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The road leading from our school to civilization.
For the past month I have been wondering silently to myself, “How could someone want to do this for more than a year?” The claims I heard before I came were: “Foreign teachers are viewed with great respect”, “You will have such a great time” “You will fall in love with China” “You will make lots of friends” and for me, none of these prophecies have come true. I have silently relished in the fact that I will only be here five months; I have counted the days, I have looked forward to my return home, but part of me wanted those prophecies to come true. I wanted to be invited to my student’s home town to visit their family, I wanted to sit around the dinner table and struggle to converse with people I had only just met – I wanted to see China intimately. Unfortunately the closest I have come to that has been the brief encounters I have had while out to the grocery store or to the gym. I have essentially lived the last month of my life confined to my school, my room, and two streets, bitter at these failed prophecies, but one day I came to a realization: my experience was up to me. Even if my placement wasn’t ideal, even if I wasn’t surrounded by other foreign teachers, ultimately, my experience in China will be shaped by my willingness to make it into what I want it to be, not by mulling over what it is not. And so, this Friday, I decided to get lost. I took a bus to the end of the line, was told to get off by three students, and then I wandered – and it was the best decision I have made while in China.
The decision to wander came about because Lizzie and I had dinner plans with some foreign teachers from a university in town (it seems that my mom has connections even in China because thus far she has given me two emails to two different people teaching in Baoding). There would be eight of us altogether: six of us being from, or having spent significant time in Kansas, so needless to say, I was a bit excited. Not wanting to be late for our very important date, Lizzie and I decided to ride a bus, bus 37 if you must know, and see where it would take us. We went down roads we had never seen, saw places we have never been and passed what we thought was Sam and Nate’s university.
We got off the bus near another university (there are seven universities in Baoding alone) and asked the students if they knew where North China Electrical University was. They did not, but they seemed certain the university we were looking for was theirs which was right in front of us and wanted to take us to someone who spoke better English. I knew that this was in fact, not the NCEU because I had seen the map on Google earlier and knew that NCEU was in the middle of the route, but wanting to be adventurous I decided to entertain them (and possibly meet some more foreign teachers) and proceeded onto campus.
Lizzie and I were immediately taken aback by what we saw: there were fountains, benches, a coffee shop!, a store, and two cafeterias – we were a bit jealous. We wandered through campus talking to our new friends in what English they knew and we were soon at the International Building. We walked into a lobby furnished with marble floors, leather couches and a guard. The girls went off to find someone who could speak English and when he arrived I informed him of the situation. He proceeded to chuckle a bit because as it would seem we were about a half hour away from our destination in the opposite direction. The girls insisted on taking Lizzie and I back to the bus stop, but not before stopping to take pictures. The girls sent us on our way and we headed back to NECU where we got off the bus and walked around.
Our newfound friends.
We went on to have a wonderful time with Sam, Nate, and their friends Saturday; we had a good dinner, great conversation, and we discussed our experiences teaching. We headed back to their university to play cards and to see their apartments. At first they did not want to show us, fearing that we would be jealous (and we were) of how they lived. We were led into their apartments, first having to pass through their kitchen (complete with a stove, oven, and microwave) to get into their living room complete with a sofa and bookcases (I have a chair and bed to sit on). We were then shown their bedroom complete with a queen-sized bed. Amber, who lives by herself, said that “the queen bed is just too big.” I, being the gentlemen that I am, offered to switch my twin bed with her queen (even though it would have been a bit of an inconvenience for me).
After the tour we played a card game called “nerds” which was quite fun. It is a team variation of solitaire with a few twists in it that make for a challenging and entertaining time. We had some laughs, we killed some mosquitoes (nearly smashing a guitar in the process) and the night was over. Nate informed me that he and Dave had taught some of their students how to play American football and invited me to play with them the following day. I accepted the invitation and Lizzie and I headed home to rest up for the big game.
As we headed home in cab I was beginning to see why some have come to teach in China and have never left. Sam and Nate have a great placement: they have a great apartment, they have students who view them with respect and curiosity, and they have friends to rely on when things don’t go well. And then there are those whose placements are sub-par, who are viewed more as sideshow and are worked until they can’t work anymore. They barricade themselves in their rooms and seek to create a sense of normalcy in what little space they have and to them I ask, “Why did you come to China?” I have told myself that I would not do this, but unfortunately, my opinion on this teaching experience, on Baoding, and on China, has come from my experiences on two streets. These two streets are familiar, they give me a false sense of security, of normalcy and predictability, and in China, these are the things you desperately cling to. And while my placement may not be ideal, I now realize that my experience is not shaped by my placement, but by my attitude towards it. So now I choose to venture off those two streets a little more often, to embrace the unpredictable over the predictable, because after all, why else did I come to China?
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