Generally Speaking

Hello friends, family and general loved ones. I haven’t written you since I first arrived in China and thought I might take this opportunity to do so. Today is Wednesday, my day off, and I am a little under-the-weather so I am under pile of blankets sipping some tea. Oddly enough in a country overflowing with tea I am not drinking Chinese tea, although I have had a plethora and it is great, I am drinking Yorkshire tea. Or I am “having a brew” as my roommate Lindsay would say.

I thank my lucky stars on a regular basis for Lindsay; this experience could have been a disaster had I not landed a roommate that I get along with so well. She is from Manchester, England which proves for interesting discussions of “what do you call this?” “We call it a …” the differences are sometimes hilarious. I am surrounded by British folks and I am slowly becoming the only American left in my program.

In total we have Vincent from Holland by way of New Zealand, Chris from London, Robert from Coventry, England, Laurence from Liverpool and Mike from some other place in England. The Americans are/were Dwayne from Reno; he learned how to speak Chinese in the military then decided to come to China and try to make use of that knowledge. Sarah from Texas was my other roommate but she didn’t last a week. Then this today we lost Nick from New York, he flew out early this morning. Dwayne hates the program and will probably leave within the next couple of months….then I will be the only American still going.

There is a thriving group of foreigners here though. There is an expat bar not far from here that we go to often. It was started by my now friend Pierre from New York. He is here on a Fulbright Scholarship studying famine relief. He figured he needed a side project so he opened Oscar’s (named for Oscar Wilde). It is a tiny hole in a wall, almost literally, that feels like walking into someone’s living room. It is cozy and inviting, we recently put curtains over the door so that people couldn’t look in. As you might think, a bunch of foreigners sitting around drinking and listening to funny music is quite a sight so people will stop and stare through the glass door, think viewing tank at the Zoo.

It is a nice break from the sometimes overwhelming city. I have made a few friends who are all here for different reasons, either to study or teach or on research grants. I find myself being more fascinated by the foreigners who come to China, and their reasons, than I am at times with China. Recently I was asked to provide training for all of the Chinese teachers (CT) that work with us at my school. They wanted me to talk for an hour and a half about how to improve the relationship between the CT and the foreign teachers (FT). Being a new teacher I took this as a compliment but also as an opportunity to really explain some of the issues that we have when teaching in this program.

I started my training by asking the group, about 30 teachers, “how many of you have ever been outside of China?” One person raised his hand; he had been to Australia for a week. Other than that not a single person has set foot out of their own country. I was able to use that to explain to them that all of the foreigners that work here have done just that, left home. We have all left everything behind, our friends and family our familiarity our entire support system. China is a very isolating place at times and I wanted them to understand that once we get here the school, Gallop, in essence becomes our support system. For example, I talked about how difficult it is sometimes to eat on my days off because I can’t just walk into a restaurant and ask from a menu, of course that is getting easier but at first there are many times where I felt completely overwhelmed and helpless. Trying to explain culture-shock is difficult because it is a very personal thing, and is entirely subjective.

Having been here for a little over 2 months I have started to get used to a lot of stuff. The staring isn’t as bothersome and I am able to ignore. I have started interacting with more people, my vocabulary is extremely minimal but I am taking a 2 hour class each week plus I have a tutor every other week for 2 hours. I have a friend who will text me Chinese characters to show cab drivers when I need to go somewhere. The bus system is very handy but crowded and potentially risky.

As for the job, there are some really great parts about it and like any job there are some really bad parts. I think a lot of the disagreement with the Americans comes from the fact that from the very first day we arrive we realize that a lot of the things we were told are in fact not true or misstatements. Our teaching schedule is grueling. I will give you an overview of my classes.

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the morning I teach at Huanghe Primary School. I teach grade 3 from 8:25 to 12:15. I absolutely adore the kids I have in those classes. There are approximately 40 kids in each class and I teach 3 classes. On Tuesday afternoons I go to Jiaoda Primary school where I teach first grade from 2:15 to 4:15 (it takes about 45 minutes to get to this school). This school has about 50 students in each class. On Friday afternoons I go to a Kindergarten around the corner where I teach 7 classes back to back with about 30 kids in each class. The kids in all of these schools are adorable but the size of the classes, the time spent and energy exuded to teach is exhausting to say the least. On Saturdays and Sundays we are required to be at our school Gallop from 9 am to 7 pm. On each day I teach 4 hour long classes and spend the rest of my time there for lesson planning. The classes at Gallop are better because they are smaller which gives you an opportunity to get to know you students and the games and songs are a lot more fun.

I think the main let down from our busy schedule, besides the overall exhaustion, is that we have very little time to go anywhere or do anything. All the teachers have Monday off, which is nice but the day is usually used to catch up on sleep, laundry or grocery shopping. We all get another day off per week but it varies, mine is Wednesdays but Lindsay has Thursday off, that sort of thing. The past couple of weeks I have been better about making myself get out of the apartment and go see and/or do stuff in the city. There are markets to go to and I have my tutoring on Wednesdays so that gets me out of the house; my first month I was spending the whole day in bed, and reasonably so.

They said that we will get used to the schedule, and I am sure we will. I really enjoy the job and so I don’t mind it too much. It is straining though. The weather here is freezing and our heat doesn’t get cut on till mid month so needless to say I am sick. I have pretty much lost my voice and have a cold, but I am bombarded regularly with Chinese teas that will help cure all, or so I am told! I think winter will be hard but, it is like that most places, the cold makes everything just a little bit more difficult.

I know we get some time off in February for Spring Festival, so I am hoping to do some traveling then. Other than that we get 2 weeks off in the summer and I am thinking of doing a Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand trip. As for now I am just taking it one day at a time and truly appreciating and enjoying the experience. Being away from home has been difficult in some ways but really great for me. It is really nice to get away from everything you know and to test yourself. I have now been in China for 2 months and that is a strange and wonderful fact.

There are things that I miss so much, but that will make my return to them all the more pleasurable. Just know that I am here and I am working hard and I am appreciating every ounce of effort I pour into this job and experience.

All my love from the middle country!