Footprints Recruiting

I got to China mid-September, I still remember the day, at first “foggy” as my airplane settled onto the ground, which later gave way to a bright, sunny morning. I was a little unsure if anyone was to going to meet me at the airport, but thank god there was. They took me to an apartment where two American foreign English teachers had been living for the past 10 days. And then I experience my first true “Chinese” experience – instead of calling them, or buzzing the apartment (they didn’t know the number) we had to call up to the 5th floor and hope one of the two Americans would hear us.

 After about 10 min (when I was thinking “what is going on…?!”) one of the guys came jogging up – he had been out for his morning run. We introduced ourselves (Mike was his name), and then the first thing he said to me was that his lungs were burning, it was too polluted to run in China and that was the last time he was going to try. I lugged my bags up the dusty stairs, with black stained white walls, to the 5th floor – no elevator – and decided I wished I had left more of the crap I brought with me at home. When I got to the top I met his roommate, Jason, and took a look about me. The apartment wasn’t too bad really (bu cuo they say in Chinese), wood laminate flooring, Japanese style sliding glass doors to the kitchen, white leather couch and loveseat with bright orange cushions, and pretty good lighting all around. The bathroom was complete with western toilet and bathtub – the only tub I’ve seen in China actually. One of the bedrooms was huge, with an area that looked like a small balcony that had been converted into useable space – windows on three sides. The other was smaller, just big enough for the bed, actually. It was then that I realized that I was to sleep on the couch for the next few days until the school decided where they wanted to place me.

My Chinese ride left us to our own devices, and the three of us decided it would be good to get into town so I could see the city. Jason wasn’t quite ready to leave, so we decided on a meeting place and Mike and I took off. A 10 min walk brought us to the bus stop and pretty soon we could make out the double decker 600 in the distance. We boarded the bus with a multitude of Chinese pushing and shoving, both to get off the bus and to be the first to get on in the hope of finding a seat. Luckily the bus wasn’t too over crowed and we found two seats on the upper level at the front, perfect to look out and see the city as we approached from their apartment half an hour north of downtown. Twenty min. later we passed the city walls and got off to walk the rest of the way. I got to see the bell tower in the center of town, pretty cool old Chinese architecture. Just to the west was the drum tower, which we passed under on out way to the Muslim quarter for lunch. At the restaurant I had my second “Chinese” experience. The waitress came over with a menu, though as neither of us could read Han-zi or speak much more than “Ni hao” we were at a bit of a loss. It was to be the first of many times feeling truly uncomfortable in China. With nothing else to do, we had to point to things on the menu and see what the result was to be when our food arrived. Finally it arrived, a bowl of steaming noodles, and plate of sinuous, fatty riblets – however little meat was on them at least it was flavored well – with two beers to top it all off. And that was my first experience eating Chinese food.

Since then my food experience have been getting better.

There are always different customs when it comes to food. For example, today we had the first real snowstorm here in Xian, called a da xue. So I get to school, and immediately they ask me how many jaozi I want. Huh? Oh, well that’s cool – I’d rather not have my ears freeze off, which is what would apparently happen if I didn’t eat any dumplings. I was getting a little worried that it might end up happening for a while later when our food arrived they had forgotten to bring mine. Luckily my friends at work didn’t want to see my ears freeze off, and each gave me a jaozi or two.

In fact, I really enjoy all of the people I work with at school. A few of the other foreign teachers have told me that their work environment is so hostile, but at our schooleverything is great.

Teaching has been one of the best, worst and hardest things I’ve ever done. Our school is an English school for children ages 3-12. Its pretty expensive (~4,000 RMB/year) compared to the average salaries of the Xian population (~25,000/year). Thus the school is only for the rich, and that combined with the one child policy makes for some pretty spoiled kids. And some of the parents are crazy – one student stomped on another girl’s feet, kicked a teacher in the butt and when he and his mom were confronted about it, the kid started crying and said he forgot he promised his mom he would be good that day. The mother told him everything was all right, she wasn’t mad, and gave him a piece of candy. “You have to be nice to him,” she said, “or else he gets mad.”

There have been great times when classes go well, and the kids love you, but at other times trying to get the attention of fifteen 3-4 year olds makes you want to curl up and die. I thought I was beginning to get the hang of communicating with the kids, and then got a new student who doesn’t pay attention and just wanders the classroom and now I’ve all but lost hope. I’ve been really enjoying my junior classes though, with kids age 7-9. One is able to interact with the older students a little more and play games that I find a little more interesting. Though it doesn’t happen so often, one of the best feelings I’ve ever had was to have the attention of 17 students and see that they’re really enjoying learning because I thought of a good way to teach them. I do take some issue with the content of the courses, but I think the method of teaching is good – play a lot of games, keep things high energy and fun. I just feel bad for the kids though. Another effect of the one child policy, and Chinese culture, is that each child must excel, and thus they not only have English lessons 4 hours a week, but also maybe piano, dance, calligraphy or something. 

So what else is interesting about China? Well, too much to list, but one thing that must be mentioned is the pollution. A friend of mine was teaching a class about colors, and asked what color the sky was. They answered him gray, white, brown – blue was the fourth answer. That statement says it all. At night, when I walk home from work I can see the street lights, and am always reminded of movies where it’s a dark and foggy night, for the very air is illuminated by lamplight. When walking around the city many times you can’t see two blocks in front of you for the pollution. Every afternoon as the sun begins to go down, even if it’s been a nice sunny day, I can stare directly at the sun, half hidden by the pollution. And in the winter it only gets worse. Coal seems to be the main method of heating, and smoke stacks can be seen belching dark coal smog throughout the city. Even the restaurants cook with coal, and walking around one can see huge guo (woks) perched atop barrels of coal fire, each one with a blower motor to whip up the flame. I asked one of the Chinese teachers at my school what type of health effect it had on the population here, and she answered that not too many people had respiratory problems. I’m not too sure I can believe that though. I saw one statistic that a quarter of the population will eventually have some type of respiratory disease, though I wonder how correct that statistic is, if many problems go undiagnosed.

We had a visit from the mother of one of the foreign teachers here, and over a nice plate of salad, spaghetti and garlic bread spoke in length about these and other cultural differences of China: the one child policy, the pollution and dirt of the city, the squat toilets and the need to keep face at all costs, even if it means the government cheating the people, yelling over who is going to pay for dinner, or spending all of your money on a cell phone when you can’t provide enough to heat your apartment or truly feed your family (a note: there are 375 million cell phone users in China, and they even work from the top of a mountain). And she asked us why we liked China and didn’t immediately return to the comfort of the States. Well, maybe that is one reason right there, to learn and grow by forcing yourself into uncomfortable situation.

But there is more to it than that. The other day I was feeling depressed and upset by the lack of heat at school and feeling that they were trying to screw me over, so took off for lunch a little early. I decided to head over to the local jaozi restaurant next to my house, and when I got there I was the only customer. The boss invited me over to have lunch with him and two of his friends. We dined on boiled peanuts, cold vegetables, jaozi and this cold meat cut into slices – tasted like corned beef. He asked me all types of questions, not that I could understand much, but we tried to communicate over the glass of bijou (white alcohol) he poured me – it was cold he told me and we had to drink bijou to keep warm. It turned out to be a great conversation trying to communicate between charades and the few Chinese words I’ve learned since getting here. After a while he looked over at me, pointed to the meat and woofed, woofed twice. Gou rou, or dog meat – now seriously, where else but in China (or Korea) do you eat dog.

The Chinese hospitality has to be among the best in the world. There has been a few times where I’ve had my meals paid for by an interested Chinese wanting to talk to me for a minute. It has been so interesting to meet the people here. I’ve begun dating one of the Chinese teachers at my school and she’s been giving me Chinese lessons so that I might be able to talk to some of the locals a bit better. Its must be one of the best experiences to study a few new words, and then go into the local store and be able to use them and actually half communicate.

I’ve learned so much from woda nupengyou (girlfriend) Alpha. She’s helped me through so much here and allowed me to experience so much of the real China culture, not just hanging out with other foreigners. But it’s too easy to hide behind her and thus I must learn to get out on my own and experience China on my own. It’s been a great time so far, and I believe it will continue in the same way. Take care all and let me know how it’s going in your respective parts of the world. And of course, Merry Christmas!!

Zaijian,
Man zou,

Andrew

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