Meet the typical chinese student - Part 1

So I've been teaching english now for the last two and a half weeks, and I must say it's not going too bad at all. Well, I feel I'm not doing terrible, so thats something! Suprisingly I wasn't that nervous the first day being up in front of a classroom for 90 minutes, seeing that I've never been a big fan of public speaking. I think that my role and perception as an 'expert' and therefore an 'authoritarian figure' has helped to overcome any jitters, and now I don't seem phased at all speaking out in front and controlling a class. I think 8 years as a pharmacist and dishing out advice and counseling (bullshit with a smile :) ) has also prepared me for this role. My biggest concern now is making sure the students are all engaged and learning something, which can be difficult with massive class sizes of 50-60 students. It's also hard to gauge whether they are understanding and finding the class useful, since chinese students don't give you much feedback. Which brings us to "The profile of a Chinese Student"

When they say Westerners are extroverted and Easterners are introverted......boy they mean it!

Getting a volunteer or drawing a response from a single one of my 50+ students is like trying to draw blood out of a stone. Nothin. nada. zippo. chirping crickets. That's all i'm greeted with whenever I ask a question. Throw me a freakin bone here. So I've sorta gotten used to talking to myself and answering my own questions if i decide not to choose a volunteer. And you should see their faces if i choose them to come out to share their work with the rest of the class. Confusion, long faces, and sometimes even resentment! It's all got to do with the notion of "face'' in asian societies. Everyone is scared of making mistakes in front of their peers and looking foolish, so that's why nobody ever volunteers or speaks out much. In the west theres the saying "stand up and be counted'', while in the east it's ''the tallest nail to stand out is hammered down first!'' It also comes back to the whole notion of individualistic vs collectivist societies. Alot of that stuff holds so true. Anyway, I really thought I was introverted schooling amongst caucasians while growing up, but compared to these 2nd year uni students I would be considered an eccentric.

I guess though that half of their unwillingness to participate is due also to shyness and their fear of me, so hopefuly after they've gotten to know me they'll be more forthcoming.

As i suspected, the majority of the Chinese students (in my class anyway) are very studious. They all give their full attention and theres no trouble students (except for maybe some who are over confident). I have 4 speaking classes and 2 written. Haven't starting the writing classes yet, but have met 3 of 4 of my speaking classes already. The classes are overwhelmingly made up of girls, with classes having approx 95%, 90% and 80% girls. I don't know whether it's becuase girls pick up languages easier, or just chinese boys don't have an interest in english. And of the few boys that are in my class i know for a fact that the only 2 in one of them are a gay couple, and i suspect another one is gay in the other class. Anyway more about that in a future blog.

All my students are second years, or what they and the americans term softmore kids. They're 20 years old, but my god you would never believe it. By the way they look, act and dress in their tracky-dacks you would think they're only 15 or 16 years old! I have my theories about this. Since they're so focused on their studies they are quite sheltered and are not exposed to other aspects of life outside of study. These are the kids that managed to make it into a chinese university (no small feat), so I'm probably looking upon some of more studious kids in China as well. I reckon also that many of these kids being single children also has had an effect on their upbringing and development, compared to that of a westerner. It must be quite an earth-moving change though, going from being a single child in a household to sharing a dorm room with at least 3 other strangers! All the kids in-so-far-as-i-know live on the campus in their uni-sex dorms. Each dorm has a caretaker/manager at the entry too, so they really control the mixing of the sexes, and the dorm caretakers are also responsible for enforcing the 1030pm curfew. Btw, us foreign teachers also have a 1030pm curfew on weekdays, something I'll bitch about in a future blog.

I have heard though that theres still a bit of hanky panky that goes on in the dorms, plus I've seen alot of hotels surrounding the uni which advertise rooms by the hour.

So as you can see, although you'd think this could be a time of freedom and self discovery for these fresh school grads, they really are tightly controlled in order to keep them focused on their studies. It's a good and bad thing i suppose, depending on which way you look at it. Don't get me wrong though, these kids are responsible and just as street smart as any westerner. It's just other areas they are probably not as informed or aware of compared to their western counterparts. I'm sure they catch up quickly though once uni is over.

The world is one big toilet bowl & Chinese don't smell

After finishing up the TESOL course last sunday we trained it over here to Nanjing to settle into our new homes before starting the new jobs. Originally we planned on taking on overnight sleeper train since my collegues Brit and Weston had never experienced it before and the tickets were way cheaper, but in the end we had to settle on a high speed train due to ticket shortages.

The train ride itself was uneventful, which I might add we are highly grateful for after remembering the horrible train collision that had occured a few weeks before our arrival. I'd been on high speed trains before, and plus when you actually inside and on your way it didn't really seem you were going fast at all! But, at least we got between Beijing and Nanjing in a little over 4 hours. Impressive.

Probably the most interesting thing that happened during the trip took place at beijing station. We were waiting near the departure gate when Brit suddenly did a 180 turn and went white, hissing to me "alan! theres a kid taking a deuce over there" ("'deuce'' is texan for ''dump'')

so i turned around and sure enough barely 1 metre away from us was a 2 year old squating over and letting loose onto the floor. Now normally this wouldn't have shocked me since this is China and frankly people have a closer bond with their bodily excretions, but to see this taking place in Beijing, in the new ultra modern BJ railway station, seeing the poop hit the polished and pristine surface of the terminal floor, well that was a bit unnerving. Suffice to say the janitor was there even before we'd realized what was happening with the poop scoop. LOL. my god, i've never seen a janitor move so fast. Poor Brit was cracking up in hysterics for the rest of the morning. We really did want to take a picture, but then at the risk of appearing like a pair of paedophiles we refrained. So ever since then we get a bit nervous whenever we see a kid walking around looking at the floor, wondering is he/she looking for a nice piece of real estate to unleash upon? To them, the world is one big toilet bowl.

Throughout the trip to Nanjing i was reminded of something our TESOL instructor had told us about, something that I hadn't noticed on my previous trip but that was so obvious. NOBODY wears fragrances. That's right, not even deodorant. I suppose I hadn't noticed it on the previous trip since it was winter and downright freezing at the time, and hence not much perspiration and BO going around. But then again, so far this trip I hadn't really noticed BO on buses or metros and it is quite warm. I have my theories. Perhaps it's because chinese people are less hairier than other races, or maybe something, or something lacking in their diet softens the BO odour. I also know this to be true becuase while talking to a waitress the other day she suddenly exclaimed in suprise "oh, you're wearing cologne!"
Our intructor told us that the locals here can always tell when a foreigner has been around simply by the scent of cologne, perfume or deordorant left behind. There you go guys, so if you're ever in china by yourself and want to find another foreigner just follow your nose.
Chinese people are also under the impression that all foreigners must smell really bad since we find it necessary to wear fragrance all the time. So next time you're in china, while you think you're attracting everyone of the opposite sex with your super awesome perfume/cologne, everyone else around you is thinking you must be a real stink bomb at home.
Oddly enough though I saw a lynx ad on china TV the other day, so maybe it's a changing trend.