School Days

Like most “foreign experts” working in Hangzhou, after several years of budgeting my RMB, I found that the salary my university provides comfortably subsides my daily costs (and even affords some savings for domestic airline tickets). But when it comes to paying off my student loans buying an international ticket, or even going out to dinner with my friends when I am home, my flashy-pink 100 RMB bills don’t go very far.

Recently, in order to counteract the mounting bills waiting on the counter in America, I’ve turned to “part-time jobs.” It wasn’t until I began this practice that I realized how religiously it is practiced by most foreigner teachers in Hangzhou. At first I balked at losing my relaxed and leisurely schedule, but as I gradually dabbled in private tutoring or worked with “VIP” students at language schools I began to find this frequent exchange of time for money exhilarating. While soon tempted to make every night a festival of shopping, bars, clubs and pirated DVD shopping sprees with my extra cash, a little restraint insured that when I went home for the summer my pockets were padded with cash to pay off those devilish bills and provide me some much-needed time reuniting with old friends, eating too much American food and topping of my gas tank.

But, as my months in China turn to years and the American economy gets increasingly worse the thrill of hand-picking plush part-time jobs and throwing out glib excuses—“that one has too many children,” “this one doesn’t pay enough,” “but my taxi fare should be included”—has turned to desperation. Continued life in China now comes with a cost. Though I have considered selling my soul to the highest bidder, or staking out a corner on Nanshan Lu, I haven’t submitted my employment application to the “pink light” district yet.

Instead, I picked up a job at a local vocational school. Before I started this job, the blessing of working with university students and private tutoring brought me to the conclusion that there is a whole generation of junior and senior middle-school students whose sole purpose in life is to study for and pass the College Entrance Exam held every June for graduating senior-high school students. I thought I had seen it all, from parents starting their 3-year old in expensive private English schools, to junior high school students lugging around huge school bags as they rush off to extra “cram-schools” after a whole day of regular education. I have seen students disappear behind mounds of books months before the exam, emerging only occasionally for food and water. I have seen the hordes of parents pressed in desperation against school gates waiting anxiously for their child to finish the test of his or her lifetime. I have rejoiced with students exuberant to have reached their goal in a chosen university, as well as mourned with those who surrender to a slot in a third or fourth tier university, sadly accepting their fate and counting themselves lucky to be enrolled in university at all. And I have seen the students, despite all their effort and a decade of studious dedication, fail to enter a university, taking a job that they tell me they eventually surrender to. I assumed those were the categories into which urban Chinese 17-19 year-olds fell.

My first day at the vocational school blew my paradigm to pieces. Here I found the black hole of the Chinese education system. The school population consisted not only of students who had failed the high-school entrance exam but some who…gasp….had not even bothered to take it. Where did that fall in my understanding of Chinese culture? Could there be students and parents that were unconcerned with education in China? Of course these types exist in many forms in the U.S., but China, the country of Confucius and Lao Tzu, a place ruled by the heavy hand of exams? The gap in my former naïve understanding left me speechless, not to mention lesson-plan-less.

My pampered up-bringing as a university teacher in China left me stranded, with few tools to teach a second language to students who, according to the staff, had no interest in learning because they were considered “bad students” or their parents simply had enough money to supply them a future career in China or abroad. I learned quickly that there was a whole piece of the Chinese demography I had been unaware of for years.

The first day was tough. If not for the alluring pay, I would have retired immediately. The next week I resolved to be a better teacher to these “poor, deprived students”—children who may have been told their whole lives they were “bad students” or who had never felt the thrill of accomplishing a task or learning something new. I naively ecstatically imagined this as the ultimate challenge, one which would turn me into the next Ron Clark, Erin Gruwell or LouAnne Johnson.

The following week I returned armed with ample supplies to woo them into loving me, English, and learning as a whole: candy, pictures, music and games. Much to my surprise and horror, my pictures were ripped, my candy ignored or tossed nonchalantly at unsuspecting classmates, and my musical and gaming attempts only turned the classroom into further uncontrolled chaos. In the midst of these events insults in both Chinese and English were flung frequently in my direction. With the inability to communicate clearly in their native language, I over-exaggerated my body language and actions. As the father in Nanny Diaries advises, I was purely “Glinda the Good Witch of the North” while the students were behaving, all beaming smiles, dramatic applause for the odd English word and lavish praise for any glimmer of effort, but I turned into the “Wicked Witch of the West” in less than a second if a student was abusing my material, mocking me or another student or shouting obscenities. Once the matter was resolved I returned to “Glinda” just as quickly. I hoped my strategy would encourage the students to see the logical cause and effect of their behavior and desire “Glinda”, enabling me to actually teach the class instead of just providing crowd control.

After the second week the Wicked Witch had taken up permanent residence in my classroom. I constantly forced myself to swallow the threat “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too”. I raised the matter with a Chinese co-worker at the school one morning, inquiring how she managed to descend from full time university instruction to full-time hell. She explained the transition was tough for the first year until she finally forced herself to lower her expectations and focus on the necessary financial benefits. I tried to persuade myself to focus on money, but the “teacher” in me tapped on the door again; if all these students ever experienced were teachers motivated solely by finances, shouldn’t I hang in there and offer them a bit of faith? This was no Ron Clark Story, but at least I could fill the role of Wei Minzhi the Chinese film by Zhang Yimou “Not One Less” the ambivalent teenage teacher who is charged with controlling a primary class for several months until the teacher returns. She is threatened that if even one student is missing from class at the end of the term, brought back home to farm or to go to work, she will not get one jiao of her salary. After ignoring the class for some time, making mistake after mistake and being the laughing stock of the children, eventually she leads them to become a cohesive group of students working together and builds an interest in learning through real-life situations. She creates an atmosphere ideal for educating.

I continued to return to the school, week after week. With my Ron Clark bubble burst, my Wei Minzhi dream was barely holding together. My Chinese colleagues were such wonderful people, happy, patient, educated teachers; I was surprised as one after the other told me the story of their dream to be an inspiration to the students had turned into mere survival. With no ability to punish a student who is only in school until he or she is old enough to work, or because their family does not want the responsibility, and with no reward for student success (as their fates are already set), the teachers had no choice but to endure. They advised me to do the same.

With a “full-time” job already in place, the cons of continuing my work definitely out-weighed the pros. But as I walked back to my apartment, ignoring the alluring honks from vacant taxis in order to save money, I saw a worker struggling to pull a large cart piled with bricks up a hill. The tight rope was like a banner across his chest as he labored to put one foot in front of the other, pausing only to wipe the dripping sweat from his face. Ashamed, I turned away. Why was I looking for glory? How could I complain with a buffet of job opportunities, tedious and frustrating as they might be, that don’t require hauling bricks up a hill on a hot day (and pay several times more), just for being a “foreign expert” with the luxury of a white face and a native English tongue?

China Earthquake

Hi all, I am fine. Thank you to those of you who emailed, called or thought about me. NPR has done a wonderful job capturing the spirit of this disaster. These are some sound bytes that probably many of you have already heard, but some may not have. I don't have words for my feelings.

The quake hits as Melissa records a pastor's story. The quake was felt in Hangzhou, but on the 15th floor of an office building I was unaware as those around me evacuated:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90396578

Melissa visits scene of a collapsed middle school
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90395454

A week later (yesterday) a three-day mourning period started. I was told about the mourning period but I was shocked to my core to experience the three minutes of silence (marked by air-raid sirens) while I was checking out at the supermarket. For three minutes the impossible happened, the whole nation of 1.6 billion stood stalk still. The hair on my arm still prickles when i think about those three minutes. Nearby the checkout a t.v. continued to play dreadful footage of children being pulled from wreckage. This is a taste of it:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90603015

And finally, fear still abounds as everyone waits, here to hear about loved ones and there to see what the next aftershock will do.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90603021

No word from Stone Gate Village yet, an update to hopefully come soon.

Ma Zhi Nan

In the Miao village called Ajigen, outside of Stone Gate, lives an 11-year-old girl named Ma Zhi Nan who has a benign tumor in her salivary gland. This picture was taken in August of 2007.



Ma Zhi Nan ‘s family and family home.





This picture was taken in December of 2007; the tumor has rapidly grown and continues to cause her significant pain and suffering. CNCP is currently looking for a sponsor who is willing to donate 140 USD per year for her schooling and family/life support and 550 USD for her hospital exams and transport to and from the hospital. In addition, CNCP, along with Shimenkan Connection, is currently searching for a hospital or doctor who is willing to do the surgery for free, as her family cannot afford such an expense.

Being on holiday from work and school, I find most days working on projects started in China by SJA that could use a lot of support and prayer from the US. Right now, I desperately need old Christmas cards (both sides attached. When Christmastime comes, each student needs two cards to fashion a "Christmas box" which I use as a teaching tool about giving during the holiday season. (Other cards or holiday paraphernalia (pictures, window clings, storybooks, activities etc) about special occasions like Easter, Valentine's Day, birthdays and Thanksgiving are also welcome as teaching tools.

I am also seeking new and gently used children's books (age 0-12) for the opening of a free English reading corner in the Hangzhou Public Library. Groups, establishments and individuals will be listed on a plaque in both Chinese and English at the opening of the reading corner.

To complete these tasks, I also am asking for donations toward postal fees (as we all know, postage has gone up quite steeply lately)to ship both the cards and the books to Hangzhou, donars will also be recognized for their contribution.

Thank you very much for your continued support and prayers. If you are interested in participating in any of these drives, please call, email, drop by or leave me a comment on my page. Thanks again!!

desperately looking for a way to make money, any ideas?

Shimenkan

Late this August, I will be travelling to Shimenkan with Cici. This is our general idea about our upcoming research trip to Stone Gateway (Shimenkan). Shimenkan is the home of the Miao minority people, which have held a very low status for generations, even amidst other local minorities. We have two main goals, local education and historical Christianity cultivation.

1. Local education.
- We will investigate the issues of poverty-stricken families needing their children at home to work rather than at school, endangered schools, and the quality of rural teachers. We have friend there who is a local teacher and devotes a lot of time and money to local charity work, she is already identifying families in particular desperation and making a list for our investigation. We will organize financial support in this field, using the resources of both OCEF (Overseas Chinese Education Foundation) and SJA, depending on potential funding.

2. Church Growth
-Furthermore, we plan to record local Christian history by contacting local church people (Miao Christians) particularly those persons belonging to the older generations. We will bring Stone Gateway stories and history to life to showcase Christianity in this area.

- We will investigate what is left of the church now, what sort of influence Christianity has on the community, and the possibility of creating a budget in order to build a new church.

- In order to raise money to support both the growth of the church and educational system, we will examine Miao handicrafts, such as Miao embroidery, in hopes that by selling local goods here and abroad, the community can rely on itself to create a better life for it's youth.

- We particularly plan to begin a women's class to learn the characters of the Miao written language, along with Christian vocabulary from the Bible or hymns. It is important to emphasize that classes will also be aimed at sanitation, childcare, family, health and agricultural practices.

We will investigate and survey the possibility, cost and requirements of the abovementioned projects. Many donations and volunteers are needed. This program should exist mainly on donations from abroad and the kindness of foreigners, as the program should be done in a covert manner in order to stray from political and social problems amass in China (beginning that it is such a sensitive subject).

Soon, we will open a webpage in both Chinese and English introducing Stone Gateway to the general public with general facts and information—not only concerning the village, but also the projects aiming at raising the living standard. Through the website, one will also be able to donate money toward the current projects and the overall local economic, education and spiritual development.

We are so excited to think about the come trip and all that might be allowed to develop. We feel strongly lead (almost pushed!) to focus on Shimenkan. Please join us, there is much work to be done and we welcome you to join us.
peace:: Cici and Cammie

please see:
http://www.gydpx.org/yb/wn/smk/
and
http://www.guanhaitong.cn/features/stone%20gateway/000.htm

Sanjiang area investigation

The following is a translation from a Chinese link of a friend of Zheng SiSi (Cici), Hong Bo, who is the leader of the organization Ge Sang Hua (named after a common flower in Tibet). Ge Sang Hua organizes education-related support for Tibetan children. This post was written a few days ago about Hong Bo's trip to Yushu in Qinghai province to visit sponsored children, this May.



This photo is of a mother and child. You might not be able to imagine how they are suffering. The mother's voice box has been destroyed so she cannot speak clearly. When we visited her family she became distressed because she was unable to explain the family's situation to us. She has no husband, and her daughter no father.



When the mother opened her coat, we saw that she had two raw horrific sores on her leg. Despite her vocal disability, she was able to communicate that she had no idea what had caused the open sores, and had no money to seek medical care.

I couldn't bear seeing any more, I doubled over as if my heart had been cut in two. The only thing I am able to do for this small family is to record their story and publish it on our website. The daughter we sponsor is the one hope and joy that keeps the mother strong and alive.



Next, we visited another sponsored child's family. All three generations of women have lost their husbands to the various effects of poverty. The child we are financing and his mother live a bitter and hard life. The grandmother is elderly and trembling from sickness and the mother's children are still young and in school. The mother has never had a father-figure; she has never been to school and she has no husband. In this area, many single women raising families often leave government forms void of the children's father's names, rejecting the possibility of child-support preferring to bear the hardship of raising a child on one's own because the possibility that the child could belong to different men looms dauntingly. In this manner, many of the children we sponsor have no "official" fathers.


This is not unusual in Tibetan culture. In many Tibetan songs, most lyrics praise mothers but seldom fathers. I believe Tibetan women suffer more than we, Han people, can imagine. We cannot compare their strength and endurance of hardship to our own lives.

Tibet is such a beautiful and mysterious land. We believe that the lives of the children Ge Sang Hua sponsors will be much happier than their mothers' and grandmothers'. We know knowledge and education change change children's futures for the better. We hope for your prayers, thoughts, efforts and support.