Fireworks, Car Horns, and Rock Music

3/6/09
It’s Friday afternoon, the end of my third week of teaching. Today we got a break from the freezing, wet weather and had some Wuxi sunshine! (You can’t actually see the sun through the haze, but the sky is bright.) Despite a lingering cold, I did some exploring outside of the campus. I took off on my bike from the South Gate and found myself in a maze of construction. But the morning ended up on a better note: a nice walk through Changguangxi Wetland Park, just south of the campus. (See photos.)

For the first 8 weeks of the 16-week semester I teach Monday through Thursday and my first class starts at 10:00. A great schedule! I didn't get the writing course this semester but I'm not unhappy about it. Some of the veteran teachers said it takes a lot of time. I'm teaching an EFL Review class - to help students who failed the exit exam. My second 8-week course will be on public speaking and I'm looking forward to it.

I have four sections of 15-20 students in each section, and I teach twenty 45-minute periods per week. The students are well behaved, though they tend to talk while someone else is talking, and they rarely volunteer information unless called upon. I use seating charts with their Chinese and English names, some of which are kind of strange: Erica (a boy), Drifter, O2 (as in Oxygen), L (just the letter), Fantasy, Panda, Seven (two girls chose that name – I was tempted to have them sit together and call them Fourteen), Falcon, Radio, and Raison, to name a few.

(In the "Transworld Schools" sidebar I answer an email I recently received, and talk about how my training prepared me for this job.)

Other than furniture, an old towel, two dull knives, and some kuaizi (chopsticks), my apartment had little in it. There’s a new Auchan store – a French version of Wal-Mart – a short bus ride from the campus, with both Western and Chinese goods and food. (Like instant oatmeal and peanut butter!) I have a meal card and I eat lunch and dinner at the cafeterias. The curious smell of exotic seasonings mixes with ever-present tobacco smoke. I’m resigned to being a secondhand smoker in China. I listen to the conversations but I still don’t understand much because everyone talks so fast. To order food I usually just point and say nage (that), then try to figure out what I’m eating as I worry it with chopsticks.

Each day I try to watch some Chinese language television – many of the soap operas are historical stories and are interesting. I study Chinese every morning and evening, and I've made arrangements for a private tutor - the girlfriend of one of the teachers. The Chinese class that the college offers to the foreign teachers is beginner level so I won't be taking it.

I sleep well at night, thanks to my sofa cushions, that I placed under my sheets and on top of my “mattress”, which is no more than a board with a quilt on it. I hear fireworks nearly every day. One morning they went off at around 7:00 a.m. There’s an apartment building for Chinese faculty next to ours, and I think the movers lit the firecrackers to ward off evil spirits before they hauled in the new teacher’s belongings. It didn’t bother me because car horns start at 5:30, so that’s when I get up. I read a complaint on a blog about all the fireworks in China. I like them – maybe it’s the kid in me – or maybe because I come from a California city where they are banned except for the official displays on July 4th.

In the unheated classroom building I see my breath as I teach, wearing a sweater, a scarf, and my coat, while pacing back and forth to keep warm, and cajoling quiet young Chinese men and women to speak English. I try to make it fun. This week I made them all jizhe (journalists) and had them interview their partners. Then each pair went on CCTV9 and, with the help of a cameraperson (using a CD player as a TV camera), and a director, (they loved the “Action!” and “Cut!” parts), they told the class about their distinguished guests. We also held a press conference with Presidents Hu Jintao (a giggly girl), and Barack Obama, (the tallest boy in the class.)

Last week a storm came through just as I was headed to my 3:30 class. Thunder, lightening, freezing wind, and driving rain. The lightening was striking close, and my first thought was that my odds of getting hit were low because I was walking along in a sea of umbrella-toting Chinese students, filling both sidewalks and the street in-between. My second thought was that I was the tallest one in the crowd, so I hurried on to class.

On the walk back to my room after class I was startled by singing rocks. At 5:00 when the last class lets out, music – Chinese and Western – is pumped out of fake rocks alongside the sidewalks throughout the campus. It’s actually kind of a nice way to celebrate having made it through another day, as we all trudge off to the (unheated) cafeterias to warm ourselves with steaming bowls and plates of noodles, rice, meat, and vegetables.

Freezing rain, freezing classrooms, a joyous celebration of car horns and gunpowder, a threadbare towel and a dull paring knife, eating slippery noodles with chopsticks, indoor smoking, indoor bicycling, (right down the classroom building hallway!), strange new fruits and vegetables, being frequently stared at, and only one cushion left on my sofa. What the hell am I doing here? Loving it!

Off to lunch!