So, it's been awhile since my last update and a lot has happened since then. There was a point, shortly after my winter vacation where I had a great idea for this report and I wrote it down on a slip of paper and put it in my purse. For those of you who know me at all, my purses tend to be gigantic black holes that hold a lot and sometimes eat things. In any case, I lost the slip of paper but I think I can remember the gist of it.
As you should now have realized, my fellowship is in Macau. Macau is NOT China, not even by a stretch of the imagination, so when I find myself on the mainland, I get excited. This excitement stems from two main areas: language and food. I'm happy because I can finally get real Chinese food, things made without creamy cheese, mushroom or black pepper sauce, breakfast vendors on every street corner, spicy pan-fried green beans and much more. I also get to practice my Mandarin! So, needless to say my two week trip to China was fabulous and full of fun things like climbing the Great Wall on Christmas, being introduced to 'the Paris of the east' (Shanghai) by a British teacher with a theater background and a certified English tour guide as well as many ancient walls, temples and pagodas. There was only one bad point, something that has stayed with me, kept bugging me and will become more understandable as my story drones on. On a bus back form Tianjin (a city 2 hours south of Beijing) I got into friendly conversation with a couple of bus mates, Chinese folks headed back to home/work/school. At one point in the conversation, I was asked by one of the folks, a Chinese law student, if I knew "who the great man, Mao Ze Dong was?" Now, I can't begin to explain the amusement, horror, and annoyance this question raised in me. I mean really, we'd been speaking in Chinese for the better part of an hour and this guy is gonna ask me if I know who Mao is? You've got to be kidding.
Upon further reflection and numerous conversations with different Chinese friends, the conclusion was made that the comment stemmed from Chinese thinking that even though they know China is great, most foreigners probably do not and so need to be reminded of it from time to time. Okay, makes sense, I get it, but to me it was insulting. I managed to check myself from any seriously rash comments and then thought about it in reverse. If a random Chinese person moves to the States say to teach Chinese for a year, goes on a trip around the country and runs into some Americans who think, because they're Chinese, they don't know anything about America. Yeah, it could definitely happen. So I've been thinking about this. I guess for me, that guys attitude towards foreigners is my culture shock and the reason why these past couple of months have been both difficult and rewarding for me are figuring out how to deal positively with that experience. I'm a teacher; it's my job to dispel myths about things, to enlighten. So I've tried to spend more time focusing on truths about American lifestyle, thought processes, eating habits, hobbies, or history, than on grammar and lessons in our book. I want my students to see more sides of the picture about who Americans are. There are those among us who are ignorant and callous and could care a rat's pitutti about anything outside of their city/state/country but learning about the outside is beneficial in more ways than just cultural understanding.
For me, it changes you fundamentally, the way you think about people. You start to use less and less generalizations, stereotypes. You leave out the word all and start using more some's. It's hard to teach but I think it's worth it if a few of my students leave my class with a broader idea of what it could mean to be _______(fill in the blank). As for everything else, it's peachy. I've had some fabulous vacations, Thailand and Cambodia with fellow GCers, Taiwan with current Grinnellians and wonderful weekend karaoke, dancing, get togethers with folks from all over.
Now I just have to figure out what's next, the hard part; do I want to stay in China, teach, work, or go back home and pursue acting? It's a difficult question and one that's had me both in the pit of despair and the height of elation over the last month. It's taxing redoing the senior freak out and I think, in some ways, it's harder this time. There's no safety net when you're this far from home. It's not as easy to put applications off until the last minute. There is no nifty GC to give you an extra year to decide what to do with your life and so the anxiety took its toll, but it's better now. I've applied to about a gillion positions all over China and the U.S. I have about three different contingency plans and I think I will have enough money saved to just travel for awhile if worse comes to worst. There have been hard times here, times when I have absolutely no motivation, wish I had another two week vacation, yearned for a more significant social, cultural, musical, artistic life, but it is getting better. So, that's where I am now, and I'm back to loving this thing. Good timing too. I like it when things come full circle.
