Though at times I may not be the most motivated teacher, it's the people I get to meet and spend time with that make it all sooo worth it. I just got back from a dinner at the school cantine with two girls from my last term's class, and once again they made me smile simply by being so so friendly and nice... we actually had a really nice talk, definitely far beyond the typical "how do you like china" -talk.

As for my PhD class, the talk often turns into marriage and male-female relationships (the age-old universal topic, i suppose). As most of the students are married, I have had the chance to learn a lot about the way the Chinese view marriage and families. A lot of the times, the women tease men and vice versa, jokingly complaining about husbands and wives. But behind all the jokes seems to be something that goes deeper into the very nature of marriage here. Almost all of the married students were introduced to their spouse by a middleman, as it traditionally goes. Marriages seem to be more a union of convinience, between two people with similar aspirations who get along (somewhat). The whole western idea of 'true love' and all that is pretty much totally absent. A married couple is the basic unit, completed by the one child they are allowed to have. To not get married is just about unthinkable for most people, though this is something that is changin quickly in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai where young people tend to be more career orientated and have a more westernized lifestyle.

But like I said, behind the jokes I'm hearing a lot more. People keep telling me how most marriages in China are somewhat unhappy and make constant joking comments about the desire to get a divorce and find a new partner. I think people are very committed to their marriages and *especially* the children and their education, but at the bottom of it there are hints of discontent.

A Chinese saying was mentioned in class: "The neighbour's wife is always more beautiful than yours, but your own child is always better and smarter than the others." I think this is rather descriptive of everything I have seen and heard re:marriages and families here.

In the recent years, divorce has been made much easier to get in terms of the legislation. However, most people still view it as something shameful, and thus try to work on the marriage as long as humanly possible before admitting it a failure. Another saying that the students used to describe this attitude was that "The mountains around always seem higher and more difficult to climb than the one you are standing on."

And of course you would stay together for the sake of your child...children really are often everything for their parents here. A student mentioned a story of a Chinese couple, who finally got a divorce, at the ages of 97 and 95. This couple realised after marrying each other that they didn't want to stay together but by this time the wife was pregnant. So, they thought that they should stay together for the sake of the child. Now finally when their child died, they decided to go through with the divorce, though both of them are nearing the age of 100...