throat and guarded by Lu Shun and Wei Hai on each side is the port of Tian Jin (天津). Lu Shun sits at the tip of Liaodong Peninsula, Wei Hai of Shandong Penisula, and Tian Jin is the port for Beijing, which is a mere 75 miles north of Tian Jin.
In the old days when nations did not compete in space and on AI, they competed on the oceans.
We positioned ourselves in a small hotel in Lu Shun. From our windows, we had the view of the full harbor where the China Qing government’s Beiyang Fleet docked and trained. On a day in September of 1894, the full fleet departed from this water in front of us, drove to the ocean, and suffered a major defeat by the Japanese fleet. Some battle ships sank, and some came back to this water to be repaired.
Japanese army followed the ocean battle victory with a land attack. We stood in silence in front of Wan Zhong Memorial that commemorates the thousands of Chinese slaughtered after the fall of Lu Shun.
The ocean and land defeats led to the signing of Ma Guan Treaty. Qing government agreed to compensate 200 million tales of silver and secede Liao Dong Peninsula and Taiwan. The Imperial Russia allied with Germany and France to have Japan "sell back" Liao Dong Peninsula to Qing China. But two years after, in 1897, Russia asked to "rent" Lu Shun for itself. Its thorough and expansive city building in Lu Shun alarmed Japan to the degree that it fought with Russia and took over (or "took back") Lu Shun in 1904.
We visited the prison Russia built, which was later inherited and expanded by Japan. We ran into Korean visitors who came to visit the cells where its national hero Ahn Jung-geun 安重根 was held and hanged. We entered the dark tunnels on top of Pine Tree Mountain where Japanese army fought for 40 days to break through the Russian built and defended fortress in 1904.
Then we sailed across Huang Hai and Bo Hai oceans to Wei Hai port. The oceans we covered on a bright sunny day accompanied by passionate seagulls once embraced the Qing China's Beiyang Fleet. Deng Shichang 邓世昌, Lin Yongsheng 林永升, Lin Luzhong 林履中, Sa Zhenbing 萨镇冰, some of the current household names in China, once roamed these oceans, lost their lives or survived to make the next chapters of China's navy.
After reaching Wei Hai, the port that guards Shandong Peninsula, we set foot on its off-shore island of Liu Gong Dao where the remaining Beiyang Fleet forces put up a strong fight but eventually surrendered to the Japanese navy. Here, another set of names of Beiyng Fleet leaders, Yang Yonglin 杨用霖 、Liu Buchan 刘步蟾、Ding Ruchang 丁汝昌 got into the book of Chinese history.
From Wei Hai, we tracked into inland Shandong province and reached its capital Ji Nan, where most group members did five days of intensive ping pong training and I organized excursions for members who did not.
After Ji Nan, we moved northward to Tian Jin and then Beijing. From my former student, a current professor of legal history who came to meet us in Tian Jin, I finally understood how Tian Jin as a port was unique and different from other important ports like Lu Shun and Wei Hai. When foreign powers wanted to seize control of Qing China government politically, they would break through Tian Jin port instead as it would just be another 75 miles north to seize the government in Beijing.
The loss of the Beiyang Fleet and all its ramifications pushed Chinese to seek a real change. Those who had hope in the Qing government moved to reform its infrastructure.
In Beijing, we visited the residence of Kang Youwei, the thought leader of the reform. We visited the residence of Tan Sitong, the reformer who chose not to flee but to give up his life to inspire continued reform. We reached a modern cross-interaction which was Cai Shi Kou, where Tan Sitong and five other reformers were executed. We stood in front of the remaining buildings of the Imperial University of Peking (current Beijing University of which I am a proud alumni) and talked about how it became one of the only few surviving achievements of the reform after it was cracked down by Empress Dowager Cixi.
In Tianjin, while taking a night stroll along Hai He river, I imagined how Kang Youwei and his student Liang Qichao ducked death by boarding different ships and went on their separate exile lives. They did each continue their work to change China, as hoped by Tan Sitong who urged them flee.
Before the trip, one parent asked why we chose to trace such a heavy chapter of Chinese history. My answer is, without understanding it, one cannot understand the current China. After the trip, my further answer is that once you understand the Chinese experiences, you will understand the Japanese and the Korean experiences better. Each country had to face foreign invading powers, and such events had deeply impacted on its national consciousness.
Learning from playing ping pong
This trip was a joint trip between CCBG and Aytto (American Youth Table Tennis Organization), a local NYC based ping pong organization that is making a national impact.
During the two weeks of travel, we spent five days in Ji Nan, training ping pong. In a large ping pong stadium where amateur and professional training and competition happened, our campers were trained four hours a day. They were divided into groups of 3-4 based on their skills level.
I saw intense ping pong training right under my eyes and got to further clarify my thoughts about learning and growth.
Some children had developed a habit of solely focusing on hitting the ball on the table while not caring much about their forms. Coaches found it challenging to train them. In contrast, some children listened to the coaches, and worked on improving their forms. The trip co-leader Thomas Hu from Aytto shared his observations of a total beginner, a camper from Nan Jing, “She made the largest improvement”. I observed her first three rounds of playing and found her to be very focused, observant, communicative with her coach.
Inspired by this observation, I decided to improve my forms. I’ve been playing ping pong for decades, but had been stuck at a low level because both my forehand and backhand forms were somewhat off.
A 17-year old coach worked with me one on one on these forms. He told me that the biggest problems of my forehand was moving my right shoulder and right upper arm too much, and that the movement trajectory of my lower arm was not right.
“Shou, thou, thou” (fold, fold), he would shout this word as I hit the ball by forehand. I embraced this style of coaching wholeheartedly, because of my experience teaching Mandarin. The point of building the right foundation is exactly the same between learning a language and playing ping pong. As the coach shouted at me “shou, shou, shou”, I saw myself correcting tones, “first tone, not second tone”. When the coach came to my side of the table to hold my arm and hand so I felt the right forms, I saw myself saying “repeat this after me, say ….”.
On the bullet train from Wei Hai to Ji Nan, I saw Matt editing some ping pong playing videos. Matt is a coach at Aytto. He said he was exposed to ping pong one day ten years ago and since then had been playing it almost everyday. He would go to different cities of China, and play at the outdoor ping pong tables. That's his way of meeting the locals. Once he and a Chinese guy got into playing and exchanging feedback and strategies. He then got invited into the guy’s home where they continued playing ping pong. Another year he took a group of ping pong players from various countries and toured China just to play ping pong with people on the street. I loved seeing his videos because it showed me how much that ping pong as a sport can bridge people easily and naturally. “I also think ping pong is a great equalizer sport. You don’t need much resources to play the sport, but the sport has all the intense elements of any other sport.” Matt said.
On this trip, I received confirmation of the teaching approach of emphasizing foundations for language teaching from ping pong training, improved my ping pong foundational skills a bit, and most importantly, clarified the idea of ping pong being an "equalizer sport". Each point will turn into actions that CCBG teachers and I will take in our self-growth and educational work.
Getting an update about China
All members of our group, parents and children, even I, loved the stores and malls in China. One phrase - variety and abundance. On a rainy night, I stopped into an everyday food market in Ji Nan, and after rows of fruits, veggies, prepared food, baked goods, I ran into three large full shelves of craft beers, none of these I ever saw before. Stepping into a store in Confucius hometown Qu Fu, among all the ladies everyday clothing, hair accessories, I saw a full table of watches. In 20 seconds, I picked two, each costing me $6 dollars. They looked better than and function the same as the SWATCH ones that I have been wearing. Beers, watches... you can imagine that this happens to most things you want to buy.
When asked what they would want to do during the next trip, a rising 10th grader from Bronx Science said “I just want to go to all the malls in China and study the malls. Why are they there and how did they get there?”
I said, “Add one more question. When China’s population drops by a third, what to do with these malls?” I asked him to add that question because population decline is already happening. When China has a much smaller population, what to do with all the infrastructure built for a much larger population? It is scary to think about it.
What does this have to do with those of you who are so committed to having your children learn Chinese? “I want to learn Chinese because 1.6 billion people speak it.” This is a frequent reason children say when I asked them why they want to learn Chinese. “I want to learn Chinese so one day I can travel in China.” With all the tools of translation, you do not need to speak Chinese in order to travel in China. I saw tourists and Chinese taxi drivers and waiters click on their phone and almost understand everything you say spontaneously.
Then, why should you learn Chinese? It may be your family heritage, whether you are full ethnic Chinese, or half, or a quarter, or an 8th. It may be a great mental challenge. All the tones, homophones, strokes, stroke orders, traditional and simplified characters, classifiers, each one stands as a meaningful mental challenge, created by millennia of human existence.
Most importantly, with less and less real human presence in shared public spaces, being a real human speaking a real language in the real human way will enable you a special touch to other humans’ mind and heart.
Comments
Post a Comment