Teaching English in China

I got a job! Finally! I am very thrilled about it and I hope its something that remains stable throughout the rest of my year here. Basically, a group of students at the University I am studying at, has started an English learning program named OES (Oral English Storm). They had contacted the director of my program looking for any native Englis speaking students who would be willing to take on the project and come in for an interview. I had jumped on the opporutniy since I had been looking for an opportunity like this for awhile. After the interview they had mentioned how I needed to give a teaching demonstration to the University (100 students/faculty members) in order to try and encourage university sudents to join their program. Basically, it was a private company based out of their school. The details are still a bit hazy to me. There were a group of four English teachers that OES was trying out and apparently I was the most popular teaching style that students wanted to sign up for! Dark skinned and all too! SO, I have officially been hired as a University faculty member at Minzu Daxue (Cenral University of Nationalities) as their topical english professor! The students organizing OES have given me freedom to create my own program. One of the most common subjects to teach in topical English is American campus life. I decided that this was too simple and not intersting enough. I didn't think that simply by talking for two hours about American campus life would be the most effective way to learn English...so I upgraded the lesson a bit. I decided to break the topic of Campus life into nine different sections such as admissions/applications, importance of sports, greek life, finals week (typical American study skills), etc. For my first lecture we had discussed first impressions of American campus life. I began by creating a vocabulary list that I would familiarize the students with before we began our discussion. I would encourage the students to create a sentence, on their own, for each word. The goal was to use as many vocubulary words as they can throughout the rest of the class period. Then I began by asking the students what their first impression was of American campus life. Many students, like I had suspected, started to list out famous hollywood movies such as Ameican Pie as a visual description of what they thought American campus life was like. They labeled our campus life as one big party.

It was a great answer and exactly what I was expecting, because I had brought in three clips from Legally Blonde to show to the class. The students had to take as many notes as they could about the clips and what they noticed about campus life. (I was hoping they would note clothing styles, teaching aids such as labtops and coffee), architectural structes and landscape, etc.) Some of these minor features could be accurate and are different from China's campus life. After this, we would discuss some of these pop-culture stereotypes of American campus life and how it compared to Chinese university stereotypes. We would also discuss some of the ways pop-culture portrayed Chinese univesities or asian university students. I made sure to inform the students that these holllywood depictions were not entirely true. The next nine lessons would be dedicated to truly delving into American campus life and what it is really like for an average campus student. I don't know, the students were receptive to it and it certainly generated some kind of conversation which is good. I assign various articles about the topics we will discuss next lesson and then have them thoroughly comprehend the material and underline/look up words they are not familiar with. We will then create conversation from these articles as well. I am hoping this prooves to be an effective strategy. If not, I will have to tweek my lesson plans. If anyone has any better ideas, I would love to have some feedback!

Another job that I recently was able to get through a connection in China was to tutor an "important leader in the government" and his wife and child. Tomorrow will be my first day working with them and I do not know how to approach this. It will be difficult to come up with a topic to discuss that would be interesting for the child and the parents. I am hoping it works out because apparently I will be taken care of very well and the family will take me out a lot and provide a car for me, etc. It will also be an intersting way for me to get exposed to the inside political scene of China!!! Maybe it will be an interesting connection for me in the future. However, I am leaving for Tibet for two weeks, as a class trip, beginning this Thursday. I do not know if this "important leader" will be ok with my taking a two week break. I cannot speak too much about this trip until I get back, for obvious reasons. I will give you all MANY updates when I return! Take care all!!!!!

Orphanage Love

Every other Saturday I have found an organization that volunteers at a Orphanage close to the outskirts of Beijing. Last Saturday I was very enthusiastic to get involved. I needed to take a 20 minute bus ride to the subway station, then a 15 minute ride on the subway to another bus station, and finally a 45 minute bus ride to the Orphanage center in Shunyi. We are not to disclose the precise location of the Orphanage due to the safety of the center. The center holds 45 children from new borns to the age of 18. Many of the children have disabilities with varying cognitive abilities. My friend Nathan had introduced me to the coordinator of this organization who has a Fulbright Scholarship and graduated from Harvard. Many of the other volunteers have done some really amazing things, just like herself, and it is really interesting learning about their experiences. The busride over to the center gave me a chance to get to know everyone. We all got along really well and we are planning on going out to dinner next week after volunteering. When I finally got to the orphanage I was overwhelmed by the experience. I was a bit apprehensive because I did not know what I was supposed to do and all the other volunteers just kind of jumped into their tasks. Finally, one of the guys suggested I work with some of the kids in the wheel chairs and just kind of wheel them around and communicate with them. The biggest challenge about volunteering was verbal communication because none of the children spoke English. Luckily, I have a knack of being expressive and used facial expressions, hand gestures, and very little Chinese to communicate with the children. I was soo excited when the reaction I would receive from the kids was a big smile. It was as if they understood and it guided me to believe that what I was doing was ok with them. After racing around the rooms with the children in the wheel chairs and playing varous wheel chair games, which I gladly created on the spot, I decided to move stations to the toddlers. The kids were so adorable and I was so overwhelmed by all the "cute-ness." My heart ached with love, seriously. I instantly became atached to all of the children. One of the kids in particular was incredibly fiesty. This child had sharing issues and did not like sharing toys. Before I sat down to play with this child, I stood back and observed him for awhile to see what he was all about. The little boy would scavange around the play pen looking for toys that were abandoned by other children, then he would run over pick the toy up and bring it back to his pile of toys he had already collected. He would then sit down and hold all the toys in the pile and wrap his legs around them in order to create a barrier so that no one else could take them. It was realy funny watching him do this routine over and over again. At one point, the boy got really desperate because there were no more abandoned toys left in the room; he then decides to find another child, whom he thinks he could take, and run over to him and grab the toy right out of the kid's hands and then run back to bring it back to his section. This was when I decided to intervene. I consoled the child that was crying about his toy being taken away. Then I went to the little scavenger boy and tried to explain to him to give the toy back. He did not give the toy up. He held on to the toy VERY HARD. After awhile me and the other little boy gave up and let him have it. A few minutes later, it was snack time and all of the children were given cookies. The boy, whose toy had been taken away earlier, had apprently decided to get revenge. When the scavenger boy was not looking the second boy ran up to him and took the cookie right of the scavenger boy's hands, right when he was about to put the cookie in his mouth. He then immediately runs away and shoves the cookie in his mouth while he was running. It was the most hilarious thing I had ever seen! I decided to focus on teaching the kid how to share for the next 30 minutes. I finally found a way to get through to him. I would cup my hands and say xiexie (thank you) over and over again until he gave me the toy. I took his hand that had a toy and made him place a toy in my other hand. Immediately after this I would smile very big, kiss him on the cheek, and say thank you so that he would know that what he had just done was a VERY good thing. The kid loved receiving kisses. Most likely, because many of the kids are not used to receiving affection and love as often as most other kids. After a few times of practicing this type of conditional pattern (which I stole from the Pavlov theory of dog psychology haha) the child finally willingly gave me his toy and learned the art of sharing. It is very likely that the child would forget everything he had learned within minutes, but I feel that I will continue working with him every other week, and hopefully somethng will register in the future. After this, I decided to move to another section of the room where other, smaller babies were hanging out. They were all congregated next to a radioplayer that was playing Western pop music and occasionally a Chinese pop song. The babies were simply standing around listening with their eyes very big from excitement. The radio was like magic to them. I decided to try and get the kids to dance, mainly because I wanted to dance too haha. I started moving around and swaying back and forth. After awhile, some of the children seemed to get the point and began immitating my behavior. After awhile I would start picking up children one by one and slow dance with them to the music. The kids loved this the most! The loved the idea of ballroom dancing in the air with their legs wrapped around my body. It was amazing to see how quickly the children would pick up what i was doing, and immitate my body language. They were all so smart. It really amazed me. It was as if I forgot all my personal problems while I was there and nothing else mattered. There was something so amazing about being with such innocent and intuitive beings. On the bus ride home, I reflected about the past three hours I had spent at the orphanage center. I understood that I had just signed up for a dangerous project. I willingly signed up to get attached to these children and pour my love into them, knowing that eventually I would have to give them up in a year. This will be a very big challenge for me in the future.

I Willingly Showered in Front of 100 Women

So a friend of mine, Nathan, was talking to one of our Chinese language tutors and we discovered that many of the students shower in public showers (basically 100 naked girls or boys in one bathroom showering at the same time). We were actually shocked that something like that existed in such a modern city like Beijing. I suppose I failed to remember that Beijing is over-populated and space availability is a bit of a problem. Nathan, jokingly at first, had mentioned how we should experience these public showers for the cultural experience. After asking a million other questions about these public showers and some other apprehensions a typical foreigner would have, Nathan and I decided that we would actually be up to the personal challenge of trying out the public showers for ourselves. Two weeks later, today, I finally accompanied my roommate's tutor, Julie, to the showers.

I was very nervous before meeting her. I found my bright red, Victoria Secrets, travel bag and loaded it with my liquid soap, flip flops, facewash, shampoo, face products, my green lufa, two towels, and one pair of underwear. I was worried that I was bringing too many things and that I would come off like a typical materialistic American with my unnecessary produts. (Later I found out that everyone else used the same amount of products as I did, and I did not look out of place at all). On my walk over to the bathrooms I couldn't stop smiling from the embarrssment I was preparing myself for. I felt like a ten year old that was about to do something mischevious. Julie could not stop laughing at my facial expressions and reactions to something that I had not even experienced yet. I did assure her that my immature behaviour would vanish the moment we got to the public bathrooms and that I would take the experience in as a native would. And sure enough, it did.

The moment I walked in I saw naked women everywhere. We entered the locker rooms first and women were drying their hair, chatting, laughing, drying themselves, and getting dressed and undressed. The ratio of nakedness to dressed women in the locker room looked about 16:4 (naked:dressed). We found a locker and began getting undressed. While I may have appeared normal on the outside, my heart was racing while I began undressing. I actually was very nervous. Finally Julie and I were ready to walk to the showers. With nothing on and a basket with our products we both began walking down the long hallway of showers. The shower was one big hallway flanked by three big sections of mulitple shower heads. Women were showering everywhere and chatting as if they were hanging out on the streets. Nobody seemed to notice that they did not have any clothing on. It reminded me of gym class in America where all the girls would hang out and gossip about what was going on in their lives that week. We picked the last section of the left hand side of the hallway and used our ID cards, which had money on it, that allowed for us to receive water. We were charged .19 cents/minute for using the hot water. The moment hot water hit my body I became a native and forgot their was anything unusual about the experience. I was so happy that , at least, I had the luxury of a hot, steamy shower and found the pressure of the shower more enjoyable than the private bathroom I have at my apartment. I was even surprised that it did not phase me when one of the women showering stood in front of me and raised one of her legs up against the water heater so that she could start shaving and expose a more intimate side to her. After we were done showering I walked back to the locker rooms with no towel around myself. I think this was the most negative part of the experience. I was wet and water was dripping down from my hair and the closer the locker rooms got, the colder I began to feel. No one else had a towel either. The custom was to dry yourself with a small towel that you brought with you to the showers and then walk back with nothing shielding you from the cold back to the lockers so that you could get dressed. I did not have a small towel with me, I had a big towel by the lockers. I felt foolish drying myself with so much material while everyone else was content with barely a hand towel. I then got dressed and walked back to my apartment as if this were a daily routine activity for me.

After analyzing the experience, I decided that it was not so bad at all and I should not have been so worried about exposing myself so freely in the locker room. It was actually a very practial experience and kind of fun. I suppose socializing and showering is not that bad of a concept.

White People ....

One of the most interesting things I have noticed while I have been out here has been the amount of attention all the white people get out here. No seriously! There have been incidents of modeling agencies contacting the director of our program looking for "WHITE PEOPLE," people have been coming up to us and asking if they can take a picture with the white people (as if they are micky mouse in disney world or something), and even incidents of Chinese people being attracted to the some of the most "questionable" people simply because of the color of their skin. It's white glorification to a level I would never have dreamt of. One of the most interesting "personal" case studies I have seen has been the level of discrimination when trying to find a job. This has been a very interesting experience for me. Basically, there's a section in a popular magazine called, "That's Beijing," that allows for people to post ads geared towards finding people who can tutor English. Originally, I thought this would be a simple process. Especially because I would assume having a background in teaching, for various different programs, sets me apart from a lot of the applicants that are simply just looking for an afterschool job with no experience at all. My neighbor told me she got a job within a day without even having to send in her resume! (She's white, of course). My assumptions of this process were much more optimistic than they should have been. It has been a week and I have still received no replies. Even my native Chinese friend was shocked that no one has "snagged" me yet. Some of the blatant ignorance and discrimination within some of these offers could illuminate some of the reasons why I have been so ignored. APPALLING if you ask me! The requirements include: must be white, must be American, must be attractive, must be Harvard grad student (not so much for teaching English), must be blonde, etc. The more features the applicants have, the higher the pay. Someone with most of these qualifications could make up to 300 yuan/hour, whereas someone like me would be lucky if she can even find a job, let alone for anything more than 100 yuan. Needless to say, the job hunt continues and I REFUSE to give up on this quest. I will find someone that needs my help. I came out here hoping to contribute some of my labor to the community so that I could further be immersed witin this community. I will find a way to accomplish this. At least this experience serves as an intersting subject for me to take notes on and add to my field notes.

Heated Action in CHINA!!

I am currently sitting on my bed typing this blog while police sirens are going off in the background every now and then. My apartment has been quarantined off and we have been told that we are not allowed to leave are apartments. Earlier this morning, youtube.com was blocked and banned by the Chinese government in fear of what could be posted about some of the ways the government has been reacting out here, in regards to the Tibet and China conflicts. I have never experienced anything like this, and I must say I feel more excitement than I do fear. I know it's a bit ignorant and naive of me to be reacting the way I am, but it's just that I came to China looking for excitement and adventure and to be exposed to a culture that was nothing like America. I felt sheltered back home and understood that I didn't get life the way other people around the world did. There is controversy and passion about greater things outside of our self-involved lives that Americans are censored from. I am finally getting that part of the deal and am exposed to a reality that newspapers and articles could never even capture a fraction of. This is why I came out here. Basically, this is what's going on:

There is a certain region of China that used to be a part of Tibet but is currently claimed as "non-tibetan" territory despite the fact that the community is basically all Tibetan people and culture. The Dalai Lama has been exiled from China for speaking out on this issue. The reason the Tibetan community is so against the Chinese influence in these regions (Lahsa, ghansu, xinghai, etc.) is because the Chinese government is sending its native "Han Chinese" people into those regions and destroying the Tibetan culture. The Chinese feel that this is good for Tibet because they are introducing this "uncivilized" community to commodity and capitalism and creating jobs that will eventually economically build these areas. However, the jobs and profits are going to the Han Chinese people and the Tibetan people are not receiving any of the benefits. Also, the presence of the Hans Chinese people are destroying certain cultural sites and features that used to be a part of highly sacred grounds. The regions being destroyed are very important landmarks for the Tibetan culture. The Dalai Lama has said that China has been inflicting "cultural genocide" on the Tibetan community.

So basically, the Tibetans are finally protesting against the Chinese government which is a VERY controversial issue. They are doing so, currently, because of the Olympics and the fact that their issues will get more coverage right now since everyone's eyes are on the Olympics in China. Protesting in China is not like protesting in America. Their have been mass retaliations in China's history for protesting. Tiananmen Square is a FINE example of the outcomes of such activity. A couple days ago 80 people were killed in the Tibetan regions and people have been gone missing from being taken away for interrogation. Today, the Chinese media claimed that only 12 people were killed and that there weren't even guns present at the protests (on the Chinese government part)...which is not true at all. China has been covering up a lot of the information about these protests and it has been really difficult for us Americans to find information. We have all had to do a lot of searching on the internet (which is censored out here) to find the information we have right now.

Our program has a trip schedule for April 17th to go and visit Xinghai and Ghansu regions of Tibet. Our director informed us that there is a possibility that this trip could be cancelled. I am hoping that it isn't. The dean of the school came to visit our classroom today because he wanted to make sure we were safe and that we stayed outside of the protests. The safety of foreigners, apparenty, is being highly stressed right now. We are to be protected more than the natives, for obvious reasons. I was looking out my window today and noticed that our school gate had been roped off because of protests that were going on my campus. Our University is different from others because it has a high population of Tibetans and other minorities. We will be experiencing many demonstrations within the next couple days. I hope to have more interesting things to report in the future. In the meantime, I will try to focus on my daily activities and try to secure a teaching position for English, on the side.

I WON A TIBETAN DANCE COMPETITION!

Sooo I decided to start a blog about my time in China because it is much too difficult for me to write every group of friends an individual email. Sorry I love you guys, but just because I'm abroad and having a great time, doesn't mean I have all the time in the world. Well, I bet you all are wondering what my title is all about. Well, to put it simply, today I won a tibetan dance competition!!! So our program director tries to take us out to dinner once a week and this week we went to a traditional Tibetan restaraunt with tibetan folk dance and music performances. It was really great. I was all smiles the whole time, "ooohing" and "ahhing" excitedly like the little foreigner I am. The food was great and very similar to Indain food. Our table ordered malai kofta and palak panir... it was great!! I was starting to miss Indian food already. Well any wayz... while we were eating, laughing, and sipping our "butter tea" the traditional dance performers were going around to each table and singing their native songs. When they came to our table we were all so into it. We were clapping and shouting out the weirdest cheer sounds. The singers sounded like they were screeching and I even saw one of the "fuyans" (waitresses) covering her ears because the pitch of the screeching would reach certain notes that only dogs could hear. The dancing was awesome. It reminded me of garba (that Indian circle dance, for those of you who don't know it... I think I've taken most of you to one). Sooooo MY THING! So towards the end of the first part I got up and joined in, while the tibetan dancers were dancing around a circle around the tables throughout the restaraunt. It was great! During the second part they announced, in Chinese, that they wanted four girls to get up on stage. My directer and everyone that understood was like ANJ GO UP THERE!!! I was pretty much up for it because i was in one of my outgoing moods that allowed for me to make a fool of myself and have fun. My roommate Katie came up with me too. The game we were to play was to have our backs to the audience and the first girl would imitate the dancer who was showing her a movement (we could not see the dancer do these moves). Then the second girl, me, would turn around and the first girl would show me the moves she learned and I would have to imitate her. After that, I would show the third girl and then the third girl would show the fourth girl. At the end the announcer and a translater began asking us questions about the game and how we felt about it so far. I replied in the little Chinese I knew and everyone in the audience (and the performers) loved that and started laughing and clapping. After this, the audience was to shout out who would be the winner of the game. I WON!!!! It was awesome! I got really expensive inscents and a cd (I don't know what's on it). That wasn't all...the winner had to stay on stage after the other volunteers sat down...and had to pick something to do one stage (either sing or dance for the audience). I told them that I would learn a complicated tibetan dance move and immitate that as my choice. i did pretty well, so i was told. It was really similar to bhangra moves (a dance style from the state of Panjab in India).... haha (jen, totally thought of you!). It was pretty awesome and my table was roaring with laughter and excitement. Needless to say, it was a pretty sweet time! Well, that's all I have for now... I'll post the next time something exciting happens! CIAO MY LOVES!!!!