So the day after I moved into my apartment my school said we
would have an important meeting with the Shenzhen Education Bureau the next
morning and be ready by 8am. They had mentioned something about some important
people from the government coming to evaluate our school and they would want to
meet us, so I assumed this is what that was about. The night before I had come
home late to find my AC was broken. It was too late to call anyone so I
suffered through the night, but it was BAD! There is no kind of heat like
Shenzhen heat. Everyone says its Florida weather because it’s about the same
distance from the equator, it’s not true. Shenzhen heat is like walking beside
a fire breathing dragon. The second you step out from under a shady tree it is
literally DOUBLE the heat. I can feel the sun cooking my skin. In DC they say
it feels as hot as Florida because the humidity is so high, well I kind you
know there are days in Shenzhen with 100% humidity. I always thought 100%
humidity would be the same as rain, wrong! You walk outside and your whole body
is damp, not even from sweat yet, this is just the humidity! They you walk down
the 6 flights of stairs and you start sweating too. There are just TOO many
people and not enough airflow. You stand in line and people are just touching
you on all sides, but luckily you are all wet and sweaty so it doesn’t matter.
I am talking get home and you have sweated through ALL layers of clothes, 3
showers a day and yours still sweating, hot. SO yes Shenzhen is hot and no AC
is not an option, but I suffered through somehow.
The good part of this story is I had no problem waking up in
the morning because I was up every hour praying it was time to meet them so I
could get into the AC! I finally got up and showered and everything and went
down to the office early to see if someone could help me with my AC. My teacher
made a few calls and said she would check on it later because the government
people would be there any minute. After waiting around almost an hour no one
had showed up. Finally Melissa, my teacher, decides maybe we have time to check
the AC after all. And don’t you know the second we get to my apartment she gets
a call that the people have arrived and are waiting for me! Of course! So I
leave my keys with her and I run back down to the office. I wasn’t there to see
how she magically fixed it, because I had climbed on furniture to get to it,
pushed every button, swore and hit it with a broom all without any luck!
Shocking
SO back at the office these two young representatives from
the education bureau hand us this lesson plan booklet and our teaching
schedules, with the advice that the old people are very slow and we will need
to be very patient with them. So without any discussion I had somehow agreed to
co-teach a community group of “the old people” with one of the other foreign
teachers. And someday the mayor of Shenzhen was going to come and observe the
class to see if the city was following the government order that all
communities should be learning English. The only question asked was, so which
one of you will do the first class this afternoon? Like today? Ok fine! So next
thing I know they are walking us over to the community center were we will have
classes. I don’t know how such little Chinese people with shorter legs than me
can walk to so fast! But I get there to out of breath to voice any objections
and that settles it. So now until further notice I teach the old people twice a
week. Oh china!
It turns out my class is about 20 women that look to be
about in their 60s and 2 men about the same age. They speak NO English, which
is a big change from my advanced High schoolers. However, they are happy as can
be to repeat the same sentence for a full hour! I keep wanted to add more but
they will stay repeating over and over to slow me down. I teach for an hour and
a half so 45mins in I tried to give them a break and they weren’t having it,
they just stared at me in silence until I gave up on the idea and started
teaching again! Their favorite thing to do is once I give them a sample conversation
and we read it aloud 100 times they pair up and practice with each other. Then
I come around and ask them to read for me one at a time. This is where I really
get to see their personalities.
I have one woman who gets so shy and will hide from me every
time I come over to her. She will see me 4 people over and I will smile and she
giggles and hides her face like a school girl! So cute! She will just now read
for me after working together for a few weeks but she will talk so quietly I can
barely hear her. And she still can’t make eye contact for more than a second
before shying away.
Another woman is so eager to learn she will always grab me
when I am a few people away and want me to skip over to help her, then I will
go back where I was and she will do the same thing! Once it is her turn to work
with me she always wants to hold my arm so no one else can get my attention.
She tries so hard, but I can tell its very difficult for her. One day when she
read the whole convo perfectly I was so excited I clapped! And she gave me the
pucker lips! As if to say, “come on I’m always this good?!” I like the attitude!
My other favorite likes to correct everyone around her. When
I say show how to pronounce something and they repeat it, she jumps in and says,
“no like this!” but still says in exactly like before that I was trying to
correct. The word was healthy, which is just cruel because the “th” and the “L”
at the end of the word are both really hard for Chinese speakers. So I tell
them to watch my tongue and do the same thing. So then she was over doing it,
playing teacher and spit all over the table! So I told her she had to hold her
hand over her mouth when she did it from now on! Later, she asked me in Chinese
if I had any children, and once I figured out what she meant I thought for a
minute how to explain in English she would understand. So I repeated the
question in English and made my best pouty face, shook my head and pointed to
my ring figure, “no husband!” I shook my head again making the baby gesture,
“so, no baby! Only me!” they all laughed and my little teacher repeated, “no
husband no baby! Haha” then she took off her ring and held it out as if to give
to me, “yes? haha!”
I will see my ladies on the street sometimes and I always
try to say hello. They get so excited! “Laoshi! Uhhhh hello, hello, how are
you?” The other day one lady shared her umbrella with me all the way to the
store even though I tried to refuse. It is hard to explain in simple English
that American’s only use the umbrella in the rain. At the supermarket today I
ran into one of my ladies with her friend and she grabbed my arm and yammered
away at me in Chinese dragging me around the aisle. Finally when I had lost all
context to guess her meaning I answered, “wo ting bu dong, I don’t understand!”
Apparently that was the end of the tour, she quickly replied, “OK bye-bye!” and
scurried away! Its nice to have that connection with the older people in the
community. For the most part it is only people my age or younger that seem to
reach out to foreigners. I always got the feeling that only people didn’t see
the value in foreigners and were still holding on to the past when foreigners
were not allowed in china. Now I think it is more that they are just not as
comfortable or confident around foreigners as the younger generation. It’s hard
for me to imagine that 50 years ago no foreigners were allowed inside of china.
So growing up in those times would have been a lot different than my high
school students, who have had a foreign teacher every year since kindergarten!
As much as I enjoy teaching my older students, I would like
it a lot better if I were getting paid! My co-teacher has been a lot more
active than me about trying to figure out if, when, and how we will get paid.
So fair after much drama the answer seems to be YES… to all 3 questions. Oh
China!
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