ChinaTeacher

Yesterday I returned from doing a performance at a Primary School here in Hangzhou, and it got me to thinking about all the things I have accomplished this year.  Last week my university’s Foreign Affairs Director had asked me to join her daughter’s class at school to ‘liven up the activities’.  I said “sure”, but after several repeated efforts for more detail (I wanted to know whether I needed to prepare anything in case they ask me to ‘teach’ – believe me, it’s happened before!), I discovered that now I am expected to perform for 10-20 minutes in their performance hall, to an audience of over 300 children aged 6-16 years of age!  We’re talking Beginner English to Advanced level English!  Oh, and they would like me to “talk about Christmas and the Olympics”. Right… with this audience – how? 

Well, having lived in China for 3.5  years, I have learned to ‘over-prepare’ and then ‘be prepared for disappointment’.  Sure enough, upon my arrival, I was ‘whisked back-stage’ and then told to keep my performance to 10 minutes or less.  So there I am, crossing out half my speech in order to meet the new target.  2 minutes later, I’m in front of the lights, microphone in hand, yelling NI HAO to the children!  I’m a university teacher, how the hell did I wind up doing this gig?!

So here we are, at the end of another year, 2007.  Looking back, I think I’ve had a pretty good year.  I’ve traveled a lot and learned a great deal.

TRAVEL

In January/February I spent 2 weeks in LAOS on my own, and traveled through VIETNAM for 4 weeks with Intrepid Travel.  Come April I was invited by my old business students to ZHOUSHAN Island for a couple of days.  The ancient river town of WUZHEN was next on my itinerary, with a former student of mine.  In August I invited another former student to join me on a 5-day trip to XIAMEN and the picturesque, vehicle-free island of GULANGYU.  During our week-long October holiday I ventured west to CHENGDU, LESHAN and EMEI SHAN.  Oh, and there was last week’s day-trip to XINCHANG.  Add in a couple of daytrips to SHANGHAI, and I think it was a pretty good year for travel, both domestic and international.

WORK

I signed on for a second year at my university where I have developed an excellent reputation, so much so that 8 different Chinese English teachers observed my classes this semester.  Not bad for someone with only 3.5 years’ teaching experience!  To financially support my ‘travel habit’, I taught part-time this semester at a real estate development company.  I have also enhanced my work portfolio with ‘voicework’ experience.  One of the top-tier universities in Hangzhou has requested my services on several occasions to record English dialogues and articles for their English Majors students.   This work has made me realize how important it is to take care of my throat and voice (now I think I have some idea of what those professionals singers must go through!).

FRIENDS

Well, as I have said before, university schedules are quite lax, so one has tons of free time.  Unfortunately, I feel I have spent far too much time alone this year.  I know, you’re wondering how that could be, right?! Well, my free time rarely coincides with those I wish to spend time with. But, nevertheless I have made some good friends, both foreign and Chinese, as well as some new ones.  In fact, one of my new friends is a business woman from North Carolina – she comes to Hangzhou every 6-8 weeks, so we try out different restaurants whenever she’s in town.  It’s a nice change to be able to chat with someone who doesn’t actually live in China.  She can also update me on what’s happening in the world outside China.  I also became friends with a Shanghai businessman while waiting in line at a supermarket.  It’s really very easy for us ‘foreigners’ to make friends with the local people here – everyone wants to have a friend from the west!  I’m finally ‘breaking the ice’ with many of my school’s Chinese English teachers too.  I have been told that most are afraid to show their true ‘lack’ of English, which is one reason for their not forming friendships with us foreign teachers.  I think that’s so sad, so I am doing my best to slowly break down their defenses, and it seems to be working! 

An interesting thing happened last night in fact.  I dropped by our student cafeteria to drop off two cakes given to me as thank-you gifts for this afternoon’s performance.  I certainly didn’t want to eat them all by myself, so I encouraged the students there to ‘dive in’ and enjoy!  Well, a Chinese English teacher came up and introduced herself – I have never seen her before.  She is a new teacher at the university this year and expressed her interest in making friends with me – done!  Turns out that because she is new, she is also having trouble ‘fitting in’ with the other Chinese English teachers.  So, I’m realizing it’s not a cultural matter after all, it’s simply about breaking into the various cliques, which of course we have the same problem back home.

Maybe one of my New Year Resolutions for 2008 can be to develop one or two deeper relationships with the people I meet here in China!  Let’s see what the future holds!

The Foreign Teachers at my university were invited on an outing to Xinchang, located in eastern Zhejiang Province, about 3 hrs. from Hangzhou. Xinchang has beautiful scenery and numerous historical sites, including three provincial scenic areas — the Dafo Temple, Chuanyan 19 Peaks, and Wozhou Lake. It is considered the center of the ‘Tang poetry road’ and ‘Buddhist pilgrimages’. Tianlao (Skyland) Mountain and Dafo Temple are famous, as the great Tang poet Li Bai wrote in a poem entitled “Mount Skyland Ascended in a Dream — A Song of Farewell”,

“Mount Skyland threatens heaven, massed against the sky,
Surpassing the Five Peaks and dwarfing Mount Red Town.
Mount Heaven Terrace, five thousand feet high,
Nearing the southeast, appears to crumble down.”

The Great Buddha in the Xinchang Dafo Temple is the earliest example of grotto art in southern China, having a history of 1,400 years.  Okay, I guess I did plagiarize most of the above text, but you’ll get my meaning after you see the photos – click on the Photos Link to the right of your screen.

We took off at 7:30am that morning on a nice big air-conditioned/heated bus – large enough for everyone to have their own double-seat to stretch out in comfort!  The Dafo Temple site is  much larger than I expected and consists of several temples, ponds and lakes and very attractive scenic spots.

Lunch was reserved for us at an extremely expensive restaurant, with crab as its feature.  My own large crab was put up for grabs, since I don’t like it.  I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the food – strangely enough, lunch consisted of many meat/fish dishes but only a few vegetables, this I really missed.

The Chuanyan 19 Peaks was really quite outstanding in its beauty.  We trekked along a river-side path bordered with Bamboo forest (gorgeous!).  Majestic rock cliffs cloaked in mist soared high above us. Best of all was the silence, only the sound of our voices as we rarely saw other tourists or even locals!  The Xinchang area is not on the well-trodden tourist trail, that’s for sure!  I recommend it highly!

I headed back along the trail well before the others (sore knees), and ran into two young Chinese men.  One teaches English and the other is a science teacher.  Their English is pretty good (contrary to their own opinions), so we had a great chat on the way back.  They live in Wenzhou (about 5 hrs. away) and had traveled to Xinchang to enjoy the sights, just like us.  My new friend was determined not to waste this opportunity – He asked me for advice on how to make his own classes more interesting.  Unfortunately, as he must follow a very strict curriculum to ensure the students pass their exams, I cannot tell him to run his classes like my own highly ‘active’ ones.  But, I was able to suggest some 5-minute warm-up activities and gave him some ideas about how to liven up some of the ‘drier’ exercises his students have to complete.  I wish him well.

Back at university, we enjoyed our second huge meal of the day, this time in our university’s hotel restaurant.  Dish after dish emerged from the kitchen – I thought they would never stop!  And then the yellow wine began to flow.  This is deadly stuff, but when the School President wants you to drink, you drink!  There must be caffeine in that wine because it took me a long while to get to sleep that night, but I did wake up the next morning hangover-free! 

No.... not MINE!  A former colleague of mine, Kelly, invited me to her wedding last month.  Needless to say, I was thrilled at the opportunity to attend my first Chinese wedding!  I first met Kelly when I moved to Hangzhou in ... [Continue reading this entry]