Settling in

Let’s get this blog on the road. I’m wrapping up my first full week of work here in China… which is actually not entirely true. I said before that there were some complications surrounding my teaching, but they were getting better. After three days, things have not actually gotten better, so allow me to explain. Two weeks ago tonight, I had a phone interview with an Australian man in Nanjing named Rob. Rob is the academic dean at a college in Nanjing and is in charge of staffing the many satellite college prep schools in the region. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse (no, he didn’t put a horse head in my bed) with the guarantee (emphasis on guarantee) that I had a job waiting for me when I got to this school in Wuxi.

So I packed up my life and hauled myself off to east central China. (Quick interlude, I’m in an academic building and one of the students is currently reading this over my shoulder. I’m writing this to test his English reading skills…) I had a quick flight to Chicago, followed by a three hour delay, and then I was on my way to Shanghai. As far as fifteen hours and roughly 7,500 miles of tearing me away from everything I know and love goes, the flight was pretty good, with the exception of a sudden onset of nausea as the plane began its descent into the city. (Update, the student has NOT stopped reading… can’t quite figure that one out.) I dived into the bathroom, and leaning against the cramped, suffocating cell (you can imagine what an airplane bathroom might smell like after 14.5 hours), held my breath and counted to ten and tried to keep my ‘no vomit streak’ (six years and counting, btw) intact. I made it back to my seat, streak intact, for the last two minutes of the flight.

After going through customs, I collected my luggage and searched through hundreds upon hundreds of people for somebody holding a sign with my name on it. As I was about to give up, I saw the man I now know as Mr. Qian (pronounced “Chen”) holding a pink sheet of paper with “Zack Eustis” scrawled on it in sharpie. After about a ten minutes handshake, we grabbed a quick bite to eat in the airport restaurant where I instantly remembered that I wasn’t going to see another fork for roughly nine moons. Considering we were eating a stew-type item, I though I was doing pretty well for myself, but the driver still had the waitress bring me a fork.

(Fast forward 24 hours and we’re picking things back up in my room, free of any onlookers and instead supported by first Chinese beer, pictured below)

The whole ice thing doesn't really happen here, so I attempted to cool it in my sink.

This valiant attempt was met with... minimal success. After deciding it was cool enough to be consumed, I discovered that it was very much not a twist off (see above; how did I not see this coming?) A quick note on this beer, I have no idea what kind of beer this is. The entire label was in Chinese characters and fell off after a couple hours of chilling in the sink. I do know that it cost roughly 2.5 RMB, which is the equivilant to an American QUARTER. Oh my god. I also bought a small bottle of some Chinese liquor that is just beyond horrific (and possibly expired, again I am not good with the reading of the Chinese characters) but also at the unbeatable price of 1.5RMB. What a deal!

ANYWAYS, Mr. Qian and the driver took me to the school where I spent an agonizing four hours trying in vain to reconnect to the internet/a ph one/my family in any way. I went to sleep with the thought that I might actually die on this trip (this is either a testament to my ability to overdramaticize, or simply more proof that I am literally addicted to the internet.) When I woke up, alive and well, I walked around my dorm and saw what I know now is a morning exercise routine that the students do every single day.

I spent the next day or two settling in and getting to know the campus. One of the younger teachers, whose English name is Benny, kind of took me under his wing and helped me with my meal ordering and translating with non-English speakers as well. He took let me borrow a bike and we took a brief tour of the town outside of the school gates. To many of them, I am the first foreigner they have ever seen. It's kind of hard to imagine what that would be like. Some of the townsfolk want to talk to me but apparently their dialect of Mandarin is so different that Benny can't understand it enough to translate. I usually smile and nod and say "Lo-way" which means foreigner (as if they couldn't tell.)

After a couple days of hanging out around campus it began to dawn on me that something wasn't right... mainly that I hadn't started teaching yet. I'd made a couple of inquiries and eventually had a meeting with one of the headmaster's assistants. To my surprise the meeting was not so much a meeting as it was an interview for the job I thought I had been guarenteed. I thought something may have been mistaken in the translation, but the words, "We'll let you know when we've made our decision" seemed pretty darn intentional.

I could go on for even longer than I already have about the frustrations of the next few days, but I'll just fast-forward to Wednesday, when I was told I had to give a "trial class session" to a group of forty-five 11-14 year olds, while being observed by FIVE of the teachers. I asked if there was a textbook that I should use and was told that they wanted to see me come up with my own lesson. I immediately defaulted to a lesson I wrote up while I was taking the ESL class that involved the students listening to "Yellow Submarine." It went off well enough that they will let me stay and work, though they've increased my class load from 12/wk to 18/wk which I'm not exactly thrilled about.

I wouldn't mind the extra work, but so far with the exception of a two hour excursion into Wuxi City proper (about a half hour drive from campus) I have not gotten to do much of any serious exploring. I was told there were lots of other ESL teachers in the city but I have yet to meet any of them. I'd kind of been banking on that for some semblence of a social scene, but we'll see what happens. There are enough cool people on campus that it will be plenty fun here, but it feels like I'm cheating myself to come all the way to China and spend 95% of my time on the same square mile. I'm trusting this will all work out soon, but if they tell me I have to work weekends... well... that's, that's the last straw (insert Milton voice here, please.) They do have classes on Sundays, and a one-day weekend would limit my traveling possibilities even further. That said, this place has the potential to be fantastic. If I can work things back to what my contract initially said, and I find a way to meet up with the other ESL teac hers, this still has a lot of potential to be what I was hoping. Whew. I haven't had a lot of people here to talk to about all of this. I've never been much of a blogger but I don't plan on using this as a place to vent so much as a place to share cool mis/adventures. Here are some pics of the prettier (and in one case, not so pretty) side of things in Wuxi, China:














The whole campus has been built within the last two years and is pretty gorgeous (above top.) The town is apparently in "rebuilding" mode (above bottom.) This picture was taken from the hallway in my dorm. I'll leave y'all with a picture of the sunrise I saw my first morning in Wuxi.