Hong Kong

Last week I made the traditional foreigner's visa trek to Hong Kong. It's pretty much impossible for a foreigner to get a work visa before entering China, but it's also not possible to get said visa switched in mainland China. Thus, every foreigner ever mobs the Hong Kong visa office on a daily basis to get their various visas switched to more Kosher kinds. 

This was about half of the line waiting to get into the visa office. That's a lot of laowai. 

I fell in love with the city so quickly that I was a little frightened. How is it possible to feel such an instant and deep connection with a place? I loved seeing the diversity of colors, lives, and views. The financial district is crammed against the port, which buts up against the wealthy enclaves, which overlook traditional fishermen on the bay. British ownership is still keenly evident in Hong Kong. Everyone speaks at least conversational English. City planning is very European. But the soul of the city is still Chinese.

The city feels like a love child of London and Shanghai. 

And I am always a sucker for a city shrouded in mist.

Not to mention they specialize in my favorite foods.

In short, I want to live there forever. It took moving to Yuncheng for me to realize finally that I am a city girl at heart. I love the dense feeling of people crammed together. The bustle of it all is heady and intoxicating. People watching is the best in big cities, and there is every kind of food you could ever dream. If only Hong Kong were cheaper. It's still cheap-ish by Western standards, but definitely about five times more expensive than Yuncheng. I came back so broke my wallet squeaks. That's an exaggeration, I was actually quite careful, but I still spent an absurd amount of money for 36 hours. Probably because I drank lots of this:

Hong Kong was so wonderful, in fact, that I have been experiencing a good deal of culture fatigue since I've been back. Or perhaps it's more accurately called Yuncheng fatigue? I had finally arrived at a place where I had come to terms with my life for the next year. And then Hong Kong reminded me of what I really want from life. I will re-adjust, I am sure, but I miss having nice things. This is my year of simple living. It will not kill me, in fact, it's probably very healthy (I mean, I've lost a ton of weight), but I need to let Hong Kong motivate me. I have a new goal or at least a dream, and I need to let it give me power, not cause me to mope. I am in a good place, I am working towards my goals, I am extremely fortunate. 

Information

If you have any interest whatsoever in keeping up with current events you know that the Chinese government enforces some strict Internet censorship. No Facebook, Twitter, New York Times, or any other unsanctioned social media/news outlet. This very blogging site is blocked.

As a foreigner, these restrictions hamper me less. I have subscribed to a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which sends my Internet traffic through servers in the US and allows me to access the entire Internet. If I do my thing on the Internet, using VPNs and criticizing the Chinese government on occasion, I am 98% sure I won’t have secret police knocking down my door. It’s an insane level of privilege.

Chinese people have developed a vibrant online community without Facebook. Their equivalent is QQ. If you don’t have a QQ account, you get the same incredulous stares if you said you didn’t have Facebook in the US. It is the way people connect online. Giving out your QQ number is the equivalent of becoming Facebook friends, you do it as a social gesture and you have lots of QQ friends you never talk to. China also has its Twitter equivalent, Sina Weibo. It serves the same purpose as Twitter, mostly self-absorbed broadcasts about oneself, interspersed with important commentators.  The state watches both of these sites closely to remove posts and accounts that don’t toe the line.

So China has a strong online community. The problem is that the average Chinese Internet user does not have a VPN, or the desire to get one, and so their access to news and information free from state bias is slim to none. Most Americans, including me, do not make enough of an effort to read multiple sources of news bias. This, however, is our own damn fault. In a country where you can get arrested for reading the wrong news, there is an even larger portion of the population who swallows the government line than in the US. Combined with the fact that critical thinking is not a cultivated skill, you are left with a huge population that will believe anything coming from Beijing.

My students face another hurdle entirely. They are not allowed Internet access, period. There is no wifi or Internet access on campus. The classrooms can only access the Internet if the teacher has a special access code. There is an Internet café across the street from the school, but if they are caught there, they will be punished. My students live in an information vacuum. The only information they are allowed comes from their textbooks (which are decidedly sub-par) and their teachers. They have no grasp on what the outside world is like. I know more about their own country than they do.

A lot of this sort of information isolation could be solved with a network of decent libraries, but I have not seen a single library since I’ve been here! China has plenty of impressive public projects, but libraries have not been part of the effort. In the US, some of our proudest structures are our libraries, and we even have street signs pointing the way. It’s possible there are libraries in the larger cities, but they certainly aren’t advertized or even celebrated. It’s funny how it took me this long to notice.  You don’t really look for libraries when you can’t read the language. But it’s unsettling once noticed.

The other night I had dinner with some of my school’s representatives. The man in charge, Mr. Dong, likes to educate us foreigners on the finer points of Chinese history and that night the topic was the Great Leap Forward. The Great Leap was an economic policy under Mao. He decided that China needed to be a modern industrial country. The best way to do that in his maniac brain? Produce steel. Tons of it. And because he was a communist, he thought that everybody in China should produce steel. Totally logical, right? No way that could backfire. The upshot was that everybody inflated their production values of everything from crops to steel and so when tax time came, the government took the resulting level of goods. But the inflated production levels meant the central government took too much food from the countryside. Something like 30 million people died from starvation as a result. The other American at my school told me that there are very few people around his age (53-56) because they all starved to death as children during the Great Leap.

The part that was frightening was that Mr. Dong told us that the famine happened because China had to pay off its debts to the USSR. Not because Chairman Mao was a dictator in love with his own fantasy. The free exchange of information is critical to a thriving society but there is way for Mr. Dong to find alternative sources of information without breaking the law. There are no repositories of knowledge he could peruse to find alternative narratives. There is no free Internet, there are no libraries. Libraries do not lend themselves to homogenous idealisms or cults of personality.

I’m not entirely sure what my point is here. I would like to say that if China had libraries, the Communist Party would fall, but really, I know that is not true. The CCP’s grasp on power is much more insidious. Libraries would be a step, but on their own, they are not enough. It would take a whole change in this country’s mental attitude toward freedom and the role of government. Like I said, libraries wouldn’t be enough on their own, but perhaps they would be a first step.

A Good Day

Today was a good day. 

I want to take a moment to remember that this happened, because so many days are such struggles. It doesn't take much, really. I woke up and read the New York Times (the government is still shut down? How embarrassing.). I Skyped with my dad and a friend (she is getting a dog!). I swept and mopped my floor, and I did some yoga. I learned a couple new Chinese phrases. I can now ask my Chinese friends if they want to go somewhere with me. Just before class, I did some last minute tweaks to my lesson plan, and then I taught three classes. The kids were great today. They were involved and they did what I asked them to do. I bribed them into participating with some candy, but at least they decided that candy was worth speaking in class! The headmaster took me out to a lovely dinner, and he kept trying to play drinking games with me. Taught three more classes after dinner, and they were even better than the first three. These kids are my super enthusiastic group. I didn't even have to bribe one of them! They just up and volunteered!

All around today was a good day. I was content. I did not want to hop the first flight out of here. I did not want to run away and hide from the children. I didn't feel displaced. I didn't feel like the worst teacher in the world. The day turned itself around, even though I woke up with a pounding heart from some ridiculous anxiety dream about packing for China.  

I need to remember what days like this feel like, and more importantly, I need to remember how to get to this place. Days like this will be what makes it possible for me to stay. I can't just live for my weekends, when I can see friends and socialize. I need to be content where I am. I'm too much of a homebody for it to be any other way. The more days I can have like this, the closer I will be to contentment, and that is all I can ask for.

Teaching

How do I put this? Teaching is…simultaneously the hardest, easiest,
and most tiring thing I have ever done. Just so you have an idea of my
schedule, I teach 23 classes of about 60 kids each, for a grand total
of over 1,200 students. This is a pretty standard class size for
China. If you have 1.2 billion people, you can’t have class sizes of
30 or less. It just ain’t gonna happen. Because English conversation
is considered a “light” subject, I teach mostly in the evening, when
all the electives take place. Some days, like today, I don’t finish
teaching until 10 pm.

And this is what makes teaching hard or easy. The kids I have earlier
in the day are wonderful. They are engaged, excited, and eager. The
ones I start teaching at 9 pm are an utter nightmare. For example, the
other day, I taught my earliest class at 11 am. The kids were great. I
was doing a unit on jobs. They were having great discussions about why
people choose their jobs. This one girl wrote such an awesome
advertisement for a tour guide job that I just about burst from pride.
I wanted to frame her paper and keep it forever. It was an awesome
day.

And then there are days like today. My 8 pm class didn’t do their
homework. Not a single person in a class of over 60 people. And it
wasn’t like I assigned anything much. They were supposed to make a
nametag with an English name for their desks. No big deal, right?
Except none of them did it! So I tell myself, ok, fine, I teach an
unimportant subject, they might ignore the homework. So I move along
with the lesson. There is your standard amount of not paying attention
for that time of the night. I have to use all my breath support not to
strain my voice. The usual. But then we move into the activity where
they write their own ad for a fictional job at a fictional company. I
heard a good buzz of conversation for the fifteen minutes and I even
saw some people bent over their desks like they were concentrating.

Boy was I wrong.

Not a single group completed the task.

They didn’t even try! Not a single group! I’m used to a few slackers,
but not an entire class. I have never been so mad in my life. I
threatened them with everything from Hell to the headmaster if they
ever pulled anything like that ever again. Hopefully it will be
enough. I have no idea what to do with this sort of classroom
management situation. None whatsoever.

I have been struggling with what to do about my class size and
learning dynamics. I have been fortunate to have an excellent
education with personal time with my teachers. These experiences were
invaluable to my academic and personal development. I want to give
these sorts of experiences to my students, but there is no way I will
learn all their names, much less get to know any of them.

And then there’s the problem that English conversation is considered a
fluff topic because it’s not covered in the gaokao. The gaokao is the
dreaded Chinese high school exit examination. English grammar is an
integral part of the test, but speaking and listening are excluded.
The result is an entire generation of Chinese who can read away but
can’t think to carry a simple conversation.  So my class is
unimportant. The head teacher even made a point of telling my
assistant that I could play hooky whenever I want because my class is
pointless.

This attitude is pretty pervasive in the student body as well. There
are the great students who love English and learning, but there are
also those who don’t give a rat’s ass. I have been struggling with
these different forces in determining how much I should put into my
job. On the one hand, I want to inspire these kids and make them want
to learn this language I love so much. On the other, there is such
institutional inertia that this is unrealistic. On the one hand, I
want to help the kids who struggle, but on the other hand, I have so
many students that there is no way I can even identify them
accurately.

A lot of the expats I have met tell me I should teach the ones who
want to learn.

On my good days, I bristle at the suggestion. I want to teach them
all! And they’re all going to be brilliant, and have doors opened to
them, and have awesome lives! Each individual is special and needs to
be nurtured! These are the thoughts I have when I leave a good class.
It’s very American of me to think that everyone deserves a shot and a
fair try. China does not work this way. I can feel the Chinese
teachers and my assistant as well just look at me knowingly. They
think I will lose this idealism. They are probably right, but it’s
easy on good days.

And then there are days…like today… when I understand why Chinese
teachers still beat their students.

9/11

September 11, 2013

Passed my first 9/11 in a country that doesn’t care a whit about 9/11.
To be perfectly honest, I am so wrapped up in my own tensions and
fears that I forgot the significance of the date until late afternoon.
And I suppose, in the most technical sense, it wasn’t 9/11. In the US,
it was still the 10th, but it still felt strange to be the only person
for miles and miles who even noticed for a minute that this day was
even remotely different.

As a person with ambitions in international politics, I struggle with
how to remember 9/11 appropriately. On the one hand, I feel compelled
to remember how terrible that day was. I was just short of 11 years
old when it happened, and to this day I have a perfect mental picture
of the towers burning. This is the emotional side of remembrance, and
it is worthy of recognition. The political side of me, however, is
uncomfortable with this response. Every year I feel the need to look
up clips of news footage and watch it over and over. In my head I
rebuild the significance of the date, but it has been 12 years now.
The response to the attacks did not make us better as a nation. In
fact, I think our fear has caused us to cheapen what we hold dear. The
executive stretches the limits of its power every term,
anti-immigration sentiment is rife (although the tides may be shifting
again), we see threats everywhere, and we as a nation are so weary of
conflict that public sentiment can’t even be roused when a dictator
gasses children to death in their homes.

I want to remember, because this day has profoundly shaped who I am
and who I will become, but when does remembrance become a hindrance to
action in the present? When do the fears of the past become irrelevant
to our present battles? How do we balance letting go with memory?

These are questions I cannot answer, but it is cathartic to ask them anyway.

Independence

September 8, 2013

I think I have found my big culture shock issue.  It’s not the
spitting, or the public urination, or the insane traffic, or the bones
in the food, or any of the other daily nuisances that I heard other
expats complain about in their blogs. For me, it is the utter lack of
independence I have been allowed since coming to Yuncheng.

My school was nice enough to arrange for me to have a teaching
assistant, Mary. Mary is really nice and helpful, and she lives just
across the courtyard from me. She helped me buy my cell phone and she
bargains for a good price on our food. But she is new at this job, and
takes it very seriously, which means she is extremely protective. I
have taken to standing at least an arm’s distance away when we cross
the street, otherwise she will hold my hand. I tried to make myself
believe it’s because she was nervous about crossing, but really that’s
utter bull.

This protectiveness goes beyond my assistant to my waiban as well. My
waiban is kind of like the person in charge of foreign teachers. She
helps me get Internet (somewhat unsuccessfully thus far) and all those
sorts of household things.  So, I need to go to Xi’an tomorrow to do
some things with my bank. No big deal, right? Get my assistant to help
me buy a ticket, hop on a train, do my thing, come back, done. Boy was
I wrong. My waiban is convinced that I won’t be able to navigate the
train system on my own, and I think she might have threatened my
assistant with hellfire if something goes wrong. So now I have two
very worried Chinese women telling me not to go to Xi’an. Some of
their advice is very helpful. They have written instruction in Chinese
for me to show cab drivers, random passersby, and train officials in
case I get lost. I have every sort of language safeguard possible, but
they are still convinced I won’t be able to navigate everything.

It makes me wonder if it’s sexism more than protectiveness. If I were
a man, I don’t think the same sort of fuss would be made over a simple
train and taxi combo. Good Chinese girls don’t travel hundreds of
miles alone. Nor do they drink whiskey, as my scandalized assistant
pointed out.

Somehow though, I think it goes beyond that, at least as far as Mary
is concerned. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks her job is to be my
caretaker of sorts, because she certainly acts like it. She wakes me
up in the morning and acts concerned when I don’t go to sleep when she
does. She even refused to let me help cook dinner last night, even
though I told her I would cook. I had to hold my tongue when I was cut
out of this simple pleasure. Cooking is something I am good at in all
languages, and it is a soothing activity for me.  I was really looking
forward to having a comforting and familiar part to my routing, but I
even had to fight to do the dishes. One of these days, I will have to
tie her to a chair and make her watch me cook. I won’t burn anything
down, I promise.

I think a lot of this is my fault. I am allowing myself to be coddled
because I don’t want to offend anyone. Well, this approach has gotten
me nowhere but frustrated and bored from inactivity. And I already
insulted my waiban by not asking her to come to Xi’an with me.  Time
to take control of my situation. I am not a child and I won’t be
treated as such, no matter how well-intentioned the treatment is. If I
keep letting this happen, I will run home screaming. No more.

And it just started raining!!!

Later the same day…

I have an addendum to previous comments on the state of Yuncheng.
Yuncheng, it turns out, is a county and not just a city. I am living
in LinYi, which is a village/suburb about 40 minutes away from
Yuncheng proper. There are lots of these suburb-type areas, and when
Ameson told us we would be going to Yuncheng, they meant the county
and not the city. I have a feeling this omission was more than a
little on purpose, but oh well.

I went to WanRong to visit Mary’s family today. They are incredibly
warm and welcoming people. Her mother, Mama Li, as I have taken to
calling her in my head, immediately decided to adopt me and sent me
home with a gigantic bag of food. Dontcha just love moms?

Anyway, WanRong is a much bigger suburb than LinYi. It verges on its
own urban area. There is a lot more happening in WanRong. It’s closer
to the level of activity I saw in Yuncheng city when I went out with
the expats the other night. It’s still very isolated, and people still
stare and point at me in the street, but it has real oomph. My
assistant confessed to me that she is not too thrilled to live
somewhere as boring as LinYi. It’s much poorer, dirtier, and quieter
than WanRong. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one less than stoked
on this neighborhood.

Pizza

September 6, 2013

Praise and glory be, there is pizza in Yuncheng! And not just Pizza
Hut, good pizza! And whiskey! Good whiskey! And expats! Cool expats
that I want to get to know!

I know I won’t do this expat thing all the time, it’s incredibly
expensive and time-consuming. It took about an hour just to get into
town, but just knowing this kind of escape is even an option makes me
think I can hack it.

Expectations

September 5, 2013

Surprise, surprise, Yuncheng is not like Milwaukee. From the air, I
first thought was that it looked like Davis or Sacramento. That wasn’t
a bad thought because I quite like Davis. But then I landed.

The teachers from English Village, the English collective trying to
bring more teachers to Yuncheng, gave us the most ecstatic greeting I
have ever seen. They knew us all by name and insisted on carrying our
baggage. They then proceeded to drive us to our hotel. I have never
been so unnerved by a 30 minute drive in my life.

People have described Yuncheng as “developing” in the past 36 hours.
Thus far, that seems to be inaccurate. From just the car ride, it
seemed clear to me that Yuncheng is developing at the state’s pace,
not the market’s. Like Shanghai, there is construction everywhere. But
unlike Shanghai, the sites sit empty of workers, buildings decaying
even as they are built. Whole apartment complexes stand empty, the
walls collecting grime that contrasts sharply to the concept art on
display. A road that was built like a main thoroughfare was empty at
rush hour. People drove like all the worst rumors you have heard about
China. In Shanghai, at least some semblance of order rules the roads.
In Yuncheng, it hearkens to the Wild West. All of it points to big
plans with no grassroots support to make them happen. I kept thinking
the city seemed sick. It is depopulated for its infrastructure, which
to me usually indicates economic illness or an actual disaster.

In the space of that drive, I realized that Yuncheng is not Davis, and
nor is it Milwaukee. It is Tijuana, before the current revival.
Yuncheng has evident levels of dirt and poverty that so far I have
associated with Mexico, especially rural Mexico. I suppose this
thought should have comforted me, but it Mexico I can speak the
language, which makes all the difference. So at that point, I was
starting to panic.

The hotel didn’t improve matters much either. The hallways were dark,
the bed was harder than I thought possible, and my room overlooked a
garbage heap. I was desperately trying to keep a positive attitude,
but I could feel it slipping. Then our hosts took us out to dinner,
which helped. The food was quite good, and unfamiliar to me. Cold
dishes and spicy food with dark vinegar predominated. One of the
teachers taught us how to play a drinking game called “Boasting.” It’s
basically the Chinese version of B.S., but with dice and baijiu.

This morning I was placed at Lin Yi No. 1 Middle School. According to
the English Village folk, it’s on of the best middle schools in
Yuncheng. I must have done something right because I have my own
complex. Not an apartment, but a complex surrounding a courtyard. I
have a bedroom and a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom. All this used
to belong to the headmaster at some point and it’s right next door to
the school. I had internet earlier today, but it cut out. When it was
working, it was actually the fastest connection I have had in China so
far. I think with a little nesting it will be quite cozy.

I was not so optimistic when I first arrived, however. The apartment
had not been inhabited in over a year, but I did not know that at the
time, so all I saw was a filthy apartment, peeling paint, and
decorations for a 60 year old Chinese man. I had to take some very
deep breaths to keep myself calm and collected. It was not helping
that I had just been separated from the group of people who also found
themselves in the same predicament. We clung to each other in Shanghai
because there was nobody else. You get really close, really fast when
you share the same goals and fears. And then they were gone, and I was
along with my assistant, who lives across the courtyard.

This is where going far away to college came in handy. My pre-college
self would have felt the panic clawing away at her composure and would
have probably burst into tears. And I was close to feeling as scared
as I did before college. This feeling of disjointedness certainly felt
akin to orientation. I’ll be truthful, at that point, I thought about
packing my bags and booking it back to Shanghai. In fact, I was even
considering leaving Ameson entirely and go look for a job on my own
terms. But then I remembered that college didn’t destroy me. And then
the determined part of me decided that this wasn’t going to be the
thing to beat me. And then I calmed down. I proceeded to distract
myself with cleaning. Now my floor shines, my
slightly-softer-than-rock-hard bed calls to me, and I am relatively at
peace. I feel like I can, in fact, do this. Let’s just see how long
that feeling lasts.

Flexibility

September 4, 2013

When I checked in at the airport, the lady at the counter asked me three times to clarify my pronunciation. She couldn’t quite believe that I would actually take this flight.

So much happened in the past few days that I am not sure I will be able to chronicle it all faithfully.  There were so many cities under discussion and so many options popped up only to disappear suddenly that I’m sure I have forgotten most of them. In my last post, I was torn between Nanjing and Yuncheng. Nanjing is pretty much the nicest city in China. It has a thriving expat community, the city itself is beautiful and the food is supposed to be excellent. However, there was only one post available in Nanjing, and it went to a girl who has Type 1 diabetes and needed to be in a city with an international hospital. Something to do with her insulin type. It’s hard to begrudge her that spot, but someone’s gotta do it!

In all seriousness though, Nanjing became less important when I found out there was an opportunity to intern in the Ameson office in Shanghai. Teaching has always been a means to my end of being in China, so I was really excited to have an opportunity not to teach. I envisioned crafting a position where I would be a liason between the Chinese staff at Ameson Shanghai and AYC participants. I think a lot of the program’s problems could be at least minimized with a native English speaker around. I made my pitch to the director, but I think they went for somebody who speaks more Chinese. Again, reasonable but disappointing.

That left Yuncheng. And thus, to Yuncheng I go. I’m not disappointed by the placement, I’m actually a little excited, but I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around teaching again. I had started to count on the internship, which was stupid to do, but my mind did it anyway. So here I am, blogging in the airport and waiting to go to a town I know virtually nothing about. Another guy who is going to Yuncheng made an apt analogy to my thinking. He said that Yuncheng is like Milwaukee. Nobody goes to Milwaukee for vacation. There is nothing hugely exciting there, it’s not a destination. But living in Milwaukee is not bad at all. People who live in Milwaukee love it. It’s supposed to be a nice place, and people in Wisconsin are hugely nice, so that can’t hurt. I find it hugely comforting to think of Yuncheng as Milwaukee. I can wrap my mind around Milwaukee and it gives me a familiar point of reference.

If I’m perfectly rational about it, I remember that Yuncheng is going to be perfectly fine. All my anxiety is connected to this bloody dearth of information. If there were at least one well-designed website in English describing how awesome the city is and how great the food is and how beautiful the mountains are, I would be much more at ease. But there is no such website, we only have a Wikipedia page that doesn’t even mention the mountains, only the sex trafficking scandal from a few years back.

At the very least, I’m not in Shenzhen. The people who actually went ended up in a really terrible situation. The school cancelled their contract and “renegotiated” it on ridiculously bad terms. Their apartments are filthy. Pretty much every time the school had an opportunity to shortchange the teachers they have taken advantage of it fully. I read a blog post about a month ago about how terrible it is to work at Shenzhen Yaohua. I discounted it as a privileged American whining about nothing. Now I believe it. Every other teacher I have spoken to has loved their schools and the people there bend over backward to make them happy. Yaohua is not the rule, it is the exception.

I am looking forward to a month from now when I can look back on this post and realize how silly my anxieties are. Because really they are. It’s a city of five million people, not some Podunk town without electricity. Everything will be fine. I just need to keep an open mind and an open attitude. I want to like it so I will. Just promise to send me care packages, ok?

Disasters

I would like to preface this post by stating plainly that I am safe and secure in Shanghai. I have not been to the hospital, nor have I been arrested. The situation I am about to describe is not intractable and I am hugely optimistic that everything will work out for the best.

That being said, here is the disaster. Unless something changes radically in the next few days, I will not be going to Shenzhen.

You read that correctly. I will not be going to Shenzhen.

I found out last night at 8:30 pm that the Foreign Expert's Bureau in Shenzhen denied my work permit application, and unless AYC can find the right person to muscle or bribe, I will not be getting a work visa from Shenzhen. The reason is extremely bureaucratic. Remember how I mentioned a test issued by the FEB? I had to take it along with the TEFL stuff online, and it was a joke. I was under the impression that the test was unimportant because my coordinator at Ameson told me so. Turns out she was very wrong about that. The Shenzhen FEB appears to be involved in a power struggle with the national FEB. I passed the test overall, which is what the national standard is, but apparently I earned too low of a score on either the general knowledge or Chinese culture section of the test. To be perfectly clear, both of those sections were utter bullshit. I would like to see the officials at the FEB try to pass the test then see how smug they are once I smack them upside the head. The questions were entirely random, and as a well-informed woman of the world I did not pass. I suppose I could have done better if I had Googled the answers as I took the test, but somehow that seemed unethical to me. Silly me. Silly ethics. I would like to state once again that I did pass the test overall, but the Shenzhen FEB has decided that all of their work permit applicants must pass each individual section of the test to get approved. No other branch of the FEB in all of China has this sort of requirement. Shenzhen is simply being petulant, as far as I can tell. There are currently eight other people in my situation.

Initially I was extremely upset, as you can imagine. It was one of those situations where the group's calm dynamic was hanging by a thread, and I was doing my level best to keep it together and rationally examine the situation while I was in public and then promptly burst into tears once I had some privacy. I frantically contacted people in the US and ended up pulling my mom from her morning spin class to come Skype me.

Ameson does have some options for me, however, so all is not lost. I could go to Yuncheng, which is a town of 5 million about three hours east of Xian (where the Terra Cotta Warriors are). Let's be honest, it's the middle of nowhere. I would be teaching high school, which is good, but I would probably be the only Westerner around. This would be great for my Chinese, obviously, but it would be harder to live there than Shenzhen. I mean, obviously. Everywhere in China would be harder to live as an expat than Shenzhen.

Like I said, the middle of nowhere. 11 hour drive from Beijing and Shanghai, easy flights to each.

The other option is to teach in the Ameson foreign language school in Shanghai or Nanjing. Of the two, I would choose Nanjing. Shanghai is pretty cool, but Nanjing is absolutely gorgeous. Also, Johns Hopkins has a foreign affairs satellite campus there. I could make lots of cool friends. Nanjing was one of my original preferences, as well.

Nanjing is incredibly picturesque. Case and point.

They both have really good aspects. Both Yuncheng and Nanjing have a lot of history. I think that I would learn a lot of Chinese in either place. I just think that living in Nanjing would be much, much easier, and my preference for either experience changes depending on my mood. I have a few days to decide. Ameson is keeping the nine of us in our current hotel until we figure out what to do.

I went sightseeing today, which was a lot of fun. I saw Lushan temple and the Lushan Revolutionary Martyr's Park and Museum, which from what I gathered was built on the sigh of a former KMT intelligence center and torture chamber. The museum is dedicated to the victims. It was extremely sobering. I couldn't help wondering what those idealistic young people would think about China's journey from the time of their deaths until now. Would they have seen their dream of communist equality in Mao's China? Or would they have been appalled at all the human misery of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution? Would they understand why China is the way it is today? There is rampant corruption and inequality but it's really a natural backlash to the kind of oppression Mao relied on. The museum is full of photos of the dead, and every face is so full of determination. I have a lot of sympathy for many kinds of idealism. These young people wanted to change the world because they believed the world could be remade. And the regime that resulted is pretty much as far removed from their ideals as is possible. It was a sobering experience.

 Back to the placement issue. I could really use some advice on this. What do you think and why? I'm pretty evenly torn on this, and I have a mental list of pros and cons that is pretty balanced. Please leave comments, email, or Facebook me. I would really appreciate any advice you all have because I truly respect your opinions. Look forward to hearing from you!

Heat

Saturday, August 24, 2013

7 am

Hello everyone! Let me start by saying that I made it to Shanghai in one piece. The flight was perfectly uneventful and I am all settled in to the Shanghai Everbright Hotel and Convention Center, which is where AYC is holding orientation. You will by now, of course, have noticed that this entry was certainly not posted on August 24. As it turns out, the VPN I paid for on my laptop does not work.  Blogger appears to be a blocked site in China, so I can’t update from my computer. The free VPN I downloaded on my phone works like a champ, but there is no wifi in the hotel, so I can’t update from the mobile platform.  So until I can get this whole situation sorted, I’m writing in journal fashion. I have not forgotten to post, I promise.

So...anyways...

Have you ever been so hot that you wish you could die? But you’re so hot that dying would take too much effort? That is how hot it is in Shanghai, with 95% humidity. Going outside is like stepping into a steam-injected oven, or a sauna, or a vegetable steamer. The streets seemed strangely empty, and I couldn’t figure out why until I realized everyone was inside with their air conditioning. There was a huge heat wave a few weeks ago, with temperatures in the 100s. I don’t want to imagine.

During the heat wave, the pavement was so hot you could cook meat on it. Another AYC participant told me a story about a woman and a car and a heat wave. In China, pedestrians do not have the right of way, but drivers have to pay damages to any people they hit. Unsurprisingly, this means a whole scam industry has sprung up around pretending to be hit by a motorcycle just for the payout. During the last heat wave, a woman tried to pull just that sort of stunt. However, the pavement was so hot she couldn’t stand lying on the ground to pretend to be in pain! When the police officer came, she said, “Oh no, officer, I was not lying. I was just resting.” Hardy har har har.

Fortunately, there is air conditioning in the hotel. My roommate hasn’t arrived yet, so I snagged the bed right next to the vent. Score. 

The hotel does a really interesting thing with the AC. In order to turn the power on in the room, you have to leave your room key in a specific little slot, and the power only stays on as long as the key is there. So when you leave, you have to bring the key, which turns off the power and saves the hotel money. I think hotels in the US should adopt this idea. Not only does it save the hotel’s energy bills, but also it’s a lot better for the environment. 

Today is a true blue sky day. There has been enough wind that the pollution has dissipated, and all you can see are gigantic, fluffy clouds racing across the skyline. It’s breathtaking. Ameson is taking us on a sightseeing tour of some sort today. I’m looking forward to it. Apparently the building where the first Communist Party meeting was held is in the same district as the hotel. I really want to go see the humble roots of this imposing system.

That’s all for now, folks. Time for breakfast.

Countdown

Tomorrow is the day! (Or, Tomorrow is the day. Entirely unsure of which punctuation is most appropriate.) 

Everything is packed. I have been poked, prodded, examined, safeguarded, insured, and advised. I have a book for the plane (thanks Judy!). I have packed well for most seasons. Cold weather clothes will have to come later, but hey, it doesn't get all that cold in Shenzhen anyways. 

I have a visa!

This is Eli. He's coming to Shenzhen as well.

After all the troubles with it, actually acquiring the damn thing was the easiest part of leaving.

My mom threw a lovely going away party for me. It involved tapas (more accurately, pintxos) and LOTS of sangria. 

 Then we sat around the fire pit and talked.

 I have been going for as many runs on the beach as I can. Running from stress is good for me, and it will be a long time before I get to hang out at Torrey Pines. There seem to be lots of runs for charity around Shenzhen and Hong Kong. I think I want to run at least a 10k in the next few months. Maybe I'll train for a half marathon by the end of the year?


Packing for this journey was like packing for college, but five bajillion times harder. I like to brag that I could fit all my worldly possessions into my Beetle, but that is nothing compared to a suitcase, carry on, and a backpack.

Before the cull.

And after.

I think I made the weight limit. I think. 

My emotional state is...more stable than it was when I moved to college! But still not entirely stable. On the one hand, I want to snap out of it because, as one highly sympathetic friend put it, "you're going away for a while, not DYING!" He is right, but on the other hand moving to the other side of the world is still scary. And so my moods swing between excitement and abject terror. I'm managing to keep myself in a forced middle at the moment. Breathing, calm and happy thoughts, blah blah blah. 

By this time tomorrow, I will be in another country. How wild is that??? This experience is going to change my life in ways I can't even comprehend, much less anticipate. The challenge excites the stubborn and obstinate part of me. You know the one. The one where I become more determined the more I hear "no." It's like this entire country is daring me to give up and little me is staring back defiantly with little more than sheer determination and a Mandarin phrasebook. I am going to have a blast.

I love you all. Write lots. 

Logistics

I really should have started this post months ago. 

Going to China was always going to be an adventure, but I had no idea how much of the adventure was going to be actually getting there! I want this blog to encompass most aspects of my time in China, and a true representation will include the ugly reality of pre-trip logistics. Chinese bureaucracy is famously complex (they practically invented it, after all) and the Ameson Year in China program is brand new, and thus is facing a steep learning curve. Communication between the different Ameson offices, the host schools and the teachers is spotty at best and completely non-existent at worst. With their powers combined, these two entities joined forces to create a logistical maze enough to drive your schedule-besotted author batty. 

The background check, TEFL, and SAFEA certifications weren't too bad. TEFL, the teaching certification, was pretty easy and SAFEA, the foreign expert certification with the government, was a joke (apparently it doesn't even matter if you pass), but I suppose I should have been put on my guard by the program's requirement for a doctor's note instead of a full physical. I was in a better situation than most because in my scantily-insured state, I was able to get the lovely people at the clinic at my university's Counseling, Health, and Wellness Services to complete a full physical (practically for free) that later came in handy. I turned in all my paperwork just as my final weeks of college ended and prepared to relax. Silly me. As it turns out, the Chinese government made a radical about-face on health requirements a few weeks into the summer which essentially made the physicals of every single AYC participant invalid. We needed another physical, this time on a specific form with very specific information and with an official stamp to seal the deal. By this time, I was home for the summer and since I graduated, CHWS no longer had my records. I called my mother's doctor and begged for an appointment with anybody, even the janitor would do. Fortunately, I get my healthcare at a teaching hospital, so they were able to set me up with probably the newest resident on staff. Fine by me.

*Note my oh-so-official stamp, and my doctor's note that the nurse should use the practice's return address as the "official" seal. I am ever so official.

Now, this new form was no joke. It was mostly in Chinese, accompanied by highly approximated translations, with requirements far beyond the standard American physical. I'm talking HIV test, ECG and chest X-Ray. Oh, and don't forget the full pelvic screening for the ladies. Ugh. To be fair, everyone was blindsided by the new requirement, it wasn't just Ameson. And they really did their best to communicate to everyone that the more extreme requirements would be satisfied at a later date, under the supervision of our host schools.  

But those big, scary boxes still caused a virtual panic on the program's Facebook page.

The next logistical nightmare many people are still facing is whether or not they are actually going. I was fortunate to get placed right on time. My school seems to be pretty great, and I think it will work out well for everyone involved. Some people, however, have yet to be placed, and are still clinging to hope, even though we're due to arrive in Shanghai in about two weeks. Ameson has not been very transparent about the placement process or very firm about its deadlines. This is probably entirely due to the fact that this is AYC's first year in existence. I am sure that by next year all of these kinks will be worked out. But until then, there are a lot of people who were led to believe that if they passed their TEFL exam, they were guaranteed placement. This is what I was told as well. Understandably, there are those who are now extremely angry at AYC, some going so far as to call the program a hoax. 

I feel for their frustration. As many of you probably remember, it was not all that long ago I was in a similar situation with Princeton in Asia, waiting and waiting and hoping to God everything would work out, only to be crushed at the last minute. Y'all were really understanding of my short temper and distracted behavior during that period, and I love you for it. The difference was that PiA was really good about informing the applicants about their prospects in a realistic manner. I was crushed because I was in denial, not because I was stuck with a ticket to China without a job waiting for me. I suppose the only lesson that I could take from the experience of others is that nothing is certain until you're there, and maybe not even then. It could have so easily been me that I really don't like to think about it.

Ameson is really going to have to create a solid, working handbook on how to handle the placement process for next year. It also should create a consolidated encyclopedia of all things logistics for the teachers. We have questions about everything from flight reimbursements, to healthcare, to banks, to where we're going to live, and our poor coordinators are overwhelmed by emails. I honestly don't know how they have any time in the day once all the emails are taken care of. Maybe this is something I should volunteer to compile, once I have it all figured out, of course. Can you say resume?

The last big thing I am waiting for is my paperwork certifying I am a foreign expert in teaching English (HA) and the letter of invitation from the Chinese government. Once I have these documents, I will be able to get my work visa from the embassy in LA. Once I have that visa my friends, nothing can stand in my way!! But I can't go get the visa yet, because my paperwork is languishing on the desk of some mid-level official in Shenzhen, just waiting for the right person to come along and give it a big 'ol stamp. No stamp, no go. It's really coming down to the wire now, and I'm starting to worry (which is one of the things I do best). While I wait, I'm trying to distract myself with the five billion other things I have to do, like selling my car, packing up my stuff, saying goodbye to everyone I possibly can, and cramming as much Mandarin as possible into my free time. If anybody has a recommendation for a good plane read, I could use a few. I still need a suitcase and travel vaccinations. A Chinese-English dictionary is probably a good idea. I should probably do something about my bank. The list and expense goes on and on. But even so, it's hard to ignore that tiny voice in my head yelling that you can't actually enter China legally yet, so what the heck are you doing? 

My AYC coordinator and my liaison with my school have assured me that if my paperwork doesn't arrive in time, I can get a tourist visa just to get me in the country and change it at a later date. I sincerely hope they're right. Without a visa, I can't go, and Xandra will be a sad panda. 

Like this guy. That is one sad panda.

Beginning

Beginnings have always been tough for me. Every paper I have ever written starts off with me staring blankly at my computer screen, willing words to appear and silently cursing my perceived ineptitude. Unsurprisingly, this blog has been no different. Until this point, I have been largely ambivalent about blogs. Not that I should judge from the sidelines, but I feel that many blogs are not much more than idle chatter adding to the dull roar that fills certain corners of the Internet. I had a Tumblr for like, two seconds, but it was short-lived because I got really sick of feeling pressured to photograph every single thing I cooked (it was a food blog). I want this attempt to be different, not just from my perspective as a hopeful non-cretin of the blogosphere, but because this blog will be my main line of communication with the people I care about who I would love nothing more than to grab a coffee with and tell you all about all the cool things I'll be doing in China. Think of this blog as our virtual coffee date. 

Oh yeah, for the odd reader I don't actually know personally (welcome by the way!), I am leaving in a few short weeks to go live and teach English conversation in Shenzhen, China for a year. After a brief orientation in Shanghai, I will be teaching at the Shenzhen Yaohua Experimental School with the help of the Ameson Foundation's "Ameson Year in China" program. If you read about my experiences and can't wait to try it for yourself, here's the website.

As far as I can tell, the Yaohua Experimental School is an elite institution dedicated to preparing Shenzhen's brightest for a college education. 

This is what the campus looks like. Pretty cool, huh? It's about the size of a small American university, but it's an elite high school. I think the fact that Yaohua is a college prep school actually makes me feel more confident about this whole teaching gig. High schoolers are older, therefore I can relate to them better, at least in theory. I also attended a college prep school. It kicked my butt like no other, but I was ready for the work load of college in a way most people I met during freshman orientation were not. This is to say that I understand the academic hell these kids are going through, and I am living proof that it can be survived and put to good use. I have to modify my expectations, of course. Most likely, I will not be the next Stand and Deliver guy, nor will I be as inspiring as Robin Williams in the Dead Poets Society, but I understand what it takes to thrive in a college environment and I can help teach them the tools I have learned. Maybe.

Where is Shenzhen, you ask? Well.



It is in the south, right across from Hong Kong. Strategically placed, I might add, to rival the capitalist success of the former British holding. 

After Mao's death and the downfall of the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaopeng, newly back in power, began the delicate task of steering the Chinese Communist Party away from the destructive excesses of Maoism to a more market-friendly version of socialism. Deng famously announced that "poverty is not socialism" and "to get rich is glorious," effectively sending China on its new long march towards great power status. Shenzhen was established as a Special Economic Zone in 1980. Its place was that of a capitalistic haven for business, strategically placed next to one of the biggest financial centers in the region. Until it became a Special Economic Zone, Shenzhen was a sleepy fishing village. Now, it looks like this:

Not bad for thirty years.

Shenzhen's history as an SEZ is the reason why schools like Yaohua exist. As far as I can tell, it is a rare phenomenon in China. I'll report more on the intellectual culture once I get settled in, but the website features photos of students in an art class alongside photos of the science facilities. Art seems to get short shrift in China because it is not part of the exit examinations every high school student must take, and it's impossible to standardize and test artistic ability. Even though Shenzhen is new and it does not have the same roots as say, Beijing, I am really excited to see what the impact the SEZ has on the city's willingness to support private education and free thought. 


I am also beyond ecstatic about the state of the food! I am a complete and total foodie, and one of my favorite things is Chinese dim sum. So where better to be than the region where dim sum has its roots? I cannot wait for my first order of har gao on Chinese soil.

Har gao: shrimp dumplings

Har gao are shrimp dumplings, technically named for the translucent wrapping of these exquisite creations. They are usually tinged the loveliest shade of pink because the wrappings are so thin that the shrimp filling shines through. 

Maybe this is just because it's late, but it seems to me that har gao are a perfect metaphor for what I know of China at this moment. It's a delectable and exciting prospect, with lovely presentation, but hidden delights are shining through, just waiting to be discovered. Or something. I probably just need to get to sleep so I can be properly embarrassed by that line in the morning. More to come, my friends. 14 days exactly until I fly to Shanghai for orientation. Love to you all.