A Teacher Goes Deep into China. (standard:non fiction, 1633 words)
Author: pjt	Added: Feb 23 2001	Views/Reads: 4118/2576	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
An account of what happened after I accepted an invitation from the Guangxi Education Ministry (China) to teach in the English Department of a Teachers' College in a remote mountain region: the only foreigner in a County of over half a million Chinese.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


The Dean of the English Department at the Teachers' College,Mr Zhou Yi,
together with some senior teachers and a representative of the College 
President greeted me at Luizhou Railway Station. Three hours later we 
drove through the gates of the College. 

My first experience of a well-established Chinese custom came the
evening after my arrival at Hechi Teachers' College. I had been 
installed in my spacious, self-contained apartment -a privilege for a 
single person- and now it was time for my welcoming banquet. Because a 
"foreign expert"is regarded as a VIP (at least in that remote part of 
China) the banquet was hosted by the College president, Mr Liao, and 
attended by three vice- presidents, several senior teaching and 
administrative staff, some local dignitaries (including the county's 
Head of Security and a representative of the Governor) and the driver 
of the car which had transported me from Liuzhou to Yishan. 

It was jolly affair with lots of welcoming speeches and a convivial
atmosphere which increased in volume as the Chinese wine enlivened the 
spirits of those present. I wonder how you would have liked the food 
which included frog, sauted chicken gizzard and liver, and fried duck's 
legs in sauce. All this was complimented by the rice wine and a 
plentiful supply of local beer. 

Next morning I had a hearty breakfast of rice noodles, corn porridge,
some small spongy cakes, a doughy-looking off-white morsel with a sweet 
centre and a couple of bowls of warm milk. 

Part 3...SETTLING IN: 

Once I began teaching I realised the size of the College. The English
Department had nearly two hundred students and, in those days, was one 
of six departments offering courses to about a thousand students. There 
were four hundred teaching staff. The students came from all over the 
prefecture of Hechi, a remote mountainous area composed of several 
counties with a population of nearly five million people. 

Most of the students belong to one or other of the fifty-five minority
nationalities that make up the truly multi-cultural nation of China. 
The majority of Chinese people are the Han nationality, but the 
minority people have a total population of over four million. Having 
students from such a variety of backgrounds provided me with a rare 
educational experience. 

Another bonus for me was that my students lived, worked and played on
the College campus. I was, therefore, able to assist their learning 
during most of my waking hours because I lived, worked and played with 
them. This was quite a contrast to my situation at Curtin University in 
Western Australia where my main contact with students was during 
official lesson periods. 

Being the only foreigner on campus I had quite a lot of attention from
what I called "staring squads" both at the College and in the little 
town of Yishan which was situated opposite the campus on the other side 
of the beautiful Long Jiang (the Dragon River). After a month or so, 
however, everyone had become accustomed to my face as I walked through 
the town or the College grounds; and so my walks were then usually 
punctuated with friendly "hellos" from all, including the delightful 
children from the kindergarten opposite my apartment block. 

On one of these walks I met with a Chinese custom which slightly
nonplussed me at first. On my daily walks to the town area for shopping 
I would pass many residences. In summer many of the occupants would 
leave their front doors open because of the heat and sit in the front 
room eating their meals. As I passed by they would call out friendly 
greetings to me and, lifting their bowls towards me, indicate that they 
were inviting me to join them. 

At first I was at a loss to know how to respond. However, I learnt from
the students (who always insisted on accompanying me on these forays) 
that the gestures were merely symbolic and traditional and that I was 
not expected to accept. After a while the custom ceased to embarrass me 
and I was able to handle it by smiling and saying, "Xie xie" (Thank you 
very much) and move on without offending anyone. 

Many of the students, the town people and, certainly, the rural peasants
(as the farmers were known) had never before set eyes on a foreigner. 
After a time, though, they all got used to me: the "staring squads" 
diminished in number and finally dwindled to the occasional small 
circle. As a result I constantly got invitations to banquets within the 
College and in the homes of town residents and teachers from other 
educational faculties. 

One school called the Construction Primary School invited me to a music
and dance performance staged especially for me. At that event I was 
presented with gifts and was made an honorary instructor and member of 
the equivalent of our cub and scouts movement: the Young Pioneers. This 
entailed being the centre of a ceremony during which I was presented 
with a neckerchief to wear as a symbol of the honour bestowed upon me. 

All of these experiences were new to me as I had never lived and worked
in an Asian country before. The Yishan experience was unique because of 
the status thrust upon me in my role as the only foreigner in the 
entire County. 

To read about other experiences in China, go to the following articles:
* An Evening with the Moon Goddess; * China’s Great Wall of History 
(not yet sbmitted); * The Long and Loyal Vigil; * Love and 
Marriage...Chinese style(not yet submitted); * Teaching English as a 
Foreign Language in China: a communicative approach.(not yet 
submitted.) 

Zai Jian! 


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