What China giveth, China can taketh away

I must take a break from the vacation stories (there are many more) to give an update of this last week, the first week of the new semester.

But first, I must fill you in on some details of the end of last semester.  The best way to describe last semester is bearable.  I had three classes of art majors that didn't have very good English or motivation to change that.  I didn't know what I was missing, so I made the most of it and I think the students got something out of it.  But near the end of the semester, I felt underutilized and wanted to make sure the next semester wasn't the same.  So I filled out a proposal for a writing class, specifying that it would be for upper level English majors and would be small, no more than 25 students.  I thought that if I had at least this class, I could handle any other classes they passed my way.  This proposal was all in Chinese (I had help), and after I turned it in, I never heard another word about it.  Then we went on break, and when I left I found out I had all writing classes for the next semester, all of which were freshman English majors, who Luke and other Americans had taught and said were a dream. 

So, I figured that the proposal had sunk.  I had my writing classes, I was happy, they were happy, the students were happy.  I went on vacation and thought about it a few times late at night, but not too much. I mean, a proposal is a proposal, not a contract, right?

We came back.  I taught a few classes that were amazing.  Excited students that impressed me and I felt very motivated to give them a great class.  I EVEN found out that I could move a Friday class and have a 4 day weekend.  I had 12 credit hours of classes (what I had the last semester) and I was on cloud nine.  On Wednesday I ate lunch with Dr. Zou and told this same thing to her multiple times; I was SO happy.  Last semester had been forgiven and forgotten.  Then I got a call from Luke that afternoon

"We both have our proposed classes that start next week.  We don't know when, we don't know how many students, we don't know how many times it meets." 

In ten minutes I dropped like that amusement park ride that drops you from high up, you screaming all the way down.  I haven't screamed yet, but I feel like it. 

The details are too many to list, but between this afternoon and that Wednesday afternoon, I have learned that I have 4 more credit hours of writing classes, two separate sections of the same class, Monday and Friday.  This means no 4 day weekend, only a 2 day weekend (the painful last semester had at least a 3 day weekend).  These classes are elective classes with open registration.  54 students signed up for one section, 46 for another.  54 and 46 students in a writing class.  AND there was no prerequisite, meaning that most of the students in this class that I have to teach will have minimal English skills.  Some are probably even my students from last semester, who could barely write a sentence for their homework describing themselves.  This recent addition puts me to 250 students of writing classes that total 16 credit hours, when my contract states the maximum is 14. 

OK, I know that this is not news to those of you who have worked with Chinese schools before.  Its a product of the over-complex bureaucracy that runs these schools.  The class was approved with my stipulations (or so I am told), but the person who set up the website for online registration didn't get the memo and left it open for anyone and a very large class.  Now they can't cancel the class because it is too much of a hassle to inconvenience the students.  Now the period of adding class is over, but next week they can still drop, but the administration doesn't want students dropping the "famous" American classes.  And the head of the department told me to just 1) tell the students not to write so much for class so I don't have to grade as much 2) not grade everyone's papers and 3) pick students to write on the board and correct their mistakes in front of the class.  Not having me teach this impossible class has never been considered in the many discussions I have had over the last few days.  It seems like no one can be inconvenienced but me, who will be the most inconvenienced of all.  And in regard to the department head's words, I still want to be a good teacher.  This is writing class.  How do you get better if you don't get comments on your papers?  I get it from my dad: no matter how bad it is, I still want to do my best.

Through this whole 48 hour ordeal, I have come to realize that I have never felt so undervalued or taken for granted in my working life.  I am completely befuddled at the disregard for my sanity and mental and physical health.  I spent a great deal of my free time with students outside of class last semester because I really enjoy it and I was also under the impression that that was why I was here- to be a social American figure who anyone can approach.  This semester Luke and I planned on making a frisbee team, taking students skiing,  rock climbing, maybe ice skating, as well as all the other things we do around campus that don't show up on paperwork.  When I told Dr. Zou today that if I have to teach all of these extra classes and students I couldn't do these things, she seemed unfazed.  That was what really hurt, feeling like that all this extra effort didn't matter in the end.  I was so upset I had to hastily leave before the growing tears escaped.  That's a rare one for me. 

So, I don't know what to do.  Poor Luke, who is in a similar boat, has two classes of 90 students for his public speaking class (most probably can't speak a sentence in front of the class).  All of the Americans, save one, are in a similar boat, feeling completely abused.  How do you teach a class of evolutionary biology to students who can't tell you their name in English?  To help us with this, I have two bottles of Pengshan's finest $6 USD bottle of Brandy.  We will go sing it out at KTV.

This all comes at a time when I have been pondering returning for another year.  In one day, the school turned me against them pretty fast.  Who wants to work for an organization that treats you like this?  This sets a new precedent for any job I have in the future as the worst.  Indeed, I have been reflecting on things I complained about in the past and none look so bad compared to this.  Anyway, all you back home, rejoice- I started looking for jobs back in the states today.

Thanks for reading.  Sorry to bore you with some whining, but I hope you find the sheer audacity somewhat amusing.  If you have snow where you are, please eat a little for me and if not, say hi to mr. sun for me.  I miss that guy. 

Love,
Cam

Winter Break Part 2

January 28, 2012,

The epic bus-train-bus ride was indeed epic.  In fact, it was epic that evolved into pure living hell.  The first bus to Emei Shan was no problem.  It flew by like a breeze.  In Emei we met a friend who took us to the big Buddhist Temple in the city, where we rushed through the beautiful paintings and temples.  Then be boarded the bus at 7 pm, for which we only had standing seats in a hard seat car.  We brought stools to sit on and we were comfortable until the food cart made its rounds (which was regularly), in which we would have to get up, cram between people’s legs, and then sit back down.  Every 10 minutes.  Luckily, we were soon offered a seat on the bench, which became 2 seats, which eventually became 3.  And there we were, on the world’s most uncomfortable wooden bench, for the whole night on the train that never turned its lights off.  I didn’t sleep very much because whichever way you leaned, be it sideways on a shoulder, forwards onto your knees or on the small table, or backwards, you always woke up 8minutes later uncomfortable and some part of your body asleep and tingling.  We survived, got into PanZiHua, and took a bus across town to the bus station, where we got onto another bus to Lijiang.  We fell asleep before leaving the city, feeling for the first time that the bus seats were like first class.  I awoke in the mountains with the sun high above the horizon and was just soaking in the view when I noticed everyone around me holding their noses and crinkling their faces.  Then I smelled it: vomit.  I turned around and there were two young kids puking out their guts into the trash can behind me.  The road to Lijiang is insanely and Chinese-ly narrow and winding, and the kids were paying for it.  So was everyone else for that matter.  As soon as that happened, it became pure living hell.  So, with windows down, we entered the mountain town of Lijaing, which was an absolutely breathtaking view, but our breaths were already taken away. 

We spent the next two nights at a hostel in Old Town called MaMa Naxi’s.  It was run by this sweet old Chinese lady who was always wearing a chef hat and a black apron and an old man who totally rocked a tan suit.  Mama and Dada.  Knowing some Chinese quickly earns you a little extra care and playing time with the kid.  Being around foreigners traveling around China who didn’t speak Chinese made me feel really good about what little I can speak.  But it was also comforting to just hear English at the dinner table.  We walked around Old Town a bunch, which was designed to purposefully keep you lost and wandering.  It has an old Chinese town feel and is packed with shops selling plenty of Chinese scarves, clothes, coffee, foods, trinkets, and jewelry.  It was really fun to explore and poke around.  I would rate it as one of the top places to shop for Chinese things I have been.  Mom, dad, and sister bear, you would all love it there.

Lijiang is one of China’s top tourist destinations and despite being very hard to get to, hosts an incredible number of tourists every year.  In the summer I have heard its an absolute madhouse.  Old Town has held on to its unique feel of small, undisturbed Chinese town feel.  If you only stayed there the entire visit, I think you could completely overlook the fact that Lijiang is booming.  From our arrival, it was clear that there is a vast amount of money coming into the city.  Multiple expressways are under construction and they are of Chengdu-Shanghai scale.  The main roads are freshly paved three lane streets with new light posts dotting the sides.  And surrounding the Old Town are high rise hotels, some still under construction.  Lijiang is a perfect example of loving a place too much.  It is slowly being ruined by popularity.  I am glad we got to visit before the expressway was finished. 

We spent our second day with rental bikes exploring the north of the city.  The weather has been absolutely perfect and so it was in a T shirt that I biked along the streets.  Jade Dragon Snow Mountain towers over the valley to the North at 19,000 feet, capped with a crown of glaciers, rock cliffs, and snow fields.  It is a beautiful sight.  We biked along a reservoir of sapphire blue, biked through old village streets and fields, looked at some great Chinese architecture, and met some great dogs.  Despite the downtown growing rapidly, the outskirts maintain their old Chinese lifestyle and it was great just to get a glimpse of it.  And by the way, old Chinese people are the absolute cutest old people out there.  When I am 85, I want to retire to a Chinese village.

We spent the last night at the hostel talking with foreigners around a campfire.  Met someone who had gone to high school with Lindsay’s best friend and house mate at Whitman, Sara Wolf, as well as Ben Hayes.  Out here in western China, it is still a small world. 

And that brings us to today.  We got up early and took a cascade of cars to Tiger Leaping Gorge, 3 hours North West of Lijiang. We got dropped off at the side of the road and began the two day hike along the gorge.  We are still blessed with perfect weather and we forgot that it is still in fact winter as we hiked along in T shirts and rolled up pants.  From the beginning, we were followed by people on horses, just waiting for the foreigners to break and hire them to either take their bags up or pay for a ride.  We were prime targets because we did not think it through to leave most of our gear in Lijiang, and so we are the only people with full-sized overnight packs on this trail.  Great for training, bad news for losing the eternally chasing mule with his chiming bell.  The trail was filled with switchbacks leading up through the scrub-steppe, which reminded me of New Mexico.  The vegetation around me felt very comforting, like it was the same southwest of the US, just a different mountain range.  Which is weird, because we are halfway around the globe.  Little differences caught my eye, however, like the pine tree with needles in clusters of three that were about a foot long, and the Iron Wood looking tree that had just too many leaves on its compound leaves.  Luke remarked the same when we entered the shady side of the trail and entered the taller pine forest: “this feels like home.” 

January 30^th, 2012

With Tiger Leaping Gorge behind us, I realize that it was my favorite place in China that I’ve been so far.  Despite being so famous and probably visited, the high trail hike that we did felt intimate.  The fact that we hiked it during the off season helped, I am sure, and meant that most of the stands along the trail were empty.  And we only met a few people on the trail, but enough to fill the Tea Horse Guest House’s kitchen the night we stayed there.  You hike through rice/wheat/corn terraces as you zig-zag along the gorge face, the houses and small villages still living a very traditional life with chickens running around the houses, goats grazing the hillsides, and woodpiles adorning the walls.  I won’t be overly poetic: there are still roads leading to all the villages, but modernity’s impact is softer out there.  The snow mountains kept an ever watchful eye on us form the heavens above, marking the top of a gorge that is argued to be the deepest in the world.  Its immensity keeps you staring, always trying to trip you as you stare awestruck.  Along the trail we met a few old ladies (China’s definition of old, maybe in their 70’s or 80’s) manning stations along the trail.  One was making you pay 3 yuan to take a photo at an overlook and the other was just selling food and beverages on the trail, and the thought of her walking that stuff up the steep trail was very impressive (she also had only two teeth, but that wouldn’t hinder someone from hiking).  They were incredibly cute and impressive (no better retirement I can think of), but what killed me was that these women pulled you in and showed you bags of what I took to be Oregano and said “marijuana, ganja, you want, ni yao ma? (do you want?)”.  The sheer ridiculousness of this moment will stay with me for a long time—how these women whose Chinese is almost unintelligible have four English words at their disposal: marijuana, ganja, and you what.  And in a country where people disappear for trying to buy pot on the street put it over the top.  Supply follows demand, I guess, and Tiger Leaping Gorge does draw its groovy crowd.

We over-nighted at the Tea Horse Guest House, which was incredibly cozy.  The best part was cheesy potatoes for breakfast.  The stars were incredible that night, equaled only to Emei Shan in China.  Everyone at the GH went out to star gaze.  Staring up at stars numerous as those reminds us how small we are, a lesson in both humility and inspiration to dream big.  I think people are worse for it if they never escape the cities to see stars like that.  Our second day was just as sunny but a fierce wind picked up, blowing off my sparkly hat (birthday present from Luke and laughing point for everyone on the trail) multiple times.  We hiked under waterfalls, across cliffs, and saw many things worth seeing.  Words fail a place like that.  We reached the end of the trail, left our gear at Tina’s Guest House, and hiked to the Yangze River, some 800 feet down or so.  And just like everything in China, we had to pay to go down, but not that much.  The trail was absolutely staggering—steps carved into the cliff face, ladders going down cliffs, and so many switchbacks.  One of the trails (there are three) even was chiseled onto the cliff over the river.  Crazy.  From above, on the high trail, the river looked imposing.  It has been run before on a rafting expedition in the 80’s, but that was with a dog in a ‘zorb’ looking sphere of rubber bobbing down the “un-runable” class 6 whitewater.  From above, it looked scary, but not so bad.  From the bank, it was terrifying.  Here is a point where the upper stretch of the Yangze narrows to a gap of about 25 feet and is in a hurry to get through it.  The cycling, crashing waves would erupt over 10 feet high in an explosion of frothy anger.  Luke and I sat on a rock, doing the kayaker stare, one where you can see the gears whirring, “now if I went there, I could…..”  The more I looked at it, the more I despaired that it was impossible.  The more Luke looked at it, the more he believed it was.  “Ride the jet,” was his answer, planning to aim for the wall of spray where the most water is going through and hope to get pushed put with the aid of inertia.  I’ll watch Luke, nervously.  Looking around the internet now, I still can’t find if anyone has ever gone down it in a kayak.  Claim to fame Luke Sanford…….

That was yesterday.  Today we rode a bus up and over the mountains to Shangri-La.  The bus ride was impressive—even up a small tributary of the Yangze, it was heavily dammed and controlled.  The air that rushed in the opened windows for photos smelled of pine trees and fresh air, and indeed we left any clouds near the canyon.  Fresh air was welcome after the mom held her year old baby over the trash can to pee (diapers are for the rich in China) and had good aim, but his target was faulty, it leaked.  And so we arrived in Shangri-La, an impressively remote corner of China, with baby pee running loose on the floor.

This place is boasted as being at the junction of Tibet, Sichuan, and Yunan, and it is deserving of such a claim.  The signs for businesses are in three languages: Tibetan, Mandarin, and English.  People all around the city can be spotted in traditional Tibetan colors of neon pink, black, vivid orange, red of the rose, and sparkles.  I have quickly realized that in a place as cold in the winter as it is now, any warmth is welcome, including warmth on the eyes.  We are staying in an old Tibetan home renovated into a hostel in the outskirts of Old Town, with a fire place in the main room where I am sitting close and listening to Tibetan music.  We walked around town for the afternoon while Xiao Min napped and fought her cold that has been following her.  Listening to conversations around us, I realized that I was not understanding a word of some.  And was further surprised when at lunch, one of the waitresses didn’t understand a word of Xiao Min’s Mandarin.  I realized we are truly at an edge, and it feels like the edge of China. 

With this feeling of foreignness in mind, we found a Chongqing restaurant to eat dinner in.  First off, accents and dialects have driven me crazy because I can’t hear the difference.  But tonight, I head the waitress say a Sichuan phrase that I know, “Yao De,” and a wave of comfort rushed over me.  She’s Sichuan!  I thought.  But no, Xiao Min informed me, she’s Chongqing, but that’s close enough for me.  Today was the first time I recognized a dialect, and I am proud of it.  And then we ate Sichuan style food, which I didn’t realize I missed until the first bite hit my mouth.  I am becoming accustomed!  Did the food ever taste good.