Culture

First off, I apologize for not blogging for the entire month of April.  It was absolutely insane, and I have no idea where that month went.  Maybe it was the teaching on 2 separate weekends thing and planning and administering midterm exams.  At any rate, I'm back and reflecting on culture.  I return to America in less than 2 months, and that has gotten me thinking about all of the things that are different between these two countries.

As you probably know, life in China is a little different than life in America. I'm pretty accustomed to Chinese cultural rules at this point. I have embraced many of these rules as my own. This means I'm probably a little fuzzy on the American ones. So here's a heads up to my friends back in the U.S.A. Feel free to (gently) reprimand me if you notice me doing these things in a couple months.

1. Standing too close
   Personal bubbles don't exist in China. There's a whole heck of a lot of people here. Sometimes you're on a bus literally crammed full of people and you have to have your body shoved up against a complete stranger with your arm reaching around some man's waist to be able to hold onto a bar to keep from being flung into other people by the jerking of the bus. This is totally okay.
2. Pushing
   This is linked into the “standing too close” thing. Again, China has a lot of people. If you want to get on or off a bus, order food, or enter or exit a building, you have to be pushy. Literally. If you don't push people or jostle for your position, you're not going to get what you need. Sorry in advance.
3. Being unable to stand in line
   And this goes with the “pushing” thing. People don't really stand in lines here. You kind of form small mobs and then push to the front. People will cut in front of you if you're not assertive enough so you've just got to keep pushing forward. This also connects with “standing too close”. In the cases where there is something resembling a line, it is perfectly acceptable to be immediately behind the person in front of you. I understand that this is probably not the case in America unless things have completely changed in the last 10 months.
4. Linking arms or holding hands
   I often link arms or hold hands with my friends (girls, not boys) here. To be fair, I did this before, but after living in a culture where it is the norm, I'll probably be even more likely to forget that it's mostly not okay in America. So if you're not comfortable with me standing really close and holding your hand while I talk to you, just let me know.
5. Table Manners
   This mostly applies to eating out. I'm much more inclined to slurp. I've also become pretty adept at shoveling large amounts of food into my body in short periods of time as our lunch period is limited. So sometimes I might be more focused on the food than the conversation.
   Also, if you eat something with bones here, it is completely expected that you remove said bones from your mouth and pile them up on the table, not on a plate. The same is done with any tissues you use during the meal.
   Finally, at Chinese restaurants, you order a bunch of dishes and everyone shares. I like this a lot. I'm probably going to complain that we don't do this often in America. Please forgive me.
6. Being bad at speaking English
   Okay, this one's not a cultural thing. It's just something that will probably annoy you. I teach English and I try my hardest to maintain my grasp on correct grammar and a wide, intelligent vocabulary. However, I fail at that a lot of the time. A lot of my days are spent communicating with students whose first language does not have any verb tenses and therefore struggle with English and its gazillion verb tenses. I've gotten really good at communicating my ideas in English almost entirely in the present tense, simple future, and simple past since using other tenses often causes my students with a low English level to look at me with glazed-over eyes. Though I do still try out present continuous, present perfect, past perfect, and past continuous first, sometimes I just get myself grammatically confused. Please help me.
   I also apologize if I say things like “have a try”, “have a rest”, “just so-so”, and countless other Chinglish phrases that I probably don't even realize I use.

I hope you find this helpful and informative for the future. I will make cultural mistakes. Let's just laugh at them together and move on.

Mondays

I type this as I savor the last bites of my tiny little “french bread cake”, a gift from a student.

It's 8pm and I've just finished my night class.

I must admit, when I got my schedule for the semester I panicked at the words “night class”. Who honestly wants to teach a group of 41 Sophomore Finance students oral English at 6pm every week? Not me.

I've now taught this class for 3 weeks, and it has its challenges, but it's also been one of my best classes.

Monday nights have become special to me.

They've allowed me to be there when a friend needed English help.

They've given me sweet moments to chat with the awesome boys who always stay after class to work.

They've given me time to walk and talk with the boyfriend and girlfriend who sit in the front row and work really hard to improve their English.

They've given me the opportunity to run into 6 girls from my TCFL class from last semester (as well as their two Korean students).

Mondays are a gift.

I am blessed beyond measure.

Telephone

Speaking Chinese is a little nerve wracking face to face.  On the phone, it's terrifying.  If I can't see someone and fill in the multiple gaps in my Chinese with gestures, I am at a loss and freeze up.

The other night I was just hanging out in my apartment when I got a phone call.   I saw it was from the Chinese man Bethany and I played cards with in the Kunming airport.  I answered the phone with fear in my heart.  (He speaks absolutely zero English).  I was able to hold my own for a little bit.  We established that I am back in Harbin.  Then I heard him say "(chinese chinese) nu peng you (girlfriend)" and panicked for a moment until a girl started talking to me, and I realized it was his girlfriend.  We talked for a little until I had asked her to repeat something about 4 times and still had no idea what she was saying.  I eventually had to say "ting bu dong", and she hung up. 
I redeemed myself a little by sending him a text in Chinese. "对不起。 我在电话中说中文不好。 我很紧张。"  (I'm sorry.  I'm bad at speaking Chinese on the phone.  I feel very nervous.)
I was also worried that he would reply to my text message and I would have no way to know what it said, but he just sent me "说的很好" (You spoke very well), which I can read!  Yay for being a tiny bit literate!  I didn't respond to his message, because I felt that his statement was completely untrue.  I did very badly at speaking.

Then today I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize:
Me: Hello?
Other person: Hello.  shi (chinese chinese) lao shi (chinese chinese chinese) tai guo (chinese chinese). (translation: is........teacher.........Thailand..........)
Me: uh....?????
Other person: ming tian you shi ma? (are you busy tomorrow)
Me: mei you shi (no)
Other person: ni xihuan hua xue ma? (do you like (????))
Me: shen me yi si? (huh?)
Other person: ski.  ni xihuan ma? (do you like?)
Me: no! bu xihuan ski.
Other person: ni xihuan (chinese chinese) ma?
Me: huh?
Other person: climb mountain
Me: xihuan.  zhe shi shei??? (who is this???)
Other person: (repeat name I don't understand)
Me: deng yi hui'er. (wait a moment).

I ran down the hall to Cathy's apartment and passed her my phone.  (Hug your Chinese speaking friends, by the way.  They're the best!) She found out that this is one of the teachers I met in Thailand who is from Harbin.  She wanted to invite me to ski tomorrow, but I don't like to ski, so instead, next saturday we will climb mountains together.  I hope it's the hiking kind and not the rock climbing kind.

I may never pick up my phone again.

Change

Today I woke up with this plan:

-Finish the worksheet for TCFL

-Go print lesson plans and worksheets

-Make copies

-Finish job application for next year

-Relax

Then, I got a phone call.

Adrienne had just had her meeting with the school and informed me that I wouldn't be teaching my junior international trade and sophomore tcfl classes like we had thought this semester, but that I would be teaching sophomore international trade and finance majors this semester (in addition to my junior english majors from last semester).

Classes begin TOMORROW.

Change of plans.

I took a few minutes to pity myself for the shattering of my plans for the day, as well as the hours and hours I had spent crafting lesson plans for the two courses I will no longer actually be teaching.

And then I sat down at my computer and planned an intro lesson plan for the classes I will start to teach tomorrow, made new worksheets, and printed and copied things. And now I get to write a blog post about it.

The truth is, things change in China. A lot. And often, very suddenly. And I hate change. I tend to fight change with every fiber of my being. It's pretty exhausting. But you know what happens? I fight, struggle, and cry, but in the end, the change comes, and I adapt.

For example:

I had to move apartments a week before Thanksgiving last semester (nasty mold problem). I cried about it. I felt depressed. I thought it was going to be the straw that broke the camel's back. But it wasn't. I moved in to 206, and then got to hang out with my teammates on the 2^nd floor more often. I actually like my new apartment better than my old. The change was good for me.

So today, rather than focusing on all of the negative things I saw in the way the change of plans would affect me today and this semester, I am dwelling on all the good.

1. I get to try to not make the same mistakes with my new classes this semester that I did with my classes last semester.
2. I get to have the opportunity to know 200 new students that I wouldn't otherwise have known.
3. I get to sing “You are my sunshine” with my classes again.
4. I sent a text message to my TCFL students to tell them about how I wouldn't be their teacher this semester, and how I was sad, but still wanted to hang out, eat together, and have them over to my apartment. I was overwhelmed with responses like “don't be sad ~ we are friend! It never change forever”, “thank you my dear teacher! I am also very sad you cannot teach my class, because I like you so much! I wish you health and happy all the time!”, “I am happy to join your apartment. If you have free time, I want to hang out with you”, and many, many more.
5. This could give me more of an opportunity to pour into my TCFL students' lives now that I can just be their friend instead of the person responsible for their grade.
6. The heat is back on in our apartments!!
   
   

   

   Hobo Erin: before the heat was turned back on

   
   
7. The nai cha (milk tea) people came back! I love them!
   
   

   

   Desperate times call for....nai cha

   
   

   
   

   
   

Advice for a foreigner spending a day at a Chinese person's home

 a.k.a. Memoirs of a visit to a Chinese person's home

1. Bring a gift. Fruit is usually a safe bet. Cookies are cool too.
2. You will be asked “are you hungry?” and supplied with fruit and nuts to eat to your heart's content. Please, eat, but remember that this is only a snack and you will have lunch soon.
3. You may be served some “strange” dishes like sheep's stomach and intestines for lunch. Eat as much as you can to be polite. Don't think about the villi waving at you from your piece of intestine. Satisfy your actual appetite with the guo bao rou.
4. Wear enough clothes to keep you warm when you go for a walk in the snow to visit the Confucius museum and neighboring Engineering university. Also, practice walking backwards in case the wind tries to blow snow into your face.
5. Be prepared to sit in someone's bedroom and watch an English movie while the Chinese family hangs out in other parts of the apartment.
6. You may be offered ice cream before dinner because your hosts are concerned that you are hungry from waiting for dinner. You do not need to accept this ice cream, but please, find a culturally appropriate way to turn it down.
7. Eat those chicken hearts with a smile on your face and love in your heart.
8. Come ready with a song, or two, or six. Swing dancing or some other ability wouldn't be turned down either.
9. Have fun, talk, laugh, and learn because Chinese people are awesome!!

Jump

Let me tell you a story. It's a true story. It's a story of how I completely stepped outside my comfort zone and did something incredibly insane. It is not the story of how I am teaching in China, although now that I think about it, that also fits the description. No, this is the story of how I jumped off a cliff.

When my dear friend said she wanted to go cliff jumping, I immediately thought “good for you. I'll stay standing on the ground, thank you very much.” However, before I knew it, I (or some crazy alter ego, let's call her Crazy Erin) had agreed to also hurl my body off a cliff into the ocean (as well as snorkeling and a delicious beach bbq). My decision was helped along by the acquisition of a few friends who also wanted to jump off the cliff and the fact that there was no way I was going to be the chicken who didn't jump. So we made plans to book the tour for the next day.

I spent most of the night awake, feeling slightly queasy and calculating in my head exactly how fast my body would hit the water with gravity at 9.81 m/s^2, jumping from a height of 8 meters.

The next day I calmed down, however, when the time actually came to go to the cliff. I had some relaxing time sitting on a beach and snorkeling to prepare myself for the insane thing I was about to do.

Before I knew it, we were in a long boat on the ocean driving up to the cliff. Then there I was tying on rubber shoes. I stepped to the edge of the boat and thought “Am I really going to do this?” Crazy Erin said “shut up and dive off the boat” (I apparently developed a Smeagol-Gollum complex that day). So I dived off the boat into the ocean waves. And when I say waves, I do not mean tiny, gentle waves, but real, rolling ocean waves. As one of my friends said, it felt like we were at war and swimming to shore, and I completely agree. It was surreal.

After some intense swimming, I made it to “shore” which was actually a medium-sized coral rock jutting out of the waves. I gave my hand to our Thai guide and he helped me climb up onto the rock. I walked past him, saw the cliff, and said, out loud, “you have got to be kidding me.” I had been expecting stairs or some gentle slope up to the cliff, but instead, I was faced with a wall of jutting coral rock that I was supposed to just climb up. I did not sign up for this! I signed up to jump off a cliff, not climb one! I'm absolutely terrified of rock climbing!

I looked up at one of my friends climbing up, noticed his shaking legs, and was empowered by a moment of shared fear to climb up as well. Before I knew it, Crazy Erin was grabbing hand and foot holds in the rock and pulling herself up the side of the cliff. (Luckily, the actual rock climbing part was not very long, and then it was just a more “gentle” climb up and across uneven, jutting spires of rock).

Once I made it to the top, I watched a couple people jump into the water. I was standing by the 10 meter jumping spot, but I must have looked terrified because the Thai guide told me to go over to the 8 meter spot. I willingly obeyed (although Crazy Erin did feel a little disappointment at not jumping from the 10 meters).

All that was left for me to do was step across the uneven terrain a few feet and stand next to the Thai guide on the edge. Every part of my being wanted to reach out for the stranger's hand to give me confidence to step up to the edge but I (and this was me, not Crazy Erin) told myself “No. You will not be that person.” So I moved the few steps to the uneven edge on my own and looked down the 25 feet at the ocean below, thinking “okay, you're gonna jump, and make your body like a pencil, and you're gonna be fine, and you're not gonna drown, and you'll be fine, it'll be great...” Then:

Thai man: “3...”

My thoughts: “Why is he counting down? I'm not ready. I need time to prepare myself.”

Thai man: “2...”

My thoughts: “Really not ready. I don't want to jump when he says “1”. I can't!! No! I will jump at “1”. If I don't jump when he says “1” I will never jump. I will not be that person!!!”

Thai man: “1!”

                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then I threw my body off the cliff. My next immediate thought was “what did I just do?!?”, my legs started to curve up like that would keep me from hitting the water, and then I thought “no! Pencil! Pencil!!”, and then I slammed into the ocean butt first, gasped from the shock and pain, and ingested some salt water. Not the most graceful experience, but, I did it! I jumped off a cliff!!! I freaking jumped off a cliff!!!!

All that remained was to swim back through the ocean waves, avoid the boat propellor (narrow escape), climb the ladder, and throw my exhausted, exhilarated body onto the “deck”, and tell Crazy Erin, “you had your fun, and now we don't need to do that again for a long time.”

Airport Adventures

Cathy, Lora, Hillary, and I took what can only be described as a scintillating journey into the world of an overnight layover in a Chinese airport. This is my account of that journey.

February 13^th, 2013

11:19 pm: Location: Guangzhou Airport. Mission: Claim the seats where we will bed down for the night.

11:26 pm: Seats claimed. Lora and I journey into the unchartered regions of the airport in search of food and water.

11:31 pm: Water located. Lora ventures off on her own to search for food. Don't know if I'll ever see her again.

11:54 pm: Lora returns. No food anywhere. We tighten our belts and await the morning.

February 14^th, 2013

12:02 am: I cram my body into two narrow seats. Pretend my back and neck are not in pain.  Fall into fitful sleep.

1:17 am: Awoken by the sound of birds chirping. I uncover my eyes and groan inwardly. Still hours 'til dawn. Adjust position, attempt to find sleep once more.

3:17 am: It's my watch. Our bags are safe. No change in the surroundings. Two confused Chinese women stand shouting out letters of the alphabet. I look for the dawn and a return to sanity.

4:21 am: Eerie screams echo through the airport. Can't tell if they're coming closer or not.

4:56 am: Startled into awareness by a sudden rumbling emitting from a slumbering Chinese man.

5:29 am: We mourn the loss of Lora's purse zipper. Sleeplessness has begun to take its toll. We need nourishment. Soon we will march on the gates.

5:53 am: Lora and I abandon the others in search of airport security.

6:30 am: We've passed security. We press on wearily past the few open food shops, cursing whoever dared charge 48 yuan for 10 dumplings, denying our frugal stomachs sustenance. We satisfy our hunger on overpriced apples.

7:35 am: Lora and I rouse ourselves from our stupor long enough to board the plane. We did it! We survived the airport!!