Cultural exchange like whoa

Earlier this week, I taught my students how to FLOSS.

We were doing a lesson on daily routines. I talked about how it is quite common for Americans to brush their teeth in the middle of the day, after lunch. And that some Americans even floss after lunch. I asked the class if anyone brushed their teeth or flossed after lunch, knowing full well the answer would be No.

Then I asked the class if they ever flossed. They all shook their heads and said No. One student, Lisa, said, "Chinese people don't floss!" I asked her why that is. She said, "Nobody has ever taught us! So we don't know how to. I want to floss! But I can't because I don't know how."

So during the break, I got some floss and some mirrors, and I taught them how to floss. I don't think they enjoyed it. One of my students, Allan, started bleeding (I warned them that might happen the first time!) One of my students even explained that she didn't floss because she thought flossing created gaps between your teeth. I argued flossing doesn't create the gaps, flossing just removes the tartar so that you can actually see the gaps clearly.

Great teaching moment of the week

Earlier this week, I spent some time in class explaining the differences between "bored" and "boring," "excited" and "exciting," "embarrassed" and "embarrassing." For some reason, the students always get really confused about how to use the two adjectives. For example, the difference in meaning between saying "I am bored" and "I am boring."

I had just finished explaining embarrass. So I asked the class, "What are examples of some things that might make you feel embarrassed?"
Lisa, one of my favorite students, answers,

"Walking into the men's bathroom."

Good-bye cold weather! Hello less cold weather!

Okay, so I'm not exactly going into the warm weather I had originally (naively?) expected, but at least I'll be leaving Beijing's below-freezing temperatures for Hong Kong and southern China's chilly, but above-freezing temperatures.

It's winter vacation time for me in China! Oh, I am in major major need of this. We spent the last week of school hanging out with the students all day, not teaching classes. I decided to teach my students how to do the electric slide, the macarena, and some random cha-cha line dance. I also got a chance to go to lots of good-bye dinners with my students. Even though I'll see most of them in a few weeks for the spring semester, I am already missing them all. I really really love some of these students. And it makes me sad to think about leaving them for good.

Tomorrow morning I leave for my Chinese New Year adventure! My itinerary: Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, ZhuHai, ShunDe, Guangzhou, Guilin, and Yangshuo. Whew. I'm getting exhausted just thinking about it. Hopefully I'll make it to all these places, cuz I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants with the planning of this trip. And I'm backpacking, alone, to these different cities and meeting up with friends and family.

Go Team Wendy!

Feeling a lot better.

I am trying to take a very proactive approach to life right now. I am not just going to lay in bed and whine and feel sorry for myself (even though I really really want to do this).

So Monday was the day when I felt like I wanted to cry in class. And I was really dreading Wednesday, because that's when I would see my CSP Qinghua class again, and that's the class I have a really hard time with. But I decided that if I am going to dread it that much, then I better be trying my damned hardest to make it as pleasant as possible. So I decided to design a class period that was completely activity based with as little of me talking as possible. AND it worked beautifully. They were energetic, and I was able to direct all that lovely energy towards the activity. So I felt a lot better with myself. It'll take a lot more effort thinking of activities for the students, but I think the students appreciate it. And it will make me feel a lot more effective. So yes Wendy, in order to be a good teacher, you must work hard at it. Oh, I knew this all along.

And last night after work, I walked from the Qinghua campus to Silk Street market. I love cities. And I love walking in cities. And I love walking in cities at night when there are so many pretty lights. And it reminded me of all the things I love about Beijing. I think it was good for me to take myself out of my room for a night, and just explore the city.

So things aren't perfect, but things can be better as long as I make an effort to try. So that will be my plan. Upswing. upswing. upswing.

And my ish with people? It comes and goes. There are those moments I want to slap someone, but I just need to remember to breathe and breathe.

Whew. Patience, Wendy, patience. I hope I come back from China a better, more mature person.

My students

I want to take the time to write about my students and each of my classes. For most, if not all of you, this will be very boring. But I am going to write out every mundane detail anyways. This will be a chance for me to rant and just address and release any frustration I currently hold about teaching. For those of you who have not read my "I'm so depressed!" post on my other blog, long story short, I have been overcome with a wave of inexplicable, intense sadness and I don't know how to stop it. But I figure talking about every possible thing on my mind might help. Let's start with my students, the people I see every day, whether I want to or not.

Let's start by saying, I now feel quite strongly that I do not want to become a teacher. I don't know how many people who go to foreign countries to teach English have a real desire to teach; but before coming to China, I actually considered teaching as a possible career. But I also wanted to have the chance to travel before having to have a real job. So I figured that teaching English in China would give me the opportunity to 1) try out teaching without having to make a big commitment (ie. teach, but not have to teach a full 40 hour week), 2) escape the United States and travel, and 3) learn Chinese (though I don't know how successful I am being with this). But after having taught (at only 20 hours a week) here in China, I am extremely confident, that at this point in my life, I do not want to become a teacher when I return to Los Angeles. A number of reasons, which we will get into later.

Now about my students.

So I teach 5 different sets of students. That is quite a large number considering some teachers here teach only 3 sets of students.

Let's talk about my favorite set of students. They're my CSP1 section (CSP means that they're at the intermediate level of English).

Let's make a digression to explain the classification of students' abilities. My school divides the students into 3 levels. QP is the absolute beginner's level, meaning many of these students would not understand a single sentence spoken to them in English. I do not teach any QP classes. CSP is the intermediate level. Obviously there is a wide range of students in this level. Some of the students can communicate decently in English, and can understand most of what I say to them as long as I speak very slowly. However, there are some students who just string together words, that are obviously translated directly from Chinese. And finally, there are the GES students who are the most advanced in the school. These students can understand nearly everything I say, but again only when I speak slowly, and can respond fairly well in a complete sentence. All those letters actually stand for something, but it doesn't really matter since the abbreviations are only used in my school anyways.

Okay, back to my CSP1 students. I teach these students writing and a class called "World Cultures." I do not develop curricula for any of my classes. I am given text books and I pretty much just teach straight from the text book. I see my World Cultures class everyday, and so of course I am the most attached to them and favor these students over other students. In world cultures, I pretty much spend each week talking about a different region in the world and talking about geography, landforms, cash crops, etc. Imagine elementary school social science class. I love these students. They're super well-behaved. They respond to me when I ask them questions. I feel that they respect me, and I think that they like me. These are the students that I went to karaoke (or KTV as it's called here) with, and these are the students I went to dinner with (in the picture below). And I went shopping with some students in this class. I just really like these students, mainly because they listen to me, they do their work, and they like me, inside of class and out.

Now for my other CSP sections, I only see them twice a week. Writing class only meets twice a week. And quite frankly, I feel like I cannot be effective in it because 2 hours a week is simply not enough hours. And the book is kinda crappy, and the students are at such varied levels, I really don't know what to do to make sure that everyone gets the most out of it.

My CSP2 section is the class with the most trouble students. The overall English ability of this entire section is a lot lower than the ability of my CSP1 section (even though technically they are categorized as the same level, so should know the same material at the end of the year). This class has got the students that skip class a lot and students that fall asleep in class. Also, I'm pretty confident that about a quarter of the class doesn't understand the words coming out of my mouth when I teach. The only problem is, that those students make no effort to pay attention or attempt to understand (because they're either zoning out or dozing off). Even after I explain things and repeat things 2 times, students still don't know what I'm talking about. You're thinking, "Well maybe you're just an awful teacher Wendy!" But quite honestly, I am explaining simple things in the simplest way possible, it's just that some students don't listen. Like today in class, I explained what a topic sentence was to the class. Then I called on Leo to explain what a topic sentence was. He didn't know, cuz um, he was asleep. Then immediately after I explain to Leo and make him repeat a sentence, I call on another student named Penn to give the definition of a topic sentence. And he didn't know, cuz um, he was zoning out. And I just didn't know what the hell to do, because at this point I have explained it 5 times, and half the class knows what's going on, and I feel like an idiot for saying the same thing over and over when most of the people understand, but a handful don't. Do I stop class and hand-hold the ones who don't understand? Or do I just leave them to get further behind?

And the thing is, outside of class I freaking love these students. I've been to dinner with them; I've had lunch with them. I have conversations with them outside of class and I freaking love them. They're pleasant and lively and funny. But in class, I can't get them to be freaking awake. I don't understand. What I should do is give them more hands-on activities. But how do I take the time to do the activities and still make sure that I get through the textbook by the end of the year?

Now for CSP Qinghua, a class that I also see only twice a week.

Oh yeah, did you know that my school has two campuses in Beijing? That means that twice a week, when I go to teach my CSP Qinghua class, I have to commute for 40 minutes each way to teach for a one-hour long class.

I live at the ErWai college campus. And I teach 3 of my 5 sections at the ErWai campus, in an academic building that is literally right next to my dorm building. And I teach 2 of my 5 sections at the Qinghua campus, which is actually quite close to ErWai, but because of the heinous traffic, it takes nearly an hour each way.

The CSP Qinghua class is the class that I nearly cried in front of yesterday. Not because of any real reason. This class has got the largest ability gap of all my classes. There is one woman in the class who is pretty much fluent in English. She has lived in England for several years, and she is married to a British man, so yeah, she's pretty much fluent. I don't really understand why she's in the class, since she's worlds better than the other students. So a lot of the time, I feel a lot of pressure to teach her something, since I feel like she's not learning anything from me. But in the exact same section, there are students who are literally incoherent. I have one student (the one whom I had the infamous "did you write about day or night? yes. did you write about day? yes. did you write about night? yes." conversation with) who cannot form a single correct sentence in the class.

Why isn't she in a lower section you ask? Well I wonder the same thing. And to be honest, process in China is process in China and sometimes it doesn't make sense but you just have to go with it. I know this doesn't make much sense, but I'll write a post about this later. But the simple answer: No fucking clue.

Anyways, this class makes me so frustrated. Mainly because they are so fucking antsy. Writing is usually the last class of the day, and on days that they have writing class, they have to stay an hour later than usual; so yeah, no one wants to be there. And this class especially, expresses this sentiment in a physical way. I have students who are asleep. I have students who are shaking their legs the whole time, checking their watches, just itching to get out. I have students who whisper to each other in Chinese. I have students who are doing homework for other classes. And I just don't know what to do. I just feel completely powerless and disrespected. I just think to myself, "How can you disrespect me so much to fall asleep in my fucking face, while I am standing right next to your desk talking at you?" And yesterday it was just too much for me, and I wanted to cry, but I didn't. And the problem is, that again with this class, I love them after class, and before class, when we're just having conversations. But in class, I hate them and I want to rip their little heads off. And sometimes I do have my little power tripping lectures with them. And it's getting harder and harder for me to be pleasant with them outside of class when they fucking disrespect me in class. And I just don't know what to do. Part of me just wants to show up to class, and say, "you don't want to fucking be here? You're not going to listen to me? You're not going to pay attention? Why don't we all just fucking leave?! Because I do not want to be here any more than you do you little brats!" And these are full grown adults. And the problem is that as a student I have the same bad habits. I don't pay attention all the time. Sometimes I get really drowsy in class. Sometimes I do homework for other classes. And as a student I always thought, "It's not personal." But as a teacher, I am taking it fucking personal. It is so fucking personal. And maybe that's my problem, maybe I should just let it go. And keep talking even if no one is listening. But then I just feel like a damn useless ineffective teacher. And if I just give them games to do all the time, then I'll just feel like I'm not providing them enough hard knowledge. Fuck, life is complicated. AHHHH! When I think about this class, I just want to scream. I want to punish them and make them do 50 push-ups or something.

Next is my GES class. I teach them reading, idioms, and pronunciation. This class is fine. I don't feel much of a connection to this class since I started teaching them 6 weeks into the semester. Also because they're the highest level, I feel like they don't need me as much, so I feel like I'm not teaching them much. I think that they like me (I hate that it's so important that the students not only learn from me, but like me too). There are 3 students in the class who are obviously placed in a level that is way too hard for them. 1 student in particular is extremely socially awkward, performs the worst, and quite honestly might have some sort of disorder. This is also quite a difficult position for a teacher. I have some students who are very obviously depressed and obviously has shit going down outside of class (based on the things that they write in their assignments and their body language in class), but what is my role to do anything about it as a teacher? And these are the students who are performing poorly in class. And this will sound horrible, but sometimes it's not only knowing what the best thing to do for the student is, but caring enough to actually take the time to do it. And so far, I haven't done anything. And with the one socially awkward student in my class, she is obviously ostracized by the other students. Often when I tell students to work in groups, she is left out from the group so she works silently alone. At lunch, sometimes she sits in the classroom by herself. During the halloween party, she wore this completely bizarre costume and either danced by herself or sat alone in an empty area. And of course as a teacher I make an effort to talk to her, to spend time with her, to do work with her, but I am also human. And as awful as this sounds, I also hate having to put in all the effort and energy to deal with someone who is very very awkward and has a very very low ability for speaking English. So it's true, I want to focus on the good-looking students, on the students who perform the best in class, on the students who are outgoing and likable.

And lastly is my Sunday class. Yes people, I have to work on Sundays. This is what happens when you work for a private school for adults (with a president that really only cares about making as much money from Chinese people as possible). I work from 9a-12p every Sunday. Only 3 hours, but it still puts a damper on my weekend, since it pretty much means I can't go out on Saturday night since I have to wake up early on Sunday. Part of me is kinda grateful, cuz I always feel so productive when I wake up early and have the afternoon free; but still I hate it. This class is quite small (only 4-8 people each week) and each week seems to be a different set of students. I really don't think it's effective for them, but I guess any little bit helps. And I teach these students business. Hah. Again, I pretty much teach the textbook, and go through exercises so it's not that difficult. But I usually only prepare for the upcoming class the night before or the morning of the class, so it's definitely not my A game. Sometimes I'm bored by my own teaching, so now I've decided to just focus more on speaking activities. Though I hate the fact that I pretty much teach my students materialism (half of my activities involve them trying to sell a product).

All this drama and pent up frustration over just 20 hours a week. Gosh, you must seriously be wondering what the big deal is. But seriously, these classes are pretty much all I think about; that is when I'm not thinking about how annoying some of the other teachers are or about how much I miss my family and friends and college and L.A. or about how I'm an incompetent/unproductive ass who is wasting away. So yeah, you can imagine how all this can bring a person down.

esl learners say the darndest things

Correcting student homework is a giant pain in the ass, but what makes it less painful is when I come across a hilarious sentence that a student writes. Sometimes the hilarity happens accidentally (since the students don't fully grasp the connotations of certain words). Sometimes it's just outrageous since Chinese culture is definitely different than American culture, and what's considered "appropriate" is just completely different.

For example, one of my students Joe, wrote in his homework... (the assignment was to practice using "because" correctly)..."I want to find a wife because I'm very lazy." HAH! Well, at least he's upfront about it? WOW is all I can say.

And on a less slap-in-the-face patriarchal note, another student for a similar assignment, practicing using "because" (The students were supposed to pretend they were teachers and write a letter to the government requesting more money) randomly signed his letter "Jack Sparrow." I laughed outloud at this one.

There are a bunch more, but I didn't take the time to write them down (since I'm usually scrambling at the last minute to finish it all in time).

the joys of teaching

Sometimes teaching is just one big power trip. One of my faults is that I definitely do not check my moods at the door. If I am in a bad mood, I teach in a bad mood and take it out on my students. I get impatient and at times spiteful. It is absolutely horrible. Earlier today, I think one of my students was talking on her cell phone. (I'm not really sure if she was, but she had the phone to her head. And I was not happy with it). It took me 15 minutes to realize that she didn't even have the workbook that we were reading from. I seriously considered stopping the lesson, embarrassing her in front of the class, and kicking her out. But instead I just decided to give her a workbook silently. It might have worked to embarrass her anyways since everyone in class noticed. And for the rest of the period I stood at the back of the classroom, which was an interesting experience.

I have horrible chalkboard handwriting. Apparently people take classes to learn how to use a chalkboard effectively. I think I need to take that class. I write so slowly, and my handwriting is so messy; it's embarrassing.

In other happy news, I am getting a cold sore on my upper lip. It is not pretty. So not not pretty. Luckily, I have some cream that I brought with me from the States, so it's preventing it from breaking out in a giant bloody open sore. But that's not to say it won't eventually happen. How embarrassing, especially in a profession where people are looking at my mouth all freaking day. Perfect timing though, I get a horrible sore throat (to the point where I have to suck on cough drops during class in front of students) and then I get a cold sore. It's funny how the immune system works.

One more thing to add to the list of reasons why I hate having a job: Still having to work while you're sick.

Gosh, what a downer post. I swear I'll give a cheery-er post next time, with pictures!

Hodge Podge

which could potentially be really awful depending on who actually reads my blog.

Just random recap of my weeks here since the last post.

Today, I saw a couple having an argument in the middle of campus. The woman was in tears and loudly groaning and occasionally slapping her partner. And of course the first thought in my head was, "Just break up! Just break up! Break up!" Then I realized how insensitive I was being. They're probably in the process of breaking up, and I remember how hard something like that is, so then I mentally chided myself. And the second thing I thought about was why they would be having such a private conversation in such a seemingly public place. Then I remembered that maybe a public courtyard is more private than doing it in your dorm room, since nearly everyone lives in a dorm room with at least 5 other people. That's right people. 6 people to a room! 3 sets of bunk beds, and that's pretty much it. I don't know how they do it. And every day I feel that lucky to have my own bedroom and bathroom.

It happened, for the second time. I started laughing in the middle of teaching. Today it happened in reading class, when I got really excited about telling the students about Left Eye (from TLC) and her fire incident. The article we were reading was about why some people start fires on purpose. The first time I cracked up in class was a few weeks ago when I was teaching my writing class at the Tsinghua campus. Now you have to keep in mind, I teach writing to three sets of students. Usually, the students are done with classes at 3:20 pm. But once a week (for a set of students, twice a week), they have to stay an hour later, and take my class. So you can imagine how antsy they are in my class. During this one period in particular, the kids were all over the place, would not listen, just stared off, whispered to each other, and it was just too ridiculous. I think sometimes students don't realize the view teachers have of the classroom. I'm standing at the front of the class! I see you sleeping/staring/talking! And they act soooo surprised when I call on them when I know they're not paying attention. At one point the whole situation was too funny, I was just in complete disbelief and had to just start laughing in class. I don't think anyone else knew why. I tried to hide behind my book, but it was just too strong.

I've got this horrible sore throat. I'm not sick just yet, but I'm sure it's coming. I've been screaming a lot. Not yelling at the students. Just projecting like crazy. Reasons. 1. The acoustics in some of the classrooms are horrible. Just echo like mad. 2. Sometimes I get really annoyed at the students not paying attention, so for some stupid reason I just think, well if I talk louder then they won't be able to sleep! 3. Talking louder helps my pronunciation, at least I think it does. It's a lot easier to do the clear-talking, patronizing, enunciation when you're half-way screaming. I can't help myself. I don't think the students notice though. I think they just think I'm trying to be really clear. (I have gotten compliments on my pronunciation. GO California accent! P.S. I'm the only teacher here from California).

Sometimes I think I'm an awful teacher. I have reached that level of impatience where I've resorted to singling out and embarrassing the students who don't listen. Common technique. I'm at the front of the class talking. Student A is obviously not paying attention. Student A is outrightly talking to another student while I'm talking. Whoa, major disrespect. What makes me more evil is that while this is happening I'm thinking, "Student A, what the hell do you think you're doing talking while I'm talking. Of all the damn people in the class, you of all people should be paying attention," while I mock their inability to speak English properly in my head.

Then I call on the student. I ask, "Student A, question question question." Silence. Again, "Student A, question question question." Still silence. "Student A, question question question." (If you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of repeating myself 15 times). Then I step up the assholish-ness to a brand new level. "Student A, do you know the answer?" Silence. "No?" Silence, occasional shaking of the head. "Why don't you know the answer?" "You don't know the answer because you were talking, while I was talking. (Imagine lots and lots of pausing and nodding while I'm saying this) Why are you at this school? Why are you learning English? If you actually want to learn English, then you need to pay attention in class, RIGHT? You can speak Chinese anytime you want after class, but when you are in class, you need to speak in English, OKAY?" Then I continue on with my patronizing slow teacher-speak for the rest of class. And I feel so awful that I have to just look at the rest of the class and only look back at Student A occasionally. And at the end of class, I feel absolutely exhausted and drained and like a big fat meanie, which I am. And that is why I deserve to have a sore throat right now. But seriously? You'd be surprised how many students fall right back asleep/go right back to not paying attention right after I called them out on their shit.

Oh Wendy and your procrastinating, slow to change ways. I finally cleaned up the pile of laundry that has been sitting on my floor for the past 2 weeks. ie. I re-hung all my dirty clothes because I'm too lazy to actually do laundry. I think few people would guess this about me, but I'm actually really disgusting. For the past 2-3 weeks, I had been wearing worn dirty socks, every day, because I didn't want to do laundry (in my defense, laundry is a major pain here in China, since there are no dryers. And the washing machines here really suck and everything comes out with lint all over it). But yeah, I still need to sweep up all the dust and hair that has accumulated over the past few weeks. This morning a woman knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted a cleaning service (since our dorm building doubles as a hotel, and I think I'm living in one of the designated "hotel" rooms, so she probably got mixed up that morning), but I said no because I was too embarrassed about my room (and cuz I was in a rush).

I'm thinking about getting into astrology. Completely out of character I know. But something about this non-sense kinda intrigues me. I'm a cancer. Cancers are apparently really emotional, sensitive, clingy, social and reserved, full of contradictions, procrastinators. I would say all those are true about me except for the clingy part. But then again, I know that this zodiac stuff is written to fit practically everyone, and people always only pick out the points that are accurate to focus on. But yeah, still fun.

I've kinda sorta been drinking a lot of Long Island Iced Teas. That's not really healthy. Granted it's a step up from my previous drink of choice (vodka redbull), but yeah, that's not saying much as far as my class/taste level.

Oh yeah, I got a massage two weeks ago, and it pretty much felt like someone beat up my back. It was awesome. And I was majorly sore afterwards.

And I went shopping with some of my students this past weekend. It was fun, but exhausting. We went at 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday! By choice (of course not mine, but still.. their choice!).

Also, today I discovered this awesome chicken lettuce sandwich type thing here. A sandwich!? The thing I've been craving. It's kinda a cross between a pita and a burger sandwich. They slice fatty roast chicken off a skewer, mix it up with lettuce and onions and douse it in sauce. They stuff it into a round pita bun. And we eat directly from the plastic bag. Golden.

Hey everyone! I got a new niece! I am now the aunt to 2 nephews and 2 nieces! And for anyone that missed the memo, I'm going to Mexico in May of 2008. Puerto Vallarta and maybe (probably) L.A.

Balance.

Overall, I would say that my students do not have discipline problems.

Right now I am teaching 3 different sets of students. Even though all 3 sections are registered at the same level of English ability in the school, it is very very clear that they are not at the same level (even within a single class, some students have no idea what I'm saying, while other students understand everything). That makes teaching very challenging. Do I spend my time giving individual attention to the students who are obviously struggling, while making the other students sit and wait until I'm done? Do I just keep trucking along because I don't want the students who are doing well to be "held back"?

What I've learned in college is that to solve this problem, students should be learning from each other, not just from me. So I should give them group work, have each student specialize in one thing, and have them teach each other. That way each student is doing independent work, each student can master a specific area, and everyone is learning. Now in practice, that is so hard to implement. Especially if a student can barely write or comprehend a simple sentence.

I brought up the discipline issue because (surprise, surprise) in the class with the lowest English comprehension level, the students are having the most difficulty focusing. In those classes, I have students who like to make jokes with the teacher, ie. talk back to me in a joking manner, make smart aleck-y comments, or make other comments to distract the class. And without fail, those students are the ones who have the most trouble understanding English.

Now what to do? I know this sounds awful. But many times, what I end up doing is just being really mean to the student who talks back (read: the student who is struggling the most) and ignore that student (usually a man). And then I'll pay extra attention to the students who understand me and do all their assignments (usually the women). This makes perfect sense (to me) on a classroom management level, ignore the student who is making a commotion and that student won't make a commotion anymore since ze isn't getting any attention from the teacher.

But in terms of helping students academically, it doesn't make any sense at all... I'm ignoring the student who needs the most help (who is acting out because ze doesn't understand the material) and focusing on the students who are already doing fine? I mean, it's the easiest route for me.

I really need to challenge myself constantly. I can't help but favor the students who do well in class. I favor the students who volunteer to speak in class. I favor the students who are the most fluent in English (and thus feel comfortable enough to volunteer in class). And to be completely honest, I favor the students who are better looking, who smile the most, who carry themselves with confidence, who initiate conversations with me.

Today in class there was a student who was obviously in tears. Maybe not directly my fault (since I wasn't yelling at her or picking on her), but I'm sure indirectly my fault since she was probably crying because she didn't understand what I was saying. She never volunteers in class. She never asks questions. Half the time she's not looking at me since she's looking into her electronic dictionary. Her homework assignments are incomprehensible. She obviously has no clue what's going on in class or with assignments. And I've known this. But I didn't make an effort to do anything. She had to literally cry, for me to notice, for me to actually do something. That, I would say, is not being a good teacher Wendy.

Teaching English is exhausting.

Hell, speaking English to people who don't understand English is exhausting.

I find it especially frustrating when students refuse to admit that they don't understand something. I know that there are cultural differences, and I know that they just want to appease me, but you never can tell what is right/wrong if the answer to every question is always yes.

Take this as a typical example. This happened today during the bus ride home with one of my students. Background story: I assigned my students to write a paragraph about either "morning" or "night." One paragraph, about one or the other, not both (sorry, my teacher-speak kicking in). And keep in mind that when I'm speaking to the student, I'm using full-on teacher-speak, slow, enunciated, and patronizing to anyone who actually understands English.

So the student asks me, "Teacher, homework, what do?"

"Rewrite the paragraph about either morning or night."
(Student looks confused.)

"Remember the paragraph you wrote about either morning or night?"
"Yes."

"Which did you write about? Morning or night?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the morning or the night?"
"Yes." (nodding enthusiastically)

"Which one did you write about?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the morning?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the night?"
"Yes."

"Did you write about the morning or the night?"
"Yes." (smiling a lot)

"Which one did you write about?"
"Yes."

"Today, you brought your paragraph to class (She nodded along "Yes") and you let your partner read it. What was that paragraph about?"
"Yes."

"What was that paragraph about? What did you write about?"
"Morning. Morning."

"So you wrote about the morning?"
"Yes."

And then I proceeded to explain what she was supposed to do for homework. Afterwards, I asked her about 5 times if she understood, and of course the answer was Yes every time.

Sometimes I'll ask the student to explain what I just said, to see if they really do understand, and a lot of times, the student will just smile and say, "Sorry."

I didn't ask this student this time. I was already too exhausted from the conversation.

Patience. Teaching is a test of one's patience, for sure.

Most everything in China is disorganized.

Seriously.

Talk about cultural differences. First of all, you can rarely get a straight answer out of anyone, for anything. I attribute this to the major differences in communication style.

I like to know everything. I like to have everything in order, and I like to communicate what I know so that everyone else will know what's going on too. And it's not that people in China don't have everything in order, it's just that they don't communicate it in a way I can understand. In China, a lot of things are assumed, so things aren't necessarily said outloud. But that's not helpful for me. And it's very frustrating, because it just means that I have no idea what's going on most of the time.

Sometimes I don't even know when I need to do something until just a few hours before I need to do it, and sometimes even only a few minutes before. I know it's not because the staff at my school want to sabotage me, it's just the way things are done. But it doesn't make things any easier for me. I've just become the obnoxious American who asks the same question over and over again (mainly because I can never figure out what the real answer is).

I have so much sympathy for the office staff at my school. The office staff is nearly all women, and most of the time they have absolutely no clue what is going on. The president of my school is such a deceitful asshole liar. He's a misogynist, and he has no respect for anyone but himself and the other men at the school. I don't think he ever does any work, and whenever we ask him anything, he just lies and gives us the run-around, telling us to ask the office staff. But when we ask the office staff, they never know what's going on either since no one tells them anything. And they do everything in English! It's crazy. I certainly wouldn't be able to run an office using only Chinese.

So today I showed up 10 minutes late to my writing class. It was soo embarrassing. I got sick last night, and so I didn't correct any student homework, I drugged myself with NyQuil and went to bed early. I woke up this morning, taught for an hour, ate lunch, and went back to sleep. After lunch, I passed out again, until about 3:15pm, then I woke up, corrected student homework and ran to the classroom. I showed up to my Section 2 writing class. The students in the classroom said, "Teacher, we don't have class today. You teach us tomorrow." They showed me their schedules, and they were absolutely right. I must be out of my mind (Sadly, this wasn't the first time this week that I got the sections mixed up). So I ran to the office to check my schedule, and Mandy, one of the office staff, says, "Wendy, your students are looking for you. You're teaching section 1 writing today." So I go to the classroom (it's 3:38pm, and class starts at 3:40pm so I'm thinking, "Whew.. I'm just in time."), and the students are going crazy. When I walk in the classroom they say, "Wendy's late! Wendy's late! You have to sing a song! Sing a song!" Obviously I'm not going to sing. So I ask the class, "What time does class start?" I look at their schedules, and all of them say 3:30pm. But MY schedule says 3:40pm. What the heck!? See! Serious disorganization if the teacher doesn't even know what's going on. I take full responsibility for showing up to the wrong section, but for typing the wrong start time for classes on my schedule? Not cool.

But yeah, this level of disorganization, I don't think it's only my school. I think it's China. It's just major cultural differences in how things are run (and it's not even an issue of a language barrier. I'm pretty sure that even if I were completely fluent in Chinese, I'd still be confused all the time, just cuz I'm not used to the process of how things are done around here). And honestly, I don't think I'll ever get used to it. So for anyone who is considering working in China, prepare yourself for major confusion, like all the time.

Cute Student Stories

One of my students is absolutely in love with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Absolutely in love! Almost every time I've seen him, he's asked me about Arnold. Earlier this week, he stopped me, all serious, and said, "Wendy, few weeks ago, I send email to Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he not write me back. What can I do?" I was just like, ".......uhhhh, he's probably very busy." The student replied, "I know I know. Many people love Arnold." Then he said he wishes Arnold could be the Governor of California forever. And yesterday in his homework assignment, he wrote, "I love Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though he is the Mr. Governor of California." Too precious.

Today while taking the school van home from the QingHua campus to the ErWai campus (where I live), I started speaking Chinese to one of the staff people. Then, as I was struggling to make myself coherent, all the students in the backseat decided to close their windows so that they could hear me speak. Ack! Stage fright for realz.

And it's settled. I'm going on a tour to Inner Mongolia for the National Holiday during the first week of October. Living in a yurt, riding some camels, definitely looking forward to it.

Special Moments of the Day

Living in Beijing, often I have those moments where I just think, "Only in China would this happen."

This afternoon I was walking back from my classroom to my dorm room (walking literally to the building next door). As I'm crossing the little road, this burgundy car sees me trying to cross the road and literally accelerates toward me, with a look of disbelief (like, "How dare she cross the road in front of my car?!"). I had to run out of the way, because otherwise he would have hit me.

The traffic here is pretty horrendous. And the driving is even worse. The other night, during a ride home, the taxi driver was swerving so much, accelerating into red lights, and stopping so suddenly, I actually wondered if he was drunk.

Those moments sometimes make me aggravated that China isn't like home.

But while walking to the cafeteria for dinner tonight, I saw an older woman walking around in circles backward (!) around the tennis courts. It was the most bizarre, hilarious, awesome thing ever. And it reminded me why I love China.

Today in my writing class, a 10 minute writing warm-up exercise turned into a 40 minute writing exercise (and our class periods are only 50 minutes long!). One of my classes is known for its problem students because the students either don't show up, show up and act snotty, or just have no idea what is going on. (I'm glad I only have to deal with them twice a week.) So today, about a third of the class just didn't show up (the clique of snotty people all ditched).

So I was left with a group of 4 women that understood most of what I said, and a group of 3 men that have absolutely no idea what I'm saying about 95% of the time. Their level is so low that sometimes they don't understand what I'm saying when I'm asking them if they understand! It took so much personal attention just to get them to write 2 sentences. And then I wondered if it was a mistake for me to tell them that I understand Chinese, because then they just started speaking only in Chinese to me. Ahh teaching. Definitely a lesson in patience and time management.

Also today I learned that I had been misidentifying mapo tofu my entire life! So at home, my mom makes this dish that is diced soft tofu cubes cooked with bits of pork and salted soy bean. I love the stuff and served over rice, it's the ultimate comfort food. I had always thought that dish was called mapo tofu and so I wondered why whenever I ordered it in Beijing, the dish that came was a completely different flavor (one of the differences being that actual mapo tofu is ridiculously spicy). Today in the dining hall, since I made friends with the workers at one stall, I had her recommend me a tofu dish. She recommended liusi tofu, which is the dish that my mom cooks at home!! AND it came with some veggies. Mmm... yay for more comfort food here in China.

But I still crave pizza and french fries like every day.

We have the National Holiday off (the first week of October) and I was originally intending to go to XinJiang province with some other teachers, but the plane tickets are so expensive I can't afford to go anymore. So now I need to think of another place to visit. I also wanted to go visit Monica in Tokyo, but tickets there are even more out of my league. :-(

Also, one of the staff people, Joe, gave us a giant box of moon cakes for the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival! I love moon cakes! Now I need to go buy some tea to go with my moon cakes.

Look out for pictures soon!

Day 1 of China Blog, Day 22 of Living in China

After lots of searching on the internet for the perfect blog hosting site (that isn't censored by the Chinese government) and lots of failed attempts at formatting a template on a different blogsite with very unreliable internet, I've returned to blogger for my China travel blog. The ironic thing is that I can access my blog settings on blogger, but I can't actually view my blog since that part of the website is blocked. Luckily, I found a proxy site I can use to view my actual page.

Now onto the update part of the post!

Today is my 22nd day of living in China (though quite honestly, it feels like a lot longer).

I first arrived in China on Sunday August 26. I flew into Shanghai and spent a week living in a hotel at Shanghai JiaoTong University. It was a week-long orientation with CIEE (the program I used to get connected with a Chinese school). We spent the week sight-seeing around the city, listening to guest speakers talk about cultural differences living and working in China, receiving training about teaching English as a foreign language, and preparing lessons for the upcoming school year. I got to go to the 88th floor of the JinMao Tower (the tallest building in China), take a night cruise on the HuangPu River with a gorgeous view of the skyscrapers along Pudong and the Bund, visit the Shanghai Museum, wander around People's Square, and visit the Yuan Garden in the Old Quarters. One of the Chinese student helpers I met was named Apple (just like Gwenyth Paltrow's baby!). She told me that her friends gave her that name because when she was younger, she was chubby. While in Shanghai, I also got a chance to hang out with my good friend Amy, whom I met while I studied abroad in Beijing. She took me out to all the cool nightspots in Shanghai.

On Saturday September 1, I flew to Beijing with two other teachers. We arrived in Beijing and got whisked away by Joe, a representative from the school (It was the fastest airport pick-up I've ever experienced. It took less than a minute, literally). Next we arrived at Beijing International Studies University, which is technically in the ChaoYang District of Beijing, but is all the way out on the East 5th Ring Road (which pretty much means we're living out in the suburbs, and it takes us nearly an hour to get to the city center, since there's traffic all the time). All the teachers are living in the foreign exchange students dorm, but at least we get our own rooms and I have my own bathroom and kitchen.

I'm teaching for the Beijing World Exchange College of Language (WECL) which is a private school housed on the Beijing International Studies University (aka. Er Wai) and the Qinghua University continuation school campuses. So WECL is pretty much a 2 year English language intensive school for adults. Many of the students are college-aged students who take an extra 2 years to study English in order to pass a test to study in the U.S., or older adults who took time off work to improve their English, or adults who just take night/weekend classes while working. Since it's a private school, the classes are pretty small, only about 20 students each.

I started teaching last Tuesday, and I've got to say, teaching is really exhausting. So far I've only been teaching 10 hours a week and I've been stressing already. My full teaching load is still only 20 hours a week (I'll be teaching college exchange students from Inner Mongolia), but those students don't arrive until October. I have one class that I really love. But it's really frustrating when some students just have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about in class. Our school has an English immersion policy (which means I'm not supposed to speak Chinese in class), so it's really difficult for me to see the students struggle and not be able to just translate for them. I've noticed that outside of class it's hard for me to kick the "teacher-speak," ie. talking really slowly and loudly, enunciating everything, and using hand motions to act out what I'm saying.

Our school has provided us with text to teach (so at least I don't have to create an entire curriculum on my own), but in terms of how to deliver the material, it's completely up to each teacher. So I've been trying to incorporate fun activities, while working through the books as efficiently as possible. It's also really hard correcting the students written grammar and pronunciation. All the students are so eager to learn, but sometimes I just feel so bad correcting them (for fear of hurting their self-esteems) and then I just wonder where to begin (since their levels are so elementary).

After teaching for just a week, it's already gotten easier. I just wonder if it will ever get less tiring. I am planning to volunteer for an organization in the city, but I'm going to wait a few weeks, until my schedule gets settled. And I also need to buckle down and seriously start studying Chinese. I speak English so much (in class and with the other teachers) that my Chinese isn't just going to improve on its own.

Also, everywhere I go, I've been making an effort to talk to workers. I found out that the salespeople at Silk Street market work 12 hour days every day of the year and get only TWO DAYS off each year. A lot of them are from AnHui province and from other areas that aren't as wealthy as Beijing. Also, a woman that works in the dining hall on campus works more than 12 hours a day, every day. I need to start talking to the taxi cab drivers, because apparently they are overworked and underpaid as well. I just need to work up the courage, since most of the time I can't understand their accents.

I will update later on the drama that has been going on with my school and the other juicy stuff. This is just a start.

Now for some pictures!


Here I am at the Yuan Gardens in the Old Quarters in Shanghai (The "Old Quarters" is pretty much a big shopping center that is designed to look all "ancient," when in fact there is a Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and Haagen Daz in the complex. And there's a really famous xiaolong bao restaurant too, which is always crowded.)


My most favorite dish to eat here in China. Lamb kabobs with spices from XinJiang. These meat skewers are the reason I started eating meat again here in China (though when I get back to the States, it'll be back to pescetarianism for me). This pic was taken at a Uyghur restaurant in Shanghai, with dance performances and everything!


This is the gorgeous Shanghai skyline. I took this picture during our night cruise on the HuangPu River. Our ship was super fancy. It was a clear, crisp evening, perfect for sitting out on deck.


The building on the left is the JinMao Tower in Shanghai (China's tallest building). On the right, they are building China's next tallest building. When we went to the 88th floor of the JinMao Tower (the observation deck), we could see all the construction workers on the top level of the building next door.


While Michele and I were wandering around Shanghai's People's Square, we came across a Madame Toussaud's wax museum. Of course we had to take a picture with Yao Ming in the lobby. He has a bouquet of roses because apparently he just got married (to a woman who's probably the same size as me).

Outside the Forbidden City in Beijing. Mao is looking as spiffy as ever.


There is construction everywhere in Beijing (and now it's in overdrive for the Olympics). This is in WangFuJing. There used to be a big building at this site, and now it's all gone. I bet they're building another shopping center in its place. The construction workers in Beijing are typically migrant workers from poorer, rural areas; and they usually sleep and eat at the construction site. What a life.


This is the Bank of China across the street from the Silk Market. I was here for three hours, waiting to cash just $100 USD in traveler's checks (if I had known it would take this long, I would've brought more checks with me). So not worth it. Sometimes things in China are so inefficient, it's completely mindblowing. There were only 2 tellers serving the 60+ people waiting. Why didn't I just go to a different bank with fewer people? Well, you can only cash traveler's checks at Bank of China branches. Greeeat.


A night out with the other teachers at a tapas place called Bed. Tapas! in China! Amazing! Their mojitos were absolutely delicious.


The teaching gang at the famous Beijing Duck restaurant, QuanJuDe, on WangFuJing Street.


I promise to update soon with more details and more pictures!