First Few Weeks of Teaching & Shaoshan

你们好!

I've officially been teaching for two weeks now, so here are a few thoughts and reflections-

When I first heard that I was placed at a school called "Changsha Foreign Languages School," I assumed that my students would have a pretty high level of English. I was wrong. The name of the school is actually quite misleading- like many of schools in China, there is the main school as well as an "international department." Students in the international department may take their classes taught in a foreign language. CFLS offers English and Japanese programs within the international department. Students there are typically looking to go abroad for college (usually in the U.S. or Japan), the class sizes are much smaller, and their language ability is obviously a lot higher. Where I teach in the main school, there is the junior school 初中 chuzhong and the senior school 高中 gaozhong. I teach 15 classes a week- 14 classes of junior 3's (equivalent in age to a U.S. 9th grader), and 1 class of senior 2's (equivalent in age to a U.S. 11th grader). I see every class once a week for a forty-minute oral English class. Every class has anywhere between 45-65 students, so I have a total of 700+ students a week. While some students in my class can hold a pretty simple conversation with me, others cannot comprehend the question, "What is your English name?" Believe me, it's as exhausting as it sounds. 

I've already had to deal with some frustrating discipline issues. As I was reviewing material from the previous week, I confirmed with students, "last week, I asked you what your favorite food was, right?" While most students shouted an excited, "yes!" in unison, one of the troublemakers yelled out "sh*t!" with a smirk. Today, as I was passing out a hand out to students, a boy called," 服务员!" (fuwuyuan: waiter) from across the room. Another issue I've had is when I've given students small cards on which to write their name, favorite hobby, and a short introduction. It's incredible how many boys wrote something vulgar like "favorite hobby: watching yellow movies" (a direct translation from 黄色电影 huangsedianying - a Chinese euphemism for pornography). 

Don't get me wrong, I've also had some great moments in class. One day, I was setting up a class when a very eager female student came up to me and started asking questions. "Ms. Chambers, how do you say 'Chambers' in Chinese? I looked it up on the internet, but I could not find a translation." Wow, this girl is incredibly curious, I thought. I explained to her that Chambers is my father's last name, but for my Chinese last name, I use my Japanese mother's last name. Her next question? "Ms. Chambers, can you tell me about Japanese and American toilets?" Uh..what? "Where are the dirtiest toilets, and where are the cleanest toilets in Japan and America?" I truly had no idea how to tackle this question, but I fumbled and said something about how public places tend to have dirtier toilets, and she seemed satisfied with that answer. On the aforementioned small info cards, I had one class where probably a third of the students gave me their QQ number (kind of like a screen name for a Chinese IM app) in their self-introductions. In general, many of my students are absolutely fascinated by American culture, especially my female students with pop stars. I have had many bonding moments with girls over our love for Taylor Swift and Beyonce over the last few days. 

My first week of teaching was actually not a full 5-day week. We had Thursday through Saturday off for a new national holiday - the 70th Victory of the Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War. Of course, for some bizarre reason that is completely beyond my Western way of thinking, we had to make up our Friday classes on Sunday. This meant that our Thursday classes were never made up, so they would be a week behind the rest of our classes. Such is life in a Chinese school system. 

The beautiful Shaoshan countryside

For our day off on Friday, several volunteers and I visited Shaoshan 韶山, Mao Zedong's hometown, located about 100 km from Changsha. We hopped on a bus from the Changsha South Bus Station and two hours later, we arrived in the sleepy town of Shaoshan. Once in Shaoshan, you can buy a tourist bus ticket for 12 yuan (~USD$2) and a little bus will take you around throughout the Shaoshan sites. The sites are located about 10 minutes from the bus station, which is a nice drive through the countryside. Perhaps it was a mistake to go on a national holiday - all of the sites were packed, and I experienced a Chinese line for the first time in my life. We lined up to see the former residence of Mao Zedong for 70 minutes (Worth it? For a Chinese citizen, probably. For us? Questionable). Just like at the statue of Mao at Orange Island, we saw many people bowing and paying their respects to a large bronze statue of the chairman. As American volunteers, we tried to find think of our equivalent- people bowing towards President Lincoln at his memorial? Probably not quite. It's easier to try and find parallels between a foreign culture and your own in order to get acclimated to the society, but in some cases it's just best to accept something foreign just as is. 

                     

                          

Last Thursday was the Chinese Teacher Day, where students show their appreciation toward their teachers by giving them gifts or thank you notes. My wonderful students gifted oolong tea, "rice power biochemical gene series (??)" face lotion, and snake oil hand cream. The next day, the school principal and his colleagues took the foreign teachers out for a belated Teacher Day/early Mid-Autumn Festival lunch at a nice restaurant near our campus. It was humorous to have high level school officials continually pour red wine into our glasses at 12:30 PM. Not a bad start to the weekend.

Our massive Teacher Day feast courtesy of CFLS

So to sum it all up, I have really been enjoying my time here regardless of the numerous road bumps along the way. The students are quite a handful, but if anything, it's really given me the opportunity to reflect on my 16+ years of education and the wonderful teachers I have been surrounded by. It really does take a lot out of you to devote your daily time and energy to these kids. Coming up are posts about general culture shock as well as the local cuisine here! Until then, 再见!

Changsha Foreign Languages School

These past three weeks have absolutely flown by. Orientation is officially over, and I have moved into my on-campus apartment, where I will be living until June 2016! It hasn't quite hit me yet, probably because the students are still on vacation and the campus is pretty dead. Classes don't start until next Monday, August 31st. We have about a week to settle into our new places and prepare for classes to begin (think class rules, procedures, reward, tracking system, etc.) So, what have I been up to since I last posted, you might ask?

First off, I would highly recommend WorldTeach as a program because they have a fantastic orientation program. Although the days were long and tiring, I could not feel more prepared to begin teaching Oral English classes. Other programs that send teachers overseas may pay a better salary, but oftentimes, they will drop you off at your site with little to no orientation or local staff/support. We have a locally placed Field Director who is available for help 24/7, year round, which is phenomenal. Now, I can say with confidence that all 31 of us are experts at writing 5-step lesson plans (Opening, Introduction to New Material, Guided Practice, Independent Practice, and Closing). We know how to incorporate reading, writing, listening, and speaking exercises into our classes, and also how to manage class sizes of 50-70 students (typical classroom size in China). Orientation also included daily Chinese classes, split into beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, which were immensely helpful. 

Anyway, week three of orientation was practicum. I think this is also a key aspect of WorldTeach that not many other programs can offer. We spent five days putting into practice what we learned in the prior two weeks at an "English summer camp" of sorts for the Senior 1 students at Yizhong. The lessons I taught were 1) Asking for and giving directions, 2) Weather vs. climate, 3) Similes and metaphors - using Katy Perry's "Firework" as an activity, and 4) Making your own dance moves (and using oral English to teach their classmates). Side note: I later learned that at one point, Mao Zedong attended Yizhong, hence the statue of him on campus, which I posted a picture of a few weeks ago. The kids were so awesome and smart, it was really quite sad to have to leave them after a week.

                     

Around the end of the second week of orientation, we had an optional field trip to climb Yuelu Montain, a popular sight-seeing spot on the west side of Changsha across the Xiang River. I've been told that it's harder to find true "hikes" in China, as most mountains or peaks are often just paved over for cars, motorcycles, and shuttle buses to take visitors up to the top. So as about 20 of us were climbing Yuelu, we all had to constantly make way for speeding motorcycles as they honked noisily at us (more about China's transportation at another time..), which is a foreign concept when hiking many other places in the world. In addition, it was funny to see Chinese women trying to walk up in short heels or wedges- they try to be fashionable at all times of the day, regardless of the activity. As we made it to the top, we noticed something unfortunate: we could barely see anything because of the smog that covered the city. It was a great trip nonetheless, and there are many points along Yuelu that have historical significance (which we completely missed, oops), which people may find interesting. It is something that some of the other volunteers and I look forward to doing again in the future. 

  

At the end of orientation, we were taken to Orange Island (Juzizhou 橘子洲). There are many things to do and see on Orange Island, but our group's only destination was the enormous statue of Mao Zedong on the south side. Some of the volunteers were shocked as they witnessed Chinese citizens praying and bowing toward the statue. I'd seen pictures of the statue online before, but to see it in real life was quite a sight. On Sunday, we had our final dinner together at the "Mao Restaurant" - seriously, this place was decked out in all things Mao. There were Socialist tissue packages, portraits of Mao lining the walls, and in the middle of them all was this large mural of Changsha (that's Orange Island in the middle!) and a very welcoming Mao on the side. It's crazy how 31 people can grow so close in three weeks- probably because many of us are trying to bond over being confused, fascinated, and excited about such a foreign culture.

                             

On Monday, I arrived at Changsha Foreign Languages School (长沙外国语学校 Changsha Waiguoyu Xuexiao) with three other volunteers after saying some sad goodbyes at our hotel. The campus is in the southern part of the city, about half an hour from downtown. The volunteers and I all live in teacher's apartments on campus, which is very convenient. The first few days were entirely spent on cleaning up our apartments, as the previous residents left them absolutely trashed. I'm talking dirty dishes on my bed side table, half-drunk mouldy juice bottles under my bed, rotting food in the rice cooker, and countless articles of clothing that were left behind. The apartments were so musty and dusty that a few of us suffered from severe allergies for a little while, but a daily routine of mopping, bleaching, and squeegee-ing, have seemed to work quite well. Aside from settling in to our apartments, there isn't too much we can do to prepare before classes start. Chinese school systems are notorious for being very up in the air about class schedules and logistics. Even though we start teaching on Monday, we won't know what grade levels we teach or our schedules until Sunday at the earliest. We don't know if the school wants us to teach curriculum from a textbook, or create our own original content. The only thing we've really been able to prepare for classes are our rules posters (Protip: this will be much more bearable with a few Qingdao beers on the side). Our liaison, Rollie, has been great with taking us to run some errands like grocery shopping, opening bank accounts, registering with the police, and getting cell phones. 

                                      

This week of moving in has actually not been very eventful. Once I actually start teaching, I'm sure I'll have more updates and stories. Until then, 再见！

Week One in Changsha

I have officially arrived in the city I will be calling home for the next year! It is my third time in China, and it feels great to be back. For the last two summers, I was in Shanghai and Guangzhou, which are China's first and fourth most populated cities, respectively, so Changsha's mere 7 million people feels quite different.

The few weeks I had before leaving home were filled with last minute shopping trips and visiting friends. When I attended a friend's graduation party in Long Island, I noticed this pillow on her couch (Shoutout to Jess if you're reading this- sorry I secretly took creepy photos of your home decor) :

It actually contains a poem I studied in my last college Chinese class! It's called 夜思 and it's a traditional poem about a traveler who misses home. It has 4 lines with 5 characters each. The tones of those 20 characters will forever be etched in my brain after being made to recite them over and over and over (thanks 江老师!). This coincidence definitely made my day, and I thought of it as a good sign for my travels.

It's actually only been about a week since I've arrived, but it feels like we've been here for much longer. My second day here was spent exploring Martyr's Park, Changsha's largest park, with some other volunteers who had arrived early. It has quite an unassuming entrance, but once inside we noticed that at the center is an enormous lake with boat rentals, and a small amusement park off to the side. In the early mornings, you can find local residents in groups doing tai chi or yoga. At night, the park turns into a "walk of the ages," as my friend described it, where every 20-30 feet is a different group of people dancing a different style to a different type of music. If you've never been to a large Chinese park, it's quite a special sight.

Yizhong has this wonderful statue of young Mao Zedong.

Last Monday was the first official day of our three-week long orientation. Orientation is held at Changsha Number One Middle School (长沙第一中学) or Yizhong (一中) for short. It is led by our program field director and her assistant. Orientation is a combination of culture, language, TEFL, and classroom management classes. The next week or so will continue to be filled with long days of lectures and activities, but I can already tell that all of us are thankful that we have a program that takes the time to really prepare us. We've heard that many other schools that hire foreign teachers just throw them into a school without much training at all. The third week of orientation is practicum, where we can actually put into practice what we've learned from the first two weeks. We are split into groups of five, and we all take turns teaching a class at Yizhong while the others observe and give constructive criticism and feedback. Then finally on August 24th, the volunteers will go to their respective placements. About half of us are in Changsha, while others are in surrounding cities like Hengyan or Zhuzhou.

Again, it's only been about a week so it's hard to really gauge what the next 11 months will be like, but it already feels great to be surrounded by such a wonderful cohort of volunteers. I've found out that my hotel roommate was also a fellow Gamma Phi Beta in college, and that another volunteer and I went to the same elementary school in Tokyo! It's fun to find these random connections and things in common- it really seems like the volunteers will all get close during orientation, which is great for having an emotional support system and for potential travel buddies.

Finally, here are some photos of some things we've been doing and eating!

Landing at Changsha Airport

I unexpectedly got bumped up to business class on my flight to Changsha, so this was the shuttle used to get all five of us between the aircraft and terminal. Note: the shuttle was very vividly marked, "VIP" on the outside.

First meal in Changsha! This is a commonly found dish all over China called Niuroumian 牛肉面, or beef noodle soup.

The "Rich Harvest Expectation Bridge" of Ninjia Lake in Martyr's Park.

 

A common sight that you could probably find in any Chinese park: Majiang 麻将 or Mahjong

A monument dedicated to China's fallen heroes stands at the center of Martyr's Park.

Martyr's Park at night featuring dance lessons for 11-year old girls.

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon sight in China.

We are within walking distance of Xiang River 湘江, which splits Changsha into the east and west sides. 

The food here has been amazing! Hunan is particularly known for its very greasy and oily food. The orientation leaders were sure to order everyone mild food for the first few days, then ordered increasingly spicier dishes to train our palettes.

This is a dish called songshuyu 松鼠鱼, literally "squirrel fish" named after the given appearance of a fluffy squirrel tail, which is flash fried snapper served in a sweet and sour sauce.  

This is what I've been typically having for breakfast every morning - liangmian 凉面, or "cold noodles" for 5 kuai (~USD$0.80). It's noodles with peanuts, pickles, cilantro, chilli flakes, vinegar, and soy sauce. 

Some of the other volunteers and I decided to treat ourselves to a foot massage after a long week of orientation. It was 90 kuai (~USD$15) for 60 minutes.

At the end of the massage, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that all customers were entitled to a free buffet upstairs.

The 5 W's

Who? Me! (along with around 30 other American volunteers)

What? I will be a Volunteer English Teacher with WorldTeach, a non-profit organization that sends volunteers worldwide. I am participating in their China Year program, which sends volunteers to Hunan province. Volunteers are distributed amongst Changsha, smaller surrounding cities, and even in the countryside.

Where? Changsha, which is the capital city of the Hunan province. It is said to be a relatively small Chinese city of around 7 million people. Specifically, I will be teaching at the Changsha Foreign Language School.

When? From today (yikes!) August 1, 2015, through July 2016.

Why? As the end of my last college semester rolled around, I found myself without a job and without any clear idea about what industry to even begin to look into. Having grown up abroad for 18 years, I felt that going back overseas would be most fitting for me. I had heard of two exciting international opportunities in Hong Kong and Bangladesh, but as a 22-year old fresh out of college who would be living by themself in a new city, I worried about the potential loneliness and isolation I could face without a social support system. I tried to come to terms with the fact that perhaps international living wouldn't be in my immediate future, and that I would end up in New York, Boston, or Washington DC like many of my peers. With 45 pages of writing left to do in my last week of college, I allowed myself to postpone the job search and buckle down on my final assignments.

Fast forward to Commencement weekend. I had heard of WorldTeach in the preceding few weeks, but had mentally given up on the opportunity because the deadline fell right before Commencement and I felt there was no way I could complete the application on time. WorldTeach seemed like the perfect post-grad gap year opportunity for me. It would utilize my 6+ years of Chinese Mandarin study, my passion for travel, and love for teaching kids. However just a few days later, WorldTeach magically sent out an email explaining that they had extended the application deadline for their China year program, and that all those interested should contact the organization directly. I graduated on a Sunday, got home on the following Wednesday, and was accepted to the program on Friday. For not actually having graduated with post-grad plans, this turned out great!

So here I am, about a half hour away from departing for Tokyo Haneda Airport to board my flight to Changsha. Stay tuned to hear about my first few days in China!