Chapter 3

Beginning Our Real Jobs

And just like that, our teaching has begun! These last two weeks have gone by so fast, and catapulted us even more into the rhythm of college life here at 西华师大. There was a week-long National Day (like July 4^th) festival break in there, but we’ll tell you about that in the next update to space things out a bit. Also, we’re gradually getting better at remembering to take pictures! So hopefully this post will start the barrage of more visual aids!

The Sunday before classes started was a beautifully sunny day, of a kind that are more rare here in 南充(Nanchong). So, while Christian and one of our other friends spent many hours inside the music building practicing for a singing competition with the foreign affairs office and teachers, I went with two other friends to the ping pong tables. Ping pong is a very big sport here, and these tables are actually set outside right next to the basketball courts and fields – there are many tables lined up along the edge of the field, even with artificial turf-stuff underneath. As we were walking over the hill to the tables, we were approached by two girls, who asked if they could come play with us, since they were Junior English majors who wanted the chance to talk in English to foreigners. We agreed, and what ensued was definitely more conversation than playing ping-pong.

It was far hotter in the sun than we had planned, so we ended up sitting almost under the tables in the shade, having a very interesting conversation with these girls about gender inequality (they had an assignment and were supposed to ask people about it), especially in China. This discussion was very in-depth, and I was very impressed with the quality of their English and vocabulary, especially in such a specific conversation. Alisa and Alice are Junior English majors (and since we are at a teaching college, means they are English-teaching majors), and were very fun to talk to. They recognized that China it is much harder for women to support themselves financially, especially because traditionally only sons are given money from their parents to buy a house, while it is assumed that women will get married. Also, if they do marry and buy a home together with their husband, it has traditionally been only in his name, so divorce is a very large setback that can leave the wife without anything. Because divorce is becoming more common, more Chinese women are more hesitant to get married, in large part because of this phenomenon.

After some time, Christian found us at the courts with his frisbee, which caused quite a stir. A couple little boys and some college-age guys came over, wondering what this was. Christian taught them (and Alisa and Alice) how to throw and catch the frisbee, and they and Andrew and Harrison were throwing it around for awhile. Unfortunately, we had to leave these relaxing afternoon activities to go finalize and cement our lesson plans for the week! 

I started teaching on Monday afternoon, immediately following one of our Chinese classes. Christian was again at music practice, as the singing competition was Tuesday and they had hours of a dress rehearsal with all 30 some odd groups. My students were definitely excited to have a foreign teacher, and I was excited to have them! Much to my relief, all of the technology worked without a hitch, and I began teaching my class of 34 English majors. They responded well, and I ended the class feeling euphoric – it went very well! Most of the students have never had a foreign teacher, and a good majority had never been this close to a foreigner before, so everyone was excited.

Tuesday I again had a single English-major class, right after which I ate and headed over to the outdoor stadium just over the hill from our apartment, where the singing competition was about to start. I went with one of the Peace Corp volunteers, and it only took 15 or so minutes before a group of students were brave enough to start a conversation with us. It was very fun (and challenging) to converse with these freshmen Chemistry Education students, as neither of us was capable of holding a long conversation in the other’s language. We talked right through many performances, until the group that Christian and Andrew were in (see pictures and video below). Their group was probably pretty average (none of the groups could actually sing very well pitch-wise), but it was clearly noticed that they were the only group with 外国人 (foreigners), and they ended up ranking either 2^nd or 4^th place out of around 30 groups – we still really aren’t sure which one, because the Chinese we heard confused us :). With that out of the way, Christian could (just in time to begin teaching Wednesday at 8am!) focus on teaching instead of having 2 hours of what felt like impromptu singing practice every day.

The way the school schedule is at our university, the lunch break is effectively over 3 hours, which allows for plenty of time to get lunch from street vendors or little street-side shops. Christian began his classes the next day, Wednesday, bright and early and at the other campus, which means that he and the other 3 guys in our group have to take a bus to get to our older, downtown campus. All of the classes at that campus are non-English majors, and most are between 60 and 70 students, which creates a very different classroom dynamic from my English majors.

Because all of his classes are non-English majors, Christian gets to teach the same lesson six times in three days, which makes some things interesting! By the fifth and sixth time, it’s hard to remember that these students have not heard the material before, and easier to speed up directions or lecture because it feels so familiar.

The next large event that came up almost out of nowhere was our Friendship Fellowship. We were informed on Thursday that we were to reschedule all of our Friday afternoon classes (none of us have any, thankfully!) because all of the foreign teachers in the city were going to be taken on a tour of 南充 by the local city government. We had no idea what this meant, or how to dress, or what to expect. We were advised by another foreign teacher that dressing nicely would reflect well on the school, which would in turn perhaps make some things easier for us in the long run with our relationship with the school, so we showed up in business casual. After arriving at the local government building, we hopped onto a private bus and were taken to three different silk factories and shown around by none other than the owners of the factories themselves! At each place we got to see a different piece of the silk-making process and a different part of the history of silk-making in China. One owner even offered us 60% off of anything we would want to buy there! Of course, the prices are already so inflated that even that price is still higher than we would consider, although the silk-made clothing and bedspreads are very soft!

Below are many pictures! I also took a couple videos – sorry for the hand-held quality!

We followed the silk factories up by going to a museum about mulberry tea (the link here, we think, is that silkworms eat mulberry [pronounced ‘marble’ by our translator] plants). Finally, after almost 5 hours of being transported all around the city, we returned to the local government building and had a meeting with some high-ups of the city government, who gave a few short speeches through a translator and showed us a promo video for 南充. We were all added to a WeChat group and told they were so happy to be starting this Friendship Fellowship, so that 南充 can have better relationships with the foreigners living here. We were also instructed to give them any advice we had about the day, the group, or anything about the silk industry (!).

Finally, we were led into the final portion of what was turning out to be a long day (we had also taught over 3 hours that morning) – a banquet! We had heard many stories of banquets and the accompanying social expectations (and all four guys had already been to one during their cross-cultural stay in China in previous years), but had not expected to attend one before Christmas. They piled food on our tables, and there were plenty of toasts, wine, and introductions. It was a fairly small group – perhaps 15 foreign teachers, our school representatives, and a handful of local government people and silk factory owners, about 40 in all. Overall it was a pleasant experience, although we were very grateful to be taken directly back to the school at its conclusion, which was not until almost 9pm.

Because of the upcoming holiday (we’ll write about it eventually!), Christian and Harrison had to create an extra lesson plan for a make-up class session. Since they waited until after meeting their classes to begin planning the second lesson, this meant coming up with something on Saturday for a Sunday morning lesson (yes, school at 8 am on Sunday). They didn’t want to move on to the next lesson, since only two out of six classes would receive this make-up lesson. Long story short, they decided to try to mix something fun – a movie/video – with a chance to talk about culture, and opted for a video in which Anthony Bourdain visits Appalachia and discusses food and culture with locals (from the series Parts Unknown). Because it took hours to find a way to watch the episode, we didn’t sit down until Saturday evening to watch it – and to realize that we would need far more than one short class period to process all the cultural references and language included in the video. We thoroughly enjoyed it, but we knew our students would be unavoidably confused. So, quick change of plans! In the end, Harrison showed his students a short part of the video and talked about it as well as other cultural considerations in America, and Christian showed his class Kung Fu Panda while pulling small groups of students aside for short conversations and English-name-choosing (and to subtly assess their conversational English ability at the beginning of the semester).

All in all, it’s been a great start to a year of teaching, and we are enjoying it! Our students are in generally very excited and happy to have a real foreign (or alien, as some call it) teacher, and they have told us they want to work hard to improve their oral English! It is so good to have students who want to learn and are willing to work and participate.