Beijing: Day 1

As my plane landed at Beijing International Airport, I had butterflies. I had hired a tour guide for two of my days here, but he was not meeting me at the airport as Wendy had, and I was on my own to find my suitcase, hail a taxi, check into the hotel, and figure out where to eat and what to do on my first night in the city. I kept reminding myself that Beijing was really no different than New York, a place where I feel perfectly comfortable. I told myself, It’s just a lot of people who live close together and drive cars and ride busses and trains to work in offices and factories and shops. They are just people who live in apartments and raise children and watch television in the evening. The people here a no different than me; I just can’t speak their language. It turned out that I didn’t need to use any Chinese to find my way. Everything I needed was marked in English. My suitcase was the third one on the conveyor belt at the baggage claim, the taxi stand was nearby, the queue moved quickly, the driver knew where my hotel was and didn’t take me the long way there to get more money. The hotel staff spoke English well enough to check me in with no problems, and my room was very pretty. I was happy that things had worked out so well, but I still had to decide what to do with the rest of my afternoon and evening and felt a bit overwhelmed.

The concierge service at my hotel is friendly, but not fluent in English. I had difficulty explaining what I was interested in booking, and found that I was probably better off just finding tickets online myself or by going directly to the theater. Unfortunately, there are no performances at the National Theater, the Forbidden City Concert Hall, or the Beijing Concert Hall while I am in the city. My tour book recommends several places to watch Peking Opera, but nothing was playing on Monday night. I ended up going to a Las Vegas-style Chines acrobatics show that was unabashedly touristy, but it was fun. There were super-flexible, tiny contortionists, strong gymnasts, laser lights, sequined costumes, and very loud sound effects. Even though I was sitting alone, I found myself grimacing and gasping when it looked like one of the performers was going to fall and looking for someone to agree with my disbelief.

After the show came the hard part. I am not very shy, and I’m certainly not shy about eating, but I do feel very uncomfortable eating in public alone. I was too scared to compound this unease with the discomfort of trying to ask for a table for one in Chinese and pointing to pictures of food on a menu, and only being able to smile and nod when the server brings the check. I decided to eat at one of the over-priced, mediocre restaurants in my hotel, and it was OK. At least the servers could speak some English with me, and the place was pretty empty. I brought my Kindle and read, listened to the piano playing in the bar, and looked out over the traffic on East Chang’an Avenue. It was quite pleasant, but very lonely.

Tuesday was better. I met “Richard,” my tour guide, in the lobby at 9:00. He had arranged for a car to take us to see a section of Great Wall in a village called Mutianyu. To reach the top, we rode a cable car. Then we hiked along the wall for about an hour. It was incredible. The Great Wall is actually not a single wall built all at once, but a series of walls built and expanded and connected during several dynasties. Emperor Qin Sui-huang, the same guy who built the Terracotta Warriors, was the first to connect several walls together to create one long one. The section of the wall where we hiked was built by General Xu Da during the early years of the Ming Dynasty. Peasant farmers, prisoners, and soldiers, through years of painful labor, built the wall. It winds like a dragon along the top of the mountains for miles and miles. Periodically there is a guard station or a watchtower. The wall was cleverly designed with many innovations such as small holes through which the soldiers could push spears and poles, tiny windows to let archers shoot arrows, and water spouts to keep it from flooding during a heavy rain. I had an incredible time imagining what it must have been like to be a prisoner pushing a cart of heavy stone bricks up the mountainside to build the wall, or to be a soldier keeping watch from the top of a tower. When we reached the end of the tourist area, we could take a chairlift back to the parking lot, or we could slide down on a toboggan. Guess what I chose. That’s right. The toboggan sluice was banked carefully so that the little sled wouldn’t tip over or go too fast, and I coasted my way down through the beautiful mountainside. Whee! Richard took the chairlift.

When we got back to the city, it was time for lunch. Wendy had eaten her meals with me, and it was delightful. I assumed Richard would do the same. Instead, he found a restaurant he thought I’d like, helped me get seated and order, and then left. Ugh! The food was terrific – noodles in broth, but I was miserable. I felt like everyone was staring at me even though they weren’t, and I couldn’t finish fast enough.

After lunch, we visited the Beijing National Stadium, known to most as the “Bird’s Nest” from the 2002 Olympic Games, and the Water Cube. Both structures are as incredible as they looked from TV but have sadly sat empty for the most part since the games and are a bit neglected. The stadium’s grass field was dried out and brown in patches, and there were no signs of concerts or athletic competitions at all. On the jumbo screens at either end of the field play a loop of Olympic game highlights. I looked up at the screen that wraps around the inside of the stadium and tried to remember what it looked like all lit up for the opening ceremony. It was a bit sad. The Water Cube is in slightly better shape. The pools in it are now public swimming pools, and part of it has been turned into an indoor water park.

After we saw the Olympic park, we still had some time with the car and driver, but we didn’t have enough time to do anything big. That was OK with me because I was getting tired. Richard suggested that we go to a teahouse to see a tea ceremony. I was a bit wary to try this because my tour book had warned me that “tea ceremonies” are often ploys to rip off tourists. He assured me that this was the real thing and that the government regulated this teahouse. I agreed, and I’m glad I did. We were seated at a beautiful table and a lovely young woman demonstrated how to properly make tea and explained about the many different types of Chinese tea.  It is a lot like wine. There are many varieties in many price ranges. Climate changes from year to year, soil, rainfall, and region can all affect the quality and character of the teas. I tasted five kinds of tea. When the “ceremony” was over, I was of course lead through gift shop and pressured to buy lots of tea. I caved and did buy a small canister of Oolong tea; I’m a sucker tourist, I guess.

After the tea ceremony, I asked Richard to take me to a grocery store so that I could buy things for my breakfast. My hotel reservation doesn’t include a free breakfast, and the hotel breakfast buffet is lovely, but pricy. Even though we stopped at a grocery store near my hotel, driving back took nearly an hour.  According to Richard, Beijing has over eighteen million people and covers an area of about 16,800 square kilometers. That’s pretty big. But, it’s also dense. Real estate is precious, and the city is full of tall buildings and crowded streets. The traffic here is less scary than it was in Shenyang simply because it must move slowly. The taxi crawled up the avenue. When we finally arrived, I paid the driver, said good-bye to Richard, and headed up to my room. Time was up, and Richard wasn’t going to help me find a dinner restaurant. I resolved to be independent and find a fun place to eat on Wangfujing Street, a huge market street just a block from my hotel. I changed into nicer clothes, brushed my hair, smiled at myself in the mirror, and walked down… to the hotel restaurant. I just couldn’t do it. Sigh.

Western Peace

I arrived in Xi’an after a very smooth morning of travel. I woke up at 4:30, tip-toed around Vicky’s apartment to get dressed, and set out the farewell gifts I had brought for the family. Vicky and her mother got up to say good-bye, and Lili met me in a Taxi to take me to a shuttle to take me to the airport. She also helped me check-in. When she said good-bye, she asked, “Are you sorry to leave?” Um, no, I thought. But I politely said, “I was just getting used to things here, and now I have to leave!” I was not sorry to leave because I was headed to tourist heaven and a luxury hotel room!

Xi’an is lovely. It’s name means “Western Peace,” and it was the seat of three of the major dynasties: Qin, Tang, and Ming. Surrounding the downtown area are the city walls from the Ming period, and many of the buildings are designed in the Tang style. Tang and Ming-style structures are what most Americans think of when they try to imagine what Chinese buildings look like. The structures are symmetrical with heavy tile roofs that curve up on the ends, like fish tails. Xi’an will host a huge horticultural expo this year for several months, and it therefore has lots of pretty landscaping and parks. There are lovely public sculptures and art works as well. It is early spring in Xi’an, and it made my heart leap to see the willow trees with tiny green leaves and the white petals of the pear and plum trees. The weather had been sunny in Shenyang, but not spring-y, and everything was grey and brown. It was a nice change.

My tour guide, Liu Wen Di, or “Wendy Liu” as the agency told me to call her, met me at the airport and took excellent care of me the whole time. First, we went to the Shaanxi History Museum, where I saw artifacts dating back to prehistoric times. I was amazed at how advanced some of China’s early societies were! Nearly 3,500 years ago, the people living in this province were writing word characters and firing beautiful pottery. The museum houses several national treasures, including an incredible, porcelain tea pot that has an attached lid, gold head-dresses from a lady in the Tang court, and huge bronze tripods that were used for cooking (and to show off a person’s status). It was a great place to start my tour.

Next, we drove to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, which is a Buddhist temple. It was built during the Tang Dynasty to house Buddhist scriptures brought to China from India by Xuan Zang, a monk. Legend has it that Xuan Zang was such an avid student of Buddhist scripture, he read everything Chinese Buddhism had to offer. So, he travelled to India, where he could find more scripture that had not been translated yet, and brought back many new texts. He was well liked by the Emperor and Empress, who celebrated his return by building a beautiful pagoda for the texts and his translations. It is a lovely place, and a mix of very old and very new construction. The pagoda and the drum and bell towers in the complex are from the Tang period, but the other structures were built in 2004. It is an active place of worship, and there are beautiful shrines, marble steps and statues, and quiet courtyards, complete with yellow-robed monks reading and meditating. Even though it was crowded with tourists and pilgrims, it was quiet and peaceful.

Just outside the pagoda is a new, fancy development with a huge fountain with lights and water cannons, like the Bellagio casino has in Las Vegas. One can see the pagoda rising up behind the fountain, and Wendy said she thought that picture encapsulated Xi’an best – the old and the new together, each pretty in its own way.

First thing the next morning, we went to visit the famous Terracotta Warriors. Several people I met in Shenyang had warned me not to get my hopes up about them, saying that they really weren’t that special. Boy, were those people wrong! This has by far been my favorite sight on the trip. In ancient Chinese society, people believed that the afterlife was a continuation of earthly-life, and that when one died, he would need to bring along his belongings to use in the underground world. It is very similar to what the ancient Egyptians believed, and the tombs that Qin Shihuang, the first emperor to unify the nation, are just as impressive and elaborate as the pyramids. Since Emperor Qin wanted to continue being an emperor in the afterlife, he buried everything he would need to fight off uprisings, including a huge army. Each of the sculptures is slightly larger than a real soldier from this time period, is outfitted from head to toe in armor, and was once armed with real weapons. Each warrior is a unique individual with his own facial features and expression, his own hairdo, and his own gestures. Three huge pits of these soldiers have been discovered, and what I visited was not really a museum, but a huge archeological dig that is still in process.  This discovery has shed light on ancient Chinese society and will probably continue to do so as researchers discover more and more tombs. I had a wonderful time wandering around the site inspecting everything for the whole morning.

While Wendy drove me back, she humored me by playing a CD of Chinese pop music I had bought in Shenyang. She told me what the songs were about. Most of them were over-produced, easy-listening love songs, and I didn’t really like many them, but she did! Apparently, I had picked a pretty good CD. Most of the songs had been very popular during the last ten years.

On our way to the city center, we stopped to look at the fabulous city wall. It was built during the Ming period to protect the royal city. The wall circles around the downtown and has one gate in each direction that would have been closed every night to keep intruders out. It is cleverly designed to trap enemies inside of it. Evenly spaced along the top of the wall are ramparts from which soldiers could shoot arrows from crossbows. The ramparts were carefully planned to be spaced closely enough together that there would be no gap between arrows shot from one rampart and the arrows shot from the next. Then we visited the Drum and Bell towers. They are also from the Ming period, and would have been used to keep time and to send messages and warnings to the people in the city. We walked to the top of the Bell tower to take in the view, and then we had to be off again.

Wendy took me to “Culture Street” for shopping and dinner. All of the buildings along this pedestrian street are Tang style, and it is very pretty. Vendors selling all kinds of souvenirs had set up stalls along the street, and although I was timid about buying too much, I had fun looking at everything. We ate dinner at a restaurant that specializes in dumplings filled with soup. Wendy said these are unique to Xi’an. When they arrived to our table, she showed me how to carefully pick one up, bite a small hole into the side of it, and pour the soup out into a spoon to sip before eating the rest of the dumpling. It was loads of fun, and very messy.

Wendy drove me to the airport the next morning and helped me get checked in for my flight. If she had asked me if I was sorry to go, I would have shouted, “Yes!” and meant it. I had a wonderful time in Xi’an, but it was whirlwind. I wish I could have stayed longer!

My Last Week in the Classroom

I had a pretty rough time of it in the classroom during my third week here, and I was feeling down which was probably quite apparent from my tone in an earlier blog. The thought of having to face another week of being ill-used by my students here overwhelmed me, and I found myself crying on my way to school on Monday morning. I had told Lili about the problems I had managing the students’ behavior, and she said I should ask some of the English teachers for help. So, I did, but it was hard. The English teachers at Branch 2 don’t speak English very fluently. They didn’t understand what I was asking for. Finally a student teacher who is doing her practicum at the school overheard us and interpreted for me. I got support from one of the English teachers who went with me to the lessons she normally would have covered. This was fantastic, because she teaches Class 12, my most difficult class. She kept the kids in order, and they actually learned the whole poem and sang Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes with me! It was a good lesson. For the rest of my lessons, I was left on my own, sometimes with the base teacher, and sometimes without, but things went pretty well.  I was relieved on Tuesday night to be finished with teaching first grade. I just don’t know how those primary school teachers can do it!

Wednesday was a different matter. I had worked really hard on a lesson that I thought would be fun and challenging for the sixth graders, and I was excited. I had gathered all sorts of everyday reading material from home, things like a menu from a restaurant, a receipt from a grocery store, a candy bar wrapper, the liner notes from a CD, etc. I had bundled these materials into cute little packets. I couldn’t make enough packets for every child in class, but I made enough for groups of four to work with. Then I made a very short questionnaire about the items in the pack. I wanted the groups of students to have fun sorting through the materials and reading what they could, and to use context clues to “read” for other information.  This is an important reading skill, one I think English language learners should practice. For example, I asked how much the “Thai Salad” costs at a California Pizza Kitchen. The students may not know what “California Pizza Kitchen” is, and they may not know the word “Thai,” but they do know pizza, kitchen, salad, and costs (I checked their workbooks), they can recognize numbers and the dollar sign, they know what a menu looks like, and they could match the words “Thai Salad” to what was printed on the menu. In their workbooks, they are used to seeing charts and answering questions about costs. It would take some time and effort, but I thought that four of them together could figure out what to do. I made the questionnaire look just like what they were used to answering in their English workbooks, and it was only five questions long. I also brought candy to give to the group that completed the questionnaire correctly first. Doable, right? Wrong. This was way too hard for them. Or at least it was too hard for students who were not listening to my instructions or watching me demonstrate what to do because they were talking or throwing things or doing math homework. I barely got them to open the packets that I had worked so hard to make, and I could barely get the packets all collected again by the end of class. I was very disappointed, but I was determined that it could work, if I just adjusted it a bit.

In the next class, I spent more time comparing what was in the packet to their Chinese equivalents. I held up the English menu next to a menu written in Chinese.  I showed the receipt from Publix and one from Tesco. I think they got the idea more, but they did not want to work together with the students sitting near them. One child would grab the packet and keep it from the others, while another child would get out of her seat to work with a different group. No one finished the questionnaire, and I was bummed.

I decided to scrap the packets for my third lesson. My back up plan was to use a huge stack of conversation cards I had made. Each card had a simple question written on it, something like, “What is your favorite color?” or “What did you eat for breakfast today?” The idea was to have each child take a card, read the question to the partner seated next to him, and try to answer it. Then he would listen to his partner’s question and answer. Then the card would be passed to the person sitting in the next row. He would take the card from the person in front of him, and he would do the process again with the next question. This sort of worked. The students were very reluctant to speak aloud, even to each other. They all read the cards to themselves, and then sat quietly. I tried to explain and gesture that they should read the question aloud and say the answer aloud. A couple of students stood to say their answers aloud to the whole class. “Red.” “Milk.” This made everyone else even more confused. So, I let them pass around the cards for a few more minutes and read them to themselves. I checked in with several students who could indeed answer their questions, and this was good, I guess. With the leftover time, we played “I Spy,” and some of the students were interested.

I decided to start my fourth lesson with “I Spy,” and then make a game out of the conversation cards, but I never got the chance. This class was particularly rowdy, and was not very much interested in guessing what I spied with my blue eyes. The kids were talking, roughhousing, getting out of their desks, and playing on their cell phones. I raised my voice to try to get their attention, but only two students were interested in the game.  This class had enjoyed playing “Hangman” last week, and so I decided to try that instead. Nope. Not interested this week. So, I just stood silently and sternly and waited for them to calm down. They did after about a minute, but the moment I started talking again, so did they. A few loud minutes passed as I struggled with them to practice their spelling. As I turned to the board to write a letter down for our game, someone in the room threw a piece of chalk at me. It hit me on the back of my right thigh and won a lot of giggles. That was my limit. Cultural difference or no, I do not work with students that throw things at me. Period. I erased the board, grabbed my coat, told the students that I would not work with them any more, and left. They were stunned. Three of the naughtiest boys ran into the hallway pleading with me to come back. They tried to cut in front of me as I went down the stairs, and pulled on my coat sleeves, and whined that their teacher would “be very angry with [them]!” “Yes,” I said, “he probably will be angry with you.” I marched into the English department office with the three boys in tow, and explained what had happened. The teacher who normally has this lesson with that class said she would go back with me, and I tried to politely tell her that I would not go back. The students had gone too far to give a second chance. She took over for the remaining fifteen minutes and sent a small group of students to apologize to me. What a rotten day.

I regrouped that afternoon and decided to do something totally different with my remaining eight lessons. A friend of mine is the English as a Second Language teacher at her school, and I recalled a cool lesson she had done with her students. I went to Tesco and bought lots and lots of candy. 400 pieces to be exact. The ladies working in the candy aisle thought I was crazy picking through all the bins of candy and filling up eight bags. They actually called a store manager over to speak to me in English. Pointing to all the bags of candy in my shopping cart she said, “I do not understand.” I just smiled and said, “I am a teacher.” Then I pointed to the candy and said, “For my students.” She nodded and smiled.

On Thursday word had gotten around that I had walked out of Class 7. The students (and their teachers) were a little wary of me and a little bit curious. Eva called each of the base teachers and asked that they stay with me to help manage the behavior.  Before each lesson started, the base teachers yelled at the students and wagged their fingers, and then I began. “I think you will like our lesson today,” I teased as I pulled a bag of candy from behind me. The students looked very excited. “But,” I continued, “for this lesson, you need paper and a pencil.” I modeled tearing out a sheet of paper and held up a pencil. They immediately got to it. Then, without speaking, I showed them how to trace an outline of their hands on the paper. On the board I drew a big hand and labeled each finger with one of the five senses. “The five senses!” one boy said. There is a unit on the five senses in the fourth grade English workbook. We reviewed what each sense was, and the kids labeled the “fingers” on their papers, one sense per finger. I took a piece of candy and inspected it so that everyone could see. “Hmm. This candy looks pretty good,” I said. “It has a red wrapper. It has gold writing. It is shiny.” On the board under “sight” I wrote red, gold, shiny. Then I rolled the candy between my fingers and listened to it. It was so quiet, even the students at the back could hear the crinkling wrapper. “This candy sounds pretty good too,” I continued. “It crackles and crunches. It is quiet.” Under “sound” I wrote, crackles, crunches, quiet. I continued inspecting my candy, and by the time I got to “taste,” the kids were in a frenzy. They could hardly stand it any more. Then I said, “Now you write about your candy.” I walked up and down the aisles and let each kid pick a piece of candy. Because I had been so thorough in my shopping, there were lots of types of candy to choose from. Some were soft, some were hard, some were smooth, some were crisp, some were pink, and some were green. There were jellies and hard candies and crumbly candies and milky candies. Most of the students understood to describe their own candy, and a couple just copied what I had written on the board, but everyone was on task comparing their candy to their friends’ candy and brainstorming words to describe how good it was.  I had a few minutes and a few pieces of candy remaining. I invited the students to say sentences out loud about their candy in exchange for another piece.  A few students were willing, and one little boy even said, “My delicious candy is brown and smooth. It has a strong smell and tastes like coffee.” Wow!

During my following lessons, I was more careful to help brainstorm a variety of descriptive words on the board before I described my own piece of candy, but basically, I kept things the same. I was glad not to have to reinvent my lesson yet again. Although this lesson did not make more than just a few students practice their spoken English, I do feel that it was worthwhile. And I was glad to end my time at the Shenyang Experimental School on a positive note. That’s the power of candy, baby.

A Typical Day

I have been in Shenyang for almost four weeks, and I have pretty much fallen into a routine. My teaching schedule is fairly full, but at the Shenyang Experimental School, Chinese and Math are always the first subjects taught during the day.  This means that English lessons do not start until 10:15. Rather than ride over to my school with Vicky and Katie at 7:15, I sleep in a bit, eat breakfast at home, and walk down to school at 9:00.  This means that I won’t hog the bathroom when Katie and Vicky’s mom are getting ready, and that I will have some quiet time. The house is still very noisy. In the afternoon and after dinner, Vicky chats on the computer with her sister in England, Harry practices his harmonica and Katie practices her recorder (at the same time), or Harry and Katie shout at each other over homework (it seems to be an issue here), and Vicky’s mom turns the volume of the TV to full blast so that she can hear her program over all of the other noise. After Harry, Vicky, and Katie leave in the morning, the only noise is Vicky’s mom washing the breakfast dishes and listening to the morning news, quietly. I eat breakfast in my own room and look out the window or read. Even with the honking car horns and freeway noise coming in through the window, it is very peaceful.

When I finally do have to leave, the peace is gone. Walking to work is a luxury, and I have enjoyed being able to do it for the past few weeks, but being a pedestrian in Shenyang is dangerous! The traffic here is incredible. The streets are very crowded, and the biggest vehicle wins. I am honked at by a bus or car or motorbike at least three times every morning. The honking is a reminder to get out of the way, even if one is on the sidewalk. That’s right. Cars will pull right up onto the sidewalk to get around a blocked lane in the street. Many businesses have cars park on the sidewalk outside their doors, and so as I walk along, cars will swing right in front of me to pull into or out of a parking place. The sidewalks are also fair game for bicycles and motorbikes.  And unlike the traffic on the road, there is no “right” side to drive on. Bikes and mopeds zigzag this way and that among the pedestrians.

Crossing at an intersection is the hardest part of my walk.  I have to cross five on my way to Branch 1, and I breathe a little sigh of relief every time I make it through.  Even if I wait for the walk signal, I still have to pick my way carefully through the cars that are turning right, and then through the cars that are driving straight through the red light illegally, and then through cars on the other side that are turning right on red. (They do not have to stop at the red light.  They just go.) I also have to watch for mopeds coming towards me on the sidewalk. I had a close call a couple of days ago when I was just about to make it across the worst of the five intersections. I had the walk signal, I had navigated the cars turning and going straight, and was hurrying to get across before a taxi got to the intersection to make a right on red. Just as I made it to the other side, a speeding motorbike came whizzing right at me and honked. I had to literally jump out of the way. Apparently the moped was speeding up to beat the taxi to the intersection too. Honk! Honk!

When I arrive at school, I climb the stairs to the third floor English department office and take out my computer. This is the only place where I have internet access, and so I try to check e-mail before my lessons start for the day. Once things get rolling, I have fifteen minutes in between lessons, which isn’t quite enough time to get much done if one has to take one’s computer out of its bag, which was locked in a locker, and wait for it to “wake up,” and wait for it to find the wireless signal, and wait for it to open Outlook, etc. So, I check my personal e-mail account in the morning, and I usually check my school account before I leave in the afternoon. Before my lessons begin is also when I can try to Skype with my husband and my parents. It is nice to actually see some familiar faces and hear actual voices speaking a language I can understand, and on those days I feel a real boost in my morale!

The English office at Branch 1 has eight big wooden desks and two long tables with computers. There are a line of drab green lockers along one wall, and two big, sunny windows facing the playground. I set up shop at one of the long tables with a chair I borrow from a computer terminal. It’s pretty comfortable, but this office is as noisy as the apartment after dinner. There are four fifth grade English teachers and four sixth grade English teachers. Each teaches three sections of English, which means they have a lot of planning time in the office. It is rarely empty. Pop music is usually playing out from one of the computers, and there is lots of chatting and planning-talk. Students come in and out of the office all day dropping off huge stacks of workbooks that need to be graded, and retrieving huge stacks of workbooks that have been graded, or to get extra practice and help, or to earn extra credit for memorizing a song in English and singing it to the teachers, or just to take a peek at the giant typing on her laptop in the corner.

When the lessons start for the day, I lock up my bag and just carry what I need to class, which is usually not much. When I arrive to my assigned room, sometimes the base teacher is there. I knock and wait for him or her to acknowledge me, and then I come in and wait in the corner until the class is finished with what it is doing. The lessons are short, only thirty-five minutes each, but they are intense. When I get back to the English Department office, I just want to sit quietly or put my head down. I’ve seen a lot of the other English teachers do this too, when they don’t have to deal with a student.  After fifteen minutes, it’s back to another lesson.

At the end of the day, I wait for the rush of parents and kids to subside and check my school e-mail or look at the news for a bit online. Then I pack everything up in my bag, zip on my heavy coat, pull on my gloves and sunglasses, and walk back to Vicky’s apartment. The walk home seems less stressful, although the traffic is just as bad. Maybe it’s because teaching is behind me for the day. On Wednesdays school is dismissed early, and so this is a good time to go shopping for supplies. By supplies, I mean breakfast food and bottled water.

I’m usually the last to arrive “home.” The family eats dinner very early, which suits me just fine, and then if I can’t be of any use to Katie for her English homework, I go to my room, close the door, and work on this blog, lesson plan, and read. I upload any pictures I’ve taken during the day and write captions for them before I forget what was what, and I look at photos of my husband and my doggie.  After I hear that Katie and her Grandmother are finished getting ready for bed, I sneak into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. It has been hard for me to remember not to put my toothbrush under the tap, and so I usually have to sneak back to my room to grab some bottled water.  The mattress in Katie’s room is really firm. Really. When I sit down on it, I think of the stone or brick beds that were in the palace. At first I thought I would never be comfortable on such a hard mattress, but I am. In fact, I’m so tired every night that I probably could fall asleep on a brick mattress!

Weekend Update

This was another busy weekend full of surprises.  On Saturday Lucy invited me out.  I thought she said that she had some friends who wanted to invite me over for lunch.  Even though it wasn’t my day to shower, I washed my hair and made sure I had my most clean outfit on. I carried a box of American chocolates with me as a hostess gift.  I was nervous because this was the first time I had been invited into someone’s home for a meal, and so I was a bit early (I know, shocking!) to meet Lucy at the gate of our school. Of course she then called to say that she was stuck in traffic and instructed me to wait inside the guardroom because it was cold out. The guard beckoned me in. I was happy to wait inside, not only because of the temperature, but because the guards at Branch 1 don’t smoke and are very nice. There was a little boy working on homework at the desk, and at first he took no notice of me. I asked the guard, “Your son?” He understood and shook his head, no. He gestured at the building above and said, “Blah blah blah liaoshi blah.” I only understood one word, teacher, and so I guessed that the boy was the son of a teacher who was working in her classroom that day. I sat quietly and read for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden, a little, toy airplane-robot landed on my kindle screen. The boy and guard giggled. “Airplane!” I said as I held it up and “flew” it back to its owner. This opened up a whole fun conversation between the boy and me. We took turns teaching each other common words in English and Chinese through gestures and pictures. I learned xu, ping, li, and qiu, and he learned tree, apple, pear, and ball.  When we got to ball, the boy ran into the courtyard with a soccer ball, and the guard and I followed.  We all kicked the ball around for a few minutes. Then the guard went back inside and brought out a jump rope and a little toy that was shaped like an hourglass.  He balanced the toy on the jump rope and pulled back and forth on either end of it, making the toy spin. When the boy and I each tried, we couldn’t get it to work, but we laughed. We passed an hour this way. When Lucy finally arrived, I was having so much fun playing that I didn’t want to leave.

Lucy hurried me across the street to where a friend of hers and his son were waiting in his car. I climbed in, said hello, and then rode along as we drove for a long time.  We stopped at Lucy’s mother’s apartment building and picked up her niece, a first grader in one of my classes. She was very excited to see her English teacher in the car and wiggled and chatted and played.  We drove on for a while, finally arriving at the Museum of the September 18th Incident.  This was a surprise, but a good one. I had heard of this museum, but didn’t know if I’d get a chance to see it.

This museum was built to educate people about the conflict between China and Japan begun on September 18, 1931. This is the day when the Japanese began a brutal, fourteen-year occupation of northeastern China.  I learned so much!  Chinese history is long and complicated, and sadly, I know very little about it. The Japanese invaded during the very end of the Qing Dynasty and declared the area an independent nation called Manchukuo, but really it was ruled by Japan. The Chinese people living here were subject to horrible tortures at the hands of their occupiers, who used many of the same techniques Hitler did as he invaded European countries. They killed off the intelligentsia that would likely oppose them, they concentrated the population into smaller and smaller neighborhoods to more easily control it, they enforced slave labor at work camps and mines, and they tortured and performed genetic experiments on people caught working against them.  Chinese school children were taught Japanese language and literature, and businesses, banks, and local government offices were all controlled by Japan.  Many brave men and women resisted the occupation, and finally, with the help of the Communist army and the Russian army, the Japanese were expelled in 1945. It was a dark time in China’s history, but the museum was very well put-together and sensitive. The displays were labeled in Chinese, Japanese, and some English.

After the five of us had wandered through the museum, we went out to lunch and ate for nearly an hour and a half.  I have found that when someone invites you to eat in Shenyang, it’s a big deal, and it’s rude to rush or be too dainty. By the time we finished lunch it was nearly 4:00PM.  I was stuffed silly, very happy, and ready to head home. Lucy’s friend dropped us off at her mother’s house.  I thought Lucy was going to drive me home from there, and so I gave my chocolates to her friend and thanked him for driving us to the museum and for lunch. Instead of walking to her car, she took me upstairs to her parents’ home. I was warmly greeted, given slippers to change into and offered the best seat in the house.  Immediately, Lucy’s mom brought out a platter of fruit and cups of steaming-hot water in smudged, dirty glasses. She urged us to eat, eat, eat, and then went into the kitchen to make dinner for us. Oh, no! I had just finished this huge lunch and felt very full, I couldn’t eat the fruit because it was still glistening wet with tap water, I was thirsty, but I was grossed-out by the particles and oily fingerprints on the glass, and I had given away my hostess gift to Lucy’s friend! Lucy urged me to eat, eat, eat! I tried to explain that I was too full to eat anything, but I think she thought I was being rude. To make me more comfortable, she turned on the television to the English news station, and we watched it together with her niece. Her father came in and out of the room and urged me to eat, eat, eat! I refused, as politely as I could. The blaring TV was running the same story about the Chinese army’s efforts to help Japan recover after the earthquake and tsunami over and over. I tried to get Lucy’s niece to draw a picture or read a book with me, but she was too shy and too hyper. I tried to talk to Lucy, but she was having a nice time trying to interpret the news story on TV. A very uncomfortable hour and a half passed, when Lucy’s sister-in-law arrived home. She was very nice, but after urging me to eat, eat, eat!, just sat down to look at the television with us. Another thirty minutes passed, and Lucy’s brother came home. He sat to watch English television, too.  At this point I was pretty miserable. Dinner took another half and hour to prepare, and so by the time we sat down to eat, I could. Thank goodness. The food was delicious, but there were two dishes that were salads made of raw veggies. I had to find a way to politely decline tasting them. I tried to explain to Lucy that my body was not used to the water here, and that it wasn’t good for me to eat things that weren’t fully cooked, but she didn’t understand. So, I just had to say no. After dinner, we sat around the table, and everyone took turns asking me about life in America. This was much more fun than watching TV in the uncomfortable living room. Everyone was warm and pleasant, and Lucy was an excellent interpreter. As Lucy’s mom cleaned up the dishes, we all went back to the TV. This time Lucy’s niece chose the program – a cartoon featuring the animals of the Chinese zodiac. Finally it was time to leave, and Lucy’s husband came to pick us up in his car. They dropped me off in front of the gate to my building, and I said good night and thanked Lucy for spending the whole day with me.  It was so late that I was worried Vicky’s family had gone to bed. Fortunately, they hadn’t. I had made it home just in time.

On Sunday I spent the day with Eva, the head of the English department, and her family.  She and her husband Jack took me to the Imperial Palace Museum.  The Imperial Palace in Shenyang is a huge, spectacular palace that was built by Nurhachi, the father of the first Qing emperor, in 1624. It covers nearly eighteen acres and blends Manchu, Han, Mongol, and Tibetan architectural styles. The palace has dozens and dozens of pavilions, temples, halls, and houses, most of which are constructed of stone and decorated with elaborate tile work and paint. The buildings are organized around courtyards with beautiful stone pathways and gazebos. Eva and Jack lead me from place to place, trying to explain each part.  Some of the buildings were closed, but many were open and housed exhibits about Qing court life or artifacts.  One hall was full of incredible treasures from the Qing period like translucent porcelain teapots, cloisonné enamel burners, and carved jade vases. Another hall had a dissected palace wall to show the layers of stone masonry and plaster. Others had weapons, carriages, litters, cooking utensils, religious artifacts, clothing, and books. Some original furniture was on display too. We could peek into Nurhachi’s library to see his desk and reading chair, into the first concubine’s receiving room to see the colorful wall hangings and statues, and of course, into the throne room to see the throne!

Society during the Qing period was feudal, and the second emperor is famous for organizing his court under eight banners. He delegated certain powers and responsibilities to eight royal families, each with its own banner. This organization is reflected in the way the main part of the palace is organized.  The emperor’s throne room is at the very top of a hill, with a long, wide path leading up to it. This path would have been used for processions during ceremonies and celebrations. On either side of the path are five pavilions.  The two nearest the emperor’s throne room belonged to a prince, each in charge of four banners. Then there is a pavilion for the head of each banner. Jack told me that this formation was typical of the way Manchu army officers would have set up tents at camp. Even the shape of the emperor’s throne room is reminiscent of a tent.

We spent the entire morning wandering through the palace museum; I learned a bit of Chinese history, and Eva and Jack practiced their English.  When we had seen everything, we walked to Eva’s parents’ apartment for lunch. It was near the palace, but in a very old building. Eva warned me that it wasn’t big or fancy, and she was right. In fact, the apartment was very small and unlike any I’d ever been in before.  Besides the kitchen there was no common space, just a hallway, a small bathroom, and two bedrooms – one for each of her parents. There were no rugs on the concrete floors. Lines of wet laundry were strung across the tiny hall. I was invited to sit and relax on the bed in Eva’s mother’s room while lunch was being set out. Besides a photo of Eva in her bridal gown taped to the cracking plaster wall, there were no decorations. The furniture was old, and the room was filled with clutter. Eva sat with me and explained that her parents were going to have to move to a new apartment in June. The city was taking down several buildings in the neighborhood to redevelop the land. Lunch was announced almost immediately, and we moved into Eva’s father’s bedroom, where a feast was set out on his mahjong table. There were plates of spicy prawns, scrambled eggs and leeks, stir-fried vegetables and mushrooms, steamed dumplings, sausages, and peanuts. Eva’s eighty-year-old grandfather had taken a bus for nearly an hour to join us for lunch. He was a little boy during the Japanese occupation of this region and still knew how to speak some Japanese. It was so interesting to meet someone who had lived through the history I had just learned about at the museum the day before. The family was very friendly, and we had fun talking as we ate the delicious food. Eva’s father is a retired policeman and a real character.  He made jokes, teased his wife about her cooking, and chain-smoked the whole time. Eva’s mom joked right back and made sure that my plate stayed full. This lunch, as all of the others I’ve had since I’ve been here, took a long time, but it passed very quickly.  After we were all full, we sat around the table for another hour and a half. The family wanted to know all about me and my life back home.  They asked how much things cost, how much money I earn, what my husband does and how much he makes, what kind of a car I drive, what my apartment was worth, etc. We talked about American weddings and how they are different than Chinese weddings.  Eva’s mother seemed worried that I would unfairly judge her small home, and kept asking Eva to explain that they were “common” people and that things in China were very expensive. It was hard for the family to save for luxuries. I tried to explain that many Americans feel the same way, and that there is a huge spectrum of wealth and poverty in my country.  They were very surprised to learn that there were homeless beggars in Atlanta panhandling just a few blocks from some of the most prestigious addresses in the city. Still, Eva insisted, the quality of life must be better in the U.S. than in China, and she is right.  I think that most people here are working hard to make ends meet and must live very, very modestly.

After our lunch conversation was finished, I was invited to sit in Eva’s mother’s room again as the dishes were cleared. Eva’s mother joined us and showed me pictures of her family from a photo album.  She is very proud of her only child.  I got to see photos of parties, weddings, smiling babies, and kids on bikes. Even though we couldn’t talk to each other very well, I had a very nice time learning about her family. When it was time to go, she brought me a bag of dried mushrooms, noodles, and packets of MSG (“spices,” she said), for me to take home so that I could cook Chinese food for my husband. Then she pressed a plump, little clementine into my hand and waved good-bye.  I think that it was a big deal to her to have me in her home, and I was felt very humbled and honored.

Eva walked me out, and we went down the street and caught the bus back to Vicky’s apartment. I’d not yet been on a Shenyang bus, and it was very crowded. I have not felt unsafe at all here, but I did keep my purse wrapped in my arms in front of me. I skipped dinner at Vicky’s that night because I was too full, and enjoyed my clementine instead. I felt very tired, but I think that getting to spend some time in real Chinese homes was a good learning experience for me. I feel that I have made life-long friends with Eva and Lucy, and I hope that one day I can return the generosity they have shown me.

Yum, yum!

Before I left for China, lots of people wanted to give me advice about what to eat and what not to eat and what foods to watch out for while I was in China.  Some told me to bring my own snacks in case I couldn’t find anything suitable.  Others worried that I would be unhappy with the food and feel homesick for American food.  Many said that I would loose weight while I was here.  The brochure that the travel clinic doctor gave me after my vaccinations said, “If you can’t cook it, boil it, or peel it, forget it!” Food was one aspect of this trip I was not worried about, but with all of this advice I wondered if I should be.

I was right not to worry. I’m not shy about eating, and I’m not fussy.  I enjoy trying new foods, whether they are in a fancy restaurant or from a street vendor.  Everything I’ve gotten to eat in Shenyang has been absolutely delicious.

Workday breakfasts are the least exotic meal I eat because I usually have it on my own with food I bought at Tesco.  I have coffee (boil it), and an orange (peel it), and a hunk of Maky bread, which is flaky and buttery and tastes like brioche.  “Maky” is the name of a bakery, and the slogan printed in English on all of their advertisements and products is “Enjoy the time! For more delicious to share with you.”  Yes, Maky, I will enjoy the time.

On a few mornings I have breakfasted with Vicky and her family.  One day she brought home these delicious little pancakes from a vendor on the street below.  They looked somewhat like silver dollar pancakes, but they were fatter and had cornmeal.  Another day Vicky bought a different kind of pancake.  These were larger, and the batter had been ladled onto the griddle in a spiral motion, and so to eat them, we sort of unwound them.  They were very stretchy and chewy and were flavored with scallions.  The best street vendor breakfast I’ve eaten so far has been a little loaf of spiced bread that was studded with almonds.  It was so soft and puffy that “cake” is probably a better word to describe it.  It was similar in flavor to gingerbread, but it was a most interesting blue-grey color, like poppy seeds.

I eat lunch at school from my lunchbox.  This does not mean the same thing in China as it does in the U.S. My “lunchbox” is actually a stainless steel bowl with a big handle on the side. There is no cafeteria, but there is a small kitchen where the school cook prepares rice, two vegetables, and a meat dish for the faculty and staff. When the lunch bell rings, everyone in the English department office grabs her lunchbox from her desk and walks through the school courtyard to the kitchen to fill it up. We have to be prompt, or we will miss out. When we have wormed our way through the tiny, crowded room, we take our lunchboxes back to the office to eat together. The children have their lunches delivered in big coolers to their classrooms and eat with their base teachers. The lunches have all been really good and fresh, but they are always a surprise. My favorite dish is scrambled eggs and stewed tomatoes. We have gotten this twice now. Yum!

Vicky’s mother prepares dinner for the family and is an outstanding cook. She shops through the street market and finds things that look good and fresh.  With every meal she serves white rice, and sometimes she mixes in quinoa or some sprouts.  There are usually three dishes: one will have beef, pork, or chicken, one is usually a soup, and one has lots of vegetables.  Anything we don’t finish is covered and saved and served again at dinner the next night.  She uses lots of types of mushrooms and tofu, both of which I love, and I enjoy these dishes the most.  A couple of nights ago she brought home barbecued pigs’ feet.  I had to pick around the connective tissue with my chopsticks, but they were very good and smoky. Vicky and her mother won’t let me help with the cooking or cleanup, and I feel a little guilty that I can’t repay them the favor. I try to bring home fruit and sweets to share instead. I hope to treat the whole family to a big dinner at a nice restaurant before I leave.

In the meantime, I have been treated to several outstanding dinners out.  I have been to two Korean barbecue restaurants, two hot-pot restaurants, and one place that served everything on big bamboo skewers that had been boiled in a very spicy broth.  I especially like the hot-pot dinners.  Each person orders a pot of hot broth and puts it on a hotplate or burner in front of him.  Then, platters of different meats and vegetables are brought.  The diner chooses what he likes best and puts it into his own boiling broth until it is cooked to his liking.  This meets the doctor’s admonition to “boil it” and “cook it,” I think.

The most memorable dinner I have had so far was last night, though.  I was invited to a Korean Barbeque restaurant with the head of the English department, Eva, and her husband and parents.  Eva ordered for the whole table, and while we were waiting to be served, she showed me the pictures from the menu of the items she had chosen for us.  It all looked very delicious. She pointed to little, pink pork sausages, floppy, weird mushrooms, thinly sliced beef and lamb, prawns, bright green vegetables, and chunks of purple potatoes.  Then she pointed to something I had never seen before on a menu – cocoons.  Or at least that’s what Eva called them.  I don’t remember enough from my biology class to be sure in what stage these caterpillars were (pupa? larva?), but these were definitely some sort of wormy-things that were going to turn into butterflies. They had hard, little exoskeletons that were black and shiny with big eyes. Sure enough, as our food arrived, there were two plates of these little insects. “Two plates of cocoons,” I observed, trying not to show my anxiety. That is a lot of insect to eat in one meal, especially if one is not accustomed to eating insects. “They are very delicious,” Eva’s husband assured me. “You’ve never had them before?” They were not moving, but I’m not sure they were dead. We roasted them over the hot coals until Eva’s mother said they were ready.  They didn’t look much different than they had before.  Eva said not to eat the shell, to spit it out. I didn’t understand and asked to watch her eat one. She put it in her mouth, chewed it, swallowed the meat, and then spit out the crunched-up shell onto the table. So, that’s what I did. And Eva’s husband was right; they really were delicious! The texture of the shell was much like that of a cooked shrimp. When I bit down, it cracked open and the meat inside squished out.  It was creamy and a tiny bit gamey, but in a good way. There was hardly anything to it, and so I understood why Eva had ordered so many.  We had eaten through our cocoons in a matter of minutes. The most unpleasant part was having to look at the little shells sitting on the table top for the rest of the meal.

I can’t wait to have more culinary adventures in the remaining weeks of my trip! And, by the way, I’m not losing any weight. Quite the opposite, actually.

What's the Point?

On Monday and Tuesday I was back at Branch Two to teach the first graders again. I was better on Tuesday at handling them than I was on Monday, but it has been exhausting.  After dinner last night, I was so tired and upset that I shut myself in my room and didn’t come back out except to brush my teeth.  I haven’t felt this defeated by my students since I was a first year teacher at a tough, poor, public middle school.

I am very lucky to have well-behaved students at my school in Atlanta.  All kids can be talkative and playful at times, but the students at my school, for the most part, take their educations seriously and want to earn good grades, impress their teachers, and make their parents proud.  I can manage the behavior in class with my sense of humor and energy level.  I work hard to be peppy and positive and diffuse tense situations with laughter.  I invest hours every term planning assigned seats for my students to maximize my proximity to struggling or difficult students and to protect others from interacting inappropriately with others.  I train my students to follow certain procedures that make getting class started, collecting paperwork, and cleaning up after activities go smoothly and efficiently.  I hardly ever have to raise my voice to my students, and I think that we all have a pretty good time.  Occasionally, a student will step out of line too far.  This is when I rely on the Dean of Students, who will support me by giving the student a consequence for his actions, and can organize an effort to intervene with the student or his family if the misbehavior in class indicates a bigger issue.

Unfortunately, I can’t rely on any of this to manage the behavior of my students in Shenyang.  First, I don’t know anyone’s name, and I don’t have a seating chart.  The kids know that I will have a hard time pinning a consequence on their behavior because it is hard to keep track of them.  They also know that the activity I am asking them to do will not be counted for a grade.  Next, the classrooms are very crowded.  I can’t walk all the way around the room, and so if I run to one corner to keep a group of students on task, another group falls off task on the other side.  By the time I reach them, the first group is off task again.  Also, the students’ desks are very close together.  They can easily reach into each other’s desks and mess around with each other’s stuff.  This is problematic, especially in first grade, where I have had to sort out several cases of stolen papers and crayons, most of which have involved tears and lots of finger pointing. 

Finally, and this is the worst part, I don’t have the language skills to be funny in class, or at least not funny with a purpose.  For example, on Monday afternoon, Class Seven decided to play a little prank on me.  All of a sudden, just as we were about to practice “umbrellas” from line three of our poem, the room was filled with little sparkling lights, as if a disco ball had just been lowered into the classroom.  About half of the thirty-four students had taken little compacts with mirrors out of their desks and were trying to reflect sunbeams at my face.  They didn’t try to hide what they were doing at all. Some stood up on their chairs to catch a better angle, and everyone was giggling.  Believe it or not, this would be a pretty easy thing for me to solve at my school at home.  I would pick out the ringleader who organized the prank and saunter up to his desk.  Then I would pretend that I was checking my makeup in the little mirror and pretend to squeeze a pimple.  When I had finished primping, I would say, “Thank you, So-and-so, I look much better!  You can put away the mirror now… because I don’t want to look in it ever again.” Then I would smile very coyly at him until he put the mirror away.  Everyone would laugh and put their own mirrors away, and we would continue our lesson. This is what my instinct told me to do in Class Seven, too, and so I did.  Big mistake!  It really got everyone’s attention when I “squeezed” my pimple, but no one understood to put the mirror away.  Several students gestured for me to check my face in their mirrors too, and some of the kids who weren’t in on Round One of the prank, got involved in Round Two.

Class Twelve, at the very end of the day was even worse.  While we were acting out the words we had learned (something that the other classes found fun and engaging) eight boys got out of their desks and started rough housing with each other.  I don’t like yelling, and I hate having to touch a student, but I had no choice.  I thought someone was going to get hurt.  I screamed, actually screamed, “Go to your seats, now!” and I grabbed one boy by his arm and lead him back to his desk.  I was furious, but the class thought my anger was funny.  They imitated my screaming and giggled.  I vaulted up to the desk at the front and drew a diagram of the classroom in my notebook to show the base teacher where these boys sat and to take note of what they were wearing.  All of a sudden, I could tell they were worried. It got quiet.  I spent a good minute working on my notes, making a point of counting the rows of their desks.  I observed what the boys looked like, muttering to myself about the length of their hair, the color of their clothing, etc.  I closed the book. Then I calmly said, “I do not teach naughty students.” I sat down in the teacher’s chair and propped my head up on my hand, simply watching them.  Another minute passed quietly.  It felt like a long time.  When a couple of students began to stir, I opened my notebook again and made a big deal of marking where they sat and what they were wearing.  They stopped.  I could tell they were uncomfortable.  I made them sit quietly for another minute.  I noticed some of the wiser students quietly taking out their math homework to work on.  That was fine with me.  After another quiet minute, many more students had found something else to do on their own.  We passed the rest of the lesson this way.  There were about ten minutes left.  When the bell rang, I pointed at each of the especially rude boys.  Then I said, “I hope we have a better class next week.” And I left. I don’t think they understood the words I said, but I hope they understood the tone. And, I really do hope we have a better class next week.  I’m going to ask the base teacher to stay with us.

Things are only slightly better for me in the sixth grade classes.  Since these students have studied English longer, we can communicate more, but the same problems arise.  They know that they’re not going to be given a grade for their work, they know I don’t know their names, and there are so many of them that it is easy for them to fall into a mob mentality and just ignore me completely.  The sixth graders also seem less worried about what their base teachers will do to them if they are naughty.  This week our lesson is to play the “alphabet game” and “hangman,” and sing the “Hokey-pokey.”  The alphabet is way too hard for them; just saying the letters in order, even if they are written on the board, is very, very difficult for them.  They like hangman, for a while, if they can look in their textbooks to guess the words, and they think the Hokey-pokey is just stupid.  This lesson is another big flop.  Lili keeps urging me to just play games and to sing songs with them and to make it easy. But isn’t that what I’m doing!? I think I have chosen easy games, and I try to adapt to make the lesson even simpler when I find that it is too difficult for the students.  We sing songs. We move around. We go outside. And I’m still drowning.

There are two other foreign teachers working at the school as well.  I have only met one of them, however.  He is a young man from Nigeria and has been assigned to work in the fifth grade.  He is having the same problems I am having and wants to quit.  I think that if the Shenyang Experimental School hopes to keep recruiting teachers from abroad to guest teach, it needs to figure out a way to make the students accountable for what is taught during these special lessons, and the Dean needs to make the base teacher or the English teacher that would normally be teaching the lesson stay in the classroom with the foreign teacher. This is not happening for me.  I think the poor teachers here are so overwhelmed by the number of students and the amount of grading they have to do, they jump at the chance to have some extra planning time to work on their own.  Most of the base teachers have left the classroom before I even arrive.

I’m glad to have the opportunity to experience Chinese culture in a meaningful way, and not just as a tourist, but I am not having a good experience in the school here. I’m sorry to report that I feel my coming here is a big waste of time, money, and energy for me, for the Chinese students here, and for my students and school back home.

Keeping Clean

Sunny, a new colleague of mine in the English Department, and I were talking about the U.S.  She has friends who live in New York City, and they had reported to her that New York was a much cleaner city than Shenyang.  “Is this true?” she wanted to know. “It is dirty in China?”  Well, to put it bluntly, yes, Shenyang is dirty. 

First, the air quality in Shenyang is very poor.  There are huge factories with towering smokestacks that pour out billowing plumes of smoke during the workday.  There are thousands of cars crowding the roads, and the exhaust from them fills the streets.  Many street vendors burn fires to roast nuts or cook meat, and I can smell the smoke and ash on my clothing when I get inside.  Shenyang is also a smoker’s paradise.  China Tobacco is based here.  This is the company that Harry works for.  Tobacco shops line the streets, and people give each other boxes and cases of cigarettes as gifts.  People smoke everywhere, including the school grounds.  It is also very windy and dry here, and every now and then, a big gust of wind will hit me with a bunch of grit.  I have noticed that many people wear masks over their mouths and noses when they are outside.  Some of these are even quite fashionable; one can pick a mask to match her outfit.  When I walk to and from school, I find that I feel a bit asthmatic when I arrive.  I am very grateful that Vicky’s family does not smoke, and the air inside the apartment is much cleaner.

Next, people spit here. A lot.  Men spit. Women spit. Children spit.  Some are considerate and spit into a sink or trashcan, if one is handy, but most people just spit onto the sidewalk or into the street.  The sidewalk is dotted by little wet globs of mucus and spittle every few yards.  I know that this is one of those cultural differences that I should not be offended by.  But I just am.  I think it is totally gross, and I have to remember not to let anyone see me make a sour face.  I think the spitting has to do with the poor air.  Maybe sniffing and snuffling to clear one’s sinuses of grit and pollution and expelling it on the ground is healthy for the individual doing it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not very healthy for the people standing nearby.  I am especially offended when people spit near a food vender’s cart. Yuck!

Trash is another issue here.  In some ways I think the way Shenyang deals with its refuse is more sustainable than what we do in the U.S., but it makes for a messy sidewalk.  Most of the products that people purchase here are not packaged the way they are in the U.S.  People carry their own bags and containers to the market in which to carry things home, and there is just less to be thrown away.  I like and respect this.  There are some trashcans on the street, but not too many. When there is something to throw away, most people will just drop it on the sidewalk. Sanitation workers carrying cloth bags and natural bristle brooms walk up and down the roads sweeping the litter into their bags. At the end of the day when the vendors have wheeled their carts away and there is a lot of litter, it is swept into little piles and either burned or picked up on a cart, after it has been picked over for any reusable or refundable items.  I’m sure that there are huge landfills here somewhere, but it seems that people produce less trash.  In the classrooms at my school, for example, there are only tiny little trashcans, smaller even than the one I keep in my powder room at home.  There are no plastic liners in the trashcans, either.  When one fills up, a student takes it to the water closet at the end of the hall where there is a larger trash bucket that will be emptied (on to the street?) at the end of the day.

The water closet is also where we wash our dishes after lunch and wash out the mops we use to clean the floors and chalkboards of our classrooms and offices.  The sink is a long trough with several spigots for cold water.  There is no hot water in the building.  The trough has holes drilled into it, and all of the water flows down to a single drain in the floor. 

Keeping one’s own self clean amid all of this can be tricky.  My host family is very careful not to waste any resources.  I respect this, but it means that I don’t shower or do laundry as often as I am used to at home.  I take a shower about every three days, and even then I do not leave the water running the whole time.  My “shower” is actually a handheld showerhead and a drain in the floor of the bathroom.  There is a plastic tub I can fill up if I want, but I haven’t.  I feel awkward, like I am splashing water all over the whole room, and I try to be careful.  When I finish washing, I have to wipe down the walls and the floor of the room so that it doesn’t mildew.  The whole process takes me quite some time.  The towel Vicky has given me to use is also not what I am used to.  At home, I have over-sized, Egyptian cotton towels with my initials monogramed on them.  After a shower, I use two – one is for my hair, and I also have a matching bathmat underfoot.  When I decided to take a shower for the first time here, I saw a stack of threadbare hand towels on a shelf in the bathroom, and I wondered where Vicky kept the regular towels.  I asked to borrow one, and she pointed me to the hand towels already in my bathroom.  They are tiny, but I guess that I’m not meant to wrap myself in them.  I just dry off and try to move on.

Vicky has a washing machine and dryer combo, but we only use it for washing our clothes.  When they have rinsed and spun, we hang them on a line in front of her living room window to dry overnight.  I’m sure that it must save a lot of electricity.  It is kind of satisfying to hang out the laundry, too. The line is on a crank that raises it up and down so that the wet clothes can be hauled up and out of the way.  When elevated, they don’t block the view as much. It’s fun to wind the whole line up and down.

The floor of the apartment is kept very clean.  Vicky’s mother sweeps and mops every day.  We all take our shoes off at the door and change into slippers in the house.  I am very self-conscious of my comparatively huge, sweaty feet, and I’ve gotten in the habit of washing my feet and changing into clean socks as soon as I get home.  The tabletops and other surfaces are not nearly as clean as the floors.  The dining table is covered in plastic. As we eat, we put any bones or gristle right on the tabletop next to our bowls.  After dinner the plastic is wiped down with a wet cloth, but the cloth is used again and again, and I'm not sure it has been changed out or washed since I have been here. Dishes are washed in the kitchen sink with water and (sometimes) soap, and are put back in the cupboard still wet.  Since it is a risk for me to drink the water here, I have to be careful to make sure that any bowl or spoon I use has dried off completely before I put food in it.

I have been keeping one of Vicky’s mugs in my room and using it for coffee in the morning, and for brushing my teeth.  After each use, I wash it using boiled water and soap.  I have bought some paper towels to use, too. 

I think I’m doing an OK job of keeping myself clean and healthy, but I feel like a big, stinky mess, and my hair is definitely not its prettiest right now.  I have to confess that I can’t wait to check into my hotel in Xi’an (in two weeks!) and take a long, hot shower, for real.