I have once more neglected this blog. Apologies! I have about ten half-written posts, and it is past-due that I got something out there. I kept trying to merge them all into one, but it was too long and pretty nonsensical, and so now I have given up and will just try to slam them out until I’ve caught up on everything that’s happened, everything that’s been said, and everything that I am dying to say. There’s a lot – good, bad, ugly, straight-up bizarre. For this first post in what will hopefully be a pretty steady stream to come in the next few weeks, I’ll hit some of my quick impressions of my early teaching days. There’s a lot of warm and fuzzy in this post. It hasn’t all been that way. Still, writing this brought back some pretty magical memories, and I hope those at home will get a laugh, or at least a smile, out of it.
Peace Corps Pre-Service Training has come and gone, and now China’s National Day has zipped right on by, as well. I have been teaching for over a month now, and I have so much to say about it that I could go on forever.
When I was putzing around Chengdu back in July, too busy worrying about learning Chinese to spare much thought for teaching, a week break when school had only been in session for two weeks sounded pretty dumb. Turns out it’s something of a godsend. My colleagues and I only received our teaching schedules a few days before classes began – meaning we didn’t know what subjects we were teaching (much less the level of our students or what textbooks we would use) until 72 hours before the first bell. A holiday two weeks in, therefore, is a fantastic idea.
Meanwhile, there have been some conversations with students, colleagues, and miscellaneous others that have been quite revealing. Sometimes I’m not actually aware of the conversation at all, until someone says “My classmate/teacher/grandmother/bank teller/market clerk/this random guy at the bus stop was talking about you today…” One of my American colleagues told me recently that QZone (a social networking site very much like Facebook) had recently acquired a slightly creepy collection of photos showing me writing on the chalkboard. “They think it’s crazy you’re left-handed,” he told me. “All these comments are asking what it means.”
Thus, when students began bringing it up in class, I was prepared. “Yes, I’m left handed,” I told them.
“You use your left hand?”
“Yes.” I paused here, because they’re all looking at me expectantly. “Because I’m left handed,” I added, since more explanation seemed to be required.
“What’s it mean?”
“Um–” Really, is there a good answer to this question?
“Do you use your left hand to show you’re smart?”
“Ah–no.” Does that sound like maybe they’re accusing me of boasting? ‘Cuz I’m pretty sure that’s what was happening. “I use my left hand because it works better than my right hand.”
“What?” A chorus. I had to laugh.
“Watch.” I turned to the board, switched the chalk to my right hand, and scrawled a predictably awful handwriting sample across the board.
Silence while forty students stared at me, thunderstruck.
There are these moments, occasionally. My lesson plans are sometimes abandoned momentarily while we talk about whatever it is that’s so surprising or foreign. I had to spend a while, for example, soothing my students after the left hand discussion by explaining that when I learned how to write, I started with my left hand and never changed. Students asked why my teachers never tried to change my writing hand. I said that my teachers looked at my paper after I wrote it, and since my letters were correct, they didn’t care about my writing hand. Writing with your off-hand is hard, I told them. Try writing with your left hand sometime. There was an immediate flurry of pencils and paper, and an outburst of giggling.
Similarly, my students and I are constantly engaged in good-natured bickering regarding food and drink temperature. They watch me drinking ice-water with the same pained expression as a mother watching a beloved adult child picking all the peas out of his casserole. They’ve got some sort of sense that it’s not their place to nag, but really, what are you doing – you’re an adult, for pity’s sake! Cold things, I’m told, are bad for your stomach, especially if you eat something hot and drink something cold simultaneously. In the same vein, there was an episode where my host mother and I went swimming, but the pool’s showers didn’t have hot water. Oh, well, right? We can shower when we get home. Or we can suck it up and rinse off here. Nope. If we did either of those, we would sicken dreadfully. So we showered–thoroughly–at the pool, headed out (where it was raining, and of course we had to buy magazines to hold over our wet, thoroughly showered hair whilst running for the car) and immediately showered again once we got home. Because going to bed with wet hair from a warm shower is always better than wet hair from a cold shower, regardless of the fact that wet hair is cold after 5 minutes no matter how hot the shower in question was.
Sometimes I am the one gaping in astonishment. The first time my students turned in their homework assignments, each with a very formal “thank you, teacher,” and a little bow to accompany it, the majority of them had written out the assignment on sticky-notes. Coming from a place where a paper with anything other than 12-point Times New Roman font meant half the teachers wouldn’t accept it, that was a bit weird. No, I didn’t expect typed papers. I wasn’t really expecting homework on teddy-bear-shaped sticky notes, either.
Speaking of homework assignments, I’ll close this post with a quick review of what the students and their most recent assignment has taught me. I asked my students to pretend they were studying in America. If their friends and family could send them a box of 10 things from home, what would they want sent? I gave a few examples of American knickknacks that are unobtainable here, and challenged them to think of things that they might not be able to find in another country. Students told me all about their lists during class. It was highly informative and quite hilarious for all sides. Below is a list of some of the standouts:
- Chopsticks – Because in America, we don’t know what these are, or how to use them, and we never sell them ever. Apparently.
- Old Dry Mom – This is the literal translation of the name of a particular hot sauce that is the Chinese equivalent of ketchup – it goes on everything. If it’s not spicy, it’s not food, or so they tell me. It also prompted a talk about when words should be translated, and when not. This is an excellent example of ‘not.’
- Some Snakes of Chongqing – After seeing this on about 5 or 6 different lists, I finally had to ask. I’ve been in Chongqing a while now, and while snakes do appear occasionally in both soups and alcohol, neither seemed particularly popular among my students. It turns out that ‘snake’ is the Chinglish version of ‘definate’ – just as most adults still can’t spell ‘definite’ correctly, so even my highest level students can’t spell ‘snack.’ At least now the texts that read “Teacher I bring snakes to class for you” will cause me a little less trepidation.
- Beijing Roast Duck – A particularly delicious Chinese dish that I will miss madly upon returning to the States. However, I do hope no one includes these in care packages, because customs is unlikely to clear any box containing a still-whole duck carcass, roasted or not.
- Bacon – WHERE? WHERE IS THE BACON? I have been here for months and THERE IS NO BACON. I accused my students of being shameless liars, and they demonstrated that in every Chinese-English translator, there is some form of pig-meat that is NOT bacon, but is nonetheless unfailingly translated as ‘bacon.’ And then they brought me ‘bacon’ the next day. It was not bacon, and I was sad, but there is something magical about thirty students waving chopsticks at a body while shouting ‘bacon’ that would cheer anyone up.
- Six God – Chinese mosquito repellent. It stinks quite terribly, and is, according to Peace Corps medical staff, not to be used indoors. I don’t know what this suggests about its toxicity, but I do know it puts most Western repellent I’ve used to shame.
- Band-Aids – Featured on roughly 2/3 of all lists received. America, presumably, is full of sharp things.
- Medicine – This also includes medicine-type things, a sampling of which includes: swabs, alcohol, stethoscope, painkillers, cold medicine, diarrhea medicine, eye lotion, sterilized bandages, scissors, styptic (I actually had to look what what this was, props to the multiple students who 1) knew the word, and 2) are so prepared for adventure that they would actually have it sent to them in a care package), and hemostat (like I said, mad props).
- Traditional Chinese Medicine – Definitely a separate monster from the above. Sometimes weird, sometimes practical, always fascinating. I encourage anyone interested to open their mind, slam this into Google, and continue to keep your mind firmly open while reading about this. It’s worth mentioning that ‘disease theory’ and ‘germ theory’ are, in terms of cross-cultural studies, exactly that – theories, with alternate explanations offered by many cultures. If you are interested in acupuncture, herbal medicine, yoga, or even massage, you might find aspects of Traditional Chinese medicine that ring quite true for you.
- Housekeys – It’s important, when you’re half a planet away, to always keep your housekeys on you. The chances of losing them in America (versus the chance of them vanishing from your mom’s cupboard drawer back home) are obviously low, and you never know when you might need to catch a plane home to pick up a change of clothes and find yourself on your doorstep thinking “Ah, curses, I left my keys on the table next to the teapot again.”
- Flashlights – Because in America, we don’t have lights.
- Godmother – Will she fit in a box? Will she survive the month in transit? Or is this some strange combination of hot sauce and mosquito spray? We may never know.
- Mildewed Tote – The best kind of tote, apparently. I never did learn what exactly this was supposed to mean.
- “All kinds of gift with Chinese characteristics” – It was pretty incredible how consistently this appeared on lists. Presents for foreign friends was a top-priority packing item, which speaks to the really sweet side of nearly all my students. For anyone at home who worries about me, don’t – I have a small army of Chinese students pressing treats and kindnesses on me on a regular basis. This has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with a culture where respect and concern can surface without fear of embarrassment. To worry about someone, to seek out someone just to help them, is just what is done here, and there is never any shame in it, as there sometimes is in America. It’s refreshing, it’s incredible, and I hope I can carry some bit of it back with me when I return.
- “The things we have forgotten to bring” – And then we have the ever-practical. Also quite nice.
- “I need nothing but a letter from my family – my mom, father, grandmother, grandfather, sister, boyfriend, brother, cat, dog, and friends. Everything is OK.” – Dawwww. On a side note, I got a hug from this same student today, because, she said, “Today is Halloween, and Americans like Halloween. So can I hug you, teacher?” Halloween, everyone, the day of hugs.
Also, apparently, the day I finally go home and write a blog post. I’ll dedicate this one to that student and her hug.
Happy Halloween to all my readers, and this time, I promise, we actually really will talk again soon.
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