Caroline Bailey's Reports

The past two and a half months have felt like I have lived here in Nanjing for years while at the same time it feels like I only arrived a couple of weeks ago. This can only be explained by the fact that I feel completely at home here while at the same time living in China never fails to surprise and excite me. Before I left for China I had very few expectations, mainly because I had basically no idea what to expect. This made me quite nervous since China would be my home for the next year. I reassured myself that I would like living in Nanjing, but I didn’t realize until I arrived how much I simply love it here. Whether it’s living in a big city or the Chinese hospitality or the thrill of living somewhere new, it’s hard to pinpoint why I like living here so much. However, I will try to break it down in this report.

Nanjing

Nanjing is an expanding city of about 7 million people that is a couple hours inland from Shanghai (only one hour if you take the bullet train). Even though it used to be the capital of China before Beijing became the “official” capital in 1491, most Chinese expats that I had talked to before my departure did not know of Nanjing. This may be due to the fact that Nanjing used to be called Nanking before the Pinyin language reform. Even so, when it comes to Chinese cities, Nanjing is not one that readily comes to mind, especially when compared to bigger cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. But for someone who just spent four years in Grinnell, Iowa, Nanjing could not be more exciting and ripe with opportunity. There is just so much to do here and Nanjing’s wonderful public transportation makes it all the more easier to get around the city. There’s a subway with two lines which is one of the nicest subways I’ve ever been on, taxis are almost always easy to flag down (especially since I have tapped into my inner New-Yorker and have become very assertive when it comes to getting a taxi), a bus system, and the mode of transportation that I use the most, walking. Walking is a great way of getting to know Nanjing. Occasionally I will start walking down a major road and just see where it takes me. That way I won’t get lost (because I can always turn around and head back) and I get to see parts of Nanjing that I would have never known about.

Teaching

Before I left for China I was both anxious and excited for being an English teacher. Although I had done some tutoring beforehand, I certainly had no classroom teaching experience to speak of and I was worried when I heard from previous Nanjing fellows that classroom management had been a problem in the past. Although classroom management is still somewhat of a daily struggle, I have really enjoyed teaching. Each of the 12 classes that I teach has an entirely different personality, which can be difficult to plan activities for but definitely worth the extra work in the end. The one thing that is very hard about teaching though is getting to know my all of my 300+ students whom I only see about once a week. By now I know all their faces and I can remember about half of their names, especially the clever names like Rambo (an angelic Junior 2 girl), Estee Lauder (a Senior 2 boy), Warcraft (a Senior 1 boy), and Pandora (a Senior 2 girl from whom I usually have to confiscate the mirror that she constantly gazes into). While it’s easy to get to know the students that are more vocal, it is very hard to get any sense of the students that are content with sitting through class not mentioning a word in English. However, I have found that I have gotten to know all my students on some level by reading their homework assignments. Whether it’s talking about what they want to be when they grow up or even expressing frustration with the fact that some of their grandparents are unhappy that they are girls, their writing has really allowed me to understand my students better and the kind of stresses that they go through as students in China. This has become more and more apparent as I am now teaching a unit on school life in America. When I asked all of my classes what they knew about American school life, their answers were pretty much the same: shorter school days, less homework, after-school activities, sports teams, and easier exams. Although I tried to communicate to them that not all American high schools are the same as the ones depicted through movies and television, most of their assumptions were true. For them the school day starts at 7:40am and ends around 5pm, there are no school-affiliated sports teams or after-school activities, and when I ask my students how their weekend was or what they did for National Day vacation the answer was always “I did homework.” Talking with the students that come during our office hours allows me to get an even stronger sense of the pressures put on them from their parents and the sometimes serious implications that can result from getting bad grades. Learning this from my students has also given me a better perspective on what my duties are as their oral communication English teacher. Whereas before I got frustrated when only about a third of my students would turn in their homework, I now know that they have other stresses in their lives that take precedent over this class where the grade they receive won’t go on their permanent record. What I try to do now is foster a learning environment that is fun while still being mentally stimulating, carefree while still capturing their attention, and a place where it is okay to be somewhat foolish. Getting to know the people behind the faces that show up to my class has been one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching as it has taught me a lot about what it means to be a teacher.

Becoming a Nanjingren

Incorporating myself into the local Nanjing community has made this huge city feel more and more like a home. Although I absolutely love traveling (and I have now been to five provinces), I always look forward to coming back to Nanjing at the end of the trip. This is partly due to the fact that I have started to build up a network of people in Nanjing which makes me feel like part of the local community and less of an outsider. For instance, I now have a language partner who is a professor of literature and film at Nanjing University. Every Monday for two hours she helps me learn Chinese while I in turn am her window into American culture. This has not only been a great opportunity for me to work on my Chinese, but also a great way to learn more about the differences between Chinese and American culture. Another way that I have incorporated myself in the local Nanjing community is through my love of sports. Sometimes I will join a pick-up game of volleyball with the students at Nanjing University or participate in a local tennis league at the nearby Olympic Sports Center. I especially love joining these activities as it not only allows me to continue doing something I loved doing back home, but I also know from experience that being on a sports team is a truly special way of bonding with your teammates. Even though I don’t speak very much Chinese and the people who I play with don’t speak very much English, sharing this common interest has been a great way of bonding with other locals.

Looking back to the end of August I remember leaving St. Louis Lambert Airport when the thought of leaving my family to go live in China finally sunk in. Most of my thoughts were feelings of dread and I couldn’t stop thinking to myself “What in the world have I gotten myself into?” Now that I’m here I couldn’t be happier with my decision to live in a country so different from my own. I literally couldn’t imagine a better way of spending my first post-graduate year than teaching English here in Nanjing.