I have been having a few difficulties here the last little
bit and my mood has been all over the place. Often, I will feel injured by the
students as they can be a bit harsh sometimes (not just to me, but to each
other), and I can’t tell if this is especially because of a language barrier or
because they are just a little more brutally honest in the way they talk to
each other. They will tell each other “you are fat”, “you are ugly”, “you’re
stupid” and constantly laugh at each other's mistakes; it would make
anti-bullying advocates at home cringe. They are right in the midst of their
teenage years where self-image and self-esteem are of the utmost importance,
and here they are breaking down the flaws of each of their classmates right to
their face. However, I can’t help but see the positive in this honest way of
talking to each other too. Sure, they will tell each other the negatives, but
they also share an abundance of positives with each other. They are not afraid
to speak up and say someone is beautiful, and I often will even get encouraging
words from the students. They are also very touchy and not afraid to hug or
hold each other. In between classes I will often see friends in the hallways
with their arms around each other just standing there, sometimes the boys will
put their hands in each others pockets, and you rarely see girls walking
without linking arms with each other. At first, it was strange to see people
walking around holding hands and we weren't sure if this was friendship or not
(these things would not be as openly accepted between friends in Canada), but we can see now that
it really is just them showing friendly affection.
Last week, a TV journalist came to my class and filmed me
teaching. We had 2 Australian high school students here on exchange, Jasmine
and Lauren, and they participated as well as Alethea (almost wrote “Miss A” as
that is her nickname here) who encouraged the students to speak more.
Basically, the students were assigned a situation within their groups and they
had to create a conversation to act out in front of the class. The students are
familiar with this kind of activity so they were comfortable to do this and
Alethea and I were able to coax a lot out of them. I was a little nervous at
first, but after realizing that the journalist couldn’t speak English I was
less worried about saying something wrong. After, they interviewed Alethea,
Jasmine and I and we said “Happy New Year” to Chenzhou. I received a letter
from one of my students telling me how proud she was of me as I looked very
confident and graceful. I thought she was a little shy in front of the cameras,
but her letter was to inform me that she really felt uncomfortable because she
doesn’t like the local news station and she only participated a little because
she didn’t want to let me down. She’s a very sweet girl who is not afraid to
tell me her feelings and opinions.
Another thing that was making me a bit frustrated was some
students’ perceptions of English foreigners and the stereotypes of Canadians.
One of the teachers has been telling students that all Canadians and Americans
hate vegetables—I guess commercials will often portray us this way, so I don’t
blame them, but they were definitely surprised when Alethea and I said we love
vegetables! They also believe that all foreigners are rich and when I explained
that I worked hard to save money to come here, they didn’t seem to believe me.
Lastly, and the most talked-about stereotype, is the idea that we have it
really easy in Canada in terms of schooling. They go to class from 7:30am to as
late as 8 or 9pm, they have class sizes of about 55-65, tests 4 times a week
and exams once a month. I think this is a pretty crazy workload, but they also
don’t have extracurricular activities or part-time jobs, and large breaks
throughout the day including a 2-hour lunch break. With a comparison like this,
it is difficult to explain to the students that we don’t necessarily have it
easy in Canada, it’s just different. I think explaining that I have had a
consistent part-time job since I was 16 really opened their eyes, as well as
the amount of reading and assignments in university. I really do think they
have a lot of pressures here that are different than in Canada though and it’s
interesting to see the differences and similarities in the way they face these.
Alethea and I have been planning for our vacation time as
it’s coming up very soon!! We have about a month off so Alethea and I will go
to Beijing for 10 days, leaving on January 29th. On Feb 10th (which is the
official Lunar New Year!) my boyfriend, Trevor, will be coming from Canada to
join us on our travels and we will then head to Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Shanghai,
and Nanjing. I’m really excited to see more of China and also to see how
everyone celebrates the Spring Festival/ Lunar New Year here. We’ve had a bit
of a headache planning for the trip as it’s difficult for us to buy tickets
without knowing Chinese, but also we can’t get tickets very far in advance.
Maggie (a woman working in the Dean's office who did our visa paperwork here in
Chenzhou) has been extremely helpful in helping us plan and enlisted the help
of her husband as well, but our company doesn’t like us to ask the teachers for
any help. They sent us an email that told us to be careful of this and that
they will help us from now on. I have been feeling a bit frustrated with the
company though as they do not answer us very promptly and it is difficult to
secure a ticket unless you get them right away as so many people are travelling
for the holiday. As well, they didn’t confirm our holiday fast enough so we had
to change a lot of our vacation plans and now they want to change it again.
Alethea and I are trying to keep a clear head though and understand that so
many people here have a more “live in the moment” attitude and don’t tend to
plan ahead too far. For the most part, we are able to go along with this fine,
and I have always been a pretty flexible and spontaneous person. However, when
planning a trip like this, it makes me a bit anxious to change things too much.
We shall just live and learn I suppose!
