Birthday, boondocks and school bullshit

My birthday was on Tuesday. The big 29. I don't know what I was expecting. I know that on Rory's birthday, the school and important administrative folks threw him a big birthday bash; replete with a personalized cake, booze, presents and a ton of really great food. It was nice. It made both of us feel wanted here at the school. Maybe that's what I was expecting, or at least something similar.

We walked into our dining room on Tuesday, and it was the same meal we usually have. It was Rory and me, some lychee flavored juice boxes, subpar Chinese food and a cake in the corner that said "Happy Birthday" in Chinese. I know I shouldn't complain--after all, at least I got a cake--but I guess I thought that it would be a bigger deal, because we've been told on many occasions that we're the best English teachers who have ever worked at the school, and because we really do put a lot of effort into our jobs.

We didn't think too much of it, though. We still went out to dinner that night, just the two of us, and it was really nice. At least we didn't have to be entertaining for a bunch of folks with whom we can't really effectively communicate. And at Licoshan, we were the only people there, so we were catered to, and the meal was incredible. We had donkey meat dumplings, a rack of lamb, fried carrot strips, Chinese broccoli and some mushroom soup like the kind we had when Jamie visited. We couldn't indulge/imbibe too much, though--as folks are prone to do on birthdays; I'm no exception--because we had to go to Wendeng the next morning for an English exchange workshop.

I was asked to teach a lesson to a group of 4th grade Wendeng students. I asked all of the relevant preparatory questions: will powerpoint/AV stuff be available, how many students will there be, what sections of the book have they covered thus far, how long is my lesson supposed to be...? I prepared two lesson plans, because, as a wise man once said: "this is China..." I didn't want to rely solely on a powerpoint presentation and then get there only to find that they didn't have computers or projectors.

So early Wednesday morning, 5 English teachers and our primary school principal hopped in the van and we were off. We learned that our principal was good friends with the principal of the Wendeng school, and that's why the whole thing was arranged. No problem.

We had only been to Wendeng a couple of times before, because that's where the airport is; and as we were driving through the town, we realized that the airport is probably the only real reason to visit anyway. Wendeng is tiny and much less developed than Weihai proper; it was like a much larger Zhangcun (our neighborhood in Weihai that's way out in the middle of nowhere).

We pulled into the visitor parking lot, and as we got out of the van, we saw a bunch of little Chinese kids, all dressed alike in their turquoise and white track suits with yellow neckerchiefs and baseball caps. The school uniforms over here are designed to be much more comfortable than school uniforms back home. It was a public (government) school, so all the kids were marching in formation. As they walked by, Bill (our friend who is a Chinese English teacher) said "those are all your students." There were so many of them! I said "Jesus Christ", and then he told me he was just kidding. He'd been talking about The Lion King in the van, specficially the song "Be Prepared", as sung by Scar. He used this opportunity to bring up the song again. I was wondering what the hell I'd agreed to. I asked Rory if he thought I was going to have to teach in a classroom with other Chinese English teachers observing me.

We walked towards what I thought was going to be a teaching building, and as we got closer, I realized it was an auditorium. So we all walked in, and the place was packed. A mock classroom had been erected on the stage, with about fifty 4th graders sitting in desks under a banner that said "hand in hand" and a bunch of other stuff in Chinese. That's when it hit me that this was a really big deal for Wendeng and specifically, this school. We were told that Wendeng government schools had never had a foreign teacher, and that for probably 90% of the (more than 300) people in the auditorium, we were the first two foreigners they'd ever seen up close. It was a cool feeling.

Now normally--when someone thinks she will be teaching a class of (maybe) 40 students, and then she walks into an auditorium to teach 50 kids in front of 300+ onlookers--this would be a stressful, nerve-wracking experience. But not for me. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I really thrive in situations where there are a lot of people. Maybe it's the idea that I can appeal to more people, even if more people also think I'm a jackass. Or maybe it's the fact that I can just zone out and try to appeal to the kids, and as long as they're engrossed in whatever we're doing, then the teachers and parents and administration will be impressed. I don't know what it is, but I never doubt myself or freak out in these situations.

There was no powerpoint or AV to speak of, and I would have to use chalk and a chalkboard for the first time in my teaching career. I was stoked. First we had to sit through a 40 minute English lesson given by a Chinese English teacher. It gave me 40 more minutes to try to cater my lesson plan to both the students and the audience. It also gave us more of an idea of how a Chinese English classroom works. We've worked at Daguanghua for 9 months now, and we've never been into a Chinese teacher's classroom, though Chinese teachers and parents have certainly observed our classes on many occasions.

It was fairly obvious that the Chinese English teacher had practiced this particular "routine" or "performance" over and over again with these students. And I'm not going to say that she did a bad job, it was just so different from a Western teaching approach. The unit she was focusing on was "What do you like?", which is all about food and how to ask for things in a restaurant. She would have the kids stand up in pairs and repeat things like "I like milk" or "I like chicken", so there was very little opportunity for the students to speak individually at all. And when she did her restaurant dialogue, she was the waitress. And her pronunciation was all off. She kept saying "I like cock" instead of "I like Coke." Rory, me, Bill and Wendy (Bill's wife and our friend) were all cracking up. I mean, Bill and Wendy are Chinese, and they still know what cock is. And she said "fish" like "faysh" and "milk" like "mee-ulk". The kids responded well to her, but the technique was exactly like I had always imagined in a Chinese classroom--very little creativity or independence and a whole lotta repetition in pairs or as an entire class. Plus, her restaurant "game" involved her intermittently whispering and yelling "restaurant". If she whispered, then the kids had to yell "restaurant" back. If she yelled it, then they had to be silent. Sort of like a less fun "Simon says."

When I walked onstage, Bill came with to introduce me in Chinese. As soon as he said that I was American, the whole auditorium went "Oh!" We took turns talking about my experience (in English and then in Chinese), and every time Bill would finish saying anything, the audience would gasp again. It was so...flattering? I don't know if that's the word I'm looking for. But if you are ever doubting your self worth (which I wasn't), go stand in front of a bunch of little Chinese kids, because they'll love you just for being different. It gets complicated when they grow up, but when they're little, the stares and pointing are innocent, and it's always fun to just indulge them.

I started my lesson and was sort of off in my own little world, paying little attention to the parents and important Chinese people watching my every move. I was encouraging, I made a lot of them talk individually, I showed them how to position their tongues against their teeth so they'd say "thank you" and "something" instead of "sank you" and "somesing", I joked around with them, I taught them some new words...all in all, it went about as well as it could have gone. I utilized some tried and true techniques that I have found to be effective in my classs, and it all went over really well.

We left to go to the actual "workshop" part of the day, held in an administrative building nearby. Not only were we surrounded by Chinese English teachers from this government school, but from all the schools in Wendeng. The idea was that they were going to ask us questions about our teaching styles, but mostly they were nervous and intimidated, so they just sat there and kind of stared at us. Finally, the head English teacher in Wendeng piped up. She had been teaching English for 20 years, and her English was great. Really great. And she was friendly on top of it. She asked us questions about our styles, and was really intrigued by the fact that I was so encouraging even when the kids didn't pronounce words correctly. Really, she was intrigued by everything about us.

It really only took one question for Rory and me to talk at length about all the different ways we think teachers can successfully implement Western teaching methods--like creativity, communication and independence--into the Chinese classroom. They all liked (were amused by the fact) that I threw humor into the lesson (like the "th" thing, when I pretended that I was spitting all over the kids), and they liked the idea of a classroom where the students do most of the talking.

The head teacher asked why I didn't spend more time drilling the kids on new words, instead having them read entire sentences and dialogues (in pairs) with some of the words missing. I explained that all of the words written on the board were words they know already (I know, because we all use the same textbook), and I have faith in the students' abilities to successfully string the words together to make different sentences, filling in the blanks with other foods and drinks that aren't in their book.

I mentioned an instance during the lesson when one particular little girl told me that she liked "ice cream and french fries" (both aren't in the book for this lesson), and I made sure she got the praise she deserved (in front of everyone) for thinking outside the Chinese book. The head teacher was all ears, and after we finished talking, she summarized what we said in English and in Chinese. All of the teachers were quite receptive, but still silent. There's plenty more that I could go on and on about, but I know I'm rambling already. But my ideal job would be to teach and to do workshops like this everyday, and then edit papers and stories at night.

After eating hotpot with our posse and the Wendeng higher ups, we got back in the van to head back to Daguanghua. Later that night, Bill and Wendy came up to our room to give me some earrings for my birthday. They stayed in our room talking with us for a long time. It was nice. We expressed our frustrations with the school, not just about the birthday thing, but about the air of indifference we've been getting from folks at school now that everyone knows we're not re-signing for another yearlong contract with them. Bill and Wendy shared a Chinese idiom with us, something along the lines of "tea is hot when you are staying, and cold when you are leaving..." It made perfect sense, not in any rationale way, but in terms of how we feel people treat us at the school these days, it seemed to fit.

Talking to Rebecca last night, I mentioned the idiom, and she said it was exactly as we feared. She said the important people at school weren't satisfied with the reasons we weren't signing with them again. It's so stupid. We aren't staying with Daguanghua because they refused to change anything about the contract. We didn't require a pay raise, we didn't ask for an apartment, we didn't ask for less work or more vacation. We only asked that they put all of their verbal promises in writing. And they refused to do it, which leads us to believe that if we did decide to stay, the school would try to find some way to screw us over anyway, regardless of the fact that we're the first teachers who have stayed here longer than 6 months. Maybe they're just annoyed because we're not stupid enough to think that a verbal contract is as valid as a written one, even though it's explicitly stated (in English) in our contracts.

So the whole Wendeng and birthday experience is pretty bittersweet. I like doing workshops, but it seems all for naught these days with our school. Really wish there was an incentive to stay here. At the same time, though, I can't wait to get the hell out of here. I want to work at a school where the focus is English and our bosses speak English. Harbin, here we come.