Europe blog finally up!

A lot has changed since the last blog. Lindsey can no longer go on the Europe trip, but, having already bought our tickets, Caitlin and I are going for sure. We still leave May 4, and we both just quit our mediocre, torturous, retail jobs to go.
You can check out our adventures leading up to the trip and during the trip at:

http://www.eurograms.blogspot.com/

Unlike China, I'm not expecting some epic, life-changing experience--which, lucky for you, means that my posts won't take you as long to read--but I am expecting to see a lot of cool stuff (yes, that is my technical, English major way of putting it). I have dreamed of backpacking through Europe since junior high. It's not often that you get to fulfill dreams, so I am not taking this opportunity for granted.

Please check out the new blog and leave as many comments as you'd like. Caitlin and I will both be posting about our experience. I wish you could all come with us, but this blog will have to do. Happy reading!

Eight Month Itch

I’ve decided that eight months is the longest I can stay happily in one place before I have to make a change. I became really homesick for the U.S. after living about eight months in China, and now, eight months after being in the U.S., I have already planned a trip to Europe. I’ve only been to a few places in Europe—England, France, Greece—and it just seemed like the right time to take a month to explore a little more of Europe.

It’s sad to say this, but after living in China, taking a trip to Europe almost seems mundane. Everyone goes to Europe, which is why I must go. Everyone goes to Europe for a reason, and I am really excited to experience all of the cliché’s, (Irish pubs, Belgian chocolates, liberal Amsterdam, German beer, flirtatious Italians), to see all of the history and culture (medieval Belgian towns, the Berlin wall, Buchenwald, Trinity College, Venice, Romeo and Juliet’s Verona, Florence’s Duomo, etc.), and to discover the unexpected (to be announced). I think it will be anything but mundane.


I will be going on this trip with a couple friends—Caitlin, whom I just recently met while working in the U.S., and my best friend, Lindsey, who has traveled with me so many times. The only thing set about our trip right now is the date and the starting and ending point. Caitlin and I have round trip tickets to and from Dublin May 4-27th. Lindsey will join us a week into the trip. Our rough outline includes Ireland (Dublin), Belgium (Brussels), The Netherlands (Amsterdam), Germany (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich), Italy (Venice, Florence), and possibly Southern France (Nice) and Barcelona. It’s an ambitious plan that probably needs editing. We plan on starting a blog soon with more details and fun stories, so stay tuned for a link!

Final Lesson

I found this unpublished blog entry in my files, and thought I should go ahead and post it. I just can't seem to finish this blog. I guess subconciously I don't want to finish it because that will mean this chapter of my life is over...and it is too interesting to be over. Hopefully my life is well written and the themes and lessons learned in this chapter will carry over and influence the chapters to come. For now, though, I am still trying to get to that next chapter and this one will linger until I can turn that page.

Speaking of last chapters, this entry is about my last days of teaching, and it is too good to leave out. Enjoy!

“This is your last week of teaching,” I was told on a Tuesday morning ten minutes before my first class and an entire week earlier than expected. The school’s reasoning was a complicated gift of sorts owing to the fact that I had a friend visiting from America who was not allowed on the school’s campus by order of the Shenzhen Education Bureau due to Swine Flu paranoia. A big part of me was thankful that I didn’t have to force my friend Lindsey to sit in a hotel room alone all day or wander the streets of Shenzhen unaccompanied while I taught and lived a few blocks away due to some silly quarantine, but another part of me was a little disappointed at how disposable my job really was. I was told the kids had important tests coming up anyway and that without my class they would have more time for studying.


However, I didn’t have long to be elated or disappointed. I scrambled up to my room to grab the supplies I had luckily already purchased for my final lesson. Several months ago Chinese “nowism” might have gotten the best of me, but by June I was accustomed to the unexpected and unplanned. Sadly for my Monday classes, their last lesson would be about machines and a short clip from the movie, Wall-E. It’s not that knowing the name of a microwave, a laptop, and a robot aren’t important, but it’s not exactly “last class” material. Instead I had planned a relaxed day in which the students worked on a personalized assignment. I gave each student a blank piece of computer paper and passed out some communal markers, which was no small or cheap task considering I taught 600 students total, and asked them to write the following: Name (English and Chinese) plus a personal portrait drawing, class number and grade, three of their favorite things with pictures, and a letter to me that I can read when I go home to America. I handed out a few pieces of candy to each student showing my affection through sugar and as a sort of peace offering for any scolding and punishments that might have taken place in the past.

Walking around the classroom witnessing an array of blank and concentrated faces, furious scribbling, and careful coloring, I had the feeling that it was I who was being tested. I was filled with that stomach churning combination of dread and excitement that comes before finding out the result of a big test. Since I was an oral English teacher, this would be the first written assignment my students had ever turned in to me. Had I been a good teacher? Did they enjoy my class? Did I teach them anything? Or instead, would their papers show confusion, loathing, and a lack of progress? Either way I couldn’t wait to read them.

Ultimately, this lesson plan was more for my benefit than the students benefit. Sure they would be reviewing topics we had covered earlier in the year—favorite things, numbers, verb agreement, animals, etc., but mostly I wanted a concrete piece of paper from every student encapsulating their personality and culture. I wanted to take these papers home with me to share with friends and family so that they could understand a little bit of what I had been doing over the past year. I had already purchased a book with clear sleeves where I could store 80 or so of my favorites as a memento of my year teaching English in China. I anticipated misspellings and funny grammatical errors, cute pictures and sentimental notes, and after my first class on Tuesday morning I realized I wouldn’t be disappointed.

I had 600 students, each of which I saw once a week. This meant that I really didn’t know very many of them individually. This assignment finally gave me the gratification of personal interaction. My cheeks were sore from smiling by the end of the week, and I felt a sense of peace for the first time since coming to China. The mistakes and wording within the papers are a good laugh, but not totally unexpected after living in China for a year and experiencing translation funnies, odd English names, and bad signage. What I didn’t expect was the compassion, insight, and ambition of these 10, 11, and 12 year old students that managed to shine through a language that is not their own. Through these papers, these Chinese students reminded me of the optimism of endless possibilities and small pleasures that exist in a child of 10 or 12. At the same time, some showed a maturity that seemed at odds with their first grade level English. In the end, after reading through all of the papers, I knew that coming to China was worth it. For my students I represented a broader world, a chance for imagination and ambition to run amuck in contrast to the structure of their other classes. For me, my students represented the comforting knowledge that despite cultural differences, there lays the possibility of emotional connection.

My favorite names: Hebe, Salty Fish, Weina, Sea, Lebron James, Sweet, Sun Shine, Sausage, Saffy, Rain

My favorite "favorite things":

“I have lots of hobbies. These include sports, food and fruits, ping pong balls, hamburgers, and peaches.”

“My favorite color is silvery.”

“I like $.”

“I like stand under the sky in the night, that is very quiet.”

“My favorite animal is smoke. My favorite food is chicken wind. My favorite sport is basketball.”

“I like films, hot fries, and Miss Lori!”

My favorite letters:

“When you go home. I miss you. You should every day happy and eat a lot of vegetables. Have a lot of exercise.”

“Dear Miss Lori, I want a PSP. I will miss you. Break a leg.”

“Dear Miss Lory, if you live in America you must be careful of the H1N1 of swine flu.”

“I’m so glad to study with you. I was very happy happy happy!

“Dear Lori, If you arrive in America, please remember me, I am da’ Terminator.”

“Miss Lori, in my mind. You’re a young children and can’t grow up. You’re beautiful. Not only you face, but also your mind. You’re a very good teacher. You can teach us a lot of knowledge and something I don’t know. Thank you for your help. We will separate but I will not forget you—the best teacher in my mind! I wish you will come back to China soon!” ~Kitty

My favorite quotes from the assignment:

“We are remember you. And we love you.”

“Happy everyday”

“The life and the time is so fast.” ~Nick

“These time, you is our teacher, you give we lots of happy!”

“Miss Lori, I want very much to live in America and eat there.”

“I’m a handsome boy.”

“Believe in me. I will learn English better.”

“I am honoured to be your student because you are a very take charge teacher.”

“My favourite people is Lori, mother, father, and I!”

“Don’t forget me.”

“Maybe some day I’ll go to Alabama, America. Maybe I’ll meet you.”

“I’ll remember you forever.”

“You will be a part of my memories.”

“Lori is my good Teather!” (maybe the most ironic statement of them all)

“Don’t forget me when you go to play basketball with Kobe.”

My favorite self-portraits:

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

Sorry it has been so long since my last entry. I had to go out of town for a week to train for my new job. I began writing this entry before leaving, and after training for this job (stay tuned to find out what it is), it seems even more poignant to my cultural observations. Hope you enjoy!

Chinese people have a great love affair with the camera. They are born models, since their mothers probably spent most of their pregnancy posing in front of a particularly pretty bush planted in the city park or maybe a random art display erected most likely for the purpose of taking pictures. They take pictures, usually single person portrait shots, everywhere at any time and for no apparent reason. I could psychoanalyze this passion for self-portraits as a desperate attempt by Chinese people to raise their individuality above the mass, to personally embrace capitalist selfishness and subvert communist communalism, but all I can say that they are guilty of is more vigorously embracing this modern era of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. We all do it, or at least my generation of 20-somthings and under,—spend countless hours updating profiles, trying to represent our core being in the best way possible on a one page internet site in the hope that someone out there is seeing it, approving it, and validating our existence by typing a comment on our page. Like everything else—industry, manufacturing, the Olympic games—the Chinese just like to be over the top.

I had witnessed this obsessive picture taking on the streets of Shenzhen, seen women in wedding gowns with their grooms in the park, observed little girls who already have various posing styles, and walked through some of Shenzhen’s “amusement” parks that are little more than sets for photo shoots. Therefore, I was not surprised when I went to “Splendid China” on a field trip with my school that my fellow Chinese teachers insisted on doing nothing else but taking pictures in front of the various miniatures of China’s great monuments. While I didn’t know what to do except smile, they always came up with clever positions for their hands—on the chin, against a tree, on their hips.

I also wasn’t surprised when I heard from a friend that most Chinese people have a portrait book filled solely with pictures of themselves. The only people I know who have books like this in the U.S. are aspiring models and beauty queens, but in China it is vogue for everyone to have one of these books to show to friends and boyfriends. I was, however, a little shocked when I heard from a friend that one of the teachers at her school had actually taken her eight-year-old son to get glamour shots taken in girls’ clothing because she had wanted a daughter. Her son is now 17, but she still has the book of photos in a living room drawer not too far from the top for easy access. Talk about blackmail…”honey, don’t make me get out the book. I’m sure your girlfriend will love the one with you in a fedora and fur, oh, and the red lipstick.”

Finally I was not surprised when this same teacher took my American friend to get glamour shots of her own. I have to admit I was a bit curious about this glamour shot process, and as soon as my friend finished getting hers done, I had a million questions. How did they turn out? Did they show you how to pose? What kind of outfits did you have? How much did it cost? Overwhelmed with questions by myself and some of the other girls in our program, she gave us the name of the place and the phone number so we could find out for ourselves.

We scheduled an appointment via phone via my contact teacher, and soon the day of unveiling the Chinese glamour shot mystery came to fruition. Two friends and I walked up a long staircase lined with framed photos of women in ball gowns and couples in wedding attire to the top floor of a strip mall. The staircase led to an open room filled with little tables covered in sea foam green tablecloths, a long white desk, and a dozen or so Chinese women dressed in heels, hose, black skirts, and oxfords sitting at a long table as if in a meeting. We created quite a stir of whispering and stares as we walked in—my friend Ranjana is Indian and six feet tall, my friend Shai is black with dreadlocks, and I am white and five-feet-ten-inches tall. Through a glass window where there were women sitting on swivel chairs and hairdressers and makeup artists putting on the finishing touches for their photo shoot, we could see them pausing to peek through the glass at us. I was torn between feeling like a celebrity and a sideshow, but I was leaning more towards sideshow. I should have been used to the stares after 8 months of living in China, but I never managed to embrace it or even ignore it completely. I should be happy with people staring at me. This is what we want these days; isn’t it? We take pictures, create profiles online, apply for reality TV shows, and follow celebrity gossip secretly wishing we could be singers, actresses, or models. We twitter like people care that we are shopping at the mall or going on a trip to Barbados. We want people to notice us, or so it seems.

I was having second thoughts on this theory as I sat uncomfortably at the sea foam green table, but I still sat in awe at the Chinese glamour shot industry. There was not a single picture of a child on the wall as you often find in photography studios in the United States. All of the pictures were of adult men and women, and the only special occasion that any of them commemorated was marriage. The rest of the photos appeared to have been taken just for fun. My friends and I liked to claim that we were doing it for cultural benefits—you know, to experience the Chinese culture first hand. We didn’t want people to get the idea that this photo shoot was in any way a serious undertaking to produce quality pictures of ourselves to show off to others. This was for cultural understanding and, possibly, for fun—at least that is what we said.

When they lead us back to the racks of dresses and clothing, we were disappointed at the tattered collection. Most of the clothes looked like bad prom dresses, and the rest were a mix of random pieces of clothing and period and cultural costumes. We shouldn’t care; it was just for fun, yet somehow we still cared what we looked like. I mean we were paying $50 (300 Yuan), so we didn’t want to look bad. We each had a girl helping us, and Shai and Ranjana eventually got their girls to unearth some fun Chinese costumes, while I was left with choosing from among the prom dresses since most of the cultural and period pieces were in use. We would get to choose three looks, so, although I was disappointed, it was ok if one of mine ended up being a hot pink dress reminiscent of junior high prom.

After choosing our outfits, we went off to the hair and makeup room where we gave our stylists free reign on our faces and hair. After a few coats of thick white foundation, some pink lipstick, some electric pink eye shadow, a couple of accessories, and at least half a can of hairspray, I was ready. When I looked over at Shai and Ranjana, however, it seems that my hair and makeup was nothing. They had weaves and trinkets galore in their hair to match the imperial nature of their Chinese outfits. It was a wonder that they could hold their heads up.

There were two photo studios, each with a male photographer and their assistant. We took turns taking our shoots—each lasting 15 to 30 minutes. My photographer was a small-framed man with a pony tail and glasses. Since my Chinese vocabulary did not include look this way, turn right, turn left, lower your right shoulder, etc., my photographer relied on pantomiming poses for me. I’ve never had my portrait taken before, unless you count yearbook pictures, so I had no idea what to expect. My photographer was serious, methodical, and a perfectionist. He took his work so seriously you would have thought he was shooting for a high fashion magazine, which made me nervous since I have no idea how to model or pose. By the next shoot, dressed in one of the Chinese outfits—big hair and all—I started to relax. The Chinese costume made it more fun and less serious. However, the third outfit I chose was one that Ranjana had also worn—a royal blue silk sheet. Yes, I said sheet. I watched amazed as they turned the sheet into a short cocktail dress almost worthy of high fashion. This “dress” actually looked modern so I thought it would be a great contrast to my prom dress and costume looks.

Unfortunately, after 6 hours at the studio, we ran out of time for me to shoot my last outfit since I was third in line among my friends. So, I would have to return the next day to finish. When I returned and put on the blue “dress” Ranjana had worn, little did I know that the photographer would take his attempt at high fashion photography to the next level. I spent an hour and a half shooting pictures in this dress. By the end of the shoot my legs were shaking and my entire body was sore from holding various awkward poses. Apparently Ranjana’s photographer had done the same thing the day before with her. We decided that they were using our foreign faces to try and add depth to their portfolio because it certainly wasn’t an efficient business tactic for the photo studio that had clients waiting. I wouldn’t say that these pictures were America’s Next Top Model quality, but our foreign faces, yet again, made us feel like celebrities.

We returned two weeks later to pick out 12 pictures each among the hundreds they had taken. Our package included a CD with the pictures, a book with the pictures, one framed picture, and a poster of one picture. The photo shoot had been fun, but a poster? a book? We didn’t realize these things came with the package until that day, and we suddenly felt extra ridiculous. What would I do with a poster of myself? We joked about selling them to clothing stores in Shenzhen. We begged the studio to nix the book, poster, and frame and give us more pictures on the CD instead, but they refused any type of change to the package. So, another two weeks later we picked up our packages posters and all.

So what did I learn culturally through this experience? Even if I don’t like to admit it, it was fun dressing up and feeling special. I think American women would love it just as much as Chinese women if we weren’t so scared to admit that we do indeed love seeing ourselves on camera looking good. American women have a feminist reputation to protect. Appearing to care too much about our looks and playing dress up undermines our seriousness and makes us seem more frivolous than men. In China, on the other hand, femininity is celebrated and encouraged. Maybe Chinese women do go a little over the top with their ruffles, sparkles, and accessories, but they love being women. I see no reason why women can’t celebrate their beauty and power at the same time. Who said that pink isn't a powerful color?

My best efforts at a typical Chinese pose by a random display in the park near my apartment.

Pandas always make a great picture!

Shanghaied!

Shanghai—It’s one of those places that’s written on the “to be visited before I die” lists buried at the back of some drawer along with spare keys, old licenses, random brochures, and other miscellaneous items that seem lost between categories. Shanghai is the largest city in China, the largest seaport in the world, and one of those places that finds its way into the history books over and over again. In American and European history books it is probably known best for the Opium Wars, The Treaty of Nanjing, and the thousands of “Shanghailanders” who inhabited the city after foreign nations gained extraterritoriality on Chinese soil and set up their own communities such as the famous French Concession. As globalization has grown, so has Shanghai’s fame. Today the two words are synonymous, and you cannot listen to the news, especially business news, without hearing about Shanghai.

However, its business fame is one of the reasons that it was not on the top of my lists of places to go. When my friend Kate suggested that we visit Shanghai for our trip, I was a little hesitant. Sure it is famous and one of those places that I should go, but I had heard stories of it being a cold, dog-eat-dog, corporate environment where people only care about money. Next to cities like Dali and Lijiang in Yunnan province that are famous for their natural beauty and cultural history, Shanghai didn’t sound like the top choice to me. I had spent the past few weeks stressed about work and I really didn’t want to go to a place where I had to watch others stress about work.

In the end, Kate successfully shanghaied me! Ok, she didn’t really force me to go, but she convinced me that it would be amazing and well worth it. It may not have as much natural beauty and quaintness as Lijiang, but it does have history; and it does sit at the mouth of the Yangtze River on the East China Sea. So, I decided to open my mind and forget about what I had heard about Shanghai. After buying our tickets (with the much needed help from Kate’s contact teacher), I was just as excited as Kate and enthusiastic about crossing Shanghai off my list.

As soon as we arrived at the airport I immediately knew I was in a different part of China. People seemed taller and paler, or maybe my mind wanted to see this since this is what I had heard about Northern China. Nevertheless, it felt different than Shenzhen. It was definitely apparent we were in the north when we got into our taxi to head to our hostel. We could barely understand our driver. He used the characteristic “r” sound that is used in Beijing and other parts of the north. For example instead of saying “zai nali” meaning “where” that they often used in Shenzhen, he used “zai nar,” which is what our textbooks teach us based off of the Beijing accent. However, there was also something strange about his accent that made almost everything else impossible to understand, and this, I am guessing, is the local Shanghainese dialect, which is almost unintelligible from Mandarin.

So, we crossed our fingers and hoped that the Chinese characters of the name and address of our hostel that we had printed before leaving were enough to get us there (n.b. whenever travelling in China it is always a good idea to write or print the names and addresses of your destination since dialects vary and some people are better at understanding your foreign accent/butchered Chinese better than others). Half an hour or so later we arrived at what looked like a web of back alleys and street food stalls. Our driver turned down one of the back alleys and motioned for us to get out. At this point we could not make out the name of our hostel on any of the buildings so we refused to get out until we saw visual confirmation. We had no idea where we were since, as usual when traveling in China, we couldn’t read anything, and we were not about to get out at this time of night and wander some random alley with our suite cases. Our driver got the message and drove down the alley a little ways, and finally on the left we saw the only English words on the street “Sleeping Dragon International Hostel.”

We awoke in the morning to the clanging, sizzling, and yelling of the street food market just below our second story window. Our hostel was right in the middle of old school China—men in broad-brimmed straw hats pulling carts, women selling vegetables from a blanket on the ground, hand-made flat bread, and noodles made to order in a wok. No cars, no high-rises, no business suits. It was wonderful. Of course once we bought our morning noodles, we only had to walk a half mile to the metro stop, the high-rises and the cars. It was this contrast, this foil of cultures, which made Shanghai so fascinating. It was enthralling to constantly discover the old just around the corner from the new, the West mixed with the East, and the historical adjacent to the contemporary. I had had this feeling in other cities in China, but in Shanghai it was more pronounced because there was such a visible trail of these contrasts.

The first day we went to the Shanghai museum and looked at artifacts thousands of years old, and then we walked a block over to the Urban Planning Museum to look at miniatures of the city’s skyline in the future. And between these two polar ends of the Shanghai timeline, we stopped to have lunch at an upscale restaurant on the rooftop of the Shanghai Art Museum, which seemed to halt us in the present to admire the current city skyline. I chose a nice roast duck with an orange glaze trying to remind myself amidst the square tables, white table cloths, and bread and butter that I was in Asia not Europe, which was futile as it was soon ruined by the mistakenly ordered imported glass bottle of water from Norway. Ultimately I found it quite amusing that imported water cost almost as much as my duck, and I began to wonder what other silly expenses Shanghai has paid over the years for its double life.

The contrasts continued as we ventured into the very European French Concession to visit the former residence of the famous Chinese leader, Sun Yat-sen. It was a beautiful area, but my only reminder that I was in China was the China Post van parked outside of one of the brick houses while its driver delivered mail. I was also soon reminded that I was in China by a bad menu translation at a nearby “Western” restaurant. Someone should tell the restaurant owners that in the West eating “U.S. tuna aioli grilled over disabilities” and “rice with mother and son” is not so politically correct and could get some human rights activists banging down their door. Human rights activists aside, it is this kind of humorous jostling of cultures that makes places like Shanghai so interesting.

While I also passed over the “assorted fruits with disabilities,” I couldn’t help but see Shanghai as some wonderful salad assortment of the fruits of different cultures. Each fruit is distinct within the salad and delicious on its own, but it can also be eaten together for a more complex and interesting taste. This salad analogy was most pertinent when walking along “The Bund,” a famous strip of historic buildings in the old international district lining the Huangpu River. The buildings were once the homes of banks and trading companies from Britain, the U.S., Russia, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Japan. If I focused my attention on the architecture of small sections of buildings I could imagine being in New York, Paris, or Moscow. However, if I looked straight ahead and saw these various building lined one after the other along the river walkway, I knew I was in Shanghai. Then I only had to look across the river at the new Pudong area where the new skyline of Shanghai lies eclipsing the Bund with its tall, shiny glass buildings. This skyline seemed to promise Shanghai that it will not stay a simple fruit salad for long because it is working on the secret ingredient that will take the city beyond its distinctive parts to a whole new recipe for success.

I hope, for the sake of the wonderful distinctive parts I have already tasted, that the aim is for a better fruit medley instead of a melting pot. At the heart of the globalization is the controversy over whether it is making the world a better, more open place, or whether it is erasing and blending together cultures into a boring mush. From what I have seen, Shanghai still seems far from the mush. The combination of the different cultures and time periods actually seems to save it from a lackluster fate. It is interesting, unexpected, ironic, ambitious, and at times unsettling.

After leaving the Bund and my ruminations on this great salad of a city, we jumped into a cab and headed back to our hostel just as it was getting dark. As we approached the narrow alleyway cramped with street vendors, we told our cab driver that we could get out and walk. He refused and insisted on driving down the alleyway even though it looked as if his cab would barely fit. The street vendors looked up from their goods to glare at us as we inched by their stalls, and I embarrassingly glanced at them since I was only a few feet from their faces. Then we heard the inevitable sound that we had all been dreading—ccrruunch! I wondered where the lady selling her vegetables on the blanket had gone as we inched down the alleyway, and it appears our cab had found her, or at least her vegetables. While her vegetables lay in ruins on the street, the lady was alright. In fact, by the time we had figured out what was happening, she was already running at our car red-faced and yelling. Soon a whole sea of angry vendors had taken up her cause and were yelling and banging on the trunk, hood, and sides of our car. Great, I thought, I am going to die via angry mob in a Shanghai vegetable market. It’s hard to imagine that just minutes before I had been contemplating globalization. Then again, wasn’t this a perfect example of the evils of globalization. We looked like the selfish foreigners crushing the property of the hard working farmers and locals because we couldn’t get out and walk. In reality our driver probably just wanted to make a few extra bucks on the cab fare, but they didn’t know that. We ducked down in shame, hoping that somehow the vendors wouldn’t see our faces and murder us later if we ever got out of this cab.

Soon, a policeman did come and arbitrate between the cab driver and the woman. The driver agreed to pay for the vegetables. The lady was still yelling but less murderous looking. Finally, the driver let us out of the cab, and we hopped out into the mob and quickly walked toward our hostel while they were distracted by the policeman. I looked back as we walked away and noticed an old man staring at me grinning and chuckling to himself. My fear soon subsided and I was laughing too. At least this cultural mess makes a good story.

Shanghai may be just that—a cultural mess, but it was a fascinating one. It wasn’t the boring concrete and steel mass of office buildings and stressed businessmen that I had imagined. It was international, intercultural, and most of all entertaining. Its beauty didn’t capture my heart like the peaks of Yangshuo or the old cities of Lijiang might have, but its contrasting images did capture my mind and make me realize why it deserves to be on that list of places “to be visited before I die.”

Guilt Trip

By mid April I was about ready to burst with anxiety and frustration about what to do the following year, and teaching was becoming a chore. I desperately needed a break, but apparently the Shenzhen Education Bureau didn’t think so. Usually there is a seven day school holiday in May, but this year they decided the three day weekend break for the Tomb Sweeping holiday (day to honor the dead by visiting their tombs) in early April was enough of a break. Of course, true to Chinese “nowism” they decided to tell us this in April. So, the seven day holiday I had been counting on to get me through the second semester had vanished. It was cruel, like eliminating the one water stop for the second half of a marathon, and I took out my frustration by making my own water stop out of thin air.

I told my contact teacher that I had a “friend from home” visiting Shanghai, and it would mean a lot to me if I could go and visit her. This “friend” happened to be another teacher in CTLC named Kate and we were secretly planning our own May break to Shanghai. My contact teacher, Elli, had mentioned to me earlier in the year that if family visited China, I might be able to get some time off to spend with them. I just couldn’t make myself lie that much and tell her that actual family was coming. The lie seemed a little whiter if I said “friend” since Kate is indeed my friend. After all, it was not the school’s fault that none of us got a break in May. It was the Education Bureau’s fault.

Wise one that she is, Elli took it upon herself to add a little grey to my white lie, and she told the principal that I had family visiting Shanghai. She was afraid a “friend” wasn’t a good enough reason, so she decided “family” might work better. She was right! With the principal’s permission, I rearranged my classes and soon had the prospect of a Tuesday through a Sunday to visit Shanghai. I felt a little guilty conjuring this lie out of nothing, and getting almost a week off while my fellow Chinese teachers had to keep on working. It was hard being the weird foreigner all the time, but this was one of those times that it paid off.

During this period of deception, I also made another decision that I felt guilty about. I had decided to reapply to return to Shenzhen the next year even though I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I received my acceptance letter in mid-April. By that time, however, I was home sick, frustrated with learning Chinese, and jaded with teaching. A couple hours after being accepted, I sent an email back to the head of the program thanking him for his consideration but politely rejecting the position. That day I found out that my friend Kate—the same Kate that was planning a trip to Shanghai with me—had been rejected, and she actually wanted to return. She assured me that she didn’t blame me, and that everything would be okay. She would find another job in China or work in the United States. To prove it to me, she suggested we go out and celebrate her rejection with some beer at one of our favorite hang outs—a mall with a nice bar street called CoCo park. So after drinking a couple beers, talking about our upcoming trip, and hanging out with some fun Chinese friends, we were both in a good mood again and ready for the rest of the year…and Shanghai.

Above: Kate, me, owner of the bar, and Wei, a friend of Kate's.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I should begin Part II of China Tales with one of my unpublished blog entries that is partially responsible for my writing hiatus. I wrote, reread, and added to this blog draft over several weeks. The thoughts it contains occupied my mind for most of March, April, and May. I was so torn on whether to stay in China for another year or return home that I found it hard to think about anything else.

After weeks of anticipation, the head of our program finally sent out an email detailing the process for returning next year. Typical of people who have been living in China too long, this email gave us only one week to decide. Ideally, most people would have been thinking about this decision long before this email was sent, and I had been thinking about it. It is just that now I am forced to decide the question that has been puzzling me, well, since I got here. This question has been the hottest topic among the programs participants for the last two months. A typical conversation usually goes something like this:

Me: “So what are you thinking about doing next year?”
Other program member: Sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe I will stay. What am I going to do in the U.S.?”
Me: “So are you staying in the program or looking for another job abroad?”
Other program member: Sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe somewhere else in China would be nice—Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou.”
Me: “Have you found anything yet?”
Other program member: “No.”

I’ve had that conversation with at least half the people in our program over the past few weeks, including last weekend, and it is always the same defeated resignation to stay for lack of anything else better to do. I am no different. I have casually browsed the internet to see if any other teaching jobs in China sound interesting, but I’m not really motivated. How different can it be? It is still China. And what if it’s worse? I already have a network here. Why risk it? I’ve had a similar reaction to researching other countries. If not China, where would I go? Other places could be fun, but I have to start over again. I would have to learn a new language, and I feel as if the little Chinese I have learned would be a waste. No, the decision has to be between China and home.

I decided the best course of action to solve this dilemma would be to write a pro/con list. The problem with this sort of list is that it is tinged by my mood of the day. Some days I love it here and others I hate it here. So, thus far, I have stayed away from the pro/con list for this reason. Now, however, I am forced to write it. There is no other way.

I would gauge my mood on the day I am writing this list to be favorable. Nothing much happened. I got up to the sound of screaming children, ate the same bowl of oatmeal I eat every morning, listened to NPR via the internet, tried to decide what to wear (the weather over the past few weeks has altered from the 80’s to the 50’s), and rolled into the office around 9:15 in order to avoid the hordes of children soon to emerge from their classrooms for their ten min break before my first class at 9:30. I taught three classes which went relatively well meaning the kids seemed to have fun, possibly learned something, and I didn’t come out of the classroom with a sore throat. So, I guess it was as good a day as any to make that list.

The pros for staying in China seemed to flow out effortlessly.

I’ll have a job
I can learn more Chinese
I can gain more teaching skills
It will look good on my resume
I can travel more
Another job opportunity might present itself
I’ll have time to prepare for the next year in the U.S.

They were effortless because they are the more logical side of the equation. However, logic and reason is only half of a person. The other half is emotional, and my cons to staying in China are definitely more emotional. It was much more difficult to write these because I wanted to list all the petty annoyances of day to day life. The only obvious answer was “I’ll miss home, my family, and friends.” So, that naturally went first. After that, it was a struggle—not to think of something but to narrow it down to something substantial and equivalent to the level of my answers under the pros.
Before I narrowed down my list it went something like this.

I will miss my home, my family, and my friends.
I have to deal with people staring at me like an alien.
I have to feel awkward everywhere because I stand out like a sore thumb.
I don’t know what people are saying to me. I can’t talk to them.
Chinese people are too loud.
I have to listen to men spitting.
I have to use a squat toilet and always bring my own tp.
I have to sweat through all my clothing when teaching because there is no ac.
I miss my privacy.
I miss salads, sandwiches, and cereal.
I wish I could buy cosmetic products I like, and books and magazines I can read.
I miss clean air and open spaces.
I miss direct answers and honesty…

I soon realized this list was turning into my “things I miss about America” entry. So I stopped and reevaluated. It soon became:

I’ll miss home, my family, and friends.
I have to deal with Chinese culture (language barrier, no privacy, staring)
I will give up the comfort of my culture

After I combined all of the cultural aspects into two points, the list seemed more balanced.
I then added:

I’ll have to lesson plan, most likely without a curriculum again (not my favorite thing)
Learned teaching skills may not be that applicable to the U.S. since I don’t have the same responsibilities
Harder emotionally
I’ll only have one month home this summer

Immediately after I made this pro/con list I decided the answer was China. It seems to be the most practical choice in light of the “economic crisis.” Everything under the pros for China was logical while most of my pros for going back to the U.S. were emotional. So, it came down to a head v. heart argument. Being in a good mood, my mind immediately picked out the logical answer. However, a few days, a few maddening teaching moments, and a few cultural frustrations later my emotions took over and yelled at my brain to reevaluate. Emotions are important. So the question became not, which one makes more sense, but rather, which one makes me happy.

Before I added the emotional input to the equation I walked around China asking myself “Can I do this for another year?” Can I ride on this crowded bus for another year? Can I ignore the stares for another year? Can I try and cook all of my food on a hot plate for another year? Can I teach English to classes where only a fourth of my students understand me? The list went on and on. So every class, every encounter with a Chinese person, every minute spent with my American friends, I had to ask myself, “can I do this for another year?” However, when I threw in the emotional factor, I realized this question was all wrong. It should be “will doing this for another year make me happy.” The first question had been built entirely around settling. Sure I could do those things. I did it this year, so obviously I can do it again. The second question was more philosophical: will this make me happy? So, what does make me happy? The answer to that question is something I’ve been trying to understand my whole life. At the moment, I do not know the answer to that question.

I never posted this blog draft because my decision was constantly fluctuating. I did reapply to return to the program, and I was accepted in April. However, I ultimately decided not to return. I decided to go with my emotions. Most of my friends, however, decided to go with their logic. I would say that at least 60% of the program’s participants reapplied, and many of those who did not reapply or get reaccepted into the program found another job in China. In this entry I will not divulge whether I believe now that I made the right decision, but I want to post this entry because it is a good indicator of the internal struggle that I and many of my friends went through our last few months in China.

Stay tuned for my revaluation of these thoughts now that I’ve returned to the United States!