“The Power of the Juice Cup” and Other Tales

One week ago, the principals, vice principals, and a spattering of teachers from our schools came to Lincang’s for three days to participate in CEI’s not-so-accurately-titled “Principals’ Week.” The purpose of this, to my understanding, was to allow us fellows to form a solid foundation for understanding and working with our school staff. Of course, what actually emerged from our time together were a series of incredibly awkward and frustrating interactions interspersed with moments of hilarity. Since arriving in Heqing, I’ve continued to find myself in very interesting (and sometimes very awkward) situations. I’ve learned a lot about Chinese culture, American culture, my current limitations, and a host of other topics I can’t name separately right now.

At any rate, I think the best way to illustrate my recent activity is through a series of short stories. Please enjoy.

The Power of the Juice Cup

Last Monday afternoon/evening, the day before most of the Lincang folks departed for their schools, the Lincang Educational Bureau sponsored a “Beer Party” for CEI and the staff of our placement schools. No, don’t think Oktoberfest. However, there was a fair amount of beer and a fair amount of “ganbei”-ing (the Chinese equivalent of toasts which, when properly executed, necessitates emptying one’s glass entirely). During dinner, the drinking and toasts continued. Drinking is a very important social thing here in China, but, as a woman I am luckily much less pressured towards consuming copious amounts of alcohol than my testosterone-laden companions. This does not mean I am exempt from participating in toasts, and by the end of the evening toasts had been made by basically every principal of every school to every other principal (and the table where he was sitting).

At the time of each toast, whoever was offering it would go around pouring beer into eggcup sized glasses (Chinese teacups, for those who are familiar). The only way to avoid being “beered,” as it were, was to have a cup full of something else. This is where juice saved the day.

Although I was not hugely enjoying the unidentifiable-except-for-sugar flavor of juice on our table, I greatly enjoyed being able to partake in all of toasts without drinking what would likely have amounted to at least 4-5 cups of beer. For those properly gambei-ing, and thus finishing a cup with each toast, I hesitate to imagine the number of beers sloshing around their stomachs by night’s end.

So, a word to the wise (or at least those with low alcohol tolerances). When it comes to Chinese parties, remember always the Power of the Juice Cup.

Americans will be Americans

Monday night was the last that we CEI fellows had together before setting off for our schools. I had originally thought, despite it being our last night, that we’d have a relatively chill evening—perhaps watching a movie or something along those lines—because Tuesday morning we still had events and meetings going on.

Nope.

Instead, most of the American fellows, a number of Chinese fellows, and quite a few staff members ended up going out, hanging at a bar, and playing the eccentric mix of American and Chinese drinking games that tend to typify our group in the same way as Chinglish. Later that evening, CEI managed to take over the bar’s (very small) dance space. The locals were mostly amused, luckily, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Bars and dance spaces aren’t usually my thing, and I’m not the only one in CEI who wouldn’t normally find him or herself out until 1:30 AM before having to get up at 6:30 AM the following morning, but there was just a feeling of abandon in the air. For all of us, it was a last opportunity to spend time as Americans do rather than being concerned with behaving properly. Plus, after so much time trying to be formal and extra extra polite with our principals, we wanted to let loose.

Oh. You’re the new teachers from CEI.

On Thursday morning, the fellows from all three Heqing schools met up in Heqing city to get Heqing phone numbers and generally orient ourselves to the town. On the way in, our principal insisted that another teacher accompany us (despite protests that it was very easy to take the bus and that we wanted to practice going in on our own). However, on the way home, we had no escort, and as we all crammed onto the bus we realized that we were not positive exactly where we had to get off.

(I should explain that the buses we can take to and from Heqing proper are not like American buses with set stopping points. Instead, you wait by the side of the road, pretty much wherever, to get picked up; you pay one yuan; and when you want to get off you yell “stop!”)

I was personally cool with just looking out the window and yelling stop when I saw aI’ familiar part of the road. Ma LiJun, however, being practical, asked a few of the locals jammed into the space next to our seats if they knew where Pengtun Middle School was. They did. Moreover, they knew that we were the new CEI fellows who would be teaching at the middle school. It’s sort of amazing how quickly word travels. I’ve certainly run into people since I got here who have no clue who I am, but Colin was saying on Thursday that CEI is “a known commodity” within Heqing. And that’s with the ten Americans here last year. Ten Americans being more or less known within a whole city. I’m not sure yet if I’m pleased or displeased with that situation, but it’s certainly interesting.

White People are Scary

My second night in Pengtun (and my first out to eat without the principal and other VIPs), Ma LiJun, Mark, and I went to a restaurant around 6:45, which is quite late for China. As such, we were the only ones there, with the exception of the family that runs the place. This family included 2 little boys (one perhaps 4 or 5, the other less than a year). While we waited for our food, Ma LiJun decided to go over and say hi to the kids, and I followed suit. The five year old seemed happy enough with this situation. The baby (who had seemed quite content enough) immediately started crying. And this is why white people are scary. Or perhaps it was the curly hair.

Long Walks and Local Interest

Yesterday (Saturday) morning, I decided that I really needed to get off campus, so I went for a walk. There’s a lake/marsh thing behind our school with a pathway alongside it, so I took that for a ways, meandering randomly and figuring I’d be able to make my way back to school eventually. As I walked, I came up alongside these older two ladies and they tried to talk to me. I say “tried” because they had to repeat basically every question at least once and half of them I didn’t understand at all. But we had a lot of smiling and whenever we reached a fork in the road they gave me advice on which way I should go to see pretty things. Eventually we parted ways.

After that, I ended up walking through rice paddies on the concrete strips that border the irrigation lines, and I cut through a village on the other side. I was trying to get to the mountains, which were very close by, but everywhere I walked there was a lot of corn between me and them, and I wasn’t sure about the etiquette of cutting through someone else’s crops without a set path like in the rice paddies.

My wanderings brought me within earshot of what sounded like a recording of Beijing Opera, so I followed a very muddy, very wet path to what turned out to be a spring with some pretty bridges and pagodas and places to sit. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a water bottle with me, but it’s nice to know where the spring is and how to get there.

After that, I started trying to make my way back. All along the roads and paths, people were staring, of course. Kids were the most fun. Usually, they would stare and stare, and then as I got closer they’d giggle and look away. I’d smile and say “ni hao,” and then a lot of them would giggle again and, in a fit of sudden bravery, yell “Hello!” before turning away once again. Also, I apparently do not always make babies cry, because one little guy was just fascinated with me. So that made me feel better.

Goodbye to English/Welcome to China (for real this time)

Hey everyone! Long time no post. I moved down to Heqing four days ago and haven’t had internet access until now. A lot’s been happening, and I really want to share it with everyone, but I also don’t want to overwhelm people with the posts that have been building up in word. So I think what I’m gonna do is post one of the three or so posts I’ve written every day or two. We’ll begin with this one. Also, in case I hadn’t been clear enough about this, I’d love to hear what any and all of you think about what I’m writing. I know a lot of it is pretty opinion-based, so if your opinions differ or whatever…yeah. Anyway, here’s my first backlogged post:

For all of the Summer Training Program, CEI billed itself as a bilingual organization, and there are many ways in which this is true. Announcements and emails were almost always given in both Chinese and English, many of the staff (although certainly not all) speak some Chinese, and the fellows communicated, during the STP, in a pidgin Chinglish. Generally speaking, the Chinese fellows speak much better English than the American fellows do Chinese, and thus many of our training sessions in the later part of the summer were not translated into Mandarin as thoroughly as they ought to have been. During Principals’ Week, however, we experienced the opposite phenomenon.

Suddenly, everything—every meeting, every announcement, every speech—was in Mandarin. For me, this was a ridiculously challenging situation. As I said above, in general the fellows, both American and Chinese, communicated in Chinglish—which meant that I could say things like “在我看来，STP 跟大学的orientation 有一点儿象 and probably be understood. With the principals and other school staff, no such luck—especially considering that when speaking Chinglish I tend to put the most complicated words in English.

Needless to say, many of the awkward moments during Principals’ Week were a direct result of this sudden crash course in all-day-Chinese. Even during my time in Beijing, we didn’t often have situations like this, because we only had class for 4-5 hours a day, and during the off time I hung out with Americans a lot (probably more than I should have). We spoke Chinese to each other a lot because of the language pledge, but we also spoke English when we needed to. Besides, it’s way easier to speak a language with other learners of that language than it is to speak with native speakers. I spoke Chinese with my roommate too, obviously, but if there was a word I didn’t know how to say and I said it in English, there was a good chance she’d either know it or be patient enough to wait while I looked it up. Usually, whenever I was in a situation where I had to speak only Chinese, I had more than one other non-native speaker with me, and we could help each other out more than Mark and I have been able to with just the two of us.

The first morning of principals’ week was so intense, and so frustrating, that I ended up getting back to my room and (unintentionally) bawling my eyes out to YanMei. It was the first time I’d cried in front of anyone since getting to China, and, even though I wasn’t happy about it, in some ways it felt good. The entire morning I’d felt trapped and stupid for not understanding, and I felt like I had to make a really good first impression, which was really hard to do when I couldn’t talk or understand what was being said. I did get the gist of a lot of it, but missing the nuance made complete comprehension a rare commodity. Talking to YanMei, who’s seen my progress from the first week through the STP, reminded me of where I’d started and gave me some hope for the future. That being said, I’m still super frustrated with my language ability, and I’m scared about how quickly I’ll be able to improve without proper, formal classes. I like to talk way too much to not be able to communicate fluently with anyone around me except Mark (who, although an awesome guy and great teacher, is not a chatterbox). I’m pretty sure the lack of English speaking companions is one of the reasons I’ve been writing so, so much. I actually finished my old journal last week (which had about 75 pages in it when I got to China) and had to start my new one.

It’s interesting, because when I was studying abroad I was pretty convinced that, with the exception of western toilets and washing machines/dryers, I was really living a Chinese life. Sure, I knew I had American friends and probably watched more American TV and stuff than I should have, but I also had a truly inflated notion of how much I was “roughing” it. The fact is, despite being very Chinese, Beijing maintains a certain aroma of western existence that isn’t echoed throughout the rest of the country (with the obvious exceptions of Shanghai and Hong Kong, if that counts). There are 10,000 expats in Beijing—most clustered in the Chaoyang district—and hence there’s a wide variety of food/retail offerings.

Most of the people here in Heqing have probably never been to Beijing or anywhere beyond Yunnan. Many might never have met a foreigner outside of last year’s CEI fellows (although they’ve probably seen some traveling between Dali and Lijiang, two big tourist destinations). Here, instead of trying to accommodate to you by speaking what little English they know, people expect you to accommodate to them. That’s how it should be—don’t get me wrong—but it does mean a more difficult day-to-day existence than I experienced in Beijing, where I on multiple occasions fought back against people speaking English to me by speaking only Mandarin. Plus the Heqing accent is quite different from what I’m used to up north, so even if people I’m talking with use vocab I know, there’s no guarantee I’ll understand.

Beyond language, there are innumerable customs and pieces of etiquette I am as of yet unfamiliar with. Ma LiJun and Li YiMing have been really helpful in that regard, but of course they don’t know everything either. Everything from what constitutes proper teaching attire to how to acknowledge/ignore people when you walk by them in the bathroom is utterly different from what I’m used to.

Colin (my OSM) put it really well yesterday (Thursday) when we were sitting in a plant shop in Heqing City, waiting for the rain to stop. We were discussing adjustment periods and things of that sort, and he said, “The circumstances will not change, but you will change.” Simple enough, of course, and a fact I already understood about my time here, but he articulated it well. I really do wonder who I’ll be at the end of this. Time will tell.