chinese high

Back in high school calculus, I learned what a math high was. I'd been getting them for years, it just took a class with Mr. Johnson to put a name to that feeling. A math high is the sensation you get when a difficult concept becomes crystal clear in a rush of comprehension. Or when you perform an entire page of labor intensive algebraic simplification, plug in the numbers, and boom! matches with the back of the book. It's that "oooooohhh" that swells up from your toes to your chest, after a long period of eye squinting and head scratching. It's the feeling that makes you want to come back for more.

Today I had a Chinese high. I've had them before, of course, but it's been a while. For a long time now, I've been just cruising; improving, sure, but to achieve that status of chinese high demands a special situation, a great leap forward, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle cleared all at once . In our business chinese class, we were discussing the international competitiveness of chinese products. Or more specifically, the the threats that the products now face, both from within China and without. The point came up that the threats could be divided into two categories, subjective and objective. This wasn't in the textbook, and the words subjective and objective were new. The thing is, even using english, the distinction is not an easy one to make.

As soon as the words were brought up, and we all figured out what they meant, I thought oh no, here comes yet another frustrating conversation on a topic which our chinese is not ready to handle. We're going to fumble around for a while, clumsily apply the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity to this situation, whoever gets it now will also get it when we're done, whoever doesn't get it now will still be confused. There will be no exchange of ideas, the only gains will be individual and come through a thought process inside each person's head. But lo and behold, we considered, we discussed, we understood! The adjectives were sufficient! It may sound nerdy and trivial but hey, that's what we do here; and until my next math class, that's where I'll be getting my highs.