China: Don't Go There Until...

China: Don’t go there until…

by Rob Walters

Version: 1.2

First published in 2012

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © Rob Walters

The moral right of Rob Walters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to Margaret, my wife, who made it all possible.

Introduction

The army of people who regularly descend on China to teach its youngsters English has a multitude of motives. One cutting website that has been reporting on the plight of foreign teachers for some years divides the army into three groups which could be labelled: young, old and in the middle. The young are graduates who travel to China for the experience of teaching in this strange country before beginning their careers. The old are doing the same at the end of theirs and the middle group are those who are escaping failure in their home countries. Yes, it’s harsh, but like all crude categorisations it contains grains of truth.

So what were we? Well, old, I suppose - though it is never that simple. My wife retrained as a foreign language teacher fairly late in life and gained some experience in Oxford teaching some of the kids that flock to my city to learn ‘Oxford English’, something that does not exist but is one hell of a brand. We went east to attend a pig killing. Our son lived in Taiwan and had recently had his own son and the poor pig had to die to celebrate the birth (he’s married to a Taiwanese aboriginal lady). Whilst we were there my wife found a teaching job on the mainland in a city that we had never heard of: Yan’an. The agency asked her if I could teach too since the school required two teachers and I said yes (thus destroying all hopes of a four-month writing holiday as a kept man).

And so we were committed. We signed contracts, agreed a laughable salary and received a start date for our induction course in May of 2007.

The experience was... well, mind stretching. The country is so big, the people so diverse and the intimate task of teaching vast classrooms of teenagers and actually living in a school was an insight that that you cannot buy.

And a little, just a little, like the man who liked a product so much that he bought the company – we went back four years later. The dice seemed to be loaded since we landed jobs in exactly the same province, yet this second experience was very different. On this visit we were not awestruck by the vastness of China and the shocked reaction of people to our presence. This time we could be more reflective: we could observe and compare. We were not green and we did know a little, not a lot, but a little, of the Chinese psyche.

And so in February of 2011 we arrived once again at the city of Xi’an and began the journey to our new school.

What follows is an edited log of the notes that I wrote during those two visits. It is certainly not meant to be a textbook on how to teach English in China – far from it – and it does include many recollections of travel and leisure in addition to those on teaching. However, as a textbook it does contain some useful tips and some cautionary experiences. It probably will not discourage anyone from undertaking a similar experience, though it may make anyone considering the adventure a little wary. Note that I have changed the names of some of the people that we met on our two trips, for reasons that will become evident.

I would not have missed these two sojourns in China for anything. The memories live on, fresh and clear in many cases. And for me the experience bore fruit. On my return to England following the first visit I was inspired to write a novel: my third. I called it Shaken by China and, though fictional of course, it draws heavily on my experience of living and working in Yan’an. You can see more details of this book and purchase it for download to Kindles etc at my online bookshop (www.robsbookshop.com).

(A note on money: I think the cost of things forms an important part of scene setting and have recorded costs in English pounds or Chinese yuan. Approximate exchange rates were:

On our first trip the pound was worth two American dollars or fifteen yuan.

On our second trip the pound was worth one point six American dollars or ten yuan. )

Part 1: The first visit

Chapter 1 In the beginning

We spent two weeks in the paradise island of Taiwan. And yes, it is a paradise, especially its wonderful flora, fauna and geology. Also the people were very friendly. But the houses - yuk. They were generally pre-cast concrete monstrosities that were blotched with the black and green algae stains which seem quite inevitable in the island’s tropical climate. But the birds, the butterflies, frogs, the snakes, the mountains, flowers and trees – these were the things to remember.

The pig killing ceremony to welcome the birth of our new grandson - Dali - was a great occasion. It was an all-day affair held near the village where my son’s native partner had been born and the village where she had been living for a month following the birth (a tradition of the Atayal tribe). It consisted of killing, butchering and barbecuing a black pig, drinking lots of beer (the first time that I have started drinking at 6 a.m. – I think), rice pounding, karaoke, speeches from the tribal leader translated into Chinese and then English, much shorter speeches from me translated into Chinese, and questions from one of the tribe about the effect that the birth of Dali would have on world peace! Then there was more karaoke and more fresh pork and rubbery rice swilled down with beer. Then sleep for some, more beer and karaoke and dancing for others. Then swimming in a nearby river pool for some, quiet walks for others. Then an expedition to obtain further supplies of beer. Then more pork, rice, beer, karaoke, speeches, more of everything in fact, followed by a long drive back to Taipei with most people asleep, but the stalwarts still drinking beer.

Rafe, our son, lived in another aboriginal village a good way out of the city of Taipei where he worked. Wulei is a hot-springs resort, very overdeveloped and yet primitive in many ways. It lies in a beautiful valley cut by the River Xindian and is surrounded by towering, tree-covered hills. Sounds nice, but the place actually reminded me a of a bizarre chemical works with its multitude of plastic pipes threading their way between buildings, straddling the river and winding their way up to the hot springs high above.

Margaret and I went on a trip to the eastern coast which was relatively undeveloped. On Rafe’s recommendation we daringly hired a scooter (road traffic there was anarchic) and explored a little of the incredible Taroko Gorge which wanders through sheer marble cliffs. We also visited Juoefien, a town set in a stunning location near the coast. There I climbed Mount Jilong (it has steps all the way up) and on reaching the top found a large group of people partying: cooking, eating, playing music, laughing and chatting. Naturally I ignored them, staring fixedly at the views in a cold English manner. But they would have none of that. They dragged me into the throng, plied me with fruit and nuts, asked me where I was from and posed with me for photographs. The Taiwanese are very friendly.

We spent a lot of time in the 7/11 convenience stores which abound in the island. For the fearful traveller they provide the soft option of pre-packed food (their microwave heated railway lunch was delicious, and edible with chopsticks - hence no dirty fingers) and cheap beer. The stores usually had basic tables and chairs outside and in. I treated my wife to a number of nights out in a 7/11.

We flew to Hong Kong, it was impossible to fly directly into mainland China at that time, and then to Yangshou in the south of China where our ‘orientation’ was to take place. Yangshou is an incredible place: a truly unique location. The town lies amongst strange limestone karsts which abound in this area of China. These are strangely shaped hills with very steep sides, some of them look like volcanic plugs, but they are not. They are generally small in diameter but tall, wooded and abrupt. How the trees and bushes cling to them I do not know. To see them shrouded in mist and vanishing into the distance is one of the world’s most entrancing sight.

Yangshuo

The town itself was a madness of commerce and boasted transport of every kind. The basic taxi here was a motorbike with two passengers crammed onto the pillion seat. I wish that I had a photo of my wife - squashed between the driver of one of these machines and our Chinese friend, David – her face frozen in terror as the bike slipped between a great trailer-like thing powered by a stationery engine and a three-wheeled heap overflowing with fruit. But I could not take that photo; I was too busy clinging to the rear carrier of my own ‘taxi’. Every form of wheeled transport known to mankind thronged the roads of Yangshuo in those days, not to mention the pavements which were crowded with silent, electrical scooters.

Beer was three yuan a large bottle in our hostel – about twenty English pence. However, in West Street, in bars like the Buffalo or the Lounge Lizard you could pay more than ten yuan: still cheap by our standards. West Street sold everything from silk dresses to Omega watches, all ‘genuine’, all at special discount prices. It leads to the River Li where I realised a boyhood dream: we went out on a boat in the darkness with a cormorant fisherman and saw the whole business in action – fascinating.

We worked for a company called Buckland which, despite its name, was owned by a Chinaman. Buckland did not pay us whilst we attended the induction course, but did provide us with free food which we ate in a communal lounge along with other teachers and students. The students were delightful. Mostly female, young, enthusiastic and keen to practice their English, they were there for advanced study - most of them already spoke English quite well.

We befriended an Australian couple who were also in Yangshuo for induction. They were very unhappy with their accommodation, though ours was not too bad. Our teacher was a Canadian lady called Betts who was a really experienced foreign teacher and had an ability to communicate her knowledge in a relaxed and friendly way. She did however frighten us with tales of very large classes and intransigent school authorities who had little sympathy or understanding of the needs of foreign teachers. She told us that we would all get ill – and she was correct.

Her husband was an affable man considerably older than she was. He had various impenetrable business interests in China and told me in a whispered aside that, this was the country for old men. He was over eighty years old at that time and clearly enjoying the respect accorded to the aged by the young in China.

Our training over we had a day of leisure sailing up the river beyond Xinping where the karsts were even more spectacular and the villagers lived in adobe houses. The mountains there had names like Seven Horses and the Camel – because of their odd shapes and markings. We saw women washing clothes in the river and adobe huts with satellite TV dishes on them. We also saw the endearing classical Chinese scene of coolie hatted men following a plough drawn by a water buffalo through flooded rice paddies.

That night we went to a show. Normally called the light show it was phenomenal in scope, size, colour, imagination and I do not know what else: a grand work of art on a colossal scale. What is China’s greatest asset (and challenge)? People. And this show, with an apparent cast of thousands enacted on a large lake surrounded by those weird limestone karsts which were illuminated by hundreds of moveable, colour variable floodlights, used China’s asset to amazing advantage. It would take too long to explain. Suffice to say that we were both very moved; I even spilt my beer.

Yangshuo was our introduction to mainland China (discounting Hong Kong and Taiwan, of course) and I do not think that there could have been a better one. But our holiday was soon over, our challenge about to begin. We flew from Guilin to Xian where Frank, our minder and fixer and an employee of the Buckland agency met us. He introduced us to the big city then placed us on the train to the city where we were to become teachers.

Chapter 2 First lessons

Frank kindly provided us with the more expensive ‘soft sleeper’ train tickets to our new home in Yan’an which was quite unnecessary since the journey was only five hours long. Yan’an is in the north of China, in Shaanxi province (two ‘a’s), which, by the way, is next to Shanxi province (one ‘a’) – really. The journey was intriguing as we slipped through the strange loess hills of our new province. Loess is effectively dust congealed into a very soft rock, mostly red in colour. Because it is soft, it is shapely. You can watch the wind and rain do their worst, not in thousands or millions of years of erosion, but in days.

We were met at the railway station by a man of some importance, a deputy head of our school. He was accompanied by his translator, a lovely English teacher called Mandy (many of the Chinese have an English name in addition to their real one), and the chauffeur – the driver of the school car. They took us to a restaurant near the school, a place we came to call the ‘school canteen’, for a delightful welcoming lunch and afterwards to our flat.

The flat was very dirty; nothing had been touched since the last two teachers left in despair. The toilet, shower and washing machine did not work, the bed still had dirty linen on it and there were dubious smelly things fermenting in the fridge. But the lounge was very nice and the computer had an Internet connection.

Our first visitor was Mr Wu He burst into the room as if he owned the place and did not introduce himself. It was not a good start, but sometimes in life a bad start is the precursor to a good ending. Mr Wu was our Foreign Affairs Officer, our minder in the school and, as the weeks went by, he became a good friend, guide and advisor. He told us a little about the school and our role there. The good news was that we had a week of preparation time – we did not need to start teaching until the following Monday. The bad news was that we would each have twenty classes per week with roughly sixty students in each class.

We began to complain, not about the workload but about our living conditions. We told Mr Wu that we could not stay at the school if there was no hot water: we needed to shower each day. He played with the taps on the little water heater in the kitchen and announced that he had obtained hot water. He had, but not much. I tried the shower. The water was hot, but there was little more than a trickle, sufficient only to shower a small mouse. Mr Wu said that the vice-headmaster must be consulted.

The next day our minder took us to the grand and spacious office of the vice-head. I admired the ornate sink, the bed (yes, beds in offices are quite usual in China for the higher ranks) and the desk while Mr Wu, the vice head and the party secretary (no idea why he was there) conversed in Chinese. Mr Wu then turned to us to say that everything would be all right: the vice-head would fix things. I didn’t believe it and said again that we would leave if there were no hot water for showering.

This was difficult for Mr Wu; he was after all just the messenger and did not relish delivering bad news to his boss. After a pause he translated and there was a heated discussion and much smoking of cigarettes. Finally all three rose and left the room signalling us to follow. We marched silently to the maintenance department where two maintenance men leapt to their feet as we entered. There was more exchange of cigarettes and strong words then we all marched off to the flat. All, that is, except the party secretary who slunk off into his spacious office (also with a bed). On arrival everyone played with the taps, smoked and shouted at each other. Naturally none of this produced anything more than the usual trickle from the shower. Everyone left and we opened the window too release the smoke and hot air.

Later that day a more competent looking man called. He at least had a tool kit so things looked hopeful – but it was no good. He did many adjustments but we still had a mere trickle from the shower. He then wanted me to sign a form entirely written in Chinese characters which I would not. He became either cross or exasperated, or both and stormed out of the flat.

Next day Mr Wu called. We were not happy. This was our second day without a shower and I told him that we were now going to leave. I stated very definitely that if the school did nothing to improve the situation by the next day then we were off. He looked very worried and said that he would go to see the vice-head. The next day we had a wholesome flow of hot water! I do not know how they did it, nor did I care. Persistence had paid off. We were staying.

Betts had warned us during our induction course that the Chinese school system is very different from our own. They start work at 7.30 a.m. and finish at 9.30 p.m. for six days a week or more. The education itself is very exam oriented yet, she explained, we should expect that a proportion of the students would be asleep! As we settled into the flat we found that we could observe one sleeper in his classroom from our lounge window. He seemed to wake up only for breaks when he smoked a surreptitious cigarette through the open window.

We began to learn something of our area. The whole northern province was a dust bowl and our area of Yan’an was quite poor. There were open sewers all around and the people who lived behind our fifth floor flat (which was within the school) lived in appalling conditions by our standards. Most people stared at me as if I had just arrived form Jupiter or further – really. They just stared and stared, quite rudely and with no reaction. In groups they laughed at us. With some exceptions, most people did not talk, smile or greet us in any way. We were so exotic that people were wary or shy of us.

Mr Wu took us to the centre of the Yan’an on the following day. This was a little better than the immediate environs of the school. It had pagodas and some temples which we planned to visit later. It also had a KFC, which presumably qualified it to claim city status. And more good news. Our contract promised us a bicycle each and Mr Wu finally gave me a key to the storeroom where they were kept. I soon took mine out for a test ride. It was a modern bike with suspension and gears. Mr Wu told me that it cost the equivalent of thirty-six English pounds when new. I guessed that in England it would sell for one hundred pounds.

On our second trip to central Yan’an we quickly finished with the shops (thank goodness) then visited the News Museum. An etched metal plate on the wall called the place ‘The cradle of news and publishing cause of the New China’. It was a major source of communist propaganda when Mao made Yan’an his headquarters back in the late 1940s. The communists built the place within a hill. They had excavated caves to provide offices, printing press rooms, communication centres and so on. Intricately fashioned wax models mimicked the activities that revolutionaries carried out in these caves (we found later that Chinese museums are often populated by these things) which made the place quite eerie. Though we were the only visitors within the museum we were constantly aware of the presence of other people yet, when we turned to look at them, we realised that they were models.

Street Singers in Yan’an

We decided to climb up to the temple way above the museum, but first we had to pass through a courtyard swarming with people, many of them listening to a group of musicians singing and playing the er-hu, an odd two-stringed ‘cello’ which was popular there and very Chinese. We stopped to listen and noticed that the crowd’s attention soon began to wander. They began to watch us watching the musicians! Hundreds of them. At one point one of the singers even offered me the microphone, but I declined. It was still very strange to us that local people regarded us as such a spectacle. Later, in that same square, a young man came up to us and tried to converse in English. In no time at all a crowd of thirty or so had formed around us, craning forward to catch anything that we said, yet understanding nothing.

The temple was big and surprisingly well maintained considering that Yan’an was the Red Army headquarters for so many years. The approach to it and the descent afterwards took us through living conditions that made the claims of poverty in the UK quite laughable. The people there lived in sewage-washed squalor; the smell can be sickening and many of the houses were near derelict. Yet life goes on, and just at the bottom of the hill was one of Yan’an’s finest restaurants. China is a land of contrasts.

After a week of exploring and settling in, the day at last arrived for my first teaching appointment: 10 a.m. Monday morning, Class 5 Senior 1. I had spent an hour or two preparing myself the night before, including time fighting the computer in our flat, which was fractious. I had put together an introduction based on my life as a city guide followed by an exercise where the students became tour guides of their own city. I woke early that morning (it was quite noisy), but waited for