Arrival (2-23)

NOTE: After having no internet connection for six weeks, it's working and I now have a VPN so I can access sites like this. I'll catch up posting over the next couple weeks or so.

I'm in China! It was a loooong trip. I met Anna, another volunteer on the plane. We had arranged to have adjacent seats. It was nice to have a companion and to get to know her.

After about an hour, the pilot made an announcement requesting that, if there was an American doctor on board, the person go to the front, as there was a medical emergency. Later the announcement was repeated. After three hours, he announced that we were returning to Chicago because the emergency condition was not improving. So, back we went. When we disembarked, we were given a voucher for $12 for food, since it was 4:00, and we were scheduled to leave at 6:00. When we returned to the gate, the woman was able to reserve our flight from Shanghai to Chengdu. At 6:30 we were told that departure would be at 8:00. So, 9.5 hours after our original departure, we set off on the 14.5 hour flight again. Interestingly, there were only about a dozen Caucasian people on the flight.

We arrived in Shanghai at 12:30 AM and were taken to a hotel for the 5.5 hours before we had to get on the shuttle back to the airport. Arriving in the hotel lobby, we knew we were in China. The room was freezing—no heat. I thought perhaps the wall unit was a heater, but only cool air came out. It was too late and I was too tired to call someone to help us. I learned later that the units do have both heat and air, but you have to know how to work it. But it was nice to have a bed and to be prone for a while. I slept enough to feel refreshed in the morning.

When we arrived in Chengdu, we were met and taken to the Peace Corps China office. There we met the other three PCResponse volunteers. We had three days of orientation to Peace Corps China and teaching in China. All volunteers are in four provinces—Sichuan, Chongqing, Gansu, and Guizhou—and all are teaching at universities. At almost all of the sites, there are two volunteers.

Orientation was brief and basic. It highlighted the policy differences in China, since all of us are familiar with basic Peace Corps policies. It included a very brief—one hour—introduction to Mandarin. We were given Chinese names. Mine in Jia Lin, based on pronunciation of Jacqueline. We can have a language tutor at site, which I plan to do. I don’t anticipate being great at Mandarin, but I do want to be able to do basic communication. I was given injections for Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever.

A couple of the sessions focused on the education system. It is very test oriented. Students take a national exam to determine which middle school they can go to. Those with high scores can attend the better schools. Others can attend not-so-good schools or private schools. They have another exam before high school and one at the end of high school. Their score on the latter determines which universities they can attend. The focus of exams is math and Chinese, with math being the most important. To do well on the exams, students often attend extra classes on weekends and during breaks. Each secondary school and university has its own test. Post-graduate exams are national, and then each school has its own subject exam.

English classes start when students are in third grade and continue for twelve years—until the second year of university. Students in graduate school also study English. The focus is test oriented. In primary and secondary schools, the focus is mainly grammar translation with reading and vocabulary. As in Thailand, students do not learn to speak. At these levels, English is often taught in Chinese.

English exams are part of the testing system at all levels. There is also an English exam at the end of the second year of university—one for English majors and one for non-English majors. English is also part of professional advancement exams.

Recently new textbooks have been implemented. There are several choices of texts, and each province selects the one they will use. The new books use a communicative approach; so teachers do not know how to use them since they have not learned that method of teaching. In the summer, volunteers have a Summer Project that introduces communicative methods to teachers while also teaching English to improve the teachers’ skills and confidence.

Everyone who talked with us about our assignments mentioned that students really like foreign teachers. Behavior in class is good. The biggest issues are use of cell phones and plagiarism. Students often have dictionaries on their phones, so it is hard to prohibit having a phone.

We were told to avoid discussing the three t’s: Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen. No problem there.  

It’s been fifteen years since I taught at university level, but I’m excited to do it again. The presentations helped me start thinking about it and get myself reoriented. Wednesday afternoon we were given our assignments. Mine is Chengdu Normal University, which is located in Sichuan province in Wenjiang, a suburb of Chengdu. The university moved to the suburbs a couple years ago and was renamed to be a normal university last year.

Given the emphasis on and importance of studying and testing English, I’ve been surprised at how little of the language is evident in the environment. While English is almost everywhere in Thailand, I’ve seen very little here. Menus at restaurants in Chengdu are 100% Chinese. The hotel near the Shanghai airport had no English; same with the one in Chengdu.

While in Chendu, we ate at local restaurants for lunch and dinner. Fortunately for us, we had Sarah, who is fluent in Mandarin, to help us order. The night she didn’t join us, we ate at a place with pictures. I used my phrase book to point to the words for chicken and vegetables and was able to order a vegetable dish. The last day Kim, Anna, and I went for a walk and stopped to order a drink at a place that had pictures and English names for the drinks. The girls selling them were excited to be doing so and to use a few words of English. After dinner, we walked around the block and stopped at a pastry shop. A girl sat beside Kim and had fun playing games with her. She was sweet.

Orientation was originally scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, but they changed it to add Thursday. We were all glad to have the extra day to get over jet lag and be ready to go to our sites. I did pretty well with the jet lag, staying alert a little longer every day. I slept well but went to sleep early and woke up early until Friday. After that, I was fine.