Learning to be a perfect lady proves fruitful
http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-05/31/content_16549936.htm
Etiquette courses are on the rise, report Cang Wei and Song
Wenwei in Nanjing.
Most Chinese are familiar with the old saying
"Daughters should be brought up in rich surroundings", but spending
10,000 yuan ($1,630) a day to study etiquette is still beyond many people's
imaginations.
At the Institute Sarita finishing school in Beijing, one of the skills students are shown
is how to halve oranges elegantly using a knife and fork.
Sara Jane Ho, the founder of China's first school of etiquette,
demonstrated the initial step to her students. She cut off one end of an
orange, allowing it to stand firmly on the plate, and then sliced the fruit
from top to bottom with deliberate care until the segmented halves blossomed
like flowers.
"Ladies" also remove orange seeds from their
mouths in an elegant way, according to Ho. She told the students they should
first cover their mouths with one hand, and then use the thumb and the first
finger of the other to pick out the seeds, which should be put on the side of
their plates later.
"Graceful women don't make a sound when they eat,"
said Ho. "Displaying manners shows people that you respect them, that your
individual needs and conveniences can be subordinated to put other people first
in a very selfless way. And that is an important attribute for any society,
Eastern or Western, rich or poor, traditional or modern."
The 27-year-old Harvard
Business School
graduate opened her school after attending a two-month intensive course at
Institut Villa Pierrefeu, the last of Switzerland's traditional finishing
schools.
While Ho conceded that finishing schools are on the decline
in the West, she insisted that many leading families around the world still pay
attention to teaching their children etiquette.
"They send their children to Switzerland
or similar schools in the UK
or the United States
for the same reason that the Chinese are now studying etiquette - they
understand that the world we live in is very global and that these
international bonds will only become more complex."
Ho's school provides six courses on social etiquette and
protocol, including dress sense, table manners and business etiquette.
Her students, who range from those marrying into wealthy
families to successful businesswomen, learn etiquette through repeated practice
in luxury five-star hotels.
"Today's modern woman is the first to take on the roles
of wife, mother, daughter and businesswoman in this new, drastically changing
world," she said. "What my students find most significant from
studying is guidance on how to behave, a frame of reference. Finishing school
gives women greater self-confidence and assurance. It is empowering."
Wei Qingqi, a professor at Jinling
College in Nanjing, which was founded in 1915 and was
the first Chinese university to award bachelor's degrees to women, said that
the courses offered by finishing schools may promote a superficial outlook, but
they can also endow women with more feminine traits.
"But women's willingness to highlight their femininity
may reflect the impact of the social stereotypes placed on them," said
Wei.
Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education
Research Institute in Beijing,
said: "It's up to individuals to choose their own education. Some women
may choose to be taught so-called feminine virtues, but others may despise that
choice. The important thing is that education should be diversified and meet
different people's requirements."
Xiong mentioned that, like finishing schools, many
universities and high schools are now offering courses specially designed for
female students. Some even plan to become single-sex institutions, a common
practice in a number of countries for many years, but still unusual on the
Chinese mainland.
Nanjing
Renmin Middle
School has run two pilot classes for female
students since 2012. The 51 students can choose from dozens of courses,
including female psychology, flower arranging, bodybuilding and self-defense
martial arts.
Principle Chen Zhongxiang said that from 2015 the school
will only accept female students. In preparation, a new campus is under
construction and the buildings will cater to female tastes. The teachers are
also being trained to better serve the girls.
According to a survey launched by the school, which polled
thousands of parents who hold a bachelor's degree and higher, 64.5 percent were
willing to send their daughters to girls-only schools, while 13.1 percent were
against the idea.
Even top educational establishments, such as Tsinghua University
and Peking University
in Beijing and Fudan
University in Shanghai, offer etiquette courses.
Meanwhile, the government of Shanghai has announced that an education
base, consisting of several high schools and universities, will be established
to reinforce etiquette, hostessing skills and self-improvement.
"It is clear that this is what students want to
learn," said Ho, who added that she has been invited to deliver one-off
guest lectures at both Tsinghua and Peking
universities. She has also been asked to provide an etiquette class as part of
an executive MBA course on a long-term basis. "It should allow you to be a
better version of yourself," she said of the class.
In 2006, Zhao Ruoqiong, a 42-year-old in Suzhou, Jiangsu
province, spent about 40,000 yuan to send her daughter, then aged 8, to a
private school to attend a course called "Becoming Little Ladies".
The girl learned ancient Chinese poems, played chess and studied embroidery.
"I don't care what she really learned," said Zhao.
"Personally, I think peeling oranges with a knife and fork and walking
around with books on the head are too flashy. I just hope that she can grow up
to be an adorable, elegant woman who knows how to treat the people around her
properly. You can't choose your appearance, but you can choose what kind of
person you want to become," she said.
Zhao, a successful real estate developer, added that, like
many women of her generation, as a child she was taught to act like a boy and
ignore her female characteristics.
"I didn't enjoy my childhood and adolescence, and that
is part of the reason I want my daughter to receive an education designed for
girls, to fully develop her nature and show her femininity," said Zhao.
"I've forgotten most of the etiquette I learned when I
was little, but there are some things I'll never forget," said Zhao's
15-year-old daughter, Chen Can. "It was the beauty, the politeness and
elegance that impressed me the most, it wasn't pretentious or stiff, but
genuine and comfortable."
Chen said that the course also opened a new world for her.
"I learned how to make Chinese ink paintings and play the violin, which
are so much fun and make my life so fulfilled."
However, some scholars have expressed concerns about the
spread of girls-only schools and "ladylike education", saying that
they may promote a number of problems, such as a lack of interpersonal skills
when the girls communicate with the opposite sex and the resurgence of
traditional, but outdated, expectations that men hold for women.
"The stereotypical female education, designed to
produce women who conform to the designated roles of obedient housewife and
diligent mother, should not be encouraged," said Guo Weiqi, a professor at
the College of High
Vocational Technology at Wuhan Textile
University, the first
college in the central Chinese city to offer etiquette courses.
"In fact, that kind of education obliterates women's
values and attractiveness. The most important thing that education for girls
should do is develop their confidence, to let them have faith in
themselves."
"It's worth trying to introduce schools for girls, but
the comprehensive schools which admit both sexes have become mainstream in
China," said Jin Yihong, professor of women's studies at Jinling College.
She said that generally boys and girls assume different
"gender roles", and that, compared with single-sex schools, mixed
comprehensives provide more opportunities for children and teenagers to
understand gender identity and related modes of thinking, which will help
naturalize communications between the sexes.
Principal Chen Zhongxiang said that concerns about potential
communication problems in later life are unnecessary, because girls and boys
can interact after school, and single-sex schools will always cooperate with
comprehensives to allow girls to become acquainted with male students.
Professor Xiong Bingqi is keeping an open mind about courses
that prepare women for marriage to wealthy men.
In some cities, such as Chengdu
and Beijing,
many women, mostly white-collar workers, attend courses such as "Factors
existing in relationships with successful men", "Wealthy men's
general requirements for their future wives" and "How to create
chances to date rich men".
"Rather than considering it a gender-biased education,
I prefer to believe that it results from people's needs," said Xiong.
"As long as it meets those needs, it should be allowed to exist and
operate in accordance with market-based mechanisms. The diversity of the
education is the most important thing."
China promotes
all-dimensional diplomacy
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013xivisit/2013-05/31/content_16551915.htm
BEIJING - As Chinese
President Xi Jinping embarks on a tour to three Latin American countries before
a "no-tie" meeting with US counterpart Barack Obama in California, it has
become more evident the new Chinese leadership is promoting all-dimensional
diplomacy in a new era.
It is the second trip overseas by the Chinese head of state.
He visited Russia, Tanzania, South
Africa and the Republic of the Congo
only days after assuming office in March, making clear Beijing's intention to seek better ties with
these countries.
Earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also
delivered the same message in person to neighbors and far-away partners during
a packed nine-day tour to India,
Pakistan, Switzerland and Germany.
In less than three months since taking office, China's new
leaders will have left footprints on five out of the seven continents, and such
intensity in top-level diplomacy and its vast geographic span are rare, even
for the most active global players nowadays.
The arrangements are potent proof that China, now the
world's second largest economy, is willing to strengthen cooperation with
old-time pals and forge deeper bonds with new partners.
For many in China,
Xi's visit this time puts Trinidad and Tobago
on their radar for the first time and the trip is also expected to increase
their knowledge of the Caribbean region at
large.
Besides meetings and discussions with leaders of his three
host countries and the signing of cooperation deals, bilateral meetings with
leaders of other countries in the region are also high on Xi's agenda.
The broad involvement, as many political observers have
pointed out, will increase mutual trust between China
and the Caribbean nations and produce profound
impact on China-Caribbean relations in the long run.
China
and Latin American countries, both capturing increasing global attention with
vibrant growth figures while most of the developed world is teetering on the
edge of recession, are natural partners, given their status as developing
countries and their common aspiration to revamp the outdated global economic
order.
The two sides are also highly complementary in terms of
economic structure, with Latin American countries rich in natural resources and
China
excelling in manufacturing inexpensive quality goods.
Xi's visit, which also brings into the spotlight increasing
shared interests between China
and Latin America, is set to provide a further
boost to China-Latin America ties, which have witnessed rapid development in
recent years.
After state visits to Trinidad
and Tobago, Costa Rica
and Mexico, Xi will head to
the US state of California for the first face-to-face meeting between the
presidents of China and the United States
since leadership transitions in both countries.
The informal nature of the summit will probably allow the
two leaders to develop a personal relationship that could contribute to the
smooth development of bilateral ties in years to come.
Through extensive and in-depth discussions of strategic
issues of common concern, the two leaders are expected to chart the future
course of bilateral relations, one that is increasingly believed to be the most
important based on its global impact.
The summit also provides a perfect platform for the two
leaders to explore prospects for a new mode of relationship between a rising
power and a dominant power, which features win-win cooperation instead of
constant frictions or even conflicts.