Last night marked the three-month anniversary of my arrival in China. It’s a strange feeling. Three months should probably feel like a great feat of some kind, but for some reason I’m actually surprised that I haven’t been here longer. I suppose I’ve become so comfortable with my daily routine that it feels like I must have been here for ages. Still, if I turned around and went home today I would probably complain that I’d barely spent any time here at all.
When I realized that I was almost finished with my first semester of teaching, I thought it might be a good idea to do a basic evaluation of my experience thus far. It’s impossible to label living and working here as either good or bad; like any other lifestyle it has its ups and downs. So instead, I thought I would share some of the highlights—of both the pleasant and the troublesome.
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| A mid-November view of the campus |
Pleasant: The Qufu locals. Since I’ve been here, and after traveling to a few less friendly areas of China, I have often noticed how kind and helpful the people in Qufu are. Perhaps with the exception of cab drivers (who mainly seem to view westerners as walking pots of money), everyone here is astonishingly sweet and tolerant. I’m not sure if this is because there has been a fairly constant circulation of foreign teachers in Qufu for several years or if it’s a particular Qufu quality. Either way, I am very grateful for everyone I have bumped into who has been willing to put up with me: the woman who sells me vegetables in the market and always knocks down the price or gives me something free to take away; the cheerful vendors in the East market who let me inspect everything extremely closely because I can’t actually ask anything; the staff at the tiny student gym who go out of their way to show me how to use everything and who seem charmed rather than annoyed by my slow uptake of information. All of them have made adjusting to living here much easier than I anticipated.
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| Scenes from the Five Dragon Pool Park in Jinan |
Troublesome: Sanitation—or lack thereof. I have already mentioned that the state of most public bathrooms in China is rather alarming by western standards. In fact, when we encounter clean bathrooms it is often something of an event. The foreign teachers recently made a trip to Jinan and discovered that the mall’s bathroom was extremely clean and had real toilets, too. Everyone bolted into the bathroom as if it was a local attraction. Sad, isn’t it?
There is also a Chinese habit that I have to say I don’t think I will ever get used to. Here, if you have something stuck in your nose or your throat the way to take care of it is not by discreetly pulling out a tissue. It is not uncommon to see people blowing their noses into the street, plugging one nostril shut with a finger and spraying the contents of the other all over the surrounding ground. Hocking a loogie is also quite acceptable and something that I usually witness at least once a day. I have had to dart quickly out of the way of several speeding bullets of phlegm. This is definitely a cultural feature that I will not miss.
Pleasant: The food. I have to say that the Chinese have far more tasty ways of preparing vegetables than Americans do. I am also a big fan of how big street food is here. For practically no money at all you can get a meal to carry home when you’re too lazy to cook and don’t feel like dining out. One of my favorite ways to treat myself is to buy a bag of leek and egg baozi from the vendor down the street from my apartment, and if he has any on hand a few red bean paste ones, too. My students and friends are constantly introducing me to new kinds of fruit, vegetables, and candy, and I never get tired of it.
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| These are, in my humble opinion, the best baozi to be found in Qufu |
Troublesome: The side effects of food. Unfortunately, I seem to have a strong sensitivity to a common ingredient in Chinese cooking, and since I have been here I have had food poisoning six times. I would like to stress, for those of you considering trying out China for yourselves, that this seems to be my problem. None of the other teachers have had the same problem, as far as I know. But the joy of experiencing new kinds of food is dulled a bit by the knowledge that I might end up very unhappy in a matter of hours. I’m beginning to wonder if my slight fear of dining out will follow me back to the states after so much conditioning.
Pleasant: My fellow teachers. While admittedly I don’t have a perfect relationship with all of them, I don’t think I would ever be able to survive ten months, or even ten minutes, in China without them. In such a new and different place, it is a relief to have a group of people who understand exactly where I’m coming from. We help each other fumble through basic interactions in Mandarin (or more often Chinglish), give each other teaching tips, share food, clothing, furniture, and pretty much everything else, and most importantly can bitch to each other openly without worrying about offending anyone. Above all of that, though, is the fact that together we are able to create a community that at least vaguely feels like home. I never cared much about Thanksgiving until I realized I was going to miss it, and being able to celebrate it abroad with other displaced Americans helped me forget I was missing out. And there’s nothing quite so adventurous as attempting to cook a traditional Thanksgiving meal with Chinese ingredients.
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| Gathering for Thanksgiving |
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| In Qufu, Halloween includes the Bunny Hop |
Troublesome: The language barrier. Although I have done my best to pick up a little Chinese, the truth is that I rarely get a chance to use it. During the day I am teaching English, hanging out with people who want to practice their English, or spending time with other westerners who don’t speak Chinese. Aside from the market, which only requires a few phrases, I rarely use my Chinese at all, and as a result I have made little progress.
The main problem with this is that it makes traveling very intimidating. With the exception of Beijing, most locals in the average destination don’t speak much or any English, and all signs are in characters. It’s very difficult to get around on your own when you can’t ask for or understand directions, and it’s quite terrifying knowing that if you get in an accident somewhere you will probably have no control over what happens to you. I have been lucky a couple of times to find people who can make out my scrambled Chinese and who speak just enough English to help me out, but I am grateful that during the long winter break I will be traveling with a friend who speaks Mandarin fairly fluently.
Pleasant: My students. Of course, there are days I wish I could throttle each of them in turn, but overall I have to say that I have fallen completely in love with most of them. They are enthusiastic, hard working, and most of all very eager to learn as much as they can about me and about where I come from. At this very moment, in fact, three of my girls are in my kitchen cooking oatmeal-raisin cookies. My job is to make sure they don’t blow anything up, but they are determined to figure it out themselves.
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| Aimee and Lily showing off their first batch of cookies |
My students are also incredibly generous; in fact, they spoil me rotten. I have been treated to dinner more times than I can count, and I often find students at my door bearing gifts. One of my students is always munching on cookies in class, and will often leave two or three on my desk. My student Aimee brings me about twenty pounds of fruit every time she comes to my apartment, and also once took me on an outing with her family and treated me to Pizza Hut, Haagen-Dazs, and a trip to the mall.
But I think the best things about my students is that they have become very good friends; in fact, sometimes I wish I could quit being their teacher and just become one of their fellow students. Avery, a senior who is a friend rather than a student, calls me “jiejie,” which means “big sister,” and I call her “meimei,” “little sister." Sunny and April have become my best friends and spend a lot of time in my living room. Jack and Bruce (who named themselves after Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee) are constantly making me laugh, especially with their scrambled English idioms. If I could stuff a suitcase with my favorite students and haul it home at the end of the year, I would.
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| Me with my "meimei" Avery |
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| Sunny and April dressed up for Halloween |
So there you have it: my slightly cheesy reflection on my past three months in China. Despite the occasional bout of homesickness, I am very happy to be here.
