With our last week in Jishou filled with good-byes, final ceremonies, last minute pictures, and efforts to take in every possible minute of what had become our daily routines in China, there wasn't really much time to blog. We've now all made it to our next destinations, post-SOS, whether that's home or traveling in other parts of Asia. I figured the blog hadn't officially ended, I had nothing to do on the long flight home, and I had a few things I wanted to share and remember from our last 2 weeks in China, so coming to you from the plane (and being typed onto the blog now), the last 2 weeks:
Even though the last week was a time to begin to wrap up our experience in China, fortunately, it was also a time when we were still forming new impressions and experiencing things for the first time. By the final week, we could really see the results of all of our time in Jishou. As I began to think of how to say good-bye to my students, I felt a certain pleasure in knowing that I knew each of them well enough to make it hard to say good-bye. I remember the first week or two of classes when it was a test of how far I could go without getting caught for not really knowing one of their names. I can remember devising tricks for how to call on someone and get them to participate in class without having to use their name. I assigned numbers to everyone in the class and made all of the "2"s speak, for example. I would pick someone whose name I did know that was sitting next to someone whose name I didn't know and then tell the class that everyone was going to give their opinion from that person on, in reality stopping shortly after the mystery students. All of that is really funny to look back on now, even though, at the time, it occupied a lot of my brain space during class. After a while, it's hard to think of creative ways to call on people without using their names.
By the end of our six weeks, though, not only did I know everyone's name, but I knew a fair amount about all of them. After numerous personal sessions and spontaneous lunches between classes, I knew their personalities, opinions, and dispositions. In thinking about this, I also realized how much they had opened up to all of us "foreign teachers." I really do think our students improved in their knowledge of English. There was nothing more amusing than seeing James Dean (one of my students) talking with me when we went to get bubble tea and then turning to the waitress and asking for more tea in English. The look on his face when he realized what he had done was great. Similarly, it was equally wonderful to see big Tom arguing with the basketball ref about a technical foul, so absorbed in his anger that he forgot that he was speaking English to a ref who wasn't understanding a single word of what he was saying.
What I really noticed in looking back, though, was that all of our students gained confidence over the course of our program. When you see people every day, it's hard to notice the subtle changes that gradually occur, but the increased confidence in speaking in class, giving their own opinions, and talking in English was still noticeable to me. It must have been to them too because many of them told us in their evaluations that they felt that comfort in class and confidence was what they found most significant from the program. The extent to which this transformation occurred is really too difficult to accurately describe in writing. Many students went from refusing to even answer questions when we directly asked them to becoming vocal participants who were comfortable sharing an embarrassing story in order to illustrate a point.
During our final week, Smile, one of the teachers who lived below us, took me out for ice cream, and she was curious about my impressions of the students and of teaching in Jishou. She had noticed the change that had occurred too. She specifically noted two students, who she said used to be extremely shy and who she now saw practicing English and, even in Chinese, carrying themselves with greater confidence. In addition, she noted that they had become more open and accepting.
I felt very humbled when, at the end of ice cream, as we were walking back, she shared with me that she genuinely admired us and everything we were doing in Jishou: the fact that we were brave enough to leave our homes for a country on the other side of the world, the fact that everything we were doing was all volunteer work, and the fact that we were really making a noticeable difference in how our students were learning and acting. To hear that from someone outside of the program and from a Chinese prospective made everything even more worth while than it already was.
Moving on to some final impressions of China:
That night, one of Smile's comments also really hammered home a point that had always unconsciously been in the back of my mind and had seemed strange about China to me: everyone's Chinese. It sounds really obvious but it's strange for someone coming from the US, where almost everyone at least at some point back on the family tree comes from someplace else. On the train ride back from our weekend in Zhan Jia Jie (spelling might be off), I remember feeling like I could almost be on the train in New York: the constant noise, people pushed together, etc. But then I looked around, and, instead of seeing an array of faces, everyone was Chinese. It is not a country of immigrants, and the concept of immigration and mixed background seems very foreign to many of them. Knowing that America is a country of immigrants, Smile asked me on the way back to campus what my ancestry was. When I told her that I was a quarter Italian, Irish, Polish, and Russian, she was shocked. She thought it was the coolest thing ever and told me that she had never met anyone who was a quarter of different origins. She thought that explained why all of us teachers were so good looking and why we had such interesting personalities - of course, I wasn't going to be the one to disagree with flattery like that. When we first arrived, I noticed the lack of white, black, and hispanic people. Everyone was Chinese, and I noticed. But it was when Smile made this comment that it all registered.
Almost everyone we met in China had trouble understanding where Jean was from, being an ABC (American Born Chinese). They would look at her and think she was Chinese...but she was teaching with us...but how could she be American if she looked like she did...but she didn't know everything about Chinese culture and knew a lot about American culture. Every time Jean came up in conversation in this way, you could just see the confusion on their faces as they tried to work out this mystery. Eventually, I realized that China is a country unused to having immigrants like we are.
By the end of our two months, I was unintentionally laughing at myself because I was so used to seeing only us and Chinese people that I would see someone walking down the street and have to do a double take to make sure they were really Chinese. I would start seeing other kinds of people in the faces of Chinese people, and it would literally take me a few seconds to look and force myself to realize that they were actually Chinese like everyone else around them.
On Marxism, History, and the Government:
In general, our students and the people we met throughout our travels were much more open than I had stereotypically expected. Deep down, I didn't really expect people to be as narrow-minded in their views as the stereotypes make Chinese people out to be, but I was still surprised by just how open the majority of people are. Many of them speak honestly about their opinions of the government, foreigners, America, and politics, whether positive or negative. Perhaps what surprised me was that many of our students and other Chinese people we met had strong opinions in many different directions, but they were generally apathetic about talking about them or doing anything with them. There was a general sense that they were better off than their parents and grandparents, so there was no need to rock the boat.
Throughout our time in China, I got the feeling that the majority of people cared most about the government keeping the economy growing so that everyone's standard of living kept rising. At this point, all of the revolutionary history of the last century is still recent enough that you can feel its slight presence. Most would say that things are much better than they were during the Cultural Revolution, so there's nothing to complain about. At the same time, it's incredibly interesting because the changes that happened in the 1950's and 1960's still affect everyone today. No matter who we talked to, it seemed as though everyone had a story about their grandmother or uncle who was very much affected by the transformation. Although there is a sense that progress is rapidly changing the country, I still felt like we had an opportunity to glance into China's epic historical movements because we were able to visit today and not some time far into the future.
Additionally, although my last blog entry touched on the EP3 incident, I also sensed a feeling that Sino-American relations had greatly changed and are very positive. Although I didn't study the EP3 incident very much when it happened, I can remember that that event, combined with the fact that it came a few years after the embassy incident during the war in Kosovo, seemed to have chilled Sino-American relations for a few years. Having not been in China at that time, I can't speak about the change with complete authority, but, to me, it felt as though there was a general change in sentiment between the countries. People seemed to see the US as a potential trading partner and ally, not as a threat or enemy. China is a country that is changing rapidly, and, as with other things, I can't explain why, but I felt as though opinion towards the US had changed dramatically since even just five years ago.
Many of our students admire the US and told me that, if given the opportunity, they would love to visit. Many respect the US for its education system, its political system, its openness, and its culture, yet I found that, with equal passion, they admire the US simply because it is a wealthy country. Many of my students have a desire to do anything and support any plan that would make China richer. The thing they care most about is China gaining wealth like the US. In our curriculum, we included a range of different subjects on purpose. Chinese students experience a very focused curriculum and are not used to studying different fields. Much of our course work came as a surprise to them, but it was satisfying to get an evaluation at the end in which one student said that she had gained an interest in politics and realized that she could still learn about a subject that interested her, even if it is not directly related to her major. At the same time, one of my favorite moments came when Mike and I were talking with one of our students Beth. Somehow, we got talking about Marxist class, which all college students are required to take, irrelevant of their majors. We asked her what kinds of stuff they learned in that class, to which she replied, "Well, we technically have that class...but everyone just cuts. I bet you nobody in this class read any of the assigned books."
In other ways, though, some of the ideas that the students held seemed very influenced by a specific perspective. All of my students agreed that North Korea was a threat and a country not to be trusted, and they all knew when I brought it up that both the US and China had been involved in the Korean War. Yet, they didn't actually know which side China had been fighting for and were surprised when I told them that the US fought on the side of South Korea and currently has troops along the border to protect South Korea, not North Korea. In general, when students asked me what about my experience in China was most different than what I had expected, I could honestly answer that I thought Chinese people were more open to different opinions and new ideas than I expected. In just a few areas, though, where nationalism plays a role, the government does seem to have influenced certain opinions.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics is another area where the government has really hyped up a nationalistic pride. Not to dismiss that other countries do not do the same thing around the Olympics and not to dismiss that China does not have reason to be proud of hosting the Olympics, but it was just amusing to hear everyone respond in the same exact way when I mentioned the Olympics. Most talked about how the Beijing Olympics would show the world Chinese culture and agreed that Chinese culture would spread throughout the world afterwards. Additionally, everyone spoke of what a boost to the economy the Olympics would be. When I asked them whether they thought the Olympics money could be better spent elsewhere since the games were so costly and actually usually fail to give any economic boost to their host countries, they quickly disagreed with my suggestion, saying they firmly believed that the Olympics were a truly great thing to happen to China. Even our school, Jishou Teachers College, in Hunan province, had Olympic rings carved into a few of the bushes around campus. There is certainly nothing wrong with the immense pride of hosting the Olympics, but I just happened to notice that everyone usually felt and said the exact same thing about the games, even the few people who weren't quite sure what the Olympics involved.
Okay, I think I better wrap it up before this gets even longer. Overall, I've been completely overwhelmed by the friendliness of most people I've met (or never actually even met) in China. Our hospitality towards foreigners is infinitely less than the hospitality offered by Chinese people we didn't even know. People who spoke English would approach us and offer to help us, and many people invited us into their homes out of pure kindness. To be honest, I can't imagine Americans going so out of their way just to welcome Chinese visitors.
I've also experienced some things I didn't expect. I've finally gotten used to and have started to enjoy eating dumplings for breakfast. I didn't know it was possible to have so many pastries that look sweet on the outside and end up having so much meat or beans inside. I didn't know that green beans and assorted other vegetables were ice cream flavors. I didn't think I'd ever be singing Jingle Bells in the countryside of China in August (It was the only song we could think of at the time that we all knew all of the words to). I didn't think I'd be explaining the meaning of Chris Brown's hip-hop "Run it" during lecture. I didn't think I'd be teaching people to crip walk or seeing 30 Chinese students all performing the crip walk for me in class. And I certainly didn't think I'd be told that I was a great rapper and dancer. I've definitely changed over the trip, but I can't quite figure out how yet. I know it's happened because I can feel it, but I can't place it yet. I do know that I've realized how much I appreciate the open possibilities I feel I have ahead of me and the fact that I don't feel pigeon holed to do one specific thing for the rest of my life. Not sure about the rest. Maybe I'll blog (a shorter one) again if I can pin point what it is.