So, it's that time of year again. Finishing up fall classes, dodging students' requests that we sing Christmas songs for hundreds of them at class parties, and trying not to miss home too much. I read US news articles about violence breaking out at Black Friday sales, about the tough economy making it hard for working families to buy gifts, about the never ending ridiculousness of American politics, and about snow and below freezing temperatures back home... and I still can't help but wish I was there! It's not quite in the way that I missed home last year, when the wound was still fresh and I would find myself fending off panic attacks and crying jags. This year, it's more of a dull ache, which usually produces a long sigh, typically followed by a cough, that reminds me not to breathe the air too deeply. Pacific Northwesterners: appreciate that lovely invisible air that surrounds you every moment of the day and fills your lungs with oxygen rich loveliness!
One upside to the dull ache however, is how easily it can be relieved with simple pleasures. Yesterday several of us visited the campus of one of our fellow volunteers, Judy, an older volunteer who has been a teacher of both French and German in the US and is always full of interesting anecdotes and surprising quirks. She lived in Germany for a time on a Fulbright Scholarship, so she still has friends and connections there. We started our visit with a lunch with the Chinese English teachers at her school, followed by sessions with eager English students during which we answered questions and discussed topics for conversation practice. The students were very sweet and excited to meet us, and our conversations were followed by lines of students asking the ubiquitous, "Can we take our picture with you?" to which we obliged several minutes of photo-taking. Afterward, Judy invited us back to her apartment in the campus hotel where she served us some amazing traditional German holiday treats including dark-chocolate coated marzipan, stollen (a spicy cookie-like treat with ground hazelnuts), lebukuchen (bread with dried fruits), and German tea. It was like Christmas in my mouth. Just sitting on a cozy couch and sipping some lovely licorice tea with our fellow volunteers gave me that warm fuzzy holiday feeling. Judy was also sweet enough to send us each off with a beautiful little handmade straw Christmas ornament from Germany and some Santa-shaped German chocolates. A big thanks to Judy and her generous friends in Germany for such holiday loveliness!
After a charming walk through the quaint communist-era factory village near her house (now partly deserted but still cozy in its dilapidation) we reached the more modern area where we needed to catch a bus back into the city. Being a Friday evening, many locals had the same idea, and so the three of us headed into the city smashed ourselves into the already packed bus, pinning ourselves between Chinese peasants and college students. So much for holiday loveliness, and back to daily life in China. We were in a hurry because we were scheduled to meet our waiban for a ride to a free evening Sichuan Opera performance provided by the Chongqing Foreign Experts Bureau (that's us, "Foreign Experts"- experts on our own foreignness). Of course the Friday traffic was unforgiving, we missed our ride but were able to make it to the theater before the performance began thanks to the miracles of Chongqing's newly expanded subway and monorail system. The performance was intended to be a holiday treat for all the foreign teachers in the city and while it was quite interesting to finally see a real Sichuan opera performance after more than a year and half here, it was a little less awe-inspiring than I had anticipated. The costumes were amazing, the tricks (mask changing, disappearing beards and fire breathing) were impressive, and the actors in the lead roles were definitely skilled, but it was a little cringe-inducing to see some of the near misses of the obviously amateur acrobats (one almost landed on the head of another during a tumbling routine, knocking his hat off), and less than stellar stage setup, which included flower arrangements that blocked views of the performances and props that looked shoddy especially compared to the elaborate costumes. But who am I to criticize a free performance (a rude and direct American who values honesty over politeness perhaps)?
Keeping ourselves busy is key to making sure our time here is productive and painless, so after the performance we enjoyed some shao kao (Chinese street bbq) with the new Mexican foreign teachers at our school, followed by a beer pong party at their house. The cups and table were smaller than the standard American version, but team USA (Richy and Jason) dominated the game against Mexican, Filipino, Chinese and British challengers alike. One of the great things about being an expat is being able have fun and make friends with people from all over the world. Today, we recover from our busy Friday night shenanigans as I scour the internet for acceptable Christmas cookie recipes that can be made without butter. We're looking forward to our last week of classes (best China Christmas present ever), and next weekend filled with more foreigner-fueled holiday excitement. Afterward, we begin our long winter break with a New Year's weekend trip to Harbin (brrr!) and our Indonesia adventure in mid-January. Then I get to see my Kimmie as a Chinese New Year present!
Happy Holidays!
~Katie
17.12.11
6.11.11
Thankfulness
Since the end of the sweltering Chongqing summer, time has flown by with unimaginable speed. I feel as though I missed the entire month of October, but was somehow able to slow down enough to have a Halloween party. It's like I woke up one day in China and actually had a normal life.
Let me recap October: My parents' visit came and went, leaving us with a refrigerator full of glorious cheeses, a bathroom full of organic toiletries and satiated with hugs from home. With them, we visited the beautiful Three Gorges on the Yangtze river by cruise ship during the week long national holiday, which was a spectacular trip. It also drove home the massive impact that the Three Gorges Dam project has had on the region in both good and bad ways (navigation and clean power vs. landslides and loss of livelihood). Given the physical challenges of schlepping around Chongqing, my parents passed the ultimate test: still sprightly enough to mount the 70+ stairs to our apartment after each outing (including Ciqikou, Dazu, Three Gorges Museum and Jie Fang Bei)! My dad earned himself bonus points by waking up early each morning and walking himself around the city (even all the way to Jie Fang Bei) with no Chinese and no map.
Richy and I also became uncle/aunt to a new baby girl at some point in there, although our internet wasn't working well enough to meet her over Skype until she was more than two weeks old.
As time flies by, I'm reflecting more and more on how this experience of living in China and being a Peace Corps volunteer has changed me. The one thing I can say definitively is that I have a new found appreciation for what it means to be thankful. In China, I try to say thank you, xie xie (谢谢), whenever someone treats me with kindness or respect, or does something that makes my life easier, even if they get paid to do it. In Chongqing, people usually respond with the phrase bu yong xie (不用谢) which literally means "don't use thanks," something I have always interpreted to be akin to saying "no problem" or "it's nothing." Today Richy and I thanked a repairman replacing our blown electrical meter switch, and a man watching him do the work told us in Chinese, "You don't need to say thanks, this guy is just doing his work. He's getting paid." Whether the man gets paid to do his work doesn't mean much to me, since I have known many situations in my life (and in China) where people don't do the things they are supposed to do, much to my consternation and inconvenience. I am thankful when people do things to help me, even, and maybe especially, if it is their job to it. I think it's okay to say to people "I'm happy that you exist and that the things you get paid to do also happen to my life better." So I have no intention of cutting down on my xie xie's to people whether they're working or not. There are worse things than being the weirdo foreigner who says "thank you" too much.
Since it is the month to be thankful, I'd like to reflect on all the things that make my life better (even if there is no conscious effort involved to help me). Part of what is humbling about my Peace Corps experience is that I have learned very well how much my privileges in life shape the way I experience the world. There are a lot of things I have that give me a leg up in life, even though I never asked for or earned them:
And, as I ponder this incredible feeling of thankfulness, I can turn my attention toward making it through this last set of holidays without my family, and look forward to a break from the concrete cold of our apartment this winter as we plan our way to the beautiful temples and beaches of Indonesia in January. (!!!)
Thankfully yours,
Katie
Let me recap October: My parents' visit came and went, leaving us with a refrigerator full of glorious cheeses, a bathroom full of organic toiletries and satiated with hugs from home. With them, we visited the beautiful Three Gorges on the Yangtze river by cruise ship during the week long national holiday, which was a spectacular trip. It also drove home the massive impact that the Three Gorges Dam project has had on the region in both good and bad ways (navigation and clean power vs. landslides and loss of livelihood). Given the physical challenges of schlepping around Chongqing, my parents passed the ultimate test: still sprightly enough to mount the 70+ stairs to our apartment after each outing (including Ciqikou, Dazu, Three Gorges Museum and Jie Fang Bei)! My dad earned himself bonus points by waking up early each morning and walking himself around the city (even all the way to Jie Fang Bei) with no Chinese and no map.
Richy and I also became uncle/aunt to a new baby girl at some point in there, although our internet wasn't working well enough to meet her over Skype until she was more than two weeks old.
As time flies by, I'm reflecting more and more on how this experience of living in China and being a Peace Corps volunteer has changed me. The one thing I can say definitively is that I have a new found appreciation for what it means to be thankful. In China, I try to say thank you, xie xie (谢谢), whenever someone treats me with kindness or respect, or does something that makes my life easier, even if they get paid to do it. In Chongqing, people usually respond with the phrase bu yong xie (不用谢) which literally means "don't use thanks," something I have always interpreted to be akin to saying "no problem" or "it's nothing." Today Richy and I thanked a repairman replacing our blown electrical meter switch, and a man watching him do the work told us in Chinese, "You don't need to say thanks, this guy is just doing his work. He's getting paid." Whether the man gets paid to do his work doesn't mean much to me, since I have known many situations in my life (and in China) where people don't do the things they are supposed to do, much to my consternation and inconvenience. I am thankful when people do things to help me, even, and maybe especially, if it is their job to it. I think it's okay to say to people "I'm happy that you exist and that the things you get paid to do also happen to my life better." So I have no intention of cutting down on my xie xie's to people whether they're working or not. There are worse things than being the weirdo foreigner who says "thank you" too much.
Since it is the month to be thankful, I'd like to reflect on all the things that make my life better (even if there is no conscious effort involved to help me). Part of what is humbling about my Peace Corps experience is that I have learned very well how much my privileges in life shape the way I experience the world. There are a lot of things I have that give me a leg up in life, even though I never asked for or earned them:
- First of all, I am thankful for being raised by two amazing, involved, and incredibly generous parents who encouraged me to trust myself and develop independence. I am also thankful that those two people have very different skill sets, which I have inherited and/or learned from each to make me a more capable and well-rounded person. I am also thankful that my dad has always had a job that kept us clothed, housed, well-fed and medically insured.
- I am thankful for an awesome partner to share this crazy life with, someone who challenges me and supports me and both forces me to stay ambitious but also keep my feet on the ground. Someone who offers me stability, flexibility and mutual respect. It also helps that he has given me some amazing in-laws (why can't we call them in-loves?) who feel as much a part of my family as my real family does.
- I am thankful for three beautiful, smart, caring and creative sisters and one handsome, intelligent and sometimes mysterious brother. All of whom I love and care and worry about more than words can express.
- I am thankful that I grew up with the privilege of speaking English, a skill that took no more effort than any other child learning their native language, but which gives me endless opportunities in life, travel and work. It also allows me access to a huge amount of information, virtually unparallelled in any other language.
- I am thankful to be healthy; thankful to have healthy parents and siblings, and six beautiful, healthy nieces and nephews.
- I am thankful that as much as the world is full of terrible things, it is also full of wonderful things that make the terrible things worth overcoming.
- I am thankful that on the days that living in China overwhelms me, that I can remember that I have the freedom and privilege to return to my home someday, and that I have a nationality and wealth that allows me to travel (almost) anywhere I want to.
- I am thankful that I have always been able to be in control of my reproductive decisions.
- I am thankful for my students who are genuinely interested in the knowledge I have to offer them.
- I am thankful that the home I look forward to returning to has beautiful clean air, rivers, evergreen trees, and safe, delicious food from around the world.
- I am thankful that I have never known what it's like to be hungry, what it's like to be homeless, or what it's like to be gravely ill.
- I am thankful to have had access to a world-class education, that taught me how to be a critical thinker, and gave me the tools to become my own teacher.
- I am thankful to have had the opportunity to choose my vocation in life.
- I am thankful to have things to look forward to in my future.
- I am thankful for all the things I don't even know enough to be thankful for.
And, as I ponder this incredible feeling of thankfulness, I can turn my attention toward making it through this last set of holidays without my family, and look forward to a break from the concrete cold of our apartment this winter as we plan our way to the beautiful temples and beaches of Indonesia in January. (!!!)
Thankfully yours,
Katie
22.9.11
Who is the Peace Corps for?
A few articles I have read recently have me asking this question: one is by a returned Peace Corps volunteer who reflects on the impact her service had on her host community and the impact it had on her as a person (and from where I stole the name for this posting), and the other is about a Republican congressman from Colorado who wants funding for Peace Corps China revoked.
The Peace Corps has three simple stated goals, which we spent part of our pre-service training studying and memorizing:
But then, I can look at it all from a different perspective. Education is one of those fields where the benefits rarely make themselves clear in the short term. Whether or not my students end up using their improved English skills to find a better job in the future (it is worth noting that the vast majority of my students are first generation college students from farming families in the countryside), I'd like to think that my simple presence in their lives expands their worldview in significant ways. I have blown students' minds by telling them such simple truths as "most Americans do not eat hamburgers everyday," "not all Americans are Christian," and that despite the fact that Americans generally prefer more open communication styles than Chinese people, we usually really don't like to be open about our personal lives. I know from my background in education that discussing these counterpoints to previously held beliefs and encouraging students to engage in genuine dialogue can help to improve critical thinking skills. Traditionally, Chinese education depends on rote memorization from lectures and textbooks, and unquestioningly accepting as fact anything that a teacher says is true. These learned behaviors also seem to translate to social and political life in China. My hope is that my students' development of critical thinking skills will help them to deal with the significant issues of corruption, food safety, public health, and environmental degradation facing China. I hope that by teaching them to question assumptions about Americans, it will also teach them to question assumptions in other areas of their lives.
There is also the thought of my future students, or if I am not lucky enough to find a job in teaching the future, my future friends and colleagues in the US who might someday ask me about my experiences in China. Goal three of the Peace Corps is to teach Americans about the people we met during our service. In addition to my Chinese language skills, I hope to be able to pass on a deeper and more respectful understanding of China. We seem to hear a lot about China in America, and truly the economic and political destinies of our two countries right now seem deeply intertwined. There is a lot of misunderstanding and mystery about China in the West and I hope to be able to shed some light on it when I return home, although that phase seems a little intangible to me right now. This blog could be considered an example of a "goal 3 activity."
Finally, there is the question of how the Peace Corps has changed me personally. I know I have become more resourceful and pragmatic. I have learned how to actively manage my health and well-being in a sometimes hostile environment. I have become tougher, more mature and less sensitive to social and physical discomforts. I have developed leadership skills and learned how to build community in difficult situations. I have learned basic oral and written communication skills in a second language. More personal benefits will likely become clear to me when we return home next summer, after I deal with the significant hurdle of "re-entry shock." Whatever the case, I am sure these skills will be invaluable in whatever the next stage of my life or career turns out to be. There is no doubt that compared to any one of my students, I have gained the most by being here. But is that what the Peace Corps is for? Is that why American taxpayer money supports the Peace Corps? Those are difficult questions to answer, but I guess I can be thankful for what it has done for me, and spend of the rest of my time here working as hard as I can trying to make a difference in the lives of the people I come in contact with, and try to spend the rest of my life sharing with others the lessons I have learned.
~ Katie
The Peace Corps has three simple stated goals, which we spent part of our pre-service training studying and memorizing:
- Helping the people of interested countries meet their needs for trained men and women.
- Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
- Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
But then, I can look at it all from a different perspective. Education is one of those fields where the benefits rarely make themselves clear in the short term. Whether or not my students end up using their improved English skills to find a better job in the future (it is worth noting that the vast majority of my students are first generation college students from farming families in the countryside), I'd like to think that my simple presence in their lives expands their worldview in significant ways. I have blown students' minds by telling them such simple truths as "most Americans do not eat hamburgers everyday," "not all Americans are Christian," and that despite the fact that Americans generally prefer more open communication styles than Chinese people, we usually really don't like to be open about our personal lives. I know from my background in education that discussing these counterpoints to previously held beliefs and encouraging students to engage in genuine dialogue can help to improve critical thinking skills. Traditionally, Chinese education depends on rote memorization from lectures and textbooks, and unquestioningly accepting as fact anything that a teacher says is true. These learned behaviors also seem to translate to social and political life in China. My hope is that my students' development of critical thinking skills will help them to deal with the significant issues of corruption, food safety, public health, and environmental degradation facing China. I hope that by teaching them to question assumptions about Americans, it will also teach them to question assumptions in other areas of their lives.
There is also the thought of my future students, or if I am not lucky enough to find a job in teaching the future, my future friends and colleagues in the US who might someday ask me about my experiences in China. Goal three of the Peace Corps is to teach Americans about the people we met during our service. In addition to my Chinese language skills, I hope to be able to pass on a deeper and more respectful understanding of China. We seem to hear a lot about China in America, and truly the economic and political destinies of our two countries right now seem deeply intertwined. There is a lot of misunderstanding and mystery about China in the West and I hope to be able to shed some light on it when I return home, although that phase seems a little intangible to me right now. This blog could be considered an example of a "goal 3 activity."
Finally, there is the question of how the Peace Corps has changed me personally. I know I have become more resourceful and pragmatic. I have learned how to actively manage my health and well-being in a sometimes hostile environment. I have become tougher, more mature and less sensitive to social and physical discomforts. I have developed leadership skills and learned how to build community in difficult situations. I have learned basic oral and written communication skills in a second language. More personal benefits will likely become clear to me when we return home next summer, after I deal with the significant hurdle of "re-entry shock." Whatever the case, I am sure these skills will be invaluable in whatever the next stage of my life or career turns out to be. There is no doubt that compared to any one of my students, I have gained the most by being here. But is that what the Peace Corps is for? Is that why American taxpayer money supports the Peace Corps? Those are difficult questions to answer, but I guess I can be thankful for what it has done for me, and spend of the rest of my time here working as hard as I can trying to make a difference in the lives of the people I come in contact with, and try to spend the rest of my life sharing with others the lessons I have learned.
~ Katie
28.8.11
Summer in Southwest China
After our Haifeng Wetland trip and summer project, we returned to Chongqing for several days to prepare for the next leg of our summer journeys around Southwest China. It was just long enough in the oppressive heat to want to be somewhere else, preferably higher in elevation. We bought sleeper train tickets to Kunming, thinking we were so clever since we had been there before and would know exactly how to hop the buses to Lijiang, where we were planning to study Chinese for 10 days. Unfortunately we were not so clever as to double check the departure station for our train. Every other train we have taken from Chongqing has departed from the Chongqing North Station, but this train apparently only departed from the inner-city station of Cai Yuan Ba. Did our tickets say "Cai Yuan Ba" anywhere on them? No, just the simple city name of "Chongqing." So we were shocked to arrive at the north station 20 minutes early for our train, only to discover that our train was leaving from a station 30 minutes away (and much closer to our apartment). Our confusion and frustration was amplified when a sweet, well-meaning, deaf Chinese college student tried to help us communicate our predicament with the already annoyed train station staff.
Luckily in China, all train tickets are refundable (even if you've already missed your train), provided that you pay a fee equal to 20% of the ticket price. So 100 kuai in fees later, we had tickets for an early morning train to Kunming, this time aware of exactly which station it departed from. Also, luckily, a brand new metro line had just opened with a station 5 minutes from our house which would take us to the appropriate train station in record time and give us a chance to ride a giant escalator down a huge hill! So, after a hearty breakfast of baozi, we boarded our train for Kunming.
Luckily in China, all train tickets are refundable (even if you've already missed your train), provided that you pay a fee equal to 20% of the ticket price. So 100 kuai in fees later, we had tickets for an early morning train to Kunming, this time aware of exactly which station it departed from. Also, luckily, a brand new metro line had just opened with a station 5 minutes from our house which would take us to the appropriate train station in record time and give us a chance to ride a giant escalator down a huge hill! So, after a hearty breakfast of baozi, we boarded our train for Kunming.
It's important to keep in mind that when you board public transportation in China, you must be prepared to face a barrage of questions that would be considered rude or too personal to ask in most Western countries. Richy and I had booked top bunk beds on three-tiered hard sleeper bunks, with the four bunks below us occupied by four friendly, chatty, middle-aged Chinese women. These are some of the questions that ensued during the several hours:
"Are you married?" "How old are you?" "Do you have children? Why not?" "Do you plan to have children?" "Why are you a volunteer?" "Can you not find a job in America that pays good money?" "Do you think you're fat?" "How old are your parents?" "Are your eyes blue or gold?" "How much do you weigh?" "How tall are you?" "Did you learn to sew and knit in America or China?" "How much money do you make in America?" "How much does a car cost in America?" "Do you have any American money that I can look at?" "Do you have a driver's license?" "How much money do your parents make?" "Do you have a romantic marriage or an arranged marriage?"
I guess our time on the train could have been considered day one of our language school, since we certainly got several hours practice in speaking and listening in Chinese. Richy and I developed a tag team pattern to give each other breaks from the endless conversation. I tried to answer the questions as honestly as possible while hinting at how uncomfortable most uninitiated foreigners would feel if questioned in the same way. "We're not accustomed to talking about this in America, but..." The fact of the matter is that Chinese people are curious about foreigners, and these questions are considered totally appropriate for Chinese people to ask each other, so if they meet a foreigner who speaks a little Chinese, why not go for it? After all, Peace Corps goal two is to educate host country nationals about Americans (and goal three is to educate all the readers back home about China...).
When we arrived in Lijiang, the air was pleasantly cool and the location of the school just north of the old town, nestled in the corner of Black Dragon Pool Park, was gorgeous. It was weird to feel the urge to wear long pants, sleeves and socks. We hadn't experienced cool, PNW-like weather since March! The night of our arrival, we were handed a written test in order to place us in our classes. The problem with written tests in Chinese is that the Peace Corps language program focuses primarily on listening and speaking, so even if we have decent conversational ability in Chinese, most Peace Corps volunteers can't read or write Chinese very well. Of the six of us volunteers, only Richy, Leo and I had spent any significant time studying characters, and Leo's Chinese was above and beyond all of us since he studied it in college. The three who hadn't studied characters got put in the lower class with the teacher who spoke English (even though some of their speaking and listening was better than mine) and Richy, Leo and I got put in the higher class with the Chinese teacher who spoke no English. She spent almost the entire first day of class (more than 4 hours) lecturing us about the culture and sights in Lijiang. I tried my best to follow along, but spent most of the time on my ipod's Chinese dictionary app translating everything she wrote on the board. We got used to her style (and she got used to ours) over the next several days and the classes became gradually more communicative and engaging. On several occasions we got frustrated with the generalizations and stereotypes she espoused about foreigners (many of her sentences began with "Nimen waiguoren..." or "You foreigners...") and ethnic minority groups in China. It was a delicate topic and Leo was the only one with the language skills to challenge her on the spot, which he did, which only led to her changing the subject rather than engaging in conversation. We spent the mornings in class, and the afternoons studying and exploring the charming, yet overpriced and overdeveloped tourist attractions of Lijiang.
By the time our classes were finished, we were more than ready to move on from Lijiang. Tim and Sara were supposed to be on their way, so we booked a hostel in the old town, run by a Naxi minority family and their friendly, outgoing matriarch, Mama Naxi. Earlier that week, we had wandered into her hostel seeking a place that could serve us decent priced Western food (which we got - with amazing burgers and sandwiches for only 15-20 kuai) only to find ourselves invited to her grandson's 19th birthday party complete with cake, fruit, singing, hugs and photos (lots and lots of photos). They were so friendly that we knew we had to return. As Richy said it best, "these are the kind of people who should be running hostels."
Unfortunately for Tim and Sara, although their flight from the US to China went without a hitch (they even got upgraded to business class!) they encountered a significant snag when they got to Shanghai and tried to board their plane to Lijiang: their reservations did not exist, even though the travel agency had already charged their card, which pushed them over their limit so their bank would not let them book new tickets. After more than 24 hours of panic and wrangling and figuring out how to use Chinese phones, they finally made it to Lijiang.
Since we had already thoroughly scoped out the city, we spent our last day in Lijiang showing Tim and Sara the significant sights, doing a little shopping to prepare for the trip Northward, and figuring out how to get to Shangrila. Our plan was to take buses from Yunnan up through Western Sichuan, staying in Tibetan towns along the way and visiting temples and doing some hikes to enjoy the scenery of the Eastern Himalayas. Little did we know that our plans were soon about to disintegrate.
We made it to Shangrila as planned. The city of Zhongdian (known as Gyalthang by local Tibetans) was renamed "Shangrila" in order to attract tourists after the fictional place name from the novel Lost Horizon, by James Hilton. While the inspiration for the book probably isn't far off the mark, the idea that the book is based on one, actual place has gotten a little out of hand, with some locals even claiming to be related to the book's fictional characters. Nonetheless, it was a quaint town wafting with the smell of incense and charcoal bbq. Our hostel was especially rustic - in a building with ancient mud brick walls, hard beds and heated with coal stove. We spent the first evening wandering the cobblestone streets of the old town and evaluated which restaurants might serve the best yak burgers, yak hotpot and yak butter tea for the best price. Sara and Tim generously treated us to a fantastic meal of pizza and burgers (something typically out of our price range on our stipend as Peace Corps volunteers).
On our second day there, we set out to walk to the other end of the city to see the Ganden Sumtseling Monastery, considered one of the four most important monasteries in Tibetan Buddhism. On our way there, we stopped by a farmer's market, where I was delighted to find local Tibetan women selling a variety of Yak milk cheeses, of which I bought myself a chunk of something mozzarella-like to nibble on (cheese is hard to find in Han Chinese areas of China, especially locally produced!). Also along the way was the bus station, so we decided to stop in and inquire about the bus schedule to the next town of Xiangcheng, which would also be the first Tibetan town in Sichuan provice (Shangrila is still in Yunnan province). The young woman at the information desk told us that the next bus would be leaving at 8:00 am the next morning and told us how much they cost. We weren't sure at that point if we wanted to leave the next day or later, so we told her we would come back later to buy our tickets. We then continued on to the monastery, a walk that became increasingly more difficult as we became easily exhausted in the thin air at over 11,000 feet. Even though I've been used to climbing at least five flights of stairs with no problems everyday in Chongqing, one flight of stairs left me out of breath in Shangrila. The monumental steps at the foot of the monastery required several rest stops on the way up.
The monastery was beautiful, peaceful and imposing, although half of it seemed to be under construction, and the sense of wonder was amplified by the dark clouds of an impending thunderstorm as hundreds of crows cawed and circled overhead. Richy and Sara made some small donations to the monks, which got them each a benevolent thump on the head and a bracelet of wooden Buddhist beads. The experience whet our appetite for further travels in Tibet and we decided on the way back that we should depart the next day for Xiangcheng.
On our return, we decided to take the local bus back into town and made our way back to the bus station to buy tickets for the next morning. This time, when we spoke to the woman about buying tickets, she quickly and curtly told us that we couldn't buy them. Were they already sold out? Confused, Richy inquired further and she told us that foreigners were no longer allowed in Xiangcheng. She didn't give us any explanation, but then told us that we could buy tickets if we wanted to, but that she couldn't guarantee that we would make it there. Our plans were dissolving before our eyes. Not knowing what else to do, we called the Peace Corps safety and security officer to see if there were any travel warnings for Western Sichuan. He said he had only heard rumors and asked to speak with the woman behind the counter. He confirmed what we had feared, no foreigners allowed in Western Sichuan, no reason given. He advised us not to try to buy tickets as it would only lead us to getting kicked off the bus or detained at the border. I guess we were lucky that we hadn't already bought tickets that morning.
We returned to the old town feeling depressed about not being able to continue our travels on the borderlands of Tibet. We decided that now was the time to try yak hotpot and yak butter tea, as it might be our last chance. So we settled down to Tibetan style hotpot in a local restaurant. The hotpot was rich and meaty, and included vegetables and dried tofu skin (my favorite) which was far and away better than most Sichuan style hot pot I've had. Tim and Sara weren't used to Chinese meat cuts yet, and found the meat a little gristly and bony by American standards, but still tasty. We finished up the meal with some sweet yak butter tea, which tasted to me a lot like chai, but also a little like Korean corn meal tea.
Upon returning to the hostel's wifi connection, we discovered the tragic event that occurred that afternoon in Western Sichuan that led to the area being closed to foreigners: the self-immolation of a Tibetan monk.
We then set our minds to deciding what we should do next: go back to Lijiang? Go to Dali? Emei Shan? Xishuangbanna? Kunming? We only had four days before we wanted to be back in Chengdu, so the options were limited by time and distance. We decided that Dali would be the best option, since it was cheaper than Lijiang, relaxing, and still cooler than Chengdu, Kunming or Chongqing. Unfortunately by the time we got back to the bus station the next morning, all tickets directly to Dali had been sold out, so we decided to take a chance: get the next tickets to Lijiang, so that hopefully by the time we got to Lijiang there would still be tickets left for the last bus of the day to Dali. Our gamble paid off, and six hours later we found ourselves on the last bus of the day to Dali.
Arriving in Dali around 10pm, we found our way to the Mama Naxi II hostel, run by a friendly young man by the name of Joker. Although we were exhausted from spending our entire day on a bus, an already tipsy Joker invited us out to join him and his friends for KTV (Chinese karaoke). We declined at first, but he persisted and finally Sara, Tim and I were lured into joining them (Richy got his way and stayed at the hostel to rest). The KTV joint was a particularly nice one, and we had a huge private room to ourselves where we were served Chinese beer (3.3% ABV), sunflower seeds, raisins, and salted sour plums. It was Sara and Tim's first KTV experience, and it had all the typical hallmarks: a smoke filled room, people screaming Chinese pop songs into microphones, and lots of Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson to impress the English speakers.
We enjoyed the following day in the laid back atmosphere (and pleasing climate) of Dali, while also finding time to make arrangements for our bus to Kunming and then our train to Chengdu. After a 4 hour bus ride to Kunming, our night train to Chengdu was only supposed to be 11 hours, and unfortunately all the sleeper tickets had been sold out, so we ended up with hard seats. We knew it would be a little tough and tiring, especially for Tim and Sara's first ever train ride.
Unfortunately, not only did we not have sleeper beds for the train ride, but all the standing room on the train had also been sold out. In China, if there are no seats left on a train, they continue to sell standing-room tickets. For us, this meant the aisles on the train were full, the bathrooms were full, and moving up out of our seats was almost impossible. For Richy and I, this was a somewhat expected turn of events, but not so much for Sara and Tim. The second heartbreak of the train ride was that it ended up taking 18 hours to reach our destination instead of the 11 that was originally displayed on the ticket schedule. Again, late trains are pretty commonplace in China, so Richy and I were somewhat mentally prepared, but Tim and Sara were a bit shocked by the whole ordeal. Despite the discomfort, they earned some hardcore traveler stripes, and we made it safe and sound (if somewhat exhausted) to our hostel in Chengdu.
Chengdu's weather was warm, but nothing compared to the highs of up to 113 F that our comrades were experiencing in Chongqing, so we did our best to enjoy the outdoors and wander around. We spent a relaxing afternoon sipping tea in the People's Park, enjoyed some beloved Pete's Tex-Mex (they even have a Peace Corps discount!) and met up for drinks and a little dancing with some of our Peace Corps friends in town.
Our train to Chongqing redeemed the first trip for Sara and Tim, with the ultra-efficient 2 and 1/2 hour speed train leaving from the brand new Chengdu East train station (which to me, looked even nicer than the Beijing international airport). We sped by villages and rice paddies of the Sichuan basin in air-conditioned comfort. By the time of our arrival, the heat wave had broken, with temps back down into the upper 80's. We enjoyed a leisurely pace and the bargain prices of Chongqing, exploring the ancient town, visiting pandas, lions and monkeys at the city zoo, and introducing Tim and Sara to the oil and fire craziness that is a meal of Chongqing-style hotpot.
After seeing Sara and Tim to the early morning airport shuttle, and the bittersweet farewell (this next year is going to go by fast!) we returned to our apartment and surprisingly slept until the early afternoon. I guess I didn't realize how much this crazy summer had taken out of us. Now we begin to return to our normal life of grocery shopping, cleaning house and teaching classes, while looking forward to my parents' visit at the end of September!
"Are you married?" "How old are you?" "Do you have children? Why not?" "Do you plan to have children?" "Why are you a volunteer?" "Can you not find a job in America that pays good money?" "Do you think you're fat?" "How old are your parents?" "Are your eyes blue or gold?" "How much do you weigh?" "How tall are you?" "Did you learn to sew and knit in America or China?" "How much money do you make in America?" "How much does a car cost in America?" "Do you have any American money that I can look at?" "Do you have a driver's license?" "How much money do your parents make?" "Do you have a romantic marriage or an arranged marriage?"
I guess our time on the train could have been considered day one of our language school, since we certainly got several hours practice in speaking and listening in Chinese. Richy and I developed a tag team pattern to give each other breaks from the endless conversation. I tried to answer the questions as honestly as possible while hinting at how uncomfortable most uninitiated foreigners would feel if questioned in the same way. "We're not accustomed to talking about this in America, but..." The fact of the matter is that Chinese people are curious about foreigners, and these questions are considered totally appropriate for Chinese people to ask each other, so if they meet a foreigner who speaks a little Chinese, why not go for it? After all, Peace Corps goal two is to educate host country nationals about Americans (and goal three is to educate all the readers back home about China...).
When we arrived in Lijiang, the air was pleasantly cool and the location of the school just north of the old town, nestled in the corner of Black Dragon Pool Park, was gorgeous. It was weird to feel the urge to wear long pants, sleeves and socks. We hadn't experienced cool, PNW-like weather since March! The night of our arrival, we were handed a written test in order to place us in our classes. The problem with written tests in Chinese is that the Peace Corps language program focuses primarily on listening and speaking, so even if we have decent conversational ability in Chinese, most Peace Corps volunteers can't read or write Chinese very well. Of the six of us volunteers, only Richy, Leo and I had spent any significant time studying characters, and Leo's Chinese was above and beyond all of us since he studied it in college. The three who hadn't studied characters got put in the lower class with the teacher who spoke English (even though some of their speaking and listening was better than mine) and Richy, Leo and I got put in the higher class with the Chinese teacher who spoke no English. She spent almost the entire first day of class (more than 4 hours) lecturing us about the culture and sights in Lijiang. I tried my best to follow along, but spent most of the time on my ipod's Chinese dictionary app translating everything she wrote on the board. We got used to her style (and she got used to ours) over the next several days and the classes became gradually more communicative and engaging. On several occasions we got frustrated with the generalizations and stereotypes she espoused about foreigners (many of her sentences began with "Nimen waiguoren..." or "You foreigners...") and ethnic minority groups in China. It was a delicate topic and Leo was the only one with the language skills to challenge her on the spot, which he did, which only led to her changing the subject rather than engaging in conversation. We spent the mornings in class, and the afternoons studying and exploring the charming, yet overpriced and overdeveloped tourist attractions of Lijiang.
By the time our classes were finished, we were more than ready to move on from Lijiang. Tim and Sara were supposed to be on their way, so we booked a hostel in the old town, run by a Naxi minority family and their friendly, outgoing matriarch, Mama Naxi. Earlier that week, we had wandered into her hostel seeking a place that could serve us decent priced Western food (which we got - with amazing burgers and sandwiches for only 15-20 kuai) only to find ourselves invited to her grandson's 19th birthday party complete with cake, fruit, singing, hugs and photos (lots and lots of photos). They were so friendly that we knew we had to return. As Richy said it best, "these are the kind of people who should be running hostels."
Unfortunately for Tim and Sara, although their flight from the US to China went without a hitch (they even got upgraded to business class!) they encountered a significant snag when they got to Shanghai and tried to board their plane to Lijiang: their reservations did not exist, even though the travel agency had already charged their card, which pushed them over their limit so their bank would not let them book new tickets. After more than 24 hours of panic and wrangling and figuring out how to use Chinese phones, they finally made it to Lijiang.
Since we had already thoroughly scoped out the city, we spent our last day in Lijiang showing Tim and Sara the significant sights, doing a little shopping to prepare for the trip Northward, and figuring out how to get to Shangrila. Our plan was to take buses from Yunnan up through Western Sichuan, staying in Tibetan towns along the way and visiting temples and doing some hikes to enjoy the scenery of the Eastern Himalayas. Little did we know that our plans were soon about to disintegrate.
We made it to Shangrila as planned. The city of Zhongdian (known as Gyalthang by local Tibetans) was renamed "Shangrila" in order to attract tourists after the fictional place name from the novel Lost Horizon, by James Hilton. While the inspiration for the book probably isn't far off the mark, the idea that the book is based on one, actual place has gotten a little out of hand, with some locals even claiming to be related to the book's fictional characters. Nonetheless, it was a quaint town wafting with the smell of incense and charcoal bbq. Our hostel was especially rustic - in a building with ancient mud brick walls, hard beds and heated with coal stove. We spent the first evening wandering the cobblestone streets of the old town and evaluated which restaurants might serve the best yak burgers, yak hotpot and yak butter tea for the best price. Sara and Tim generously treated us to a fantastic meal of pizza and burgers (something typically out of our price range on our stipend as Peace Corps volunteers).
On our second day there, we set out to walk to the other end of the city to see the Ganden Sumtseling Monastery, considered one of the four most important monasteries in Tibetan Buddhism. On our way there, we stopped by a farmer's market, where I was delighted to find local Tibetan women selling a variety of Yak milk cheeses, of which I bought myself a chunk of something mozzarella-like to nibble on (cheese is hard to find in Han Chinese areas of China, especially locally produced!). Also along the way was the bus station, so we decided to stop in and inquire about the bus schedule to the next town of Xiangcheng, which would also be the first Tibetan town in Sichuan provice (Shangrila is still in Yunnan province). The young woman at the information desk told us that the next bus would be leaving at 8:00 am the next morning and told us how much they cost. We weren't sure at that point if we wanted to leave the next day or later, so we told her we would come back later to buy our tickets. We then continued on to the monastery, a walk that became increasingly more difficult as we became easily exhausted in the thin air at over 11,000 feet. Even though I've been used to climbing at least five flights of stairs with no problems everyday in Chongqing, one flight of stairs left me out of breath in Shangrila. The monumental steps at the foot of the monastery required several rest stops on the way up.
The monastery was beautiful, peaceful and imposing, although half of it seemed to be under construction, and the sense of wonder was amplified by the dark clouds of an impending thunderstorm as hundreds of crows cawed and circled overhead. Richy and Sara made some small donations to the monks, which got them each a benevolent thump on the head and a bracelet of wooden Buddhist beads. The experience whet our appetite for further travels in Tibet and we decided on the way back that we should depart the next day for Xiangcheng.
On our return, we decided to take the local bus back into town and made our way back to the bus station to buy tickets for the next morning. This time, when we spoke to the woman about buying tickets, she quickly and curtly told us that we couldn't buy them. Were they already sold out? Confused, Richy inquired further and she told us that foreigners were no longer allowed in Xiangcheng. She didn't give us any explanation, but then told us that we could buy tickets if we wanted to, but that she couldn't guarantee that we would make it there. Our plans were dissolving before our eyes. Not knowing what else to do, we called the Peace Corps safety and security officer to see if there were any travel warnings for Western Sichuan. He said he had only heard rumors and asked to speak with the woman behind the counter. He confirmed what we had feared, no foreigners allowed in Western Sichuan, no reason given. He advised us not to try to buy tickets as it would only lead us to getting kicked off the bus or detained at the border. I guess we were lucky that we hadn't already bought tickets that morning.
We returned to the old town feeling depressed about not being able to continue our travels on the borderlands of Tibet. We decided that now was the time to try yak hotpot and yak butter tea, as it might be our last chance. So we settled down to Tibetan style hotpot in a local restaurant. The hotpot was rich and meaty, and included vegetables and dried tofu skin (my favorite) which was far and away better than most Sichuan style hot pot I've had. Tim and Sara weren't used to Chinese meat cuts yet, and found the meat a little gristly and bony by American standards, but still tasty. We finished up the meal with some sweet yak butter tea, which tasted to me a lot like chai, but also a little like Korean corn meal tea.
Upon returning to the hostel's wifi connection, we discovered the tragic event that occurred that afternoon in Western Sichuan that led to the area being closed to foreigners: the self-immolation of a Tibetan monk.
We then set our minds to deciding what we should do next: go back to Lijiang? Go to Dali? Emei Shan? Xishuangbanna? Kunming? We only had four days before we wanted to be back in Chengdu, so the options were limited by time and distance. We decided that Dali would be the best option, since it was cheaper than Lijiang, relaxing, and still cooler than Chengdu, Kunming or Chongqing. Unfortunately by the time we got back to the bus station the next morning, all tickets directly to Dali had been sold out, so we decided to take a chance: get the next tickets to Lijiang, so that hopefully by the time we got to Lijiang there would still be tickets left for the last bus of the day to Dali. Our gamble paid off, and six hours later we found ourselves on the last bus of the day to Dali.
Arriving in Dali around 10pm, we found our way to the Mama Naxi II hostel, run by a friendly young man by the name of Joker. Although we were exhausted from spending our entire day on a bus, an already tipsy Joker invited us out to join him and his friends for KTV (Chinese karaoke). We declined at first, but he persisted and finally Sara, Tim and I were lured into joining them (Richy got his way and stayed at the hostel to rest). The KTV joint was a particularly nice one, and we had a huge private room to ourselves where we were served Chinese beer (3.3% ABV), sunflower seeds, raisins, and salted sour plums. It was Sara and Tim's first KTV experience, and it had all the typical hallmarks: a smoke filled room, people screaming Chinese pop songs into microphones, and lots of Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson to impress the English speakers.
We enjoyed the following day in the laid back atmosphere (and pleasing climate) of Dali, while also finding time to make arrangements for our bus to Kunming and then our train to Chengdu. After a 4 hour bus ride to Kunming, our night train to Chengdu was only supposed to be 11 hours, and unfortunately all the sleeper tickets had been sold out, so we ended up with hard seats. We knew it would be a little tough and tiring, especially for Tim and Sara's first ever train ride.
Unfortunately, not only did we not have sleeper beds for the train ride, but all the standing room on the train had also been sold out. In China, if there are no seats left on a train, they continue to sell standing-room tickets. For us, this meant the aisles on the train were full, the bathrooms were full, and moving up out of our seats was almost impossible. For Richy and I, this was a somewhat expected turn of events, but not so much for Sara and Tim. The second heartbreak of the train ride was that it ended up taking 18 hours to reach our destination instead of the 11 that was originally displayed on the ticket schedule. Again, late trains are pretty commonplace in China, so Richy and I were somewhat mentally prepared, but Tim and Sara were a bit shocked by the whole ordeal. Despite the discomfort, they earned some hardcore traveler stripes, and we made it safe and sound (if somewhat exhausted) to our hostel in Chengdu.
Chengdu's weather was warm, but nothing compared to the highs of up to 113 F that our comrades were experiencing in Chongqing, so we did our best to enjoy the outdoors and wander around. We spent a relaxing afternoon sipping tea in the People's Park, enjoyed some beloved Pete's Tex-Mex (they even have a Peace Corps discount!) and met up for drinks and a little dancing with some of our Peace Corps friends in town.
Our train to Chongqing redeemed the first trip for Sara and Tim, with the ultra-efficient 2 and 1/2 hour speed train leaving from the brand new Chengdu East train station (which to me, looked even nicer than the Beijing international airport). We sped by villages and rice paddies of the Sichuan basin in air-conditioned comfort. By the time of our arrival, the heat wave had broken, with temps back down into the upper 80's. We enjoyed a leisurely pace and the bargain prices of Chongqing, exploring the ancient town, visiting pandas, lions and monkeys at the city zoo, and introducing Tim and Sara to the oil and fire craziness that is a meal of Chongqing-style hotpot.
After seeing Sara and Tim to the early morning airport shuttle, and the bittersweet farewell (this next year is going to go by fast!) we returned to our apartment and surprisingly slept until the early afternoon. I guess I didn't realize how much this crazy summer had taken out of us. Now we begin to return to our normal life of grocery shopping, cleaning house and teaching classes, while looking forward to my parents' visit at the end of September!
24.7.11
Summer Project: Small Victories
Each summer in Peace Corps China, program managers from each province help organize teacher trainings and language camps for Chinese English teachers in K-12 settings. Peace Corps volunteers teach lessons on Western style teaching methodologies and help the trainees improve their oral English, so they can go back to their classrooms with fresh ideas and skills. It seems to be a good opportunity to try to instill some of our ideas about communicative teaching and cultural awareness into the younger generation, so hopefully they won't be so shocked when they meet foreign teachers in college for the first time (foreign teachers who ask them to do strange things like work in groups, speak without notes, avoid plagiarism, and think independently). Also it hopefully will provide non-college bound students more opportunities to acquire communicative English language skills which might translate into better job prospects when they test out or can no longer afford to attend school.
I had been looking forward to summer project ever since our winter in-service training session when volunteers from the china 15 group said that it had been one of the highlights of their service. I wish I would have realized at the time that, like most experiences in the Peace Corps so far, enriching experiences like these are generally hard won (but still worthwhile) and usually require a large investment of effort in what seem, on the surface, to be minor victories. In our favor, we have an amazing, supportive and motivated program manager, so our Chongqing project was planned far in advance, and we felt pretty lucky to have the extra time to organize ourselves, review curriculum and plan lessons. This is especially appreciated in light of the lead time we are usually afforded in China, as we usually only know about school events or teaching schedules a week in advance (at the most).
We were recruited into the group for teaching middle school teachers, and we decided to cut our workload and narrow our focus into 2 day blocks, so each pair of us could be "experts" in a certain topic such as reading, grammar, pronunciation, etc. Richy and I decided to focus on writing, since I had had success teaching it over the last two terms. We scoured the summer project curriculum for useful lessons on methodology and mined and modified our own lesson stockpiles to create two days of classes that we hoped would be useful for Chinese middle school teachers looking to supplement their curriculum and help engage their students in the process of learning English. We also wanted to introduce them to some basic theoretical frameworks to understand the methods of teaching English from a Western perspective.
As so often happens with "the best laid plans" in China, the actual execution of our summer project turned out to be significantly more challenging. The first obstacles were the expectations of the trainees. Not much information had been communicated beforehand, so some teachers were expecting a crash course in improving their oral English skills, while others assumed we would be showing them directly how to adapt lessons from their textbooks into Western style lessons.
Another problem was that several (especially older) teachers felt embarrassed engaging in some of the activities meant to model some of the methods of engagement in middle school classrooms. We were suddenly met with non participating trainees boasting a litany of excuses: "I can't see," "I can't write," "I can't speak English well," and "I'm too old to play games." We wondered how they could teach with such debilitating issues. Actually, there were just finding indirect ways to tell us that they weren't into our classes. Our frustrations were best summed up in the question "Why are we here if you don't want to learn what we have to offer?" An education official from Beijing came on the third day of the training and did her best mediate what she correctly identified as a "culture clash." Her comments reflected a deep understanding of both sides of the culture divide, and the way she addressed us directly and honestly was much appreciated. Although, later we all had to take a collective deep breath and soldier on, after the blow of realizing that our teaching wasn't exactly dazzling the audience.
We realized that the teachers in the training were experiencing similar reactions and emotions to what we had experienced in our first weeks in China. Expectations and reality were so different that the temptation to disengage was strong. You can imagine that if your entire worldview and methods of teaching were being challenged, that the concept of change and adaptation can be daunting and exhausting. Of course, from our perspective, we felt like we were already being pretty flexible. After all, we had already agreed to a 3 hour lunch break in the middle of a 4.5 hour day of teaching in order to accommodate the southern Chinese custom of napping in the middle of the day to avoid the heat.
As the days passed, we modified our lessons with each rotation, and it seemed that many of the trainees were starting to understand what we were trying to accomplish. By the final day, we met as a whole group to discuss and brainstorm what had been learned during our two weeks in Wulong. This is some of what they shared:
- How to encourage student confidence
- Teaching for multiple intelligences
- Classroom management
- American culture
- How to take student abilities in to account (differentiated instruction)
- Writing skills
- Independence, open mindedness
- How to write a haiku
- Confidence and bravery for speaking English in the classroom
By the end of the session, the list had more than 20 items. It was heartwarming to see the list unfold, and to see that lessons from each of the volunteers were mentioned. It was that small victory to end a challenging couple of weeks.
Throughout our time in Wulong, one of the middle school trainees had been designated as our translator, as her spoken English was clear and fluent. This meant that she attended every official dinner and trip, and acted as our tour guide when we visited the natural sites of Wulong including the natural bridges and Furong cave. To show our appreciation, we took up a collection to buy her a "thank you" gift. We presented her with a handmade thank you card and a small box of chocolates (a luxury in China) and her tearful response, although unexpected, was another small victory. Her response reminded me that although it might not seem like we made a big difference on the surface, the training had a personal impact on everyone there, and if even a fraction of them learned something meaningful from it to share with their future students, then the effort was worth it.
~Katie
I had been looking forward to summer project ever since our winter in-service training session when volunteers from the china 15 group said that it had been one of the highlights of their service. I wish I would have realized at the time that, like most experiences in the Peace Corps so far, enriching experiences like these are generally hard won (but still worthwhile) and usually require a large investment of effort in what seem, on the surface, to be minor victories. In our favor, we have an amazing, supportive and motivated program manager, so our Chongqing project was planned far in advance, and we felt pretty lucky to have the extra time to organize ourselves, review curriculum and plan lessons. This is especially appreciated in light of the lead time we are usually afforded in China, as we usually only know about school events or teaching schedules a week in advance (at the most).
We were recruited into the group for teaching middle school teachers, and we decided to cut our workload and narrow our focus into 2 day blocks, so each pair of us could be "experts" in a certain topic such as reading, grammar, pronunciation, etc. Richy and I decided to focus on writing, since I had had success teaching it over the last two terms. We scoured the summer project curriculum for useful lessons on methodology and mined and modified our own lesson stockpiles to create two days of classes that we hoped would be useful for Chinese middle school teachers looking to supplement their curriculum and help engage their students in the process of learning English. We also wanted to introduce them to some basic theoretical frameworks to understand the methods of teaching English from a Western perspective.
As so often happens with "the best laid plans" in China, the actual execution of our summer project turned out to be significantly more challenging. The first obstacles were the expectations of the trainees. Not much information had been communicated beforehand, so some teachers were expecting a crash course in improving their oral English skills, while others assumed we would be showing them directly how to adapt lessons from their textbooks into Western style lessons.
Another problem was that several (especially older) teachers felt embarrassed engaging in some of the activities meant to model some of the methods of engagement in middle school classrooms. We were suddenly met with non participating trainees boasting a litany of excuses: "I can't see," "I can't write," "I can't speak English well," and "I'm too old to play games." We wondered how they could teach with such debilitating issues. Actually, there were just finding indirect ways to tell us that they weren't into our classes. Our frustrations were best summed up in the question "Why are we here if you don't want to learn what we have to offer?" An education official from Beijing came on the third day of the training and did her best mediate what she correctly identified as a "culture clash." Her comments reflected a deep understanding of both sides of the culture divide, and the way she addressed us directly and honestly was much appreciated. Although, later we all had to take a collective deep breath and soldier on, after the blow of realizing that our teaching wasn't exactly dazzling the audience.
We realized that the teachers in the training were experiencing similar reactions and emotions to what we had experienced in our first weeks in China. Expectations and reality were so different that the temptation to disengage was strong. You can imagine that if your entire worldview and methods of teaching were being challenged, that the concept of change and adaptation can be daunting and exhausting. Of course, from our perspective, we felt like we were already being pretty flexible. After all, we had already agreed to a 3 hour lunch break in the middle of a 4.5 hour day of teaching in order to accommodate the southern Chinese custom of napping in the middle of the day to avoid the heat.
As the days passed, we modified our lessons with each rotation, and it seemed that many of the trainees were starting to understand what we were trying to accomplish. By the final day, we met as a whole group to discuss and brainstorm what had been learned during our two weeks in Wulong. This is some of what they shared:
- How to encourage student confidence
- Teaching for multiple intelligences
- Classroom management
- American culture
- How to take student abilities in to account (differentiated instruction)
- Writing skills
- Independence, open mindedness
- How to write a haiku
- Confidence and bravery for speaking English in the classroom
By the end of the session, the list had more than 20 items. It was heartwarming to see the list unfold, and to see that lessons from each of the volunteers were mentioned. It was that small victory to end a challenging couple of weeks.
Throughout our time in Wulong, one of the middle school trainees had been designated as our translator, as her spoken English was clear and fluent. This meant that she attended every official dinner and trip, and acted as our tour guide when we visited the natural sites of Wulong including the natural bridges and Furong cave. To show our appreciation, we took up a collection to buy her a "thank you" gift. We presented her with a handmade thank you card and a small box of chocolates (a luxury in China) and her tearful response, although unexpected, was another small victory. Her response reminded me that although it might not seem like we made a big difference on the surface, the training had a personal impact on everyone there, and if even a fraction of them learned something meaningful from it to share with their future students, then the effort was worth it.
~Katie
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