February 23, 2019 – The Story of the Stone

My name is Cameron Teel and I am a sophomore at North Central College. I am pursuing a double major in Accounting and Chinese. Moving from Texas to Naperville, I remember more about my first year than most students who are from Illinois and surrounding areas because everything was new and different. One moment early in my time at NCC stands out even today. At the first meeting of my International Business class in the fall of 2017, the professor told us that college gives students an unprecedented chance to do hard things. His main challenges were to learn Chinese and study abroad. His lecture that day opened my eyes to the fact that nearly one-fifth of the world speaks Mandarin. It was a jaw-dropping realization that learning Chinese would allow me to communicate with over one billion people who speak the language. Although I didn’t know a single Chinese word and had not considered studying the language before that day, I decided to accept the professor’s challenge. I went straight to my NCC advisor’s office and transferred into Chinese.

Since that second day of my freshman year, I have relentlessly pursued trying to master the language. I took the one-hundred level sequence during my freshman year and was chosen to study abroad in China during my sophomore year, which is a year earlier than most students study abroad. In Shanghai, I completed the intensive language track which consisted of five hours of classroom per day and living with a host family. When I started the four-month intensive Chinese program, my language skills consisted of saying, “Hello, my name is Cameron. My Chinese is not very good.” By the end of my study abroad experience, I was able to hold forty-minute conversations with everyone from my instructors to taxi drivers on diverse topics including China’s one-child policy, the nation’s stand on gun control, and the economic status of China.

I am choosing to direct my research towards understanding the Chinese mindset when it comes to relationships in the workplace. This theme came to mind because of living with a host family. I noticed Chinese families spend most of their time at home or at work. I was never able to see how life worked at their work but I want to. It intrigues me for various reasons but particularly because in the next few years I will be searching for my first job post-college. I am considering returning to China to pursue a career and having an idea of what to expect in a Chinese work environment would be ideal. In addition, I would be able to build connections over the summer that could help me land a job, make connections, and further my Chinese language and culture study. In addition, I would like to become a global citizen.

I have read through chapter five of Hong lou meng. There have already been numerous characters introduced and excused in the reading. The plot continues to thicken as I delve deeper. Conversing with my mentors they mentioned that to get to material that directly applies to my topic of research I will have to patiently continue reading into books four and five. I consider this the ultimate cliff hanger and it is only intensifying my passion for the book. Based off of the reading I have completed these are a few questions I have.

When talking with my teachers during my intensive stay in China it seemed highly irregular if not impossible to bend the law but it seems to be implied that law bends for the rich and influential. I have heard that major Chinese companies have a mutual partnership with the government that seems to bend the law. I am curious to see if this still pertains today? If so, how does it influence business in China?
I am curious to learn more about why Cao Xueqin chooses to make woman such a prominent focus because I would have thought that in his day and age most books, artwork, etc. would have been more focused on men. I think it offers a very different perspective than other similar works and makes it stand out as a classic.
Finally, another question I have is how were genders viewed at the time of writing? It seems to be something the author is comfortable writing about and if characters names were removed it would be hard to discern how the author wanted them to be portrayed.