Who Cares If I'm In China?

The other day while listening to a radio show a friend of mine hosts he made the following statement, "shut up Brewster, nobody gives a @!?# about what time it is in Shanghai." At the time it is true that I was heckling him and it is also true that our friendship is born from hassling each other, but the thing is, this time, it kind of hurt.

When Amy and I lived in Strasbourg I swore to myself that I when we returned I would not spend my days talking about living in France. When we finally did return to the States I found this promise was entirely difficult to not break.

Think about it a moment, how often do you talk about the events of the last year? Over the next couple of days when you are talking to friends or coworkers notice how often you mention something you did or experience over the last year, or any time in your past. We are nothing if we have no past. We are made up of nothing but our memories.

And we like to talk about them.


So it was with France. I constantly said stuff like "When we were in France," or "the French do this..." etc. I wasn't trying to be pompous or cool or anything. I had lived in an exotic (at least to me) place for nearly a year and it had a great effect on my life. In conversations these things naturally came out.

And so it is in China. I am sure that when I go back home I'll talk about Shanghai. I already do talk about it in this blog, in e-mails, on the phone and chatting with my friends elsewhere. Again it is not to say that I am better than anyone, but simply a part of my circumstance. I mean I cannot pretend I am not in China and in general conversation weird tidbits of my time here are going to come out.

Like the difference in time zones. Honestly I think it is really kind of cool that I am 13-14 hours ahead of most of my friends. It is completely fascinating to me. When my friend made his jibe it stung because I know that I have brought up the difference in time several times.

At first this was true because of my fascination with the science behind it, but now I am simply stating facts. The radio show my friend hosts is on blogtalkradio which is an internet radio dealie, and each show has its own chat room. When I listen to his show I hang out in the chat room.

The show runs from 11-noon my time and somewhere in the middle my wife calls me about lunch. We usually do lunch together and I always have to leave the show early. When I leave I generally send a message stating that I'm going to lunch. This isn't because I'm trying to be cool because I'm lunching while everyone else is preparing for bed. It is because I'm going to lunch, period. It seems rude to just disappear, and it is natural form me to let everyone know I'm leaving, and the reason behind my departure.

Wow! That's a pretty big whine in a pretty small box. Sorry if that's nothing but a self pat-on-the-back or something. The comment was harmless enough really, but it kind of got to me and I have only this to explain myself.

The Teaching Situation

Here's a shocker: I'm thinking about staying with my crazy tutor lady. The thing is, while she is sort of stuck in her ways and the classes are as irritating as they are boring, they are not difficult. I go, I read, She repeats. Time passes slowly. But the money is good and I could use the money.

She's actually in Switzerland for the next 10 days, so I'm going to think about staying. I'll probably cancel anyways, but I am considering it.

Today I had my first class with two other students. There is a family from the UK here with two boys who they want to home school. The mom is friends with a friend of mine here and so I got the hook-up.

I got word last night that she wanted to meet this morning. I went in to culture shock hypothermia. I had already been feeling a little blue and the overload of Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams on the iPod didn't help. Plus we've been trying to sell our car back in the states and suddenly, in the middle of making plans with my students, I had to figure things about with the car.

Mom found a buyer and so we had to start coordinating between two banks and two continents etc. So I had a big freak-out in the I Hate China mode.

The family live really close to here, just down the street actually, so that will make it great. I actually got lost on my way. The directions I had were a little vague and I first went to the wrong building, then I called her and we both got turned around so I walked way out of the way. But then I found it.

She is really nice and well prepared, so I won't have to do a whole lot of preparation for each class. The boys are friendly and a little rambunctious but they are at a rambunctious age. I think it will work out nicely. And it is just morning hours, so I'll have the rest of the day to enjoy.

I'll be teaching English and Geography and History. I've already learned I'm going to have to go over cursive writing again, as I haven't written in it since like the 9th grade. I'm also going to have to brush up on my British history as they really don't want to learn about American history.

How did I become a teacher again?

Culture Shocking

When I hear the words “culture shock” I usually mentally image someone lying in their bed, curled into a ball under the covers afraid to leave, afraid to do anything. While that certainly would count as culture shock, that isn’t necessarily what it usually amounts to.

Having lived in France for awhile I am proud to say that many aspects of culture shock don’t really affect me. The lack of convenience, while annoying doesn’t make me break out into curses. I have no problems walking about or going to the market or a restaurant. I can buy the products I want and order food without a hitch. Well, maybe there are hitches because many of the products I want aren’t available, and I can’t always tell what I am ordering, but I can still navigate these problems without feeling what I’d call culture shock.

However, there are still lots of little things that send me into delirium.

I find that the little annoyances now add up into a giant ball of – I hate this place, this school, this country. For instance, I noted our ant problem in another post. Truth is we had an ant problem at our last apartment in the States. They were annoying, and we put in several complaints to the apartment management, but they never went past the stage of irritation. Ants happen, as they might say.

Yet here they seem even worse. Our kitchen was already bothersome with its lack of good shelving, and our lack of a lot of food and dishes. Add ants to the mix and you get two very frustrated Americans.

The thing is we wind up associating the annoying ants to our troublesome kitchen which is attached to housing that is unfamiliar and different which is then attached to our whole Chinese experience.

Thus China = Annoying Ant Problem.

All annoyances/problems/pains are automatically lumped into this stupid country.

That’s culture shock.

In about thirty minutes I have to go to my first tutoring session without Brian. I am nervous. No, I am scared to death.

Why? Culture. Freaking. Shock.

Logically it is no problem. In a few minutes I will gather my things and walk to the front gate where there will be a taxi, or if there is not a taxi, one will arrive shortly. I have a piece of paper from my tutoree that tells the taxi driver where to go. The taxi driver will take me to the correct place. I will then punch a button on the apartment complex where I will then tell the lady I have arrived. Up an elevator I will go where I will be greeted.

The tutoring session will be hot and long and probably pretty miserable, but it is nothing to be scared of, in fact she is a very nice lady.

When it is over, I will again climb into a taxi, show the driver a card and will be taken home. All of this is simple and without much complication. Even if some complication arises I can easily call someone to help out.

Yet I am all knotted up inside. The reality is all of that is new to me. I have not yet ridden in a taxi by myself. I have not had to find the right apartment and enter the right number. I have never tutored anyone in my life. All of which makes me nervous.

Yet, I know it will be alright.

Edit: Tutoring was, in fact, alright. I had to hail a cab, as one wasn't sitting there waiting, but that didn't take long. He read my little Chinese instructions without a hitch and we were on our way. My tutor lady lives in a high rise apartment alongside a pretty busy highway. Coming from my direction you have to do a u-turn to go along the right side of the highway in order to pull over and let me off. The problem was the taxi driver didn't know exactly where to let me off, and neither did I.

He tried one spot, decided my look of uncertainty meant move on and so he did, around the block. Eventually he left me off and I started walking - to where I wasn't sure. After a block I called Brian and he pointed me the right way.

Nicely this meant that I arrived at the apartment all sweaty, which made her turn on the air conditioner, something she normally doesn't do. The lesson was long and boring and annoying, but OK.

The return home was easy too excepting the 8 minutes I spent trying to find a cab to hail. I'll do it all again tomorrow, a little less nervous, but still a bit uneasy.

Edit, Part II: It has been noticed that I am being negative of late. Truth is I am in full culture shock mode. I'm still quite overwhelmed by everything. But that doesn't mean it is all bad. I'm enjoying many things and mostly we are having a good time. Things will get better and in time we will grow to enjoy ourselves a great deal. This will be especially true when we start getting regular paychecks and can enjoy the great cheap things.