My Job in China Part 3 (the end of explaining my job)

  I left off with getting on the high speed train or Bullet Train and going to Changzhou. I will continue from there and explain more of my job (because, let us face it, so far my posts just make it look like I am goofing around). I do have classes that I am teaching. The teacher (that the school sent to pick me up) and myself along with others that were going to the same city with AYC where on the train (along with many other Chinese individuals as well). I had only experienced the Amtrak in the United States from my small city to Chicago that can included much waiting and the speed had a much to be desired. (I am not knocking Amtrak, many of their problems are because Americans do not take trains very often). In China, they are an extremely popular method of travel because if you drive that distance it can take twice as long with the traffic. So the train station felt like an airport with all of its activity which not even Union Station in America felt similar to. Below are some pictures that I took while boarding the train. The first is taken looking away from the entrance so that is Shanghai in the background.

 The last previous two were taken while the train was moving. I did not know the exact speed but I looked up on China Highlights website and found that the train is designed for a speed of 350 km/h or for us Americans a speed of 257 mph. I am sure that the train was going relatively quickly but not sure. I have not gone 257 mph on land before (only in the air) so do not know how to correctly gage that. I do know that the car I drive is designed to go 120 mph but it has never experienced that speed while I was behind the wheel (or anywhere remotely close for those of you wondering). So I would guess that it was around 150 mph or whatever that correlates to in km. I cannot judge distance in kilometers yet I have only been in China nearly three months. Um . . . sorry your just now finding out what I do . . .
  Continuing on with my picture show and tell, the next picture is of the train and the line of people waiting to get on. There were actually so many people that they paid for standing room only tickets, which are cheaper but not as comfortable. However, the website also stated that you can go from Shanghai to Nanjing on a non-stop service in only 73 minutes, that actually is not too bad. That would cover a distance of 301km or 187miles. Which is roughly the distance between Chicago and Indianapolis which takes three or more hours by car. I do not know what that correlates to with other countries' cities so sorry about that. The train is called high-speed or bullet for a reason. Also another little side note is that the trains, going the exact same direction arrive almost every 5 minutes. which means you can buy a ticket to Nanjing from Changzhou for 10:00, 10:05, 10:10, 10:15, 10:20, etc, etc, etc, etc. Which is crazy for me because the train I took in America only came to my city at 7:30ish am heading to Chicago and 8:00ish pm heading for Indianapolis. Here they have so many options and my ticket from Shanghai to Changzhou only cost 74.5 元 which converts to 12 US Dollars. The benefits of having a bunch of people in a small amount of land. (At least there is a benefit.)

   This is inside the Changzhou train station right after I arrived. I was looking for the restroom when I took this picture because the womens sign looked so funny. It is just like the man but with its arms pointed out like it is trying to making a skirt. When I saw this I laughed simply because it was a picture and so different from what I would find in the United States.

   Following my restroom stop I was gathered, bags and all, and escorted to a waiting van. The teacher had asked about the size of my bags the night before so the vehicle picking us up would be of adequate size. My luggage apparently needed a small passenger van for that was what awaited us. I was not allowed to carry/wheel my own luggage and I had to see both the Chinese teacher and a middle age man from the school haul my luggage around. I kept thinking that they were probably wondering what-in-the-world this foreign American teacher brought with her all the while justifying the size of my bags by thinking 'I wonder how much luggage they would bring if they were going to a different country for a year.' It worked out fine and they succeeded in getting my luggage to my apartment. The Chinese teacher noted that I had less luggage than another AYC teacher.
  The drive from the train station to my apartment was interesting. For me at least, the first time that I experience a place it is hard to put the corrects word to it. I can say oh, I really liked it or it was weird, but they are not well thought through ones and therefore do not truly describe the place for what it is but for how you view it in comparison to what is considered acceptable from your culture. I like to experience a place for more than a few days to find out what it is like in that culture and why they do things a certain way before I jump to conclusions and go saying things like 'this is ridiculous' and 'that is done wrong.' That is part of the reason I am waiting so long to write a detailed account of my job and place in China. I want to more completely understand the culture that I am living in before I spew-type things for all to read and find out later the reality of the situation was far different from my experience behind my American tinted viewing glasses. I will still tell my thoughts of a situation but I will explain the other sides reasoning for acting that way the best I can. After writing all that I can say that I just need time to think through experiences before I write about them and that is my reasoning for taking so long to write about them (aka why this last post is so late in being posted).
  When being driven through the streets of Changzhou for the first time all I could think about was, "I have no idea as to what is going to happen next, I hope that I do not have to give any big speeches, and I hope that I do not do something insulting to anyone and ruin my relationship with them for the rest of the year.' Great thoughts to have rushing round through your head. Instead of a song that at least has a tune I just had those three thoughts, intermixed with my struggle to figure out how to act in each situation that I found myself.
  When I arrived at what was to be my apartment there were our group had increased to six including the people who were making my apartment acceptable to live in after three months of having no occupant. We dropped off my things then went to lunch. Which was a really fancy place. Below is my place setting. Please note the fork and knife off to the right side of the plate. They wanted to make me feel comfortable. My thoughts were 'Wow, they just assume that a white person cannot use chopsticks!' Which is usually true, but it is based off the fact that there are foreigners that do not know how to use chopsticks and if you watch American/British TV shows/movies you will find us using a fork and a knife. If I would ask you, my readers, how many of you actually know how to use chopsticks well, and by well I mean you can pick up a single grain of rice or a grape with them on the first try how many of you would reply that you can? (I am generalizing my audience greatly right now so correct me if I am wrong). Having grown up in the middle of corn fields and having only one Chinese restaurant in my town the fact that I can actually use them really well could be surprising to most people. But I am strange (ask my family) and ordered chopstick off the wonderful internet and kinda practiced with them, just for the fun of it before I even knew I was coming to China. So, when asked the question that all foreigners will get asked when they go out to eat with Chinese people in China, which is 'Can you use chopsticks?' I replied with a confident yes. What came next was a wonderful meal because I could eat it with chopsticks. Another foreigner I meet told me the story of her first meal in China. She unfortunately could not use chopstick and was taken to a restaurant where they did not offer her western eating utensils. When her hosts asked the restaurant for a fork they where only able to produce a spoon. She informed me that she went to bed hungry that night.

 The next picture show a little bit more of what the table looked like. In China, a traditional meal is one where everyone shares dishes. They put them on a lazy Susan and we shared them. Throughout this entire meal the one person that I knew the most was the teacher that came to pick me up, and I knew her for less then 24 hours. Their were men that were siting across from me that pretty much keep up a conversation among themselves. Every so often the teacher beside me would ask me a question to which I would respond. They keep having me try different foods and wanted to make sure I was full when the meal was finished.

  They had order a duck to be brought to the table which is a speciality of China called Peking duck. So, this man came in and started slicing bits of meat off the duck and laying them out neatly on a thick ceramic plate. They had me stand up and move closer to him so I could watch and really wanted me to take a picture of him which I happily obliged.

  After lunch the teacher and myself walked back to my apartment, since it was so close, and she showed me the store below my apartment. If I have not already done so I will say that I live above a five story mall with a basement. Within this basement is what we would call a grocery store. I was able to buy hand soap, since my apartment was not up to my standard of clean when I had given it a once over before quickly exiting for lunch. I was left to my own devices the rest of the evening (which meant cleaning the bathroom of the apartment) and told to arrive at the school by 8:00 the next morning. 

  The next morning I was shown my desk but I had to drop my things off and go to the school opening ceremony. Some people from AYC visited and filmed/took pictures, for what I am still not sure, but we will see. After the ceremony I was invited to meet the Headmaster of the school. I was rather scared that I would do something to embarrass myself but it went smoothly. When I entered his office I was handed the flowers in the picture below.

  It surprised me that they went out and bought flowers for my arrival. They had a nice lunch for me and now flowers, I was a little overwhelmed with how welcoming they were being to me and they had yet to see me teach a class. Along with the flowers I was given a book about the individual that the school was named after. It was in Chinese of course so I have more studying to do before I can read it. I then returned to my home to show AYC representatives where I was going to live, they also wanted to ask me some questions. I then returned to the school and went home around 5:30. I arrived at school the next day and learned more about what my duties were as the schools Oral English Teacher.

  I teach 10 different classes which make up the total grade 1 which is the equivalent of grade 10 in the United States. In each class there is an average of 55 students. So if you were doing mental math in your head you will realize that my school has around 550 students in grade 10. Coming from a graduating class of around 130 that is a lot of students. I have every class over the corse of two weeks, five one week and the other five the next week. I have all of my classes in the afternoon. I have been given freedom with what I teach and the assignments and requirements for my classroom. It has been a bit of a challenge creating lessons for 55 students that you see every two weeks. On top of the classes I have a club that meets every Saturday at 10:00am that is geared toward acting (since I am such a brilliant actor!! hahaha (said with sarcasm)). I was also asked about and accepted a club in the middle school that feeds into to the high school. It is a Speaking English club and I create 40 minute activities that has the students speaking English. It has been the joys of the last couple months to create a lesson plan and watch it fail or succeed in class and in clubs, realizing where I underestimated my students English and other times where I assumed they knew way more then they did. The joys of working with a language barrier. I arrive at school around 9:00 in the morning which is much later than the other teachers, who arrive by 7:00. and leave around 5:30. That is my life.

  I do realize that I could have just wrote just that last paragraph instead of the entire three segments to explain what I was doing . . . but what fun would that be?