Year-End 2007
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!
Tags: Travel
carolh452003
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