Teaching

I started teaching yesterday and I was exhausted after 4 hours of talking! I am teaching at a private university called Jiaotong University City College. It is rather strange but there is a very prestigious public university called Jiaotong University, which is just over a small bridge from where I live. Somehow the two institutions are related. The catch is that the place where I work is way out of town; there are even vegetable fields and a peach orchard out there. There are a number of concrete buildings out in the middle of nowhere, rather nice ones, though. A bus comes by for the teachers at 7:20 and arrives at the school at about 8:00. There is time for breakfast in the cafeteria before classes begin. I get both breakfast and at noon, lunch. Then a bus returns to the city at noon for those who only have morning classes, and returns to City College for afternoon classes. The final bus leaves at 5:15 and one had better be on it! I will be paid a small amount of money each month that should cover travel and living expenses. Everything is very cheap.

Yesterday I met two of my classes for the first time, the 2nd semester freshmen and the 2nd semester sophomore English majors. I’m teaching oral skills. I meet with each class once a week for two 50-minute period blocks. I will teach two other sections of the same classes, and pick up classes with the computer majors next week. I’m not sure how many hours I will have, but the Chinese teachers teach 16. All the students have English names that they have chosen; it would take me forever to learn their Chinese names.

I am generally impressed with the level of the students’ English, especially the sophomores. Some are quite fluent and confident, although the freshmen are generally shy. They all need to practice conversing with native speakers. One young woman wanted to engage me in a conversation about Obama and the world’s financial crisis. They’re typical kids, though, who like watching TV, sleeping, surfing the net, and listening to music. They all watch an American TV series on the Internet called Prison Break – have you heard of it? They like to play ping-pong and badminton. There are 45 students in the freshman sections and 35 in the sophomore sections - many students to practice communication skills with, so we will be doing a lot of group work. The majority are girls. The classrooms are nice. I wear long underwear, a sweater, and polar fleece. So far I have been able to remove my down vest and still be very comfortable.

The public university has about 30,000 students studying all subjects, undergraduate and graduate studies. The campus is lovely with tree-lined streets. It’s a great place to walk and there is a track too. I am living in the area where most of the teachers and professors live.

The private institution, City College, has about 6,000 students, all English, computer, business, or art majors and is only three years old. The students who go to the public university pay about $750 a year, and the private students pay $1500, so they come from well-to-do families. Room and board is extra, but also required, and it’s cheap. All students must live in dorms.

The English teachers are very sweet. I am sharing an office with Jean (who I haven’t met yet), from the University of Nebraska. There’s a partnership between the two schools and Jean is teaching students who will go to Lincoln to study. She’s been here 1 1/2 years already and will finish this summer. I have my own desk and my own computer, so at least I will have a good Internet connection when I am at school.

One of the English teachers, Lillian, has been helping me with Chinese. The sounds are really difficult, and of course the tones make it even more difficult, but I am trying. I have found that the biggest problem is trying to communicate with taxi drivers – none seem to speak any English. I try to have places written down in Chinese so that there is a chance that I will arrive where I want to. I have found that out in public there is always someone that will come to my rescue and speak English. As in Romania, the older people learned Russian in school so I try to approach younger people. Lillian has helped me in every way imaginable and she has become a wonderful friend. She has a two-year old son. She explained how babies are programmed to urinate in response to a sh-sh-sh sound. When the baby is about 2 months old, the sound is made and the baby is put in an appropriate position every 2 hours. Eventually the baby catches on, thus the open crotch on the pants.

When I was told we would have teachers’ meetings on Wednesday, I assumed they would be for the rest of the week as in public school. There was a 45-minute meeting on Wednesday, all in Chinese, and then I found out that we were finished until Monday. Since I did not have classes on the first Monday, I quickly made an escape Xi’an plan. I flew (2 hour flight) to Hangzhou. It is on the Southeast coast, not too far south of Shanghai. The air was clean, the sky blue, and the sun bright. It was green and lush. I certainly found out why: it rained practically nonstop from Saturday late afternoon and was still raining when I left on Monday morning. There’s a big lake, which is a beautiful place to walk, especially on several causeways where there are numerous bridges, gardens, pavilions, and museums.

I rented a mountain bike from the hostel where I was staying and went to the Tea Museum Saturday morning. Hangzhou is an area where some of the very best green tea is grown, called Lingjing. The area is very hilly with terraced tea shrubs growing up the sides of the hills. The cool wet climate is perfect for the tea. After the museum I was just riding and stopped to look at a sign, meanwhile a young woman biked up to me and asked if I would like to join her and her husband for the afternoon. They were on their way up the mountain to do some rock climbing near the top of one of the hills. I accepted her invitation. “Jeanie” had just been in the States and said she had met so many friendly generous people that she wanted to reciprocate. They had me biking up the hill following them. We got to the village and then started pulling our bike up steps near homes. We soon left the homes behind and then there were only terraced tea gardens.

Occasionally we could ride on a narrow path, but mostly it was dragging the bikes up the hill. It seems that all of the hills have steps going to the top. The last 200 yards or so, her husband carried my bike since I just could not manage anymore. The rock face where they were practicing was small, but challenging enough for them since the small group were all beginners except for the two instructors. Jeanie shared their snacks consisting of a non-sweet pancake with green onions, a stuffed dumpling, and duck tongue. I tried one! We were there several hours. I watched and basked in the sun in a hammock, and also walked up the last 150 yards or so to the top. There were several dozen people walking there. Upon our return to the city, we took the cobble stone trail called Nine Creeks down. We really did cross the creek nine times, dragging or carrying our bikes while we walked on rocks. It was beautiful with steep hills terraced on both sides and tall trees growing up the hillside. Then the rain began, and we got very wet before reaching my hostel. Lovely people that I had a delightful day with, and I certainly got my exercise.