Teaching in Retrospect
It only takes a few weeks of being back in your hometown to feel like everything you’ve done prior—all that time spent fighting for the attention of hungry Chinese students—never happened. Or it did happen, but everything you thought you learned from the experience… well… never happened. Or it did happen, but… nah, I think I’m done with that joke.
Your time as a teacher is easily justified as wasted, especially during those final evaluations when only one or two of the students can repeat a concept you spent the whole semester drilling. But most teaching positions in China are very impersonal, anyway, and your job isn’t so much about teaching a specified amount of content as it is just giving the kids a chance to have a teacher who isn’t Chinese. In a way, foreign teachers are there to break cultural boundaries, not necessarily teach, but if a little English is learned along the way, more power to you!
Some of my students still stay in touch with me, though, so I didn’t walk away with nothing. And as a young fish out of water standing in front of a class of 50 restless Chinese kids four times a day, your comfort zone naturally grows. Maybe you find you’ve only become comfortable addressing non-native English speakers, but progress is progress! When you tell people you taught in China, they’re just impressed by the word “teach,” if they’re impressed at all, but to you, it’s not that. To you, it was a lesson in confidence and endurance and resisting the urge to crap your pants and run home crying when things go bad.
Things go bad all the time.
As much as I liked my ILP classes (the first teaching I ever did in China), those kids were awful. Class time with the foreigners was “release hours of pent up energy that our Chinese teachers would beat us for” time. They would fight each other. They would pull their pants down. They would yell and throw things at the teacher. They would literally tear the desks apart. But through all that, I finally learned to just be patient and focus on creating a better lesson instead of trying to create better students. That comes later, and it’s pretty much an uphill battle, anyway.
If there’s one thing you learn as an English teacher in China, it’s patience. There’s patience, because the kids’ English is bad, and there’s patience, because their behavior is bad. It was different, though, trying to be patient with my primary classes of 50 students as opposed to the ILP classes of eight. I’ll admit, I lost my temper sometimes. Things were said. Books were thrown out the window. Nonetheless, I’m a much better person now than I was five years ago, and China has played a big part in making me that way.
One Month After China
… and I’m ready to go back. Nah, just kidding. There are certainly things I miss about China (my girlfriend being first and foremost), but I really wasn’t getting much enjoyment out of teaching, and there are so many things about China that drive me crazy and would have continued to do so had I stayed. For the sake of my sanity, it was important to leave.
But being back in the US has been rather stressful. A lot of chores pile up while you’re away, and the job market ended up being considerably bleaker than I imagined. That’s a rude awakening. But there are some good things about being back, too. It’s nice to be around my family again, and it’s nice to have Mexican food and legitimate copies of video games readily available!
On the other hand, it’s hard to go from being a foreign teacher and being treated like a celebrity (for better or worse) to being just a plain, old US citizen again. I don’t stand out at all, and few people even bat an eye when they hear that I’ve been living overseas for 18 months. If that time has done anything for me, it’s just put me way out of the loop.
Part of the problem is that I’m from a small town in Utah. The population here has yet to break 10,000. Changzhou had a population of 3.5 million and enough shops and restaurants and fun things to do to support that many people. In a city that big and crazy (this is China, after all), every day was an adventure (again, for better or worse). Believe me, I’m hoping I can move soon, but for the time being, I really feel like I’m just treading water.
Flying a Long-Distance Relationship
A few days before I left China, my girlfriend and I went to the park to fly kites. We had two, one for her and one for me. When the wind picked up, I got a little too excited and let all of the string on my kite unravel. The end of the string wasn’t tied to the handle, though, so the kite flew away, crashed into the lake, and disappeared forever. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
But I didn’t leave China with the intent to disappear forever. We are still together and are willing to brave a long-distance relationship. My friends and family have been supportive of this decision and have usually just said, “That’s cool.” The support on my girlfriend’s end, however, has been much more sinister. If people don’t bluntly say, “So what can you do,” they offer negative advice like, “Long-distance relationships are too hard. They never work out. Why don’t you just find a Chinese boyfriend? You don’t want to go to the US. You won’t like it there.”
Sometimes, I wish I was still in China so I could tell these people to shut the hell up.
Initial Differences Between China and the US
It’s always strange to return from a foreign country, because, on one hand, it feels like you never left. Everything you did on the other side of the world never happened, and the only reminder you have that you went anywhere is that shelf full of useless souvenirs. But I have been away for a long time, and there are many things about life here that are definitely different from life in China.
Immediately out of the airport, I noticed how much cleaner and quieter the US (or at least Utah) is. That could be because Utah isn’t “big city” like China, but then cars also honk less frequently, and people don’t yell at each other to have a normal conversation. You could have the same number of people in Changzhou’s Walmart or Provo, Utah’s Walmart, and the Changzhou Walmart will always be louder.
What I’m most relieved to get away from, however, is the smoking. I cannot stress enough how physically ill second-hand smoke makes me. Granted, this is a constant battle in the US, too, but at least there are laws to help protect non-smokers. I haven’t had to smell that crap once since I got back. Still, I’m not used to being in a smoke-free restaurant. I keep expecting the guys sitting next to me to start smoking at any second. I hear a “click” and automatically cringe, because it reminds me of the constant clicking of lighters I heard all the time in China.
The weather also feels a lot warmer here, which, at a glance, probably doesn’t make sense. Americans are much better about keeping their buildings heated, though, because we use this crazy technology called insulation, and we don’t open the damn windows during the winter! In China, I had to wear two pairs of pants, a beanie, a jacket, and a coat at all times to stay warm, and that’s suggesting that I actually stayed warm. I didn’t. I was always cold, even in my own apartment. Home again, although there’s snow outside, I’ve been able to shed a layer, because it’s easier to escape the cold.
The Stressful Return From Overseas
It’s a little overwhelming how chores start to stack up when you’ve been abroad for almost two years. Now that I’m back home, I have a lot on my plate. I have to get my car re-insured and my driver’s license renewed. I have to take care of several doctors’ appointments before my coverage expires next month. I have to figure out what to do with all the crap I brought over from China and what to do with all the crap that was still here. I don’t even have a US cell phone yet and am hesitant to start shopping for one, because everyone I know complains about the plan they’re currently on.
Oh, and, at some point, I have to look for a new job.
In China, it was nice how my only responsibility was to show up to class four times a day and pretend to know what I was doing. The school took care of everything else. I think that’s one of the biggest draws to teaching in China: no responsibility! No bills to pay. No taxes to file. No cars to maintain (assuming you are sane enough not to drive in China). You don’t even need to take your job seriously. If you can sing and dance, most schools are happy to accommodate you. But being in the US again, I have to start making the calls myself and actually exercise some independence. Damn.
Flying From Shanghai to Tokyo to LA to Utah
As much as I love traveling and sightseeing, I hate flying. It’s not a fear of flying that keeps me from enjoying it, either, but rather an irritation with the whole process that starts mild then quickly escalates until I’m screaming inside, “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I’M GONNA SOCK THE NEXT PERSON THAT LOOKS AT ME!”
The 9-hour flight from Tokyo to LA is always a doozy.
Trying to sleep in an upright position or trying to eat on a little table while the guy in front of you is fully reclined or trying not to wake the person next to you as you climb over them to go use the bathroom are all valid annoyances. When you’ve taken a 28-hour train in China twice, though, these seem like little things. Nevertheless, I can’t help but glare disapprovingly at the smug bastards in First Class every time I board a new plane.
The aspect of flying I hate the most is the rigmarole you have to go through at every airport. Showing up two hours early isn’t even enough anymore. After checking in at the Pudong airport in Shanghai, we were told we needed to board the plane 55 minutes before it left. We arrived at our terminal 30 minutes early, which, in a normal universe, is plenty of time, but they were already announcing our names over the intercom to hurry and get on so we could sit and wait 40 minutes before taking off.
The number of security checks they send you through has gotten way out of hand, as well. In Shanghai, there was the usual check, but then they went through my carry-on again before getting on the plane. And then I had to do another security check as soon as I got off the plane in Tokyo. I went from airport to airplane to airport. Where did I find time to pick up something dangerous?! It really discourages me from wanting to do anymore traveling. But… then I forget just how bad the 24-hour airport marathon is, and I end up doing it again. I’m a sucker that way.
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