Adventures in Guangzhou!

Apparently my brain gets bored easily because after about four days back in Guangzhou, I was dying to be back in the classroom. I think this is due to a couple of different reasons-- Partly it was because I started to recognize how I had, actually, made progress and wanted that to continue. Partly it was because I also realized how long I still have before I can be considered competent. But mostly it was because I was, and am, just a big dork and am addicted to school.

Before my classes started over here at the high school I ventured over to the university next door to sign up for evening classes again. Last spring I enrolled in what turned out to be a surprisingly useful course about oral Chinese and I wanted to continue. I figured this time around I could convince the instructor that I could actually read and learn characters and mold the course a bit more how I envisioned it. Unfortunately I got to the office and was promptly told that there wasn't enough demand so they cancelled the night classes. No demand? I know, that's what I was psyched about--another two person class! So it was back to the drawing board.

I contacted my teacher from this past spring and asked if she had any friends who were interested in making some money by tutoring me. Being a grad student at the university, I figured she could get me at least a few names and numbers. She came through with one for me which I figured was enough. At this point I had my own textbooks and figured I just needed someone to look over my shoulder and pronounce the characters I didn't know.

The first meeting I had with my tutor was a bit awkward as for some reason she expected me to be paying her an absurd amount of money for her services. She wanted seventy five kuai an hour which some businessmen might be able to afford, but not on my salary! I also happen to know that the best campus job she could get would pay somewhere around six or seven kuai an hour so I didn't feel bad about offering thirty five. It's not like she was going to prep for it or anything.

Anyhow, we had three lessons over the course of those first two weeks and something was just lacking. I was frustrated with what felt like a lack of any progress and didn't know how to solve the problem. After some meditation on the subject, I decided that I was discouraged by the realization that there was no way I could continue to improve at the same rate when I'm teaching. Clearly the only way to improve at the same level as an intensive six-hour-a-day language program is, well, to enroll in another intensive six-hour-a-day language program.

Now, obviously, that wasn't an option for me so I decided to bite the financial bullet and do the next best thing. The university next door offers day classes for foreigners that meet every morning from 8:30am-12:00pm and despite the absurd price tag, I registered. Thankfully I managed to finagle a deal with the director to pay in monthly installments since I'm teaching here on a Chinese salary and, this being an institution that is all about making money, he was down. While I would only be able to attend about 3/4 of the classes, I just knew that I needed to pile on as many hours as possible in a formal classroom setting. I needed a trained teacher and classmates.

I didn't quite know what to expect on my first day, but as I began the walk to class, it occurred to me that once again, for the 22nd or 23rd year of my life, autumn rolled around and I was heading back to the classroom. There was an article recently in the New York Times about how the start of a school year is like a fresh start and how those outside of academia are lacking this opportunity every year. I couldn't agree more--I feel very liberated and excited every fall walking into the classroom, ready to take on the challenge of a new subject or theory. It works perfectly with my heritage as well. New Years may be January 1st, but as a Jew, I can't help but identify with the holiday being sometime in September. It just makes sense.

Anyhow, once I entered the classroom, I was somewhat surprised to see that I was one of only three caucasians. The room was filled with a mix of Korean, Thai, and Indonesian twenty-somethings, rounded out by two Russians. Woah. Again, I shouldn't be surprised. If you're American and come to China to learn Mandarin, you certainly don't come to Guangzhou--you go to Beijing or Shanghai, certainly not to a Cantonese-speaking province.

The classes themselves are fine, but definitely a far cry from what I was doing this summer. I am in the B level class, basically the intermediate level, and that seems appropriate enough. However, out of a class of twenty five or so, only about eighteen show up everyday and of those eighteen, only about eight actually seem capable of speaking up. At first I was put off by this, but the teachers recognize everyone's level and really only call on the eight of us so it makes it feel a lot smaller. A bunch of them are miles ahead of me in terms of their writing, but that's really not my purpose in attending class. If I can improve my speaking and reading and pick up some writing along the way, that's just fine by me.

A few things about the structure of the class really stand out to me. First, the student ID I got makes me laugh every time I see it. In the states we get a laminated ID with our picture that also tends to function as a dining card, laundry card, library card, and potentially also as a key to buildings. My student ID here is this little pamphlet in which they glued in my picture, wrote in my name and gave it a few official looking stamps. In the words of my new roommate Nick, you could rip out my picture, put his in, sharpie in his name, and no one would ever know the difference.

Second, my teachers both do this thing where everytime they hand back our homework notebooks, they make an announcement about who did a good job. This could be a good idea, but the way they do it, they go in rounds. The first few names are the top. Then they pause and say that slightly worse were the following. Then there is another tier below that. Then they basically say that everyone who's name they didn't mention did a poor job. It seems to follow the pattern of my high school when after every exam they post a list on the wall of everyone's name and their score, from highest to lowest. In other words, it's public knowledge just who screwed up and who didn't--a far cry from the privacy of grades in the states. Sure we might ask each other, but generally it's not up on the wall.

Third, we "conveniently" learn about Chinese history and culture in almost every lesson. This could be really interesting, except that we everything we get really fits more under the banner of not-so-subtle propaganda. Everything is about how China has the richest history, has the most beautiful sights in the world, has the best food in the most varieties, the friendliest people, etc. Now I suppose if I were learning English in the states I would also be fed something similar about America from ELL textbooks; however, I can't help thinking that it would transcend this level of inordinate opinion regarding China's merit and superiority. Sometimes it's just a bit much.

I have a little time to rest my brain again though as this week is my first vacation of the new year. Woohoo! While last year I braved the crowds for a whole week through Hangzhou and Shanghai, this year Kelly and I decided to have a bit more of a relaxing week and are heading off to the beaches of Hainan Island tomorrow. The place is known as the Hawaii of the East so I have high expectations. Then again, having never been to Hawaii, I guess I'll be happy with just about anything...