Val's China 101: May 2011

Friday, May 27, 2011

Take Me Away

My Magic Moment

Magic does exist in this world, sometimes you just have to be willing to let yourself recognize it when it’s there. When we hear of time travel or teleportation, we immediately think of Start Trek or maybe a magic carpet. But not too long ago I discovered that this movement through space and time can come from something infinitely more mundane, and mine came in the form of a mug.

At the end of February I went on a six day vacation alone to Xiamen, China. I went to get away. Away from work. Away from Hefei. Away from anyone and everyone I knew. I needed to breathe. I needed to recharge and regain a sense of perspective. I had been working as an English teacher in the busy and gritty city of Hefei for the last five months and nearly everything about the job was stressful and oppressive. I had suffered a major roundhouse punch to my mental stability and I needed to walk it off.

Xiamen is a large city on the South-East corner of China. It’s a popular tourist destination for the Chinese because of its beauty and unique history as a port city with Western influences. It is also home to arguably the most beautiful University in all of China. It was in a little coffee shop near this university that I had my first experience with Time Travel in China.

The coffee shop was a little brick house nestled into the side of a hill at the top of three flights of uneven steps. It was somewhere between colonial and Victorian in style, and it was delicately adorned with white Christmas lights. Upon entering I was met with the sound of a soothing Chinese rendition of the song “You belong to me” and the aroma of sweet jasmine incense mixed with the subtle stench of the cigarette that a man was smoking a few tables away. I sat down in a comfortable padded wicker chair in a nice secluded alcove. The only other person there was Cigarette man, but I wanted to feel cozy and tucked away. The waitress was awoken from her nap upon hearing me enter the front door, and she yawned and stretched and shuffled over to my table once I had sat down. She handed me a menu that that was handwritten on recycled brown paper and looked uncannily like an artist’s sketchbook. I ordered an almond milk tea. She slowly strolled back over to where the coffee maker was, grabbed a mug and started making my drink. I noticed that none of the mugs they had matched, and there was no underlying theme to their randomness. It was as though someone had gone to some garage sale or flea market and took the first mugs they could find and called it a day. It was refreshing. The entire place had the same sort of haphazard décor, but somehow also managed to make all the elements come together and offer a true escape from the outside world.

All of the chairs were wicker, and the tables were all old and used and didn’t match. There were colorful plush pillows and cushions everywhere that could have come from India, Tibet, Thailand, or anywhere exotic. All of the lights and lamps were covered with colorful fabrics or various bejeweled adornments, and there were beads and strings hanging from doorways. Nothing was overly nice or expensive but rather felt second hand, as though it had all been purchased on a whim and thrown together. The walls were covered with posters of famous people, particularly blues musicians and Bob Marley. Interspersed between these posters ancient Chinese garments were pinned up on the walls as well as occasional chalk drawings that a five year old likely could have done. It was the most bizarrely eclectic place I’d been to in a long time or perhaps ever. As a native of Seattle where coffee shops compete to see which can offer the most unique and sometimes worldly feel, it amused me that the real winner was to be found on the other side of the Pacific.

I was so preoccupied and entertained by simply taking in my surroundings that I was caught off guard when the waitress appeared with my drink. I took one sip and was gone. It was so perfectly warm and sweet and delicious, and everything about that place and that moment was so overwhelmingly good, it had to be magic. The surroundings were the setup, and in that cup of milk tea were the ingredients that took me far away. There was the thick base of comfort, a heavy dose of heat and warmth, a distinct flavor of home, a hint of excitement and a dash of adventure.

Perhaps I had traveled like this before, but I was acutely more aware of it now, and this was the first time I was really able to fully appreciate the moment for what it was. The laws of physics may claim that I was still in China and that in fact I hadn’t actually traveled anywhere at all; but I’m not trying to argue with physics. My body was where it was, but the rest of me was lingering in harmony somewhere far away. I wasn’t home, and I wasn’t in China; I was floating somewhere happily in between. It’s not a place on a map, and it’s not a place I’m sure I’ll ever get to visit again, but it’s somewhere many others have traveled to before and a place where many more will find themselves when they least expect it. Maybe it’s the wayfarer’s Never Land, or maybe just an accidental intrusion into Nirvana. Whatever or wherever it was, it’s those moments and those glimpses of heaven in random places on earth that will always keep me traveling and trying new things.

Summary: Sometimes the most fun part about traveling is going to a place you weren’t looking for, didn’t know existed and somewhere you can’t get to on a plane, train, bike or in a car or boat. Xiamen is a place of beauty. I’ll always think back fondly of the white sand beaches, of the stunning Gulang Yu island with its winding alleyways and romantic Western architecture; of the busy and bustling Walking Street flooded with excited pedestrians, and of the twisted tropical trees with roots that spilled down cliff sides like frozen waterfalls. But the fact that they will forever in my mind be eclipsed and outshined by a little mug of milk tea; that is magic.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A Different Set of Rules

Easter Party Anecdote:

The Easter Party that I got to plan was a very Western style of party; goal was for students to hang out and have fun and get a little dose of culture while they were at it. Some of the parties I’ve been a part of at Aston or Ouben have been very different than anything one would ever see while teaching in the States. Then again, teaching and discipline techniques in general are incredibly different from one country to the next as well.

One of the refreshing things about teaching in China is that you can actually share about cultural religious holidays and not worry about offending anyone and brewing up some sort of lawsuit. You can also touch students here. You can hug them, pat them on the back or on the head and not be paranoid that you’ll get sued for sexual harassment. On the other hand, teachers in the public schools sometimes hit students and yell at them rather harshly. I’ve never heard of any outlandish hitting here the way it used to happen in the U.S., but sometimes while teaching in the primary school or doing promo classes the Chinese teacher might smack a student on the head with a rolled up piece of paper or something to get their attention. I’ve heard they are doing away with hitting in the classroom though, which is a good thing. But I certainly don’t envy the Chinese teachers’ job of having to keep a class of 60 – 70 students in line.

As for parties, I noticed a major difference in policy while I was still teaching at Aston in Hefei. During one of the parties that they planned, they had various groups of students that would travel from room to room to participate in different party events. There were about five groups of 10 – 15 students each. The students were anywhere from 5 – 12 years old, typically on the younger end of the spectrum. My roommate George was in charge of the Balloon Room. This room was full of balloons we had all blown up and the students got a balloon tied to their foot and tried to stamp on it. Not sure what the point of that activity was, but after five groups of students popping balloons, George’s ears were not happy. My other roommate Oly was in charge of the relay race room, and I was in charge of Fruit Salad.

For Fruit Salad, the Chinese party planners had bought some fruit, some plates, some plastic gloves, and some knives. My job was to help students learn the names of the fruits, and to then cut up the fruit with the students and make salad for them to eat. That’s right, five separate groups of young children were going to be using sharp knives to cut cucumbers, apples, pears, bananas and honeydew melon. No waivers were signed, and none of the teachers or parents seemed to think this was an unusual party activity. Surprisingly, none of the kids stabbed themselves, stabbed one another or cut off their fingers. The only close calls were when there were more students than there were knives and the students without knives would get impatient and grab for a knife that another student was using.

Though the U.S. is overkill on some of their safety regulations, they are there for a reason. Thankfully nothing happened while these little kiddos were wielding these weapons of minor destruction, but it easily could have. And though political correctness and a constant harping of equality for all can get tiresome, I’ve seen what happens when there is nobody there to argue for those who need it most. My Chinese friend has a teenage son who suffers from either muscular dystrophy or Myasthenia Gravis. This essentially means that his brain works, but his body does not. He is confined to a wheelchair but still attends public school. His class is on the fourth floor. There are no ramps or elevators in the school. Every morning his mother, who is smaller than he is, must carry him on her back up the staircase to his class. In China all the students go home for lunchtime, so his mother must come back and carry him down the stairs to take him home, and then back up again when lunch is finished. I guess I was never overly conscious about handicap accessibility much before because it never directly affected me. After hearing about this story, I don’t think I will ever see a wheelchair symbol without thinking about that family. And each time I see that symbol and think about that family, I will be thankful that I live in a country that believes it has a responsibility to make access equal to everybody.

Summary: Different places live by different rules. Things that seem normal in one place may be shocking in another. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s sad, and sometimes it’s downright dangerous. Whatever the differences are, always remember that they are what make the world an interesting place.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Easter Bunny Visits China

Breathe New Life

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

-Anne Bradstreet

In Huangshan, the air is filled with the scent of sweet, delicious flowers. At home it would be jasmine, lilacs, roses, and daphnia. Here, I have no idea what the names of the plants are, but the petals are just as pink, the pollen just as pungent, and the sight and smell of them just as invigorating as their counterparts back in the States. The return of Spring has brought new life in the form of budding flower blossoms, buzzing insects, chirping flocks of birds and a renewed heat to the sun.

The long, cold, frigid winter had set into my bones like some festering infection and had severely chilled my outlook on all things Chinese. But taking deep breaths of this warm, soothing air was like sipping on an expensive Merlot; the more I ingested the more I could feel the warmth in my stomach, my legs and all the way to the very tips of my fingers. This warmth woke me up and helped me remember that though the winter was cold, springtime still fluttered back as it always does and that on its wings came many blessings. One such blessing came in the form of care packages from family and friends filled with Cadbury mini eggs and other Easter candies. Silly as it sounds, these packages were tasty reminders of the people I was blessed with having in my life. The contents in these packages also helped me explain some of the Easter traditions to my students and Chinese friends.

Wherever you are, Springtime is about new life. Back home the Easter holiday is a way for us to celebrate this new life, and I wanted to share this tradition with my students. My employer, Moon, and I decided I should host an Easter party at the school. I was responsible for all the planning, and she wanted it to be a party like students might experience in Western cultures. She said that Chinese parties at school typically entail having students stand up in front of everybody and reciting something. Yikes. Though my party certainly lacked in actual language practice, they got a much more vivid sense of what parties and holidays are like for students in the U.S. For our Easter Party, students each decorated an egg, colored in an Easter Bunny mask and then went on an egg hunt. Good times were had by all.

Though I didn’t get to spend Easter stuffing my face at a family party, I got to spend it surrounded by laughter and smiles. I got to share a part of my culture with the people closest to me, and in return I got a renewed enthusiasm for teaching these students who were so happy to be celebrating with me.

Summary: When Spring rolls around, take time to stop and smell the roses. Appreciate the moment you are in, and take pride in the fact that you made it through the winter. If you are teaching, breathe new life into your lessons by sharing a part of your culture with your students. And if you are lucky enough to have loved ones far away send you a care package filled with Easter candy, make sure to spread the love by sharing it with those who are near you.