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Published: December 29th 2009
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After a few weeks I settled into my new job. This year I work in a training center, as opposed to a school. I have students that range in age from 5 to 55 and in proficiency from beginner to advanced. Some of my young students are very advanced and some of the adults are complete beginners. The adult beginners are the most difficult to teach. A young beginner is easy because a teacher can use songs and action games and things like that. (And kids learn wicked fast) But those methods don’t really work with a 45 year old woman.
I work a lot more than I did last year and I have a lot less vacation and free time, but I am also making three times the salary. I really enjoy the variety in teaching and have grown quite fond of some of my students. I do miss my students from last year. And I really miss all the free time I had. But there are good things and bad things to every situation in life. If I weigh all the good with the bad I’d say I’m still better off now than I was last year. I suppose I should give a quick run down of the other foreign teachers that I work with. I am the only girl. And for a while I was the only American. In September there was Adam, an older man from Scotland, Paul and Tom, both from the south of England near Plymouth, and Nils, born in the States but raised in Italy and Germany. Later, in October we were joined by Mike from Connecticut. Finally I had someone else to help absorb all the American jokes.
My center has a party every month for the students. In September there was a beach party. I was unable to attend because I had to teach that day, but there was a separate beach party for the faculty and staff a couple of days later. It still amazes me how different China can be. We went to a place called Xi Chong, a two hour bus ride away. We left at 10 a.m. and the bus ride began with an MC with a mike at the front of the bus planning some sort of game. It was in Chinese so I didn’t really understand what the game was or how it was played, but it was fun to watch the others playing. There was a lot of jumping around and slapping. Then everyone shouted out which province they were from and several people sang songs in their local dialect. There was joke telling and story telling and more singing of songs. One of our receptionists is from Inner Mongolia and she taught us a dance. And all of us foreign teachers had to walk to the front of the bus and perform something. It was a strange and very loud two hours.
When we arrived we took a group photo then all of us foreigners threw off our clothes and ran straight into the water. I swimming in the ocean. As we were frolicking in the waves I noticed that all of my Chinese coworkers were still standing around on the beach and up at the pavilion where we were to have a barbeque later. Some had already set up tables and were playing card games. Finally a few of the men joined us in the water, most with inflatable rings. Then some of the women ventured in, also with inflatable rings. Apparently few Chinese people know how to swim. I guessed this after several of them floated over to me and exclaimed “You can swim?!?!” We spent a couple of hours swimming then went up to the pavilion to eat. The barbecue was okay. It was nothing special. There were veggies, chicken wings, weird fish sausages, and baby octopuses that we cooked over a bbq pit. I didn’t eat very much. I knew we had a two hour bus ride home and I didn’t want a case of China gut with no access to a bathroom. After nibbling on a couple of chicken wings I went back to the ocean along with Adam, Paul, Tom, and Nils. Only a very few of our Chinese coworkers rejoined us in the water. By 6 o’clock it was time to leave. We stopped at a seafood restaurant and I had some excellent crabs and shellfish. Then it was time to go home. I didn’t realize that we had crossed out of the city limits when we went to Xi Chong, so when we were stopped at the border I was at first surprised then terrified. We were ordered off the bus and sent through a line to check our identification. None of us had our passports. But, like so many things here, the whole thing was just for show; it was just perfunctory. I flashed my MD driver’s license and was waved through.
My first Chinese coworker bonding experience was both interesting and fun. And I’m glad to say that I really like most of my coworkers and have even become friends with a few of them. I usually like to keep my personal life and work life separate but that is not a common concept here in China. When in Rome….
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Trish
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official MD driver's license
Those probably do look really official in comparison to most documentation! Funny!