Boston is stereotypically “Northeast” in its unfriendly, “every man for himself” ethos. Coming from this, I had unwittingly expected every city to be that way, and was prepared to go about life overseas without much help. Fortunately, I was wrong to reduce the citizens of Changzhou to American standards. As it turns out, locals are open and friendly — willing to direct and even guide you to your destinations. Despite having studied Chinese for three years at Boston University, body language has come to my rescue in China more times than I’d like to admit.
Day to day, the inevitable language barriers actually seem to work in my favor. In and out of school, I enjoy the privileged status of an American who speaks English as her first language. This is probably some sort of warped species of racism, but, as a rule, the technicalities that make life easier aren’t the ones I worry about. As objects of unadulterated worship, my American colleagues and I can get away with things, such as asking the five-star international hotel owner to pack up our Thanksgiving dinner in the Tupperware provided and, please, just the white meat this time. We live as virtual royalty amid senior citizens and their pampered grandchildren.
As for my teaching duties, those minimal job requirements pretty much said it all. A Chinese school is considered prestigious merely by having a foreign teacher on its payroll, which means that the content of our classes, though occasionally monitored and critiqued, matters considerably less than our just showing up. That’s not to say the classroom experience was always comfortable. I was assigned to teach English to a class of 18–22 year olds at a public university run by — who else? — the Chinese government. At first, questions like “Do you know Kobe Bryant?” “Where do you get your hair permed?” and “Do you own a gun?” were strange, if not a little disturbing. But, once it dawned on me that, in this classroom, I am more of a spectacle than a professional, teaching became a lot more fun. Games such as hangman and spin the bottle (with questions rather than kisses) became class activities, and my personal experience with everything from dating to school cafeterias became the subject of more than one class discussion.
Before long, I became aware of some deep, philosophical differences between Chinese and American education. In China, the content of academic courses is considered the most valuable information an individual can acquire, and that information is expected to come from only two sources: the teacher and the textbook. The American perspective, conversely, is that students take as much from a course as they deem necessary, and get the bulk of their knowledge outside of the classroom. Most of my students have never held a job. As only children, without any brothers or sisters, they have been spoiled by their mothers, fathers, grandparents, and, in most cases, their ayi (nurse/nanny). They have no motivation to find work because they have never needed, nor will they probably ever need, to fully support themselves.
