Out of my comfort zone.

In less than 8 weeks I will be setting off on my biggest adventure. I am going to be spending nearly two months on the road, traversing the third largest country in the world, a country with one of the most diverse range of ethnicities. There are 56 ethnic groups recognised by the Chinese government with another 15 known but not officially recognised. I am going to be attempting to get off the beaten track a little with my trip in an effort to get to meet some people from these different backgrounds and hopefully get a glimpse of their varying cultures.

I’ll be honest; I am absolutely terrified.

I’ll be visiting six provinces, at least five major cities, two national parks, one glacier, one panda breeding research base (bring on the pandas) and over twenty small towns. And I mean small by Chinese standards, so some are not really all that small, but almost all of them are remote and pretty well isolated.

The biggest barrier I come up against here by far is the language. My Mandarin skills are fairly basic and I know no Cantonese, the two main languages spoken throughout the country. Part of the planned route for my trip will take me to some pretty far out places in terms of distance, and that remoteness in turn means that these locals may not even speak Mandarin. There are well over 250 languages alive throughout this enormous country and many of them are completely different from each other.

Heading out on a two month trip with a basic grasp of just one language, which may ultimately be incomprehensible to many Chinese (be it through my terrible pronunciation or just not knowing the dialect) has me scared. What if I ask for a bus ticket to Deqin and end up buying one for Deqen only to find out once I have already arrived… It might not sound like a huge deal, but by all reports transport out in the middle of nowhere runs intermittently, at best. Or what if I order something to eat using my stock standard, go-to expression “ni neng tuijian shenme cai me?” (what do you recommend) only to later discover I’ve ordered dog again, or worse still, my beloved panda! That’s HIGHLY unlikely but still a fear I have as a result of not understanding what I hear.

I honestly believe some people have a knack for picking up languages (my new Finnish friend who speaks something ridiculous like nine is testament to that) but I am pretty sure I don’t have it. I am trying my best, but have to say that in the last week all I’ve picked up is the Mandarin for watermelon, cucumber, blueberries, nose and hat. Not exactly practical when it comes to trying to convey that you want a room somewhere cheap preferably with hot water.

Regardless, I am going to give it a red hot crack. Knowing that I could potentially get to see such gorgeous places as Luoyang, Deqin, Juizhaigou (google images of this one, I implore you) and Dragon’s Backbone thrills me in a way literally nothing ever has before. It is this thrill, this overwhelming desire to experience such amazing landscapes, that pushes my beyond my comfort zone enough to get out there and do it.

And don’t worry; I’ll be sure to take the odd photo here and there for you. Here is a picture of me holding a panda to tide you over....

Hangzhou

Last week we were given a three day weekend, which I used as opportunity to do my first bit of solo travelling for this, my latest stint in China. I settled on Hangzhou; a large city of over nine million people and capital of the Zhejiang Province. The journey itself was relatively unremarkable; I made my way there in just under two and a half hours using the bullet train, but hardly saw anything because I had agreed to swap seats with a local who wanted to sit with her friends which resulted in me no longer having a window seat. More fool me.

Post-Deng-Xiaoping China is a society that is engaged in a construction industry boom. Hangzhou city is much like any other Chinese city in this sense; bust with built up traffic, constantly noisy and with a huge amount of construction taking place. They are building modern freeways, high speed rail, sea crossing bridges, a brand new metro system, and modern electricity grid and energy generating infrastructure, at an almost unhuman rate.

A regular sight in China, fast moving construction.

Everywhere you go in China there are old buildings being torn down and new ones being thrown up in a matter of days. Hangzhou was no exception. Even the hotel I was staying at was under partial construction during my stay (much to my annoyance – I only discovered this when I was woken up at 6am to the sound of hammers and drills).Perhaps this constant noise and the ensuing pollution is what drives locals and visitors to the peaceful serenity of the Chinese gardens. 

Hangzhou is probably most famous for it’s West Lake and the surrounding temples, pagodas and gardens. West Lake has inspired poets and painters with its natural beauty and historical relics since the late 5^th century AD. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 2011 and was hailed as having been a great source of inspiration for garden design for centuries, not only throughout the rest of China, but also to those in Korea and Japan.

West Lake - XiHu

As I spent the larger part of my three days in Hangzhou within the Westlake gardens I can see why. Typical Chinese gardens are enclosed by walls and include ponds, rock works, trees and flowers, and an assortment of halls and pavilions within the garden, connected by winding paths and zigzag galleries. When moving along these winding paths you can view a succession of artfully composed scenes, unrolling like a scroll of landscape paintings, no two vistas ever the same. West Lake did not fail to deliver in the aspect.

 

A Chinese term for landscape, "shan shui" translates literally to "mountain” and “water", and while standing at the edge of West Lake I was able to see an amazing panorama that was filled with both these aspects. The beauty of this outlook was compounded by visiting at exactly the right time of year. Spring in China means blooming blossoms, warm sunny days and clear blue skies (if you are in the right city).

After spending the day weaving in and out of the different scenes in the gardens, I settled myself onto the bank of the lake to watch the sunset, I felt somewhat overwhelmed. I was, and still am in awe that I was able to witness such serene beauty, yet I also felt sad that I did not have anyone there with me to be able to remember it also. But rather than dwelling on that sadness, I sought comfort in knowing I could takes endless photographs instead, and share that beauty with you all anyway.

Teaching in Wuxi

After a brief settling-in period earlier this week, I have now started teaching in class. I had forgotten just how very different teaching in China is compared to teaching at home, but the differences have become glaringly obvious since completing my Masters last year.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is the amount of time I spend in the classroom. . Across the whole day I will generally be in class with the students for 4 hours, but on a typical day here in China, I will spend only 2.5 of those hours actually teaching. 

Jinqiao Bilingual Kindergarten

Here, I am dropped at my school by our driver at 8:30, where I then head straight to my first class to do morning exercises. I love this part of the day, as it is basically just half an hour of playing and dancing with the children. After that I spend the next two and a half hours going from one class to another to teach for 25 minute blocks. By 11:00 am all my day's teaching is finished. I then go back to my original class to help feed them lunch and generally muck about with the earlier finishers. At 11:30 (!) the classes Chinese teacher and I go for a half hour lunch break, before heading back to help prepare the students for their afternoon naps. 

In Chinese kindergartens, all students spend between 12:00 and 2:30 napping. This might seem a little ridiculous, but it's important to note that kindergarten over here starts at age 3, so these children are essentially still babies who need lots of rest. Not only that, they also spend more hours at school than we do in Australia, starting at around 8:00 and finishing around 4:00 or even later.

This two and a half hour break that I now have is what the Chinese teacher's here tell me is time to 'have a rest'. This coming Monday I can use this time to prepare my 5 lessons (1 per day that I will deliver to several different classes) using the outlines, books and CD resources I've been provided with.... The other four days of the week I can pretty much choose to do as I like. Last week I spent this time exploring the local area, going to the Carrefour nearby to suss out the imported food section (Milo yes... Vegemite no), or sitting in KFC drinking tea and reading on my iPad in an effort to stay warm.

Come 2:20 I return to my main class to wake up the students and help them get dressed for about 20 minutes. At which point I then say my goodbyes before heading out to be collected by the driver at 2:40 exactly (where he pointedly looks at his watch if I am a minute late). Done and dusted. This is the sum totally of my working day. 

For this I am paid extremely well; relatively speaking. Per day it equates to AU$75. Not much you might think, but it's actually quite a lot. My contract includes a lot of perks: free furnished accommodation, free WIFI (better and faster connection than I had back home), all utilities are covered, free lunch and dinner, free transport to and from work, health insurance, and full reimbursement for my visa costs and flights. I buy my own breakfast and food on the weekends, pay for my minimal phone bill, but other than that I have no other overheads. The cost of living here is minimal so nearly everything I make is pure profit.. It's a pretty amazing deal. 

The sad thing to consider here is that my salary is dramatically different from that of a local Chinese teacher. Different accounts of pay has led me to believe that full time Chinese teachers receive on average AU$186 per month. It is worth considering however that this is something never openly discussed with foreigners, so I can't say without a doubt this is the exact figure, but I am almost certain that the amount a local, fully qualified, university trained teacher is paid here in China will not be much more than this. 

These kindergarten teachers spend all day with the students, provide them with a full curriculum and virtually raise them from the age of three. They are constantly dealing with excessive workloads, overbearing parents, and an obsession with perfect exam scores. I however, swan in and out, teaching a little here and there but mostly playing with the kids. I do well under a quarter of the work but get paid well over seven times the amount. It would be completely justified for the local teachers here to be resentful towards this lazy, overpaid foreigner, and yet they have never ever made me feel anything but welcome.

So like many other foreign teachers working in China I consider myself lucky, count my money, and try not to feel too guilty about my circumstances.

Jinqiao School

I recently accepted a teaching position in Wuxi and so far I could not be happier with my decision to up and move again. For some time now I have been itching to move again and returning to a country I have an affinity with seemed natural.

After a Valium riddled arrival to Shanghai I was greeted by Ma Chong and was whisked off to Wuxi, a two and a half hour drive from Pu Dong airport. Chong is incredibly lovely with an amazing grasp of English. So far he has been wonderfully helpful, has a great rapport with the other English teachers, and genuinely seems to care about my well being.

Aideen and Eric met me on arrival, despite it being after midnight, and they also were very helpful. They already had a package of information for me to keep (including our address written in Chinese, a hand drawn map of how to get to the shops,and a list of their phone numbers). 

I'm already beginning to notice great differences between here and Wuhan. The community I am living is appears to be much more affluent, the streets are lined with beautifully manicured gardens, and I am not being stared at anywhere near as much. 

The wealth in this area is apparent in a few different ways. The most obvious ways are, such as the previously mentioned gardens and the beautiful new cars everywhere. I was chauffeured home from the airport in a brand new Audi and driven to the supermarket today in a near new Peugeot. 

Another way it expresses itself, is through its construction. Like all areas of China, the development of high-rise apartments and huge state of the art shopping malls are evident everywhere. The significant difference I can see is that temporary homes are built for the migrant workers.

An example of temporary housing that
 can be seen from our kitchen window.

China has a huge transitory worker population, mostly coming from impoverished regions to go to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. Where as in Wuhan I would see these workers sleeping it rough, in dug out sections within the construction areas, here in Wuxi they are provided with temporary housing. The housing itself does not look like much to our eyes, but it provides these workers with a dry place to sleep and also allows their family to stay together. The current number of migrant workers in China is estimated at 120 million, approximately 9% of the population, and a huge percentage of those workers would be leaving their families behind in order to find that work.  

Traveler's guilt is something I've felt a lot during my time in China. But it also provides me with a better understanding of how lucky I am. I'm here and I've been provided with free clean (relatively), dry and warm accommodation. I don't have to pay for water, electricity and have the option of being fed 5 nights a week for free too. I really am very lucky.

                  

The view from my bedroom into the school.

Unfinished business.

For sometime now, I have had a great urge to return to China. When I left, I felt as though I still had unfinished business to attend to, I had not had the chance to see and do everything I had hoped for.

I love my home town, I love the closeness I have to my friends and family here, both physically and emotionally. But I yearn to be back in the country I have grown to love so much.

Sometimes I wonder if I have idolised the place in my mind, remembering it as more wonderful than it really was. I am realistic, however, in the idea that I will not be going back to recreate what I had but to start afresh. I'm going to put down new roots and immerse myself fully into a new life away from what I know.

I don't doubt that the bad parts I have tried to wipe from my memory will occur in this new city. The foul smell of fermented tofu and stinky garbage in summer. The bitingly cold winters combined with the Chinese belief that fresh air is essential even in -5 degree winters. The days where I get so sick of being stared at, that all I want to do is lock myself in my room, throw a pillow over my head and never come back out. I know these problems will reoccur and new ones may arise, but I feel confident in the knowledge that at least this time I am better prepared and more resilient that ever before.

The things I look forward to that I know will still be there waiting for me are what keeps me going now. Its what I am working towards. Seeing beautiful Chinese babies, chubby cheeked and wrapped up like mini Michelin men. Crazy cheap but ridiculously tasty street food. Beautifully kept 'ancient' gardens, filled with Chinese tourists, too busy taking photos to notice me people watching.

It is both the good and the bad that I expect to encounter again. But years from now, I have no doubt, it will only be the good that I will remember and cherish so dearly.

Barbie, who first taught me how to say 'I love you' in Mandarin, by saying it to me everyday.