great teacher chaos does china (hubei '07)
I could try and put the experiences of my past week into words. I could spin these little symbols into connecting phrases that have meaning; I could write a blow-by-blow synopsis, and it still wouldn't even come close to capturing what I've seen and experienced.
This doesn't mean I won't try.
So, what has Chaos been up to since his birthday? Squatted around a tiny screen desperately flailing for those extra ten levels? Huddled around a leaked copy of the latest Harry Potter book? Passed out on the keyboard? Subjugating third world countries with his own private army? Well, no. Chaos has been doing something far less relaxing, something that he is known to hate.
Chaos has been teaching.
For free.
The magic f-word, here interchangeable with 'charity'. Yes, Chaos has been and gone to the Hubei province of Mainland China, proud originator of the famous squat toilet, scourge of inexperienced tourists who take soft toilet paper for granted. Specifically, Yichang, a place he expects pretty much nobody who reads this to have heard of unless their grasp of world geography is excellent. And even then I'd have to point to the big sign that says 'Three Gorges Dam 40km upstream'.
How did this happen? I'm still asking myself, a good 15 hours after I arrived safely back in Hong Kong once more. Didn't I just land in HK like - a freakin WEEK ago? How the heck could anyone convince me to leave my glorious tiny room crammed with assorted media crap for the backlands of China?
A lot of the blame lies with this man.
His name is Gary So, and he's a friend of the family. He's one of those queer folk possessed by the boundless energy that drives him to get out and do more. And not for himself, either. I meant to turn down the offer. I meant to walk away after saying that no, I didn't feel up to traveling again so soon, no, I hate teaching, no no no no NO. What can I say? The cocky man had me nodding my head and signing up before I KNEW what was happening. It's gotta be some sort of magic. The way he pulled the wool over my eyes and led me blindfolded to China to teach a brimming class of fourth-graders... man.
An hour's bus to Shenzhen from Hong Kong, then a two hour flight and finally the Airbus parked in the dinky little airport of Yichang. No delays going, at least. First night I didn't really know what to expect - Yichang had apparently been hit by a bad bout of flooding prior to our visit, and so a lot of the roads had random flotsam strewn about randomly, making the road difficult. It was a funny experience, walking through Yichang at night. Street vendors doing a brisk trade in potstickers, dumplings, chilled drinks and noodles for dirt cheap, smoke and smells and lights. Spent a night in a crappy hotel bugged by mosquitoes. I think living in the UK has made me soft - I only got eight or so bites but I still had trouble sleeping. Also another surprise when I tried the "very fast internet" in the room; Livejournal is politically blacklisted in mainland China, as is the BBC website.
Next day was the drive to the place where I was to teach for five days. Sightseeing? Well, I did do quite a bit of that, although that was mostly from the cramped inside of a tour bus traveling on a dirt road only wide enough for one vehicle and contested by about nine.
China is a country of extraordinary natural beauty. The place is stunning. Mountains - real mountains, not those pansy-ass rolling hills the UK has in droves. Cliffs scaled with green and sheer drops into the river bed. And all of it constantly being built on by a demanding government that wants China in superpower status as soon as possible. It's a damn shame; roads, actual roads, would be nice, but putting them there as well as developing would disrupt a beautiful environment so obviously. It's a delicate balance, as it's always been, and I kept getting reminded how ugly the creations of man looked next to all this *nature*. And this is coming from me, a city boy who has seen the crazy-ass skyscraping God-pricking buildings of steel and glass.
Teaching? Well, after arriving in Xiangshan and a quick but satisfying lunch it really was game on. Xiangshan is a small, recently developed area - built back in '03, according to the tourist guides. Just the one "foreign language school", meaning I was put there to teach English. I was stunned, and I am still stunned, by the way everyone treated me in Xiangshan. On entering the classroom I was given flowers. The kids hung upon my every word and they wanted to learn so badly it hurt. I felt ashamed to be afraid to teach.
Well, not quite afraid, but I suddenly felt keenly aware of the huge amount of responsibility a teacher takes up. You get a chance to shape futures. Change lives, if you're that driven to it. I'm not that kind of person. I'm casual, easygoing- a little nuts every now and again, but who isn't? Once the kids got wind of the fact that they weren't going to get recited at in English and even better, they weren't going to be forced to parrot, they loved me to death. I taught directions, greetings, weather, summer stuff, vocabulary, emotions, even music. I think I laughed and sang and yelled myself hoarse by the end of that first day, and the spicy food (extremely good, but spicy) didn't help the throat condition any. On day two I was chugging water nonstop (supplied by grateful students) and popping throat lozenges every ten minutes.
Oh, and crispy creme on a cracker was it hot. Thirty to forty degrees celcius, in a baking classroom. I sweated *through* my shirts; there was nothing for it but to wash em in the hotel sink at the end of the day and hope they dried.
The little girl in the pic above was my favorite student. Called her Maria. She was an absolute *dear*. Did everything wonderfully, was quick to learn, participated in class (pretty hard, when you're struggling to be heard among a load of rowdy boys) and she gave me a nice card on leaving.
...I still can't get over how nice the kids were. Some of them would have had to walk for hours just to get to class. These are kids who don't know what air conditioning is, what TV is; even the promise of higher learning is more than enough to make them want more. It's wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time; with a sinking heart I realize that I'll never find a class of students this willing to listen or tractable within Hong Kong or any other major civilized hub for that matter.
Nowhere was this more apparent than on day three. The high stress, travel conditions, and exceptionally hot food took their toll, and I came down with a sore throat and the onset of flu symptoms, coughing up half a lung or so and maybe a kidney. I'm not that trusting of mainland Chinese medicine - the hospital was a broken down, run-over affair, and the low price of the treatment only made me all the more suspicious. Expecting some cough syrup or maybe in an extreme case some antibiotic I had to swallow, I was shocked as hell to find out that I had to sit in for an IV drip.
Yes, I took an IV drip for a sore throat. It was all they had. It was faster than taking pills orally, anyway, or so they said.
It worked, but I still had to take half a day off class due to the necessity of being hooked up to a drip. What do I see when I wobble my way out of the hospital, weak from the heat, and blinking sweat out of my eyes? My class. They had somehow begged a ride on the tour bus and came to visit me at the hospital. Bear in mind I had known them for two days. They came bearing gifts; fresh fruit, small trinkets, keychains, a get well soon card - it was insane.
On day five I didn't want to leave. I hate teaching, the living conditions were poor, I was sick of hotel life and the heat... but I didn't want to leave. My class begged, pleaded, cried, did all sorts of amazing stuff to try and get me to stay in the long term. I couldn't find the words to express how I felt. I had taught them for four and a half days, five minus the half day hooked to a drip, and here there were kids bawling their freakin' eyes out as I waved for the last time.
After that it was another five hour trip back to Yichang and a half day spent bummed out in yet another hotel. Was dragged hiking to some cliffs the next day, and took some pretty amazing pictures with my crappy 3.2 megapixel.
Don't worry about the date on the pics. The camera's old and I couldn't be bothered readjusting it.
Fond memories, a tiring trip, and maaaaan I was beat when I crawled back into Hong Kong at four AM ..today, smelling of China and sweat and hotel soap. I fell asleep on the bus about three times in an hour's worth of journey. Overall? The experience... hella worth it. I wouldn't ever consider teaching as a long-term job op, but there, in that small town surrounded by mountains, I found the joy of teaching.
NOW FOR REGULAR CHAOS SHOW NEWS
-Disgaea PS3. Holy hell it EXISTS!
-Harry Potter review incoming (book + movie soon)
This doesn't mean I won't try.
So, what has Chaos been up to since his birthday? Squatted around a tiny screen desperately flailing for those extra ten levels? Huddled around a leaked copy of the latest Harry Potter book? Passed out on the keyboard? Subjugating third world countries with his own private army? Well, no. Chaos has been doing something far less relaxing, something that he is known to hate.
Chaos has been teaching.
For free.
The magic f-word, here interchangeable with 'charity'. Yes, Chaos has been and gone to the Hubei province of Mainland China, proud originator of the famous squat toilet, scourge of inexperienced tourists who take soft toilet paper for granted. Specifically, Yichang, a place he expects pretty much nobody who reads this to have heard of unless their grasp of world geography is excellent. And even then I'd have to point to the big sign that says 'Three Gorges Dam 40km upstream'.
How did this happen? I'm still asking myself, a good 15 hours after I arrived safely back in Hong Kong once more. Didn't I just land in HK like - a freakin WEEK ago? How the heck could anyone convince me to leave my glorious tiny room crammed with assorted media crap for the backlands of China?
A lot of the blame lies with this man.
His name is Gary So, and he's a friend of the family. He's one of those queer folk possessed by the boundless energy that drives him to get out and do more. And not for himself, either. I meant to turn down the offer. I meant to walk away after saying that no, I didn't feel up to traveling again so soon, no, I hate teaching, no no no no NO. What can I say? The cocky man had me nodding my head and signing up before I KNEW what was happening. It's gotta be some sort of magic. The way he pulled the wool over my eyes and led me blindfolded to China to teach a brimming class of fourth-graders... man.
An hour's bus to Shenzhen from Hong Kong, then a two hour flight and finally the Airbus parked in the dinky little airport of Yichang. No delays going, at least. First night I didn't really know what to expect - Yichang had apparently been hit by a bad bout of flooding prior to our visit, and so a lot of the roads had random flotsam strewn about randomly, making the road difficult. It was a funny experience, walking through Yichang at night. Street vendors doing a brisk trade in potstickers, dumplings, chilled drinks and noodles for dirt cheap, smoke and smells and lights. Spent a night in a crappy hotel bugged by mosquitoes. I think living in the UK has made me soft - I only got eight or so bites but I still had trouble sleeping. Also another surprise when I tried the "very fast internet" in the room; Livejournal is politically blacklisted in mainland China, as is the BBC website.
Next day was the drive to the place where I was to teach for five days. Sightseeing? Well, I did do quite a bit of that, although that was mostly from the cramped inside of a tour bus traveling on a dirt road only wide enough for one vehicle and contested by about nine.
China is a country of extraordinary natural beauty. The place is stunning. Mountains - real mountains, not those pansy-ass rolling hills the UK has in droves. Cliffs scaled with green and sheer drops into the river bed. And all of it constantly being built on by a demanding government that wants China in superpower status as soon as possible. It's a damn shame; roads, actual roads, would be nice, but putting them there as well as developing would disrupt a beautiful environment so obviously. It's a delicate balance, as it's always been, and I kept getting reminded how ugly the creations of man looked next to all this *nature*. And this is coming from me, a city boy who has seen the crazy-ass skyscraping God-pricking buildings of steel and glass.
Teaching? Well, after arriving in Xiangshan and a quick but satisfying lunch it really was game on. Xiangshan is a small, recently developed area - built back in '03, according to the tourist guides. Just the one "foreign language school", meaning I was put there to teach English. I was stunned, and I am still stunned, by the way everyone treated me in Xiangshan. On entering the classroom I was given flowers. The kids hung upon my every word and they wanted to learn so badly it hurt. I felt ashamed to be afraid to teach.
Well, not quite afraid, but I suddenly felt keenly aware of the huge amount of responsibility a teacher takes up. You get a chance to shape futures. Change lives, if you're that driven to it. I'm not that kind of person. I'm casual, easygoing- a little nuts every now and again, but who isn't? Once the kids got wind of the fact that they weren't going to get recited at in English and even better, they weren't going to be forced to parrot, they loved me to death. I taught directions, greetings, weather, summer stuff, vocabulary, emotions, even music. I think I laughed and sang and yelled myself hoarse by the end of that first day, and the spicy food (extremely good, but spicy) didn't help the throat condition any. On day two I was chugging water nonstop (supplied by grateful students) and popping throat lozenges every ten minutes.
Oh, and crispy creme on a cracker was it hot. Thirty to forty degrees celcius, in a baking classroom. I sweated *through* my shirts; there was nothing for it but to wash em in the hotel sink at the end of the day and hope they dried.
The little girl in the pic above was my favorite student. Called her Maria. She was an absolute *dear*. Did everything wonderfully, was quick to learn, participated in class (pretty hard, when you're struggling to be heard among a load of rowdy boys) and she gave me a nice card on leaving.
...I still can't get over how nice the kids were. Some of them would have had to walk for hours just to get to class. These are kids who don't know what air conditioning is, what TV is; even the promise of higher learning is more than enough to make them want more. It's wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time; with a sinking heart I realize that I'll never find a class of students this willing to listen or tractable within Hong Kong or any other major civilized hub for that matter.
Nowhere was this more apparent than on day three. The high stress, travel conditions, and exceptionally hot food took their toll, and I came down with a sore throat and the onset of flu symptoms, coughing up half a lung or so and maybe a kidney. I'm not that trusting of mainland Chinese medicine - the hospital was a broken down, run-over affair, and the low price of the treatment only made me all the more suspicious. Expecting some cough syrup or maybe in an extreme case some antibiotic I had to swallow, I was shocked as hell to find out that I had to sit in for an IV drip.
Yes, I took an IV drip for a sore throat. It was all they had. It was faster than taking pills orally, anyway, or so they said.
It worked, but I still had to take half a day off class due to the necessity of being hooked up to a drip. What do I see when I wobble my way out of the hospital, weak from the heat, and blinking sweat out of my eyes? My class. They had somehow begged a ride on the tour bus and came to visit me at the hospital. Bear in mind I had known them for two days. They came bearing gifts; fresh fruit, small trinkets, keychains, a get well soon card - it was insane.
On day five I didn't want to leave. I hate teaching, the living conditions were poor, I was sick of hotel life and the heat... but I didn't want to leave. My class begged, pleaded, cried, did all sorts of amazing stuff to try and get me to stay in the long term. I couldn't find the words to express how I felt. I had taught them for four and a half days, five minus the half day hooked to a drip, and here there were kids bawling their freakin' eyes out as I waved for the last time.
After that it was another five hour trip back to Yichang and a half day spent bummed out in yet another hotel. Was dragged hiking to some cliffs the next day, and took some pretty amazing pictures with my crappy 3.2 megapixel.
Don't worry about the date on the pics. The camera's old and I couldn't be bothered readjusting it.
Fond memories, a tiring trip, and maaaaan I was beat when I crawled back into Hong Kong at four AM ..today, smelling of China and sweat and hotel soap. I fell asleep on the bus about three times in an hour's worth of journey. Overall? The experience... hella worth it. I wouldn't ever consider teaching as a long-term job op, but there, in that small town surrounded by mountains, I found the joy of teaching.
NOW FOR REGULAR CHAOS SHOW NEWS
-Disgaea PS3. Holy hell it EXISTS!
-Harry Potter review incoming (book + movie soon)