When stars align

I train education students to teach English, and for years, I've been hoping to take some students to China so they could practice their skills overseas.  University study abroad programs involve permission from lots of different departments.  Most of the time, we write them up and then they go nowhere. No one blocks them exactly-- it's just that lots of work is involved and  people have to give a project priority for it to fly. I retire in July of 2015, I figured the project would never happen under my leadership.

 When I came back from China at the end of last summer, I suggested the possibility of an English teaching experience in China to my Dean and Department chair once more.  I was stunned by their enthusiasm.  It looks like it's going to happen. http://www.etsu.edu/coe/china/default.aspxThe stars are in alignment, I guess.  Check our website.

Will I return?

Already, my friends are asking if I’ll be returning next year.  I say I will if invited.  And then I ask myself why anyone would spend a vacation in a military dictatorship.  This place gets very spooky at times, yet part of my life is here.

But I’ve made lifelong friends, and I want to see them again. Truth to tell, I feel a bit guilty about going back to America. So many people I care for are here and cannot escape.  I am even acquiring the language, at long last. 

None of the staff in my guest house speak English, and using Chinese has been a matter of necessity. Now, I am understood when I ask for soap and towels in the guest house.  I can ask for soup, vegetables, and rice at the dining hall. This morning, I succeeded in buying wrapping paper from a shop on campus.

The words now come automatically. I don’t have to wrack my brain.  The Chinese lessons and practice with Rosetta Stone are finally kicking in.

I feel I belong here.  Of course, I’ll be back.

Changes

In 2010 and 2011, English festivals were held on this campus.  Students created exhibits and skits in English after extensive research on the Internet. To me, the young people seemed different than those I had taught in 2006, more able to explore new ideas, more willing to question their teachers. Remembering the massacre on Tiananmen Square, I wondered if China was ready for them.

 China was indeed ready, but not in the way one would hope for.  Information control, i.e., censorship, is much stronger now.  Gone are the days when Facebook was visible, and one surfed the Internet more or less freely on Google as long as one avoided search terms like “China, June 1989.” Now, one must search using Yahoo, and 80 per cent of the websites are now blocked. Officials claim this is due to “technical problems,” and many Chinese whom I talk to believe this.  There are greater restrictions on religious freedom. Soldiers patrol the Beijing Airport wielding machine guns.

The recent waves of Uighur terrorism provide the government with a ready excuse for the crackdown, but the actual reasons are more insidious.  Much of the Chinese population has become well educated and cognizant of world issues.  There is less tolerance for authoritarian rule. Not all regions and ethnic minorities participate in the current prosperity. This government remains very strong and is determined to stay in power.

I tell myself I’m helping by teaching students to reason and analyze propaganda. A Chinese colleague, a veteran of the Cultural Revolution thinks is like tilting at wind mills. “Bringing this government down will take more than critical thought,” he said. I believe in the power of ideas, and I hope he is wrong. But this man knows China far better than I.

Limited Liberty

This morning, I attended the English speaking service at the Weihai Church. The government has always preferred that only foreigners attend this service—they’ve want Chinese attending a separate service if they go to church at all.  Communist Party members may not attend worship of any kind.

 In the past though, lots of Chinese came to the English language service, and nobody seemed to care. Now, it seems clear that the government does, though I still saw some Chinese at the service.

For some reason, the government does not want foreigners and Chinese to worship together. I am told that in Beijing and Shanghai, one must show a passport to be admitted to English religious services, and that Chinese are turned away.

After the Storm

Yesterday, the weather was sunny, but the water at Golden Beach was rougher than I’ve ever seen it, and it was also very cold.  There were very few swimmers, though many people who came out and waded.

 By today, the water was calmer, but there were huge amounts of debris in the water massive amounts of seaweed.  When I walked on the shore, I felt as if I had stepped in a giant tossed salad, and after awhile, I decided to walk instead on a footpath that parallels the beach.  

Singing in the Rain

I’ve been getting to know the other teachers on campus.  My friend Lucy, a native of South Africa, teaches in an English camp on campus. I joined her today since my own class is over.  The worst of the typhoon hit while we were watching a movie and eating some Cracker Jacks she’d brought with her from the States. 

English teachers like Lucy are creative about incorporating cultural activities into their curriculum. She had planned for the students to pick up a cake from a bakery and hold a surprise birthday party for two of the older teachers. But there was a typhoon going on with gale force winds and rapidly descending rain.  The campus was covered in ankle deep water.   What could we do?  

The solution was obvious. We taught the thirteen Chinese teenagers "Singing in the Rain," and marched them to a bakery on the other side of campus. We collected a cake, packing its ornate box in a garbage bag, and walked another quarter mile to the hostel just outside campus where we were having the party.  Umbrellas turned inside out, and despite my water repellant Eddie Bauer wind breaker, I was completely soaked.

When we arrived Lucy unpacked some balloons and banners, and we asked the students to decorate for the party. When the guests of honor arrived, we shouted “Surprise!” and sang the Happy Birthday song in Chinese and English.  Then, we taught them to play "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," and encouraged the students to stay off their cell phones.  I had lunch with the other teachers, later on, several of whom I had not met before. 

It was time to go home.  My new friends’ hostel is about a half mile from the one where I’m staying, and they gave me directions. But the gate to the university was locked. I imagine someone in charge had done this to discourage students from exiting during the storm.  The winds had died down a little, but the rain was still heavy, and the water up to my calves.  But this, after all, is summer, and the rain was not very cold.  My hundred per cent woolen socks were kept my feet pretty comfortable, but my body was drenched.  And I was lost.

I returned to the hostel, but I did not remember which rooms they were staying in, and none were downstairs.  The staff spoke no English.  When, in my minimal Chinese, I asked how to get to Shandong University, they directed me to the locked gate.  Somehow, I made it clear that this course of action was not productive.  Overhearing  the conversation,  a guest who spoke minimal English,  inquired what faculty I was on and started directing me to the English building, about a half mile from where I am living.  I made no further attempt to speak in Chinese.

 “I don’t have class!” I shrieked. “There’s a typhoon.”   I explained I lived by the West gate of campus, right near the beach.

At this, my would-be helper brightened and directed me to a pathway.  If I turned right, she said, I could get to the beach and find my way home from there.  Unsure if these directions would work, I walked for blocks. A river of rainwater flowed through the street, and I was becoming chilled. But then, I sighted the ocean.

It was another quarter mile more to the guest house.  As I walked through the West gate, a university guard was waving.  I got home, peeled off my clothes, and took a hot shower.