|
Bryan Stumpf's China Journal |
||
|
School's Out in
Shanghai It’s Fourth of July weekend and it’s hotter than blazes in Shanghai. We’re in the middle of rainy season, which doesn’t necessarily mean continuous rain like you might expect; it’s more long stretches of scorching heat followed by brief, yet torrential downpours. It’s been so long since I sent an up-to-date journal entry I don’t know where to begin. All of the other foreign teachers from America have already returned home - they all packed up and moved out just days after teaching their last class. So it’s pretty quiet on my floor of the apartment building now. But hey, my teaching in China is behind me, and I now have the time to catch up in my journal. As my semester in Shanghai came to a close, I reflected on how rigorous the semester had actually been. We really covered a lot of territory and worked diligently. The students learned five different essay styles and we plowed through some challenging grammar work. And all along, while they were learning from me, I was learning from them. There were, of course, many challenges for me along the way. To anyone who ever plans to teach in China - be prepared to be misunderstood in ways you never imagined. I discovered that instructions that had always been crystal clear to my American students could be SO misinterpreted by my Chinese students. So misinterpreted, in fact, that I often had a difficult time undoing the confusion. But all in all, I am very proud with my students’ efforts. They made huge strides in a very complicated language. (If you don’t think English is complicated, try teaching grammar sometime.) One of the semester’s highlights was during our last few weeks of classes – the students performed skits. First, I had them read scripted dialogues from their class text. Then, I had them write their own dialogues. I put them into groups and supplied them with particular characters - they would then have to write an English conversation for these characters. After a half-hour of scripting dialogue, they would perform their dialogue in front of the class. And if the day happened to be warm and sunny, we’d do the performances outside on the grass. In one class, they had to write a dialogue with the following characters: a husband who wants a TV, a wife who doesn’t want a TV, a TV salesperson who, of course, wants to sell a TV, and a child who would rather be at a toy store or getting ice cream. The performances were brilliant! Some of the students performed with such gusto you’d think they were auditioning for Broadway. It was fun hearing them come up with creative English phrases: “Dad always makes noise when he watches TV.” “We should regenerate the TV. The old TV in our family has only one function.” “I find you quite bananas!” “TV is useless, I want to have an iceberg.” (Noticing the non sequitur in the last statement, I suggested to the student that perhaps he meant to say, “ice cream” instead of “iceberg.”) As the semester came to a close, many students became more comfortable practicing their English with me. In fact, some would even sit with me on the hour-long bus ride from the suburban campus back to the main campus and maintain a conversation for the whole ride. I actually enjoyed doing this, but I had to make sure I allowed for long pauses in our conversation. The student often needs these long pauses to first think of a question, then to contemplate whether it is an appropriate question, and then finally to think of how to best phrase the question in English. This all takes time and I had to be patient. I had to fight against my natural reaction of filling the empty pauses with mindless chitchat. That would only break the student’s concentration. As a way of practicing English in the classroom, we sometimes had question and answer time at the end of class. During this time, students could ask me any questions about living in America or my impressions of China. Throughout my time in China, there’ve been several instances where I’ve found myself fielding queries from Chinese questioners simply because, in their eyes, I represent America. One instance that immediately springs to mind is my experience in English Corner. Every Sunday morning, groups of Chinese gather in one corner of in People’s Square to practice their English. Yaping and I went to English Corner on one Sunday in the middle of May. On our way there, Yaping warned me that as soon as the people at English Corner realize there is an America in their midst, they will flock to me and bombard me with questions. When we found the location in the park, there was already a modest gathering. And just as Yaping predicted, as soon as I was spoke my American English, I was immediately surrounded. Within 15 minutes, I was surrounded by at least 30 people. They started peppering me with easy questions, like where I live in America and what I do for a living, but eventually, the questions became more difficult. Some people sought a definitive answer to a question when a definitive answer was impossible. For example, one young man wanted me to interpret a line from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “I am a transparent eye.” I tried to explain I couldn’t give a definitive interpretation of the quote. When the young man didn’t seem satisfied by this response, I made up some balderdash about Emerson being a really perceptive guy. Also, there was one older gentleman who told me he had a daughter studying for her doctorate at SUNY Binghamton. He wanted me to provide him with career advice for his daughter, “Should she stay in America and find a job or come back to China and work on her dissertation?” It was as if the crowd saw me as some oracle that would give the correct answer to any question. Along with questions about career options in America, I was also asked questions about American politics. In fact, the two most common questions were, “How can I get a job in America?” and “Who will you vote for in the next presidential election?” I always responded to the latter question by saying I was “undecided.” And it wasn’t all just Q&A – a few of them wanted to tell me their personal history. One very old man, probably in his 80s, talked about his friendship with the president of Jiao Tong University. Another man, probably in his 50s, said he used to go to school at Stanford. But when the Cultural Revolution began in China, he was asked to return to China. As soon as he returned, he was branded an “intellectual” and promptly jailed. He said he spent three years in jail because he had an American education. I ended up talking to the crowd for almost 3 hours. Yaping literally had to drag me out of their clutches - there were many that still had so many questions for the American. Though I was a little hoarse and a little exhausted afterward, I loved every minute of it. I felt like a celebrity. So after this experience in English Corner, I felt I was well prepared for an hour-long Q& A with my students in our last class. In previous Q&As, students’ questions were mostly about the differences and similarities between America and China. But in this last Q&A, I was surprised by how candid and personal some of the questions became. One male student asked if I had a girlfriend at home in America. Another male student asked if I would like to have a Chinese girlfriend? For both questions, I responded with “no comment.” For the most part though, our last Q&A revolved around the images of America the students had seen through American TV and movies. A few students had questions about American sports. One student asked if the Lakers or Pistons would win the playoffs. (Though the play-offs had just started when the question was asked, I proved my uncanny foresight by predicting the Pistons would win.) Also, the students asked me about American movies. One student asked if all American teenagers are like the teenagers in “American Pie.” With this question, I felt it necessary to give a two-minute lecture on how the Americans they see in movies do not represent all Americans. And most certainly, the sex-crazed teenagers of “American Pie” do not represent all American teenagers. Unfortunately, they seemed fascinated by the “American” behavior in “American Pie.” I was also asked to decipher jokes that they had heard in American films, yet didn’t understand. For example, in “You’ve Got Mail,” a girl introduces herself as “Rose,” a guy jokingly introduces himself as “Orange.” Ha! As you might imagine, even after I explained the joke, they still didn’t find it funny - you could blame my mangled explanation of the joke, but really, the jokes they wanted me to decode were pretty lame. In an effort to preserve the integrity of American humor, potty jokes and all, I gave another two-minute lecture on how some American comedies poorly reflect American wit. Of course, after bringing our semester to a close, it was time for final exams. For the oral final exam, I just interviewed each student, asking questions like, “If you could have a conversation with any world leader, living or dead, who would it be and why?” (By the way, the most common answer to this question was Bill Clinton – I cannot stress enough how it seems every Chinese person seems to LOVE Bill Clinton.) And regardless of their answers to the questions, all in all, most of the students received very high marks on their oral final exams And though they may not have become perfect writers within one semester… (Here are a couple of the phrases from their final exam essays: Found in an essay about writing: “My little brother who is now in elementary school often complains that he feels drizzle when writing.” Found in an essay about TV: “Your eyes will be damaged by looking at the twinkle screen long time.”) …the important thing is that they clearly learned the “writing process” from me. The writing process consists of three parts: 1) pre-writing (preparing for the essay with brainstorming and outlines), 2) writing, and 3) post-writing (proofreading and revising). On the morning of June 28th, they had their writing final exam. In the final exam classroom, there were two groups of students – my students and the students of a Jiao Tong instructor. For the final exam, they had to write one essay within one hour and 30 minutes. At 8am, they were handed an 11 by 17 piece of paper. The final exam instructions were in the top left corner of the paper, and in the remaining space of the paper, they were expected to write their essay. No computers, no scrap paper, no dictionaries, just a pen and the one sheet of paper. I thought it was unfair they couldn’t use dictionaries, and I was disappointed they didn’t have any scrap paper for pre-writing. But within 5 minutes of starting their exams, practically every one of my students raised their hand to request scrap paper for pre-writing. The students of the Jiao Tong instructor started scribbling away on their essays without any pre-writing. Afterwards, I briefly compared the essays from my students and the other students; I could clearly see that my students benefited from choosing to do pre-writing. I was so proud of my students. And then it was time to grade the final exam essays. This is always an arduous task, but it was made somewhat more difficult because of a miscommunication about the deadline to hand in final grades. I actually ended up handing in my final grades late. Let me explain: If you ever visit China, make sure you understand that when someone says, “Take your time,” it SO does not mean that. For example, if you hear someone say, “Teachers at Jiao Tong usually hand their grades in by the end of finals week, but you can take your time,” what this person really means is, “Final grades must be handed in by the end of finals week and no later.” Xiaohong, my boss at Jiao Tong, told me to “take my time” handing in my final grades. So I proposed that I would hand them in on the Friday of finals week. I had assumed this was actually a pretty timely deadline – it would be only three days after the final exam essays were written. Xiaohong responded with, “Sure, just hand them in whenever you can, just take your time.” BUT on Wednesday morning, just when I was feeling mentally prepared to START grading final essays, I get a call from Yaping. This was our dialogue: Yaping and the other teachers were very accommodating, and
I was able to hand in my grades on Friday afternoon – my original, yet
ultimately fictional, deadline. Most importantly, I was able to give each
student’s essay the thorough evaluation it deserved. I owed them that much. Bowling in China is very similar to bowling in America, the main difference possibly being the increased likelihood of technical difficulties in Chinese bowling alleys. I doubt the bowling alley my students took me to represents all Chinese bowling alleys, but if it does, then bowlers in China have an advantage over bowlers around the world - if their bowling ball doesn’t knock down all the pins, then the mechanism that handles the pins probably will. For example, there were a few times when on my first roll, I knocked down, say 7 of the 10 pins, but as the pin-handling mechanism prepped the pins for my second roll, it would accidentally knock down the 3 remaining pins. So there were a few times when I did the impossible - I got a spare with just one roll. It didn’t matter though. It was nice to get out of the classroom to talk more casually and joke more frequently with my students. They treated more like an old friend than a teacher, though with perhaps a little more fawning - whenever I bowled a strike, my students would cheer and applaud. Another way Chinese students are different from American students is their absolute respect for teachers. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will always do their homework and have perfect attendance, but I definitely felt appreciated – something I can’t always say with American students. The fact that I’m also a foreigner probably amplified their usual teacher appreciation. One student told me she noticed how students acted differently in my class than in the other Chinese classes. She said Chinese students typically skip a good number of classes during a semester and when they do show up for class, they'll sometimes sleep through the lectures. But in my classes, very few people skipped classes and, believe it or not, no one ever slept during my lectures. Since American students so rarely show teachers their appreciation, I sometimes found myself unfortunately second-guessing their gratitude as possibly some sort of bribery. For example, before I met with my Wednesday students for bowling, I met with a small group of my Thursday students for lunch. As I glanced around the table, I couldn’t help but notice that they were some of my poorest students from that class – students that I had warned were on the verge of failing. Since Yaping and I share the same students, she was also invited to this lunch. After the lunch, I mentioned to her how I was a bit suspicious of the students’ ulterior motives in buying me lunch. She assured me that Chinese students will show their gratitude to teachers, especially foreign teachers, despite possibly receiving failing grades. And it’s true that I’ve only known the Chinese to be exceedingly giving and generous with foreigners. I’ve heard of Chinese families treating foreigners to dinner even when they have very little money. For example, though my Wednesday students are probably not the wealthiest students at Jiao Tong, I was never allowed to pay for any of the bowling fees or for the KFC dinner that we had afterward, though I offered to many times. I’ve even seen how a Chinese person with no money to spare will still give what he can as gratitude. One of my students, who gave himself the English name “Feel,” really wanted to play guitar with me. I was too busy during the semester, but on the weekend after finals, we finally met up to play guitar. Yaping and I met Feel on the main lawn of the campus near my apartment. He brought with him his girlfriend and a guitar that he paid only $12 for. The guitar was in poor shape, but possibly his best choice given his financial standing. During the semester, I once offered to sell my guitar to him for $90. To which he said, “I’m sorry, but I’m just a poor student.” On the main lawn, we sat on stone stools and started to play. I pointed out to Yaping that Feel was wearing the Willie Putnam Memorial Tournament T-shirt that I gave him for his perfect attendance. Our playing, however, was soon cut short by rain, and so we all retreated to Yaping’s office. There, Feel and I played more songs and then taught each other one song. I taught him how to play “Imagine” and he taught me how to play “Dust in the Wind.” It was poignant watching and listening to my former Chinese student perform this classic American song, wearing his Willie Putnam shirt, with rain lashing against the office windows. Feel didn’t buy me dinner or give me a gift, but his token of gratitude, teaching me a song, was probably the most memorable of all. I can genuinely say I’ll miss my students when I leave China. But I’ve realized that, through correspondence, we will continue learning from each other long after classes are over. Hope all remains well on your side of the globe! |
||