Frenchman has China in his blood but laments some changes
Print Edition
SITTING at the window in a hostel at Beijing Foreign Studies University, Joel Bellassen says he barely recognizes where he is, although the 64-year-old Frenchman has been to 24 provinces and autonomous regions during his 200-plus trips to China.
He speaks Mandarin like a native.
“It’s easy to find skyscrapers in almost any large city in this country,” he says. “But it’s hard to distinguish one from another.”
It’s a hint of how he thinks about some of the trappings of modernity occurring in today’s China.
Bellassen is general inspector of Chinese language at France’s Ministry of National Education. He traveled to Beijing recently on an academic tour to give a speech about the difficulties of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.
In his bag, he always carries the Xinhua Dictionary and a Contemporary Chinese Dictionary.
Bellassen has been fascinated by Chinese for 45 years. In 1969, he chose Chinese as his major at Université Paris 8.
“I was interested in Chinese ideographs and had a burning curiosity about this remote, mysterious, Eastern country,” he says.
In 1973 the two countries restored cultural exchange programs, which had been halted by China’s “cultural revolution” (1966-76). This gave him a chance to take his first China journey with 29 other college students.
“It was like going to the moon,” Bellassen recalls. “My grandmother tried to persuade me to stay in Paris because China was then comparatively underdeveloped, but I did not change my decision. Who would give up an opportunity to go to the moon just because of the harsh conditions?”
Though many Chinese people at the time thought foreigners were coming to China for political reasons, Bellassen says neither he nor his classmates took part in political movements before, during, or after their stay in China.
“We came in a politically sensitive period, but we studied here mainly out of curiosity,” he says.
Arriving in China after a 22-hour flight, Bellassen caught his first sight of Beijing. A portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong hung in the airport’s terminal building. A few people were riding bicycles late at night, he recalls. In the 1970s, Chinese people were curious about foreigners.
“One day I went to Wangfujing, Beijing’s commercial district, to buy a pair of shoes,” he says, and his presence attracted hundreds of people’s attention in the street. “But even my close Chinese friends turned away from me, which really made me puzzled.”
In order to understand China and “cultural revolution,” which was ongoing in 1973, Bellassen and his French classmates applied for permission to travel to rural communes and factories and work there. But they could not get permits because they were foreign.
But during his second academic year in 1974, he was given a chance to go to Sijiqing People’s commune in Beijing’s western suburbs and live with local farmers and workers.
“At first, I could not bear the breakfast of cornmeal porridge,” he says. “In the first few weeks, I ate meat only three times.” Eventually though, he got used to it and changed. “The ordinary cornmeal porridge made me forget about baguettes and cheese and I came to know the authentic life in China.”
Even now living in Paris, he still prefers a Chinese breakfast.
After two years of study in China, Bellassen went back to France in 1975. He took part-time jobs teaching Chinese in primary schools, middle schools and colleges in Paris.
“My Chinese improved beyond my expectations when I was staying with those local people,” he says of his language ability.
Since finishing his PhD dissertation on Chinese philosophical life, he has been involved in Chinese education and cultural diffusion.
“Foreigners started to learn about China in the days of Marco Polo,” he says, and throughout his career Bellassen has helped people in France learn about China’s culture and history.
Bellassen admires current foreign students studying Chinese, though he notes it’s much more convenient for them to learn with today’s multimedia materials.
In spring 2014, more than 37,000 senior high school students in France chose Chinese as one of their subjects for college entrance exams, he says. “Half of them have been studying Chinese since middle school.”
People from the two countries still have misunderstandings about each other, he says, despite the fact that China and France have had diplomatic ties for 50 years.
Many Chinese people cannot tell the difference between French cuisine and Italian food, Bellassen says, adding that “there are still a lot of Frenchmen who think that Japanese kimonos originate in China.”
“China and Europe may be geographically distant,” he says, “but globalization has shortened and will continue to shorten the distance between China and the Western world in cultural awareness.”
In Bellassen’s point of view, China and France share some similarities, including centuries-old history and splendid cultures.
Though he admits that living conditions and availability of foreign products have improved in China, Bellassen is not pleased with China’s fast pace of change.
“The heavier air pollution and newly built, strange buildings mean that my second hometown, Beijing, has lost its unique city characteristic,” he says.
Bellassen knows the government has undertaken measures to protect historical sites and restore their original appearance, but he’s wary.
“Besides Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City, Beijing’s soul is the quadrangle of the siheyuan, the city wall and gates,” he says.
“It (restoration efforts) is a remarkable step but I have no idea whether it’s a little bit late,” adds the Frenchman.
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