I think most of you know where this is going...
Okay, so there are some pretty important things that I haven’t addressed in the blog yet. I’ve had a lot of questions about teaching and some questions about how my Chinese is coming, as well as whether I have a Chinese girlfriend yet. I’ll get to all of that, but first, I want to talk about the haircut I got here the other day.
Haircut
I decided that it was finally time for me to get a haircut. I really needed one when I first got here, but I’ve been putting it off. I was a little skeptical about the whole thing for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious reason being that I don’t speak much Chinese, a fact that can make even the simplest things difficult at times. The second reason is a little less obvious and as far as I know, something that is native to China. As it turns out, some of the barbershops here become something totally different at night. They become part of the “pink light district.” I don’t know why the lights are pink instead of red. Maybe the Chinese thought it would look more fun that way, who knows. Most of these places are clustered in certain areas and alleys of the city, as pointed out to me by various members of the teaching staff. I generally know how to avoid them, but I can’t claim to know where all of them are. Understandably, the dual nature of these places made me a little anxious about attempting to get a haircut. But after talking with some of the other teachers, they told me about the barbershop that they use to get their hair cut. I figured if I wanted to accomplish anything, I would just have to jump in and see what happened. So I went and got my hair cut.
The whole process was actually much easier than I expected. I didn’t really need that much English and I have to say, the whole haircut process is much cooler in China than it is in America. They had me lay down on a sort of table and then washed my hair. After the wash, there was a head massage, which would have been fine, except that about half of the employees decided to stand around me and chatter in Chinese, which made it kind of difficult to relax. However, one of them came over and asked me if I wanted a shave. I didn’t really need one since I had shaved the day before. Apparently this does little to change the appearance of hair on my face, despite the fact that the bathroom looked like a hair bomb exploded in it after I shaved. Then there was the actual haircut, which went better than I expected because the barber spoke some English. After the haircut came more hair washing and then they finally dried it. I have to admit that I was pretty well satisfied with the whole thing. However, I’ll probably be returning to that particular place in the future to avoid any “mix-ups.”
Teaching
So I’ve gotten questions from everyone about how my teaching is coming along. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the experience. Like all jobs, it has its pros and cons. My students are all ages, but there are three general age ranges. There are really young kids under the age of ten, there are teenagers (usually under the age of 16 or so), and adults. I definitely enjoy teaching the adults the most. They are usually fairly close to my age and they tend to speak enough English to carry on a conversation. I hardly notice the two hours required for each lesson. Most of the regular classes are two hours long with a fifteen-minute break in between. On the busy days, which are Saturday and Sunday at the moment, I have about three classes in a row. So those are really the only days that I work a normal nine to five type of schedule. Of course, I can’t really work just nine to five those days because of the planning I need to put in for the next lessons, so it’s more like eight to seven or eight to six. Those two days are really only the difficult days in my week. The rest of the days are usually fairly light with only one or two classes, so it’s hard to complain.
On Saturdays and Sundays we usually teach the younger kids. I’ve had some “entertaining” times with the kids. I can tell you that there is nothing that can be more damaging to your self-esteem than working with kids. I’ve had most of my problems with one particular class. I walked into the classroom for my second lesson with them to find a big picture of a pig dressed in clothes on the whiteboard. For some reason, this didn’t really bother me. The next week, I arrived to find a letter addressed to me on the board. The teacher who taught them before me was also named Chris, so they call me Chris2. This is what it said:
Dear Chris2,
are you a good people? are you ok? are you a young woman pig? your students don’t like you much. you are fierce and cruel.
11 October
Your students
I even tried to be nice to them the other day and play lots of games. This didn’t work either, since they chattered on through the games and continued to do their homework in front of me. They pointed me to a note after the break at the last lesson. It was another drawing, this one labeled “young woman pig.” At least that was better than the break the week before, when I found them putting a huge black stripe on the wall above the whiteboard with a permanent marker. I’m going to have to change my strategy with these kids, but I’m not sure how. Even though they’ve gotten to be a handful, I’m actually kind of curious to see their next stunt. I haven’t yet gotten to the point where I have a headache and when one of them asks if it’s a tumor, I take on an Austrian accent and scream, “IT’S NOT A TOOMAH!” But really anything is possible.
I expected some misbehavior, but I’ve also encountered some issues that I didn’t expect. For example, I was doing an exercise the other day about families when it suddenly hit me that these questions might be completely inappropriate to ask a Chinese kid. I realized why the kids were squirming and giving me awkward looks. I was asking them if they had brothers and sisters. Whoops. Fortunately for me, that was the only time I’ve made that kind of mistake here (I think). Most of the other difficulties result from my own ignorance or from something that is practically impossible to explain. I had a student ask me about the Federal Reserve Board the other day. You try explaining that while it’s part of the US Government, it’s also an “independent entity,” which means that at the same time, it’s not part of the US Government. I ended up telling them that I was much more qualified to teach them proper English than I was to explain the US monetary system. I probably could have handled the situation better, but it was all I could come up with at the time.
Of course not all of the odd situations I encounter with the kids are negative. One of the fun things about these kids is the fact that if they don’t have English names, you can give them one. Now, I’ve only had two kids so far who haven’t had English names, so I let them choose their own names. As a result, I have a Superman in one class and a Halloween in another class. Relax, they can change their names if they want. Apparently one girl in someone else’s class decided to change her name to Avril, as in Avril Lavigne. She’s quite popular over here right now, though the songs are from a couple of years ago. But Chinese music is a different story. Anyway, there are definitely going to be some kids wandering around with my favorite names. There is already at least one Rocky I’ve met here, so I won’t exactly be setting a precedent. I’m not sure I can leave this country without naming a kid Drago or maybe Clubber. Maximus and Leonidas are also possibilities, though we all know Spartacus is reserved for my own child. Of course I can’t rule out Maverick, Marv, Indiana, or Jason either. I’m open to other suggestions as well. I promise, this won’t scar the kids. Trust me.
Chinese Lessons
As for the language, I’ve been picking up a little here and there. One of the teachers who works for English First (a Chinese girl) gives some very short lessons every Monday, but that’s nothing compared to the kind of help I’m going to need in order to really start picking up the language here. I’m just beginning to realize the massive effort I’m going to have to make just to understand the spoken part of Mandarin. That realization was a bit like the guy showing Homer the Murderhorn in The Simpsons: “Yeah, you’re gonna need to look a little to the right.” Then after the initial reaction, I discover how much harder it’s going to be to understand all the symbols: “Um… yeah, you’re going to need to look a little more to the right.” Fortunately for me, I’ve got access to all the old Chinese newspapers I need. Now I just need to combine them with some apple cores, get Brendan Fraser and that guy from Wings to sponsor me, and I’ll be in business. But seriously, I’m going to need some kind of steady lessons from a tutor to make any real progress. Those kinds of lessons aren’t cheap, either, so I’ll have to make sure that I’m going to get what I pay for. However, since one of my other goals in coming to China is to see as much of the country as possible, I have to save money so that I can travel. I’m really going to have to balance the yin and the yang on that one… or something like that. Another problem with getting a tutor is that sometimes they don’t really teach you anything, which is what happened to one of the other teachers here. Why is it so difficult to get Chinese lessons, anyway? I’m in China for crying out loud. I should be able to pull someone off the street to talk to me in Chinese. Anyhow, I guess I’ll have to keep everyone posted on how my search for a tutor goes.
The Ladies
So, on to the ladies. As many of you would expect, not much has really happened as far as the Chinese girls go. For those of you who predicted that Chinese girls would go wild for me, you were wrong. I haven’t had any indication that they like me more than any other foreigners here. Actually, since they’ve pretty much ignored me so far, I’d say that they may like me less than the other foreigners. Perhaps they’re afraid of me. Maybe it’s my stern expression. Or maybe it’s my ability to absolutely terrify any female with whom I attempt to hold a conversation.
The other day in the teacher’s lounge, Leo was talking to one of the new teachers, a Chinese girl from Wuxi. It was just small talk and I figured he was going to invite her to join us at dinner as a way of getting to know us. They were having a perfectly normal conversation. He had just convinced her that she should take the company van back to where she needed to go because it would be easier that way. Just then, he had to answer the phone, so I figured I could just pick up the conversation where he left off since I had been standing right there the whole time. Considering my track record in this area, I should have known this was a bad idea. I asked some random question, which she answered. Then I told her that we were having dinner later and asked if she wanted to join. I wasn’t trying to come onto her. I don’t even think she’s attractive. I was just trying to be nice and make her feel comfortable the same way that the other teachers helped me when I got here. Her response was, “Um, no, I think I have to be at home.” I said, “Oh, is there something you need to do?” She said, “No… I think my parents are waiting for me.” Meanwhile, Leo, who was observing the conversation from the other side of the bookcase in the teacher’s lounge, starts laughing so hard that he nearly collapses. The conversation ends there, with an awkward silence of course. Then, when it’s time to leave later on, she decides that she doesn’t want to take the van back with us; she’ll find some other way instead.
I don’t know what quality I possess that transforms every conversation I have with a strange female into a crushingly awkward situation, but there is apparently an element of pure comedy in it. I guess there’s also an element of pure intimidation in it as well, since you could almost see her mentally, physically, and emotionally straining to flee from me. Of course, even when a girl isn’t straining to flee from me, there’s always the language barrier, not to mention the barrier that plagues most trendy clubs and bars these days, even here in China: really loud music. I was out in a club the other day when I saw a girl that I thought was cute. I wanted to strike up a conversation. Now this idea may sound mildly absurd, but some of the other teachers have had full relationships with Chinese girls without being able to speak any Chinese and vice versa. So I asked her what her name was in Chinese (one of the few phrases I know) and she told me, but of course I couldn’t hear a thing. I looked at her again and felt a little flutter deep inside. Was I in love? No… wait… that wasn’t love. That was the vodka I had earlier looking to make a quick escape. So, I had to run up the white flag and make a hasty retreat. But who knows? Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to complete that conversation. I’m sure everyone’s just breathless in anticipation, but you’ll all just have to wait a little bit longer.
Bonus Materials
So there are a couple of random things I have seen and experienced here so far that I think are either funny or plain interesting. For example, one of the first few days I was in China, we ended up going to the T.G.I.Fridays here in Wuxi for someone’s birthday. As I mentioned before, many Chinese people choose English names. Several of the waiters and waitresses in the restaurant had their English names on their nametags. At one point, my roommate, Ben, nudged me and pointed at the nametag of one of the waiters. It said, “Heaven.” I have no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it was really funny at the time. My best guess is that it was either a joke or that he was poorly translating his Chinese name into English, since many Chinese names literally mean different things in the world or in nature. I’ve learned a fair bit about Chinese culture and how things are developing here, even though I’ve only been here for a bout two months. I see signs everywhere of how both the people and the lifestyle are changing rapidly, even while I’m constantly confronted with evidence that many of the Chinese people and customs haven’t changed at all. On the way to work, I see people still wearing traditional Chinese clothing and pulling rickshaws. Then when I get to the building where I work, I walk into the lobby and what do I see? A free shoeshine machine. I’ve never even seen one of those things in America. Here in China, it just seems to be a luxury for the sake of luxury. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It just strikes me as bizarre, that’s all.
One other thing that I’ve noticed while walking around is something I like to call, “The Reverse Tattoo Effect.” We’ve all seen someone with a tattoo of Asian characters. I certainly have no problem with this. However, from what I’ve heard, many people don’t research these characters thoroughly and end up with something inappropriate tattooed on them. What I’m about to talk about is not quite as bad as permanently declaring to the world that you’re an idiot, but it’s still putting ignorance on display. Many Chinese people wear clothing with English expressions that either make no sense at all or that are extremely suggestive. It’s just funny to see people who obviously think they’re cool with something blatantly stupid written on their shirt. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any concrete examples. However, in place of that, I can leave you all with some other delightful pieces of Chinglish that I’ve encountered during my time here. One of them I actually saw on the first day of my “Good Night, Sweet…” post. We were doing an Olympic activity, which basically means that a group of English First teachers goes to a Chinese public school and shamelessly promotes the company by doing fun activities with the kids that are only loosely related to the Olympics. I can only justify this by thinking that the other language companies in China probably do the same kinds of things. Anyway, we were walking up to one of these public schools when I saw a giant sign exhorting us to, “Do Good Deeds Aestheticism!” It was quite inspirational. I’ll definitely keep aestheticism in mind the next time I want to do a good deed.
The public schools usually do a poor job with the English inscriptions they put on their walls and gates, but the food companies can be even worse. I read the package of one of the cookies I had the other day. I figured it would be fairly accurate because it was a YooHoo wrapper. Then I looked closer and realized that it actually said YouHao. I should have seen that coming. But the English description at the bottom was great: “Daintiness biscuit from the foreign Are coming, Super fashion sense, Unsurpasseddelicious”
Now I have no idea where they were even going with this. Usually you can tell what they were trying to say. Aside from the obvious humor, I find this kind of situation a little curious. This is something that goes on the actual wrapper, so you would think it’s fairly important. The company is large enough to manufacture cookies here, so it couldn’t be that difficult to get someone that speaks English to check the accuracy of the writing. You might argue that there won’t be too many English-speakers buying these cookies, but if that’s the case, then why put any English on the wrapper at all? It’s likely that someone at the company just typed what they wanted to say into a translator and that’s what came out. I realize that whoever was responsible for the translation could lose face by asking for help. However, wouldn’t there also be a business need to get the translation right? Despite the various instances of incompetence that must occur at American companies, someone would have to know that they could be fired for getting something wrong on the front of the cookie wrapper. If they knew their job depended on getting it right, you’d think the smart thing would be to ask someone to make sure it’s right. I guess it doesn’t work that way here. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t understand the culture here well enough. These are the kinds of things I ponder here in China…
