Fragmentary Memory of the COVID Years

 

I looked up on the internet that Brock University suspended face to face classes on March 13, 2020 and they did not resume until January 31, 2022. 

I had taught my last class in June 2019. So I did not have to adjust to the distance education procedures, thank goodness.

My memory is that for some 18 months, until we moved to Ottawa in October 2021, pretty much daily, I used to walk up the Niagara Escarpment to roam about the silent and empty campus of Brock University. It was strangely beautiful. All the buildings were locked.

The vast parking lots were mostly abandoned. 

Deer came out of the forest to drink at the sheltered exquisite Raymond Moriyama designed "Pond Inlet" Japanese style lily pad covered pond. 

Sometimes I would see a lone tractor cutting the lawns in the distance.

My Experience with ChatGPT

My Experience with ChatGPT

I tried the Chat GPT with the question "Who is Charles Burton, sinologist?" which is the way I am listed in Wikipedia if my memory serves. It tried it 3 times. Each time ChatGPT  was really good, except each time it got a fact about me incorrect. For example:
"Charles Burton is a Canadian sinologist and academic who is an expert on China and has published extensively on Chinese politics, history, and culture. He has a Ph.D. in Chinese studies from the University of Toronto and has taught at several universities, including Brock University and Simon Fraser University. In addition to his academic work, Burton has also served as a consultant to various governments and organizations on issues related to China and has written articles and op-eds for a number of media outlets."
But I have never taught at Simon Fraser University or had anything to do with that university. 

The next time it said I am a Professor at Brock University (which is not true anymore) and the third time it said that I had been a visiting scholar at Renmin University and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. But I have never  been a visiting scholar at either of those places.

It is a little scary as the answers are well composed and appear highly authoritative

Message to Reception Honouring Vic Falkenheim's 50 Years of Teaching

In 1983, Vic took over supervision of my doctoral dissertation when Bill Saywell left the U of T to become President of Simon Fraser.

It was a wonderful apprenticeship, both in the Sidney Smith Building and with the Joint Centre for Modern East Asia. The Joint Centre was a very active Centre under Vic's direction. As I recall, most of the Joint Centre seminars, usually held at Glendon, commenced or terminated with a celebratory duck dinner at the Fang Shan Restaurant. That restaurant was strategically located on Eglinton and Avenue Road between York and U of T and not far east of where Vic lived in those years. Excellent free Chinese meals washed down with Tsingtao beer was one of the many benefits of being an apprentice of Professor Falkenheim.

Insofar as his mentoring went, Vic explained to me that key to his own success in completion of his thesis at Columbia was "valium and scotch." Now that I am older I all the more appreciate the wisdom of that advice.

In return, when he and family went away in the summer, I happily moved into his house, slept in his bed, fed the cat and cut his lawn; as was the expectation for grad students in those years.

So 50 years on, thank you for everything, Vic! I am so grateful to be one of your trainee successors in China studies.

The Faculty Association as Union

The current controversy at Brock University over the Faculty Association's role in the matter of a professor who is alleged to have had improper contact with students late at night in his office while drunk calls into question the relationship between professors and librarians and their union.

The issue comes down to is it the function of a faculty association to represent the will of the membership, or should a faculty association be driven by labour movement ideology?

What we want is openness, transparency and honesty. What we don't want are hidden agendas driving manipulation of the "union membership" to fulfil union movement sociological goals beyond the terms and conditions of our employment.

What we want is a university that is led and directed by scholars.  We do not want to be the subjects of “profit and efficiency” corporate agenda scheming by the people we entrust to serve us as our university administrators.

Nor do we want to be the subjects of labour activism.

​Brock University tells student to keep quiet about sexual harassment finding - Canada - CBC News

​Brock University tells student to keep quiet about sexual harassment finding - Canada - CBC News

Brock University has issued a response to the CBC report:
http://www.brocku.ca/brock-news/2016/03/brock-officials-moved-promptly-after-being-told-of-sexual-harassment-claim/


My comment: Respecting students and maintaining proper trustful student-teacher relations is the central responsibility of university professors. After all, it is an asymmetrical power relationship. So it is incumbent on the professors not to abuse this power.

And the burgeoning growth of Brock's bureaucracy of non-scholar administrators, aside from leeching scarce resources away from the teaching and research function of the University, does not seem to have served the student victim well in this case.

The whole thing just fills me with a deep sense of despair.


Later: Story gets worse and worse: "Sexual harassment at Brock University brought into the spotlight" - The Brock Press  - http://go.shr.lc/1QKZQqa

My Son Punched a Boy Making Racist Taunts

On a couple of occasions since Geoffrey moved to a French immersion school, he has ruefully commented to me “You are so lucky Dad that you don’t look Chinese.”  And then he recounts yet another incident of racist teasing by his classmates in the playground at recess.  But he flat refuses to provide the names of those responsible.  “I still have to play with these guys, Dad.”  Then in the 150 year tradition of parents of Chinese-Canadian children, I urge him to pay it no mind.  “These boys are ignorant idiots.  Be proud of your heritage.”

Yesterday Geoffrey told me a different story.  A much larger boy gives him the slitty eyed routine, mimicking his silly notion of the sounds of the Chinese language, and throwing in a couple of racial slurs.  Geoffrey as instructed by me does not respond to this taunting.  Instead he simply walks over to this latest “ignorant idiot” and silently slugs the boy in the stomach.  To Geoffrey’s evident satisfaction, the boy crumples to the ground writhing in pain.  Seems that all his hockey games and drills on the ice with the St. Catharines Peewee Hurricanes has made Geoffrey a lot stronger than he looks.  Turns out my son packs a mean punch.

(I recall that my Geoffrey’s 5’4” great-grandfather was something of a boxing champion in his division back in our ancestral home of Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire.  Subsequently Granddad coached amateur boxing part-time.  Too bad he did not live to see this day as his athletic prowess definitely skipped two generations.)

Anyway tacit message delivered, Geoffrey just walks away from his tormentor.  Me: “Well, anyway I still don’t think it is a good idea to hit people regardless.”  Geoffrey: “But Mummy thinks I did the right thing!”

There is more.  Subsequently the boy recovered from Geoffrey’s wallop and enraged by the unexpected turn of events sought Geoffrey out to seek revenge.  But just as he was fixing to pummel my son into a pulp, their teacher comes along. Witnessing what appears to be an unprovoked attack on  much smaller boy, she sends the bully off to the principal’s office.  Geoffrey gets off scot-free.

According to Geoffrey the bully spent a considerable time with the principal (“two units”, whatever that means in minutes).  On return the “ignorant idiot” was made to sit by himself at a desk well away from the rest of the class.

Consequently, Geoffrey is highly satisfied that justice has truly been served.

But as his father I am not sure how I should respond to all this.

One Explanation for Why I Am Not Rich

When I was a first year undergrad I took a course in a new discipline called "Computing Science."  Due to some bonus marks I ended up with a final grade of 104%.  I was subsequently approached and lobbied pretty hard to major in this "Computing Science."

I thought it over and decided that these computers were really just glorified adding machines albeit useful for tricky statistical analysis.  But that that was about it.  I concluded that, attractive as the offer was, there would be little future for me in computers.

So I went to Cambridge to study the history of ancient Chinese thought instead.

Observation: I am the same age as Bill Gates and am still making mortgage payments.