Week 10 of 19

It's Sunday, October 28, the beginning of week 10 of 19 total weeks I will be in China.  It's half over already!  I've been here two months, which doesn't sound that long, but two more months until I get to eat chocolate and pizza again seems pretty long.  I have thoroughly enjoyed most of the food I've eaten here.  Now I'm running into the dilemma of eating too many carbs and too little protein.  I know that once I return home I'll miss a lot of the food here, and I may never get the chance to eat the authentic stuff again.  Whenever I get feelings of homesickness for my family or friends, I need only to walk outside to regain an appreciation for where I am.  Even after two months sometimes I will be walking down a crowded street and suddenly stop and think, "wow, I'm really in China."  It's still surprising sometimes, like I've been dreaming this whole time.  I never imagined I would be here.  It's a humbling and amazing feeling to be surrounded by things you could never imagine in your wildest dreams.  It's like a different world, and it makes me happy just to know it's here, living and thriving just a few thousand miles away from home.

This is such a short experience in my life, but it has already convinced me of the beauty and variety of people, and it's convinced me that diversity and new experiences are the most important things in life.  I've been understanding the following line from the book Into the Wild: "The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

Planning lessons each week is stressful because there are so many factors to consider, but the time I spend with my students is amazing.  They never cease to surprise me and they make me smile and laugh every day. They are extremely social, often holding hands and linking arms in the halls (always with their friends of the same gender).  I was told that the students aren't allowed to have "boyfriends" and "girlfriends" in school.  I suspect that they do, but keep it secret from the teachers.  They are in middle school and high school after all.  But there is definitely a lot of love between friends, and they are very supportive of one another.  Though they are never afraid to laugh at each other during class, but it's always out of love.

Some new observations...

Yesterday I walked down the street and saw two toddler boys pull down their pants and pee into a sewer together and then run back to their mom who was working at their family store.  I've seen this act before but it was still slightly surprising at first.  It was a normal act for them, as toddlers are expected to do their business in the street when they're not in a building with a bathroom.  They seemed very proud of themselves and obviously not embarrassed at all.  It made me smile.

My students are can be shy when they are asked to raise their hands and answer questions in English, but they aren't shy after class!  I played games with some of my 7th grade students last week and we had to sing a song when we lost a game.  They were not embarrassed to sing in front of their peers, which was so cute.  They were so happy and energetic, it was contagious.  Though the students spend most of their waking hours in school and will gladly complain about how much work they have, they are usually in very good spirits.

Parents are constantly teaching their children.  It's common for a parent to encourage their small child to say hello to me in English when we're near each other on the subway.  I've also heard them practicing numbers, letters, and colors in English.  The picture below of two little girls was one of the cutest scenes I've witnessed yet.  I was waiting to meet someone at a bus stop and one girl was waiting with her grandparents.  The next girl walked up with her parents and the adults encouraged the two tiny strangers to shake hands and introduce themselves.  They immediately became friends and started playing games together and posing for pictures for us.

Pictures

Here are a few pictures so far...

apartment building near campus

on campus at South China Normal University

Chinese lanterns hang from trees lining the streets

green courtyard on campus at True Light Middle School

front gate of True Light Middle School

Street and bridge outside True Light Middle School

Chen Clan Academy- tourist attraction with traditional architecture and artwork

With friends outside Chen Clan Academy

The famous Statue of Five Goats in Yuexiu Park in Guangzhou

Week 9

It’s hard to believe it’s been 8 ½ weeks since I left home.  In the first month I’ve had many ups and downs, but I feel like I’ve pretty much adjusted to life in Guangzhou.  We’re still discovering new great places to eat around our apartment.  Just this week we found a place down the street that serves great noodles for less than a dollar.  One of the only complaints I have is that the temperature has not changed since we got here.  It’s still 90 degrees and humid most days so I’m missing fall weather at home. 

Clearly I’ve been busy because I’ve been neglecting my blog.  My teaching schedule changed many times at the start of term and I still get surprises in my schedule that are teaching me to just roll with everything.  One observation I have of the Chinese, at least the teachers at this school, is that they tend to be vague when explaining and answering questions.  One of the most important part of social Chinese culture involves “saving face,” a concept I’m still learning to understand.  The Chinese are extremely social and also very concerned with the greater good and putting the larger society before themselves.  Some evidence of this in everyday social interactions can be witnessed on public transportation.  Most people use the public buses and subways to travel around the city, thus there are all ages and types of people.  Young people ALWAYS give up their seats for elderly people, small children, and pregnant women or women carrying children. 

For the first few weeks I have been teaching 11 classes of 7^th and 8^th graders, observing three high school science classes, and teaching six classes of elementary school each week.  Half of my middle school classes are science and half are oral English.  I knew it would be challenging to teach science through the English language and it is.  In order to get into middle schools and high schools, Chinese students must take entrance exams.  These are the source of much pressure because they determine the quality of the school the students can attend, and thus determine their future success.  Only students with very high test scores may attend the campus where I live.  I teach some of my classes here and some classes at another campus where the students have scored lower on entrance exams.  I honestly have not noticed an extreme difference in the students of the two schools, but I also only see my students once a week and receive little written work or assessment.  Thus my experience teaching here is VERY different from any student teaching experience in America.  The added challenges and differences are no doubt beneficial, but make it difficult for me to plan lessons and assess to students’ knowledge.  I am beginning to adopt the attitude that regardless of how well my lessons are planned according to American or Ohio standards, my students will still enjoy them and learn from them.  My biggest challenge in the classroom is keeping the attention of 50 plus students and ensuring that they are all active and involved and practicing their English.  Some of the students have amazing English speaking ability, and others claim to have little to none.  I’m convinced some of those students are just nervous to speak to a native English speaker.  Once again, everything is about “saving face.”  No student wants to admit that they don’t understand something and risk losing face or being embarrassed in front of their peers.  Thus it is difficult to really know whether the students actually understand me, or just claim to understand me to save face. 

The teachers and other Chinese people I interact with sometimes use vagueness to save face.  At first I sometimes became frustrated when trying to communicate with our coordinator here because he speaks English fairly well, but I felt like he never realized or admitted that he didn’t understand something I said or made an effort to have me explain it better.  Thus sometimes I felt my questions were either ignored or answered very vaguely.   When communicating with your coordinator for living and teaching, this is frustrating.  But I have come to understand that this is really just him “saving face” and that this is an extremely important part of the culture that becomes embedded in all interactions.  It also causes everyone I speak with to be extremely nice and helpful.  I do not doubt that they are being genuine.  I’ve made several Chinese friends who are always so happy to see us.  I immediately get a big smile and a hug whenever I see them.  The girls are also big fans of linking arms when we walk down the street.  It’s so nice to feel so close to people who I just recently met.  The saving face niceness is also evident when taking part in social gatherings.  We have eaten at several nice dinners where we are served family style at a round table in a private room.  No one wants to sit down first or take food first.  No one wants to sit at the head of the table, which I learned is the seat opposite the door.  If someone serves more tea or food to themselves, they first serve everyone else around them.  Everyone constantly toasts each other, causing everyone at the table to stand up and cheers at least 15 times per meal.  Everyone we have eaten with always treats us as special guests. 

Last Thursday Livia and I started a game with the students on the soccer field during the evening dinner break.  It was pretty fun and we got a group of students who are going to play every week.  Two of them are Amy and Katherine from my 7^th grade English class.  A couple weeks ago in class they read short stories in pairs.  Amy and Katherine read “Sleeping Beauty” aloud together and at the end of the story, they hugged each other because it was “so romantic.”  Needless to say they are now some of my favorite students. 

Despite the difficulties classes have been going pretty well and I learn more each week.  The students are still excited to have me teach, even though my lessons are not always as exciting or fun as I wish they were.  I think the students have to endure boring lecture-style lessons too much, so I want to make mine as interactive and interesting as possible.  This past week I finally succeeded.  In English I taught a lesson on the Titanic.  When I asked what they knew about Titanic, they all said “You jump, I jump!” and several started singing “My Heart Will Go On.”  Celine Dion is apparently very popular here.  After I let them tell me about the movie Titanic, we learned about the real ship.  The students watched a video on the sinking and learned about what happened and why so many people died.  Then they listed as many jobs as they could think of and had to decide which five people they would save first in their lifeboat in small groups.  At the end we took a class poll and decided on a class lifeboat and they had a discussion on why they chose certain people.  It was educational for me and interesting for them.  More students were willing to speak and were less shy because they were enjoying the topic.  Most classes chose pregnant woman, child, sailor, doctor, farmer, cook, and inventor for their lifeboats.  The pregnant woman was chosen because “we can save two lives in one” and also because “children are the future of the country.”  The others were chosen based on how useful they were to the rest of the people.  The “best” jobs or jobs that make the most money were thrown out if they weren’t helpful.  Although one student did want to save the lawyer because they could get money from the crash.  They decided that I wasn’t helpful because I am a teacher, so I had to die to save someone else.  I acted really hurt and they all laughed.  They all agreed that women and children should be saved first and that the captain should go down with his ship.  

more to follow this week...