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!