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The one aspect of coming to China that I knew I could manage was writing the reports. They are informal, I had weeks to prepare and no grades to worry about. And yet, in the great tradition of Nanjing fellows, and China for that matter, my report is almost a month late, but, after all, completed. Apologies to the whole committee, especially Doug. Hopefully next time I will improve on my punctuality.
I thought a lot about the audience for these reports and came up with the following categories: prospective fellows, the Nanjing committee, my family and friends, and the generally interested. With those groups in mind, I tried to find a balance between basic information one might find in all the past reports and my individual experiences. Hopefully for the Nanjing committee and those of you who read the past reports chronologically, you will find something new here. For everyone else who is learning about the Nanjing fellowship for the first time, this should give you some insight into the life of a Nanjing fellow. I divided the report into teaching and life in Nanjing.
Teaching
First, some background. I had no prior teaching experience. I had a lot of experience as a student, ha ha, but nothing that prepared me for this job with the exception of many exceptional and a few not so exemplary models to learn from. I am a novice on a steep learning curve. Every class and lesson teaches me a few more tricks and gives me ideas to make my teaching more effective. The more I learn the less anxious and more confident I am, which, I think, is reflected in my own greater enjoyment in class and, more significantly, improved discipline of my students. Not to mention the teaching professional and immense support network named Josh who lives next door. When I have a class that does not go well, he comes back with, "Don't worry. You're a good teacher. It's going to be okay." Thanks Josh.
When I read past reports the levels of the students confused me, so I will try to be as clear as possible. In the middle school there are six levels of students, Junior 1, 2, and 3, and Senior 1, 2, and 3. The students range in age from 12-18 years old. Within each level there are at least 4 and up to 14 classes, I am not sure the exact numbers. The school ranks the students, with the best students in class 1, the next in class 2, etc . . . Unlike the U.S., the students stay in the same class with the same students all day, and the teachers for each subject come to their classroom or the students go to another classroom as a class, for music, physics, computer science, or their English conversational classes with the "mei guo ren" (American) teachers. Josh and I teach ten classes a week: Junior 1, Classes 1,2, and 8; Junior 2, Classes 1 and 2; Senior 1, Classes 1 and 2; Senior 2, Classes 1 and 2; and the English teachers. We teach only the "best" students, and we do not teach Junior III or Senior III.
They, we are told, are too busy preparing for exams.
My Junior 1 students are unbearably cute and, for the most part enthusiastic. They like it when we read children's books, and for Halloween we created monsters, which bordered on uncontrollable excitement, followed by looks of awe from the older students as they stared at the wall of monsters on the back wall, a little jealous, no doubt. We just completed a unit on rooms of the house and a dialog which begins with "Where are You?" followed by "I'm in the (room of the house)." Very basic, but I decided it was important to get the students comfortable with me and speaking in front of the class, and to make sure everyone began in the same place. The students often know what they are supposed to say, but even with a lot of practice they can not always come out and say it. So after practicing, practicing, and practicing, I think most of them are beginning to feel comfortable talking. We have moved on to places in our neighborhood and after they learn the new vocabulary, I will start asking them to stretch th
eir conversations beyond where they are to what they are doing, etc . . .
The Junior 2 students are more advanced than the Junior 1's, and have already had an American teacher for one year. They have more confidence than the Junior 1's, which, for some, also means attitude. Jason told me before I left it was important for me to be my own teacher, I will not be like any of the past fellows, and if he had known that around December, he might have felt a lot better about himself. Well, Jason's classes have come back to haunt me with my Junior II students when I am greeted with Jessie's plea, "Can we play a game??? Are we going to play any games today???" If they are not interested and without enough discipline, they will tune out and start talking to each other. As one of my students informed me, they know I do not understand what they say to each other in Chinese, so they just keep on talking. Brilliant. Thirteen and fourteen year old brats they can be, but they can also be a lot of fun. I started them off with a restaurant unit, teaching them new foods and the basics of wha
t to do in a restaurant. The unit ended up being part new information and part review, which was perfect, and the hams among them, which are quite a few, enjoyed acting out the restaurant scene. "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream" was also a huge hit.
The Senior 1 and Senior 2 classes are part textbook, part "other" material. As part of the school's attempt to increase the importance of English and the American conversation classes, they provided textbooks for the Senior 1 and 2 classes. This is both a blessing and a curse. The textbooks are good, with some useful lessons and no Chinese, which is hard to find, and they provide useful structure to the class. The downside is that the textbook leaves less time for our own lessons. In the Senior 2 classes I have been trying to start an article writing project, but because I want to ensure that they are comfortable with the textbook, and because of a penpal project Josh and I did, we have not been able to get the activity off the ground. Nevertheless, the textbook almost ensures that I am teaching the students something, and the lessons give me a good sense of where they are in their English abilities.
For my "other" project in the Senior 1 classes I am teaching them, or rather, they are teaching themselves about American schools, out of which arose one of my worst discipline problems and one my best teaching moments. For the project I wrote a synopsis on American schools, divided the synopsis into eight parts, divided the class in eight groups, and had each group present one part of the synopsis to the class. Senior 1 Class 1 had no problems understanding the project, and their presentations have been a muddled but useful task. Senior 1 Class 2 did not understand the project, and combined with an infectious tendency to misbehave and not take my class seriously, the project failed because I was not clear enough and they refused to listen. With some advice from Josh, I turned the next lesson into a lesson about respect, listening, and asking me questions, which, to my surprise, worked brilliantly. The best part of the lesson was when, after making sure they understood the concept of respect, I asked one
of the students to come up to the front of the class and begin reading from his textbook. As soon as he began reading I turned my back to him and towards some of the students in the front row and started whispering obnoxiously. The student reading did not know what to do, and the class thought my whispering was hilarious because they knew that my disrespectful attitude towards the reading student was exactly what they did to me every class. Now they are one of the most fun classes I have. They listen and respect me and their classmates, which allows me to loosen up and have fun.
The Senior 2 students understand a lot, and some of them, like the Junior 2's, have a lot of confidence, which sometimes gets in the way of how much they learn. In their comments to me about what they want to study in my class, many of them wrote they simply wanted to improve their English. Therefore, instead of teaching them something about America, they are writing and talking about themselves, using some of the structures in the textbook as guidelines, but finding and using the vocabulary and grammatical structures they seek out themselves. They will write a newspaper article about some event in their lives, like the first time they rode a bicycle or a holiday they will never forget. I am also afraid that the Senior 2's have not been doing enough speaking, which is easy to do using a textbook, so I plan to incorporate more speaking into my future lessons. Finally, Josh and I are doing a penpal project with the Senior 2's with students in a school in a Chicago suburb through a teacher Josh knows. We h
ave just sent off the first batch of letters and are waiting for the first letters from Chicago, so we will see if the project takes off. We also plan to do it with the Senior 1 students but are waiting for responses from other teachers we contacted. If anyone reading this knows anyone who might be interested, let us know.
Josh and I have had our share of "surprises," i.e. classes canceled and added with barely a day's notice, unexpected jobs, and impromptu field trips. When we arrived our office and library was dismantled and the principals enlisted us to bring it back to order. We have had classes on Saturday to make up for the Entrepreneurs Conference, and classes canceled due to a teacher's photo, a book fair, and an all day track and field event. But could we really complain when the school funded a trip to Shanghai and Suzhou? In every other respect, Josh and I are the lucky benefactors of a school in which teaching English is a nominal priority. We have our own classrooms, our library has been expanded to two rooms, and our office is complete with our own desks, a water cooler, a couch, and a copier, the last of which has made us many new friends in the school who come to use it when, presumably, they do not want to go to the "official" copy person a few floors down. When our computers broke, thanks to a little hel
p from Andrew Hsieh, they arranged for us to get them fixed immediately. The other English teachers treat us like something between their children and new found best friends, taking us out for lunch, parading us around Shanghai (ME: "I can cross the street on my own." NANCY or FANG LAOSHI: "It doesn't matter," as one of them grabs my arm and pulls me across the street), and teaching us how to cook Chinese food. (NANCY: "Here Josh, this is how you cut off the shrimp's head. Now you do it." JOSH: "Oh my god . . .")
Life in Nanjing
Life in Nanjing is an amazing experience. Nanjing is a big city that, like most Chinese cities, is undergoing a modernization boom. Construction abounds, and new high rises seem to appear everyday. The shopping centers gleam and sparkle, full of Chinese shoppers and donning all of the West's favorites, Ralph Lauren and the like. Side by side Nanjing's new high rises sits modernization's less shimmering sibling. A turn down any side street away from the new hotels, office buildings, and shopping centers, finds countless dirty, charming old houses and apartment buildings lining the streets, vendors selling all varieties of "cheap" stuff, and food stalls that look little affected by Nanjing's new shining façade.
We live in a small high rise of twenty floors right near one of the main traffic circles in Nanjing. Xi-Yuan is occupied by both foreign and local students, long term residents and travelers looking for a place to stay for a few days. The floor Josh and I live on is something in between those extremes. Other than our rooms and the room at the end of the hall, which is the office of a helpful woman in charge of an American foreign student program (and, coincidentally, obtained her Ph.D. in American Studies at University of Iowa. It is a small world), the rest of the rooms are occupied by Chinese businessmen staying for several weeks at a time. I think our relationship with the businessmen is one of mutual curiosity. They wonder what we are doing here. We wonder how, despite the presence of a young woman on the floor, they insist on walking around the hallways in their underwear and spitting anywhere they feel like it. Nevertheless, I live like a glorified, spoiled student. Even at Grinnell I never had
a t.v., v.c.d. player, refrigerator, or air conditioner. And living in a student dormitory has the advantage of helping us meet and befriend other temporary expatriates. Within a few days we met some French, Quebecois, and Canadians who have turned out to be great friends. There is also nothing like a French speaker who is fluent in English, Russian, and Chinese to put my own language abilities to shame.
The only real downfall to living at Xi-Yuan is the lack of cooking space. It is possible but a big hassle to cook here, so Josh and I have chosen, so far, to live without home cooked meals. Luckily Nanjing is not short of tasty and inexpensive restaurants. Our lunch usually consists of a three to four dish hodgepodge from a fast food stand outside Xi-Yuan. Fast food means that the food is already cooked, so Josh and I stand before about fifteen bowls of different foods, including cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, dried bean curd, tofu, chicken, and eggs. We choose what we want, they hand it to us in styrofoam containers (or in my own tupperware container, when I am feeling especially environmentally conscious), and we march proudly off to the Xi-Yuan courtyard or our rooms to eat. For dinner we usually find ourselves at one of the inexpensive restaurants we know of with English menus, but as we learn more characters for food and become more daring, we will venture out more.
Every once in a while we are lucky to find ourselves invited to a banquet or dinner, one of the greatest joys and adventures I have experienced in China. Twenty dishes of foods I have never seen and foods familiar in breathtaking combinations and preparations, enough toasts to send Josh through his seventh glass of rice wine (feminists looking for social impartiality beware), and seven or eight doting Chinese friends continually adding food to my plate and ensuring my complete comfort: a recipe for culinary adventure. Highlights include Josh and I miserably trying to make our way through eating fresh water crabs, and the afternoon Josh and I learned to cook the English teacher's favorite Chinese dishes. Sichuan style tofu, steamed fish, and deep fried sweet potatoes are just a few of the dishes we will bring back with us.
Now that I have written about the school, where I live, and how I eat, the people reading this are probably wondering, Nanjing is a big city, how does she get around? Okay, maybe they are not wondering about my means of transportation, but it is worth knowing about. Writing about my life in Nanjing would not be complete without writing about bike riding. Most people get around by bus or bicycle, and Josh and I decided to make the latter our primary means of travel. What is commonplace to people who live here was a novelty to Josh and I. A city with at least three times as many bike riders as car drivers? And whoever thought of paying for bike parking? Now we are certifiably one of the masses, riding during Nanjing's rush hours, bikes on all sides, barely dodging oncoming cars and buses. Very China.
One of the other highlights of my stay in China so far is Tai Chi. Tai Chi, as anyone who has been here can confirm, is very China. Go to almost any park or square at sunrise and people, usually, as my students joke, China's elderly, will be practicing Tai Chi. Through some contacts at Nanjing University I found a Tai Chi class. At least three times a week a few friends and myself go to the University campus at sunrise where our two lovely Chinese teachers and about twenty-five young and old Nanjing locals learn the basics of Tai Chi Quan, the fundamental and elementary form of Tai Chi. I can not understand anything they tell us, I just watch and follow the movements as they call out the numbers. I know my inability to understand Chinese causes me to miss much of the symbolism of the movements, like brushing the leaves and holding the ball, but I enjoy the practice nevertheless, and as my teacher told me, through a translator, I am learning not only Tai Chi, but something about Chinese culture. At the
very least, my quads get a good work out, and I have seen more sunrises in the past two months than in my whole life.
Like at the middle school, living in Nanjing is not without its frustrations, the largest being not knowing Chinese. Helpless is the only word to describe my first few days here. Combined with the initial shock of arriving in China, the simplest task, like going to the grocery store, was an ordeal, but I am lucky to live in Nanjing. More people than I expected speak a little English, and even when they do not, they usually try their best to help. Josh and I can get very far with a few words and a lot of hand motions. Josh is especially adept at understanding and communicating with English Language Development technique, the rhetoric of hand signals. The middle school has also provided us with tutors. Our tutors are English teachers at the middle school with whom we meet with once a week. I can not say my teachers demand much from me, sometimes our lessons become conversations about Chinese culture or American celebrities, but they are fun to talk with, and combined with the book I brought from the cou
rse I took this summer, I can now say hello, refuse a cigarette, ask for tea, go the post office, and change money at the bank.
Nanjing is also not without its share of bureaucratic hassles, but as Jason wrote me, things eventually have a way of working themselves out. For example, when we arrived in Nanjing we thought the rooms that Jason and Ann lived in last year would be waiting for us. Without telling anyone at Grinnell or in Nanjing, the dormitory moved all of our things out of those rooms during the summer and told us we would be staying elsewhere because our old rooms were meant for "business men who stay for shorter amounts of time, rise and go to bed early." (Which, incidentally, is not completely true. They are businessmen, and they do rise early, but they do NOT go to bed early, unless three in the morning is "early.") After a few emails and phone calls, a few days later we were in the rooms we originally expected. My bank card was also a source of frustration. After several weeks of withdrawing money successfully with my ATM card, my bank card number suddenly stopped working. China blamed the U.S., the U.S. blamed
China. After a couple of weeks trying to figure out the real culprit, plus a few emotional breakdowns, I transferred my money to a Chinese bank for a lovely $40 fee. Future fellows be warned: learn to expect the unexpected and trust that everything will work out.
I do not think I could conclude this report without writing a bit about the war with Afghanistan. Anyone interested in our initial reactions should read the letter we wrote to the S&B. http://www.grinnell.edu/sandb/archives/volume118/092101/opinion/china.html Since we wrote that letter, the U.S. has gone to war with Afghanistan and the spread of anthrax looms as a real stateside threat. We keep as up to date as possible through online U.S. newspapers, and although we worry about the going's on in the U.S. and Afghanistan, we have a strong sense of safety in Nanjing, which continually surprises us. Life has basically gone on here as normal, and unless China decides to directly act on its pledge to fight terrorism with the U.S., I think we will continue to feel safe. The strangest and most alienating part of our sense of security is knowing that although China is as normal, from what I can gather from my friends and family, the U.S. is not. Changes have occurred which I can not imagine. I expected the U.S
. to change while I was gone, but not in such a drastic, different, and dramatic way.
With that reflection on the goings on back home, I conclude my first report from Nanjing. Overall I am doing well. One last, but important comment: the biggest key to my survival here is a sense of humor. If Josh and I could not laugh at the absurdity in some of the situations we find ourselves, I think we could not stay sane. Laugher has helped us keep our heads well above water. Hopefully those of you who have made it to the end of this report gained some insight into my life here. This has been an incredible experience so far, and I can not thank the committee enough for giving me the chance to be here. Thanks, also, to my family and friends who support me across the Pacific through emails, letters, and phone calls. I am more than happy to answer any questions at
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