My Own Private China

Teaching in China 2011-2013. Thanks to @acissej for most of the photos.

[fotojournalismus]

A girl reads a book on her balcony as smoke rises from chimneys of a steel plant, on a hazy day in Quzhou, Zhejiang province, China on April 3, 2014. (William Hong/Reuters)

[beamalliance]

We would like to thank everybody who attended Saturday’s 2nd Anniversary Party. Together we raised:

20705 RMB

Alright people! So happy to see how many of us are joining the fight for education equity by supporting over 30 teachers and impacting 1500 students in just a few hours!

Still...

[myownprivatechina]

New blog, people!

[myownprivatechina]

Speech From Last Year's Alumni Induction

Good evening Fellows, TFC staff, local officials, and principals. It's an honor to speak to you all tonight on behalf of Fellows. I'm going to try and somehow summarize a two year experience in about ten minutes. You might say that it's too much information to fit into a short period of time. You can also say that to the people who wrote PEP curriclum.

We are here to celebrate and reflect on the past two years. You did it, and good riddance, I guess, because you are likely tired, with a few parasites in your system, lungs filled with cigarette smoke. What a relief, right? Many of you thought about leaving. A few actually followed through.

And here we are, the so-called "left behind". I couldn't help feeling like this from time to time, like the sad sack who wasn't smart enough to take up a job at this or that prestigious consulting firm or teaching academy, who stubbornly did not run away from the stress. Who didn't go home and work a job at ten times the pay.

But I'm still here, and so are you. And what the hell is our problem?

We have rationalize and justify why we came here in the first place, what kept us here, and why we've made many sacrifices in committing to this work and this mission.

You may still be here because you have enjoyed personal growth. You are leaving with a stronger sense of self, perhaps more confidence under pressure, better time management skills, what have you.

Or you are still here because you are proud of your students. They've grown up. They are coming to terms with some of the challenges that will soon be thrown their way.

Though I'm not up here to pat you on the back. Because you get to leave.

And the kids stay here, and they will grow up. They will continue to have amazing teachers, and great role models, and take on a meaningful life path irregardless of whatever you had hoped for them, or even what you have done for them.

Or they won't. After all, our students are bound by an insane web of rules--social, political, economic--that keeps them on a path that they did not willingly choose. When I first came here, this was only theory. To see it play out in reality is often devastating.

This past week, crowds of first and second graders pounded constantly on my door. They kept asking me to stay in Ximu forever. Kids that age are insane. They think of adult life as this flat and reversible thing where decisions don't have consequences and where nothing is permanent. When I told them that to leave was my plan all along, their faces went blank. And they fully expect me to change my mind and return next year, hopefully with more ukuleles and weird American music in hand.

The older students at Ximu had a better grip on it. We've celebrated our time together with a party and exchanged gifts. Their biggest concern, as one student told me, is that I'd forget about them.

I've been struggling with a question. Because, structurally, our Fellowship is not sustainable. We leave and pass on our knowledge to future Fellows. But at some future moment, there may be no more Fellows at the schools where we once taught.

On top of that, teaching is new to me, even still. I'm just learning how to break into that steel cage, the mind of a child. I've just recently been able to take on all of the roles demanded of me--teacher, counselor, mentor, school nurse, local entertainer--and as I sense myself slowly mastering the art of teaching, I leave.

And the kids stay here.

So here is my question: Where do we continue in the lives of our students? Or, rather: do we have the right to continue in the lives of our students?

My answer is a loud yes. Not because these children need us, or that they are helpless, starved of role models or some other nonsense. It's because our short lives' experience have shown that any human exchange, from a chance encounter in Hong Kong to a years long friendship, holds a potential to deepen and to expand. To enrich and to enlighten.

I remember a 25-hour train ride I took from Beijing to Shenzhen, standing room only. During Spring Festival. I'm not masochistic; I'm just dumb enough to think that saving 200 yuan is worth the trouble. In this case perhaps my only friend was my Kindle and Thoreau. Something felt right about reading about a man who enjoyed his solitude while getting constantly elbowed in the face. Thoreau definitely had his misanthropic moments, but he also scribbled this sentence out during one of his weeks at Walden Pond: 'Our friends have no place in the graveyard.’

In the same way you don't wish to see the deaths of the relationships you've built with the people sitting in this room, I wish you relationships with your former students that are very much alive. Relationships that do not simply reflect and feel nostalgic but build up and become stronger. And relationships where you realize that your friends are tracking you as much as you track them. They go to high school. You take up a new job, possibly a family. They hear your language skills improve, and theirs improve too. You express yourself in ways you could not when we were 24. They express themselves in ways they could not when they were 12.

I think it could be a really beautiful and wondrous thing.

Congratulations to Fellows for all of the great work of these past two years, to staff, and to every person who has made a difference. Thank you.

[myownprivatechina]

酷, 5.31.13

[myownprivatechina]

RIP MJ, 5.31.13 (Thank Codie!)

[myownprivatechina]

In Pursuit of Happiness (by Iquityoucantfireme)

[3hours2burma-blog]

To incoming/prospective TFC fellows

Buy a kindle. Seriously, if you can afford it, do it. I don’t know what my sanity would suffer without it, especially since I don’t get internet anywhere except my office. So I read a lot now. My teammates agree.

Obviously, a lot of fellows get by perfectly fine without any sort of electronic reading device, but seriously consider the option of getting one. I find myself with nothing to do much more often now.

[myownprivatechina]

Or come pick up my books in Lincang.. I have about 17 books and I sure won’t be lugging them all to Beijing or the US. Titles vary from Song of Fire & Ice and the Great Transformation to Inherent Vice. 

Tons of Chinese history books (Mao, Yunnan, Ming Dynasty)!

A pretty crappy book about Li Ka-Shing!

Free books. This applies to 1st year Fellows, too.

[unapologetically-yellow-blog]

One of the (many) things TFC struggles with is building bonds between the Chinese and foreign fellows beyond teammates. Discussions of this have always focused on better cross-cultural events during Summer Institute (SI) and the language and cultural barrier. We never talk about the giant elephant…

[myownprivatechina]

This makes sense:

American privilege is the reason why most foreign fellows enter TFC and arrive to China without being able to speak functional Chinese.

This doesn’t:

White privilege is the reason why white fellows are beloved at their schools without having to work at it too much, and yet some always manage to fuck up it up despite the buffer their privilege affords them.

Can you go into detail? I haven’t heard too much of white Fellows “fucking it up” at their schools. Is there evidence to this happening?

In the last two years I’ve seen white, Chinese, and POC fellows do amazing things at their schools. And more often than not, they collaborated on projects: fundraising for clean water; extracurricular clubs/sports; the list goes on.

The white Fellows I’ve known and worked with over the years (I can’t speak for everyone) experience white privilege the second they show up. We try to understand it, work with our Chinese partners to learn more about it. And yes, we often take advantage of it. But most fellows work as hard as local teachers, keep the same responsibilities, and are part of the school culture. They insist to be given the same responsibilities given to local teachers. And they work their asses off.

You have a limited knowledge of what goes on at each school. So do I. You are making irresponsible accusations, especially when foreign and Chinese fellows are putting in extra hours on the weekends and after school to reach out to their students.

I’m confused why you feel confident enough with your Chinese language ability to insult those who are unable to speak as well as you do. What gives you the right to shit on them? If you have a problem with this, your anger should be directed at TFC’s recruiting practices, not the people who chose to come here.

Your comments dismiss the strong relationships that exist between Chinese, white, and POC fellows. Maybe you just don’t know about them. And if that’s the case, maybe you shouldn’t write about them.

-Chris

And no, Chinese fellows do have the language to talk about white privilege. This comes up all the time in Ximu. Chinese fellows may indeed have a better understanding of what white privilege in rural China actually looks like than what you’ve written on your blog.

[unapologetically-yellow-blog]

Ah, interesting. Push-back. ‘Tis a pity that I cannot respond without sending the rumor mill into overdrive and without pointing out how this— it makes some valid critiques, and thank you for those—reeks of white privilege.

Perhaps the reason why what I’ve written has not only caught your attention but garnered this response is because it holds a mirror up to your white privilege and makes you uncomfortable?

Edit: Upon re-reading what I initially wrote…fuck it. People, I carefully word my shit FOR A PURPOSE. As how shit currently stands, there were no valid critiques.

[owning-my-truth-deactivated2022]

Omg. White people please stop.

[rococobutter]

I’m a TFC fellow who will be going in about a month…I’m a POC. And I don’t functionally speak Chinese (?) Mandarin/Cantonese….I joined the program because I have first hand experience in both being within an unequal educational system and trying to help fix one, which is why I was chosen and why I’m going…I was apprehensive at first about the cultural/language barrier…but I know what it feels like to be in a society where people don’t/won’t appreciate my culture and language…I guess I’m just trying to say that every American fellow is different…and American privilege is not equally distributed….

[unapologetically-yellow-blog]

1. Welcome to TFC!

2. Clarification: we are all the intersection of multiple identities. Because of intersectionality, our (lack of) racial, gender, and class privileges affects how we perceive and receive American privilege. American privilege is real: America has been exploiting the rest of the world for ages (and before America, the British Empire), and we as Americans benefit from that. 

3. Because we are the intersection of multiple identities, some are more salient than others depending on the context. When U and I are eating with a whole bunch of people from his school community, and the men always serve him first, me second, themselves third, and leave the local women to serve themselves, what’s going on? U is a man who looks obviously foreign. I’m a woman who if I didn’t tell them I was American, they wouldn’t know. But they serve me because I am still a bourgie American.

4. Welcome to TFC, and can’t wait to meet you in offline life! 

[myownprivatechina]

Perhaps it garnered my response because you made statements about other fellows without backing it up.

I’m not sure why you feel the need to insult your co-workers publicly. A few posts I’ve read on your blog refer to the inadequacy of other fellows’ skills/experience to your own. I’m not trying to silence you. I’m asking you to stop being disrespectful and unprofessional.

I hope this comes off less as a reflection of my privilege and more as anger with how you've portrayed the people with whom you work in a public forum. If it’s the former, then I guess there’s nothing I can say.

-Chris

Also, ethnicnraunchy, congrats on becoming a fellow! Feel free to reach out.

[3hours2burma-blog]

“Call Me Maybe”, Chengguan Middle School style!

I’m so proud of my English Corner kids. The kids were so cute!

[shainagoesplaces]

Check out my friend’s awesome music video she did at her school!

(Wow Chengguan looks nice…:O)

[myownprivatechina]

Awesome! We have Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" coming up, stay tuned.

[unapologetically-yellow-blog]

One of the (many) things TFC struggles with is building bonds between the Chinese and foreign fellows beyond teammates. Discussions of this have always focused on better cross-cultural events during Summer Institute (SI) and the language and cultural barrier. We never talk about the giant elephant...

[myownprivatechina]

This makes sense:

American privilege is the reason why most foreign fellows enter TFC and arrive to China without being able to speak functional Chinese.

This doesn’t:

White privilege is the reason why white fellows are beloved at their schools without having to work at it too much, and yet some always manage to fuck up it up despite the buffer their privilege affords them. 

Can you go into detail? I haven’t heard too much of white Fellows “fucking it up” at their schools. Is there evidence to this happening?

In the last two years I’ve seen white, Chinese, and POC fellows do amazing things at their schools. And more often than not, they collaborated on projects: fundraising for clean water; extracurricular clubs/sports; the list goes on.

The white Fellows I’ve known and worked with over the years (I can’t speak for everyone) experience white privilege the second they show up. We try to understand it, work with our Chinese partners to learn more about it. And yes, we often take advantage of it. But most fellows work as hard as local teachers, keep the same duties, and are part of the school culture. They insist to be given the same responsibilities given to local teachers. And they work their asses off.

You have a limited knowledge of what goes on at each school. So do I. You are making irresponsible accusations, especially when foreign and Chinese fellows are putting in extra hours on the weekends and after school to reach out to their students. 

I’m confused why you feel confident enough with your Chinese language ability to insult those who are unable to speak as well as you do. What gives you the right to shit on them? If you have a problem with this, your anger should be directed at TFC’s recruiting practices, not the people who chose to come here.

Your comments dismiss the strong relationships that exist between Chinese, white, and POC fellows. Maybe you just don’t know about them. And if that’s the case, maybe you shouldn’t write about them.

-Chris

And no, Chinese fellows do have the language to talk about white privilege. This comes up all the time in Ximu. Chinese fellows may indeed have a better understanding of what white privilege in rural China actually looks like than what you've written on your blog.

[myownprivatechina]

Prepping for the County Dance Competition (You're the Cream in my Coffee)

[myownprivatechina]

Polite Headbanging at the Dali Erhai World Music Festival

(written for Beijing Cream)

A Cop with a Weird Haircut

We’re standing near the fortune teller when Lin Dan shows us something.

“I’m a cop,” he says. He pulls out his wallet and holds it close to his waist, his left hand shading a badge. Then he looks around to make sure one of the five hundred policemen present that day isn’t nearby.

“I’m one of the few at my office who is not a party member.”

“If you’re undercover, you’re doing a pretty bad job,” I tell him, since he had snuck a joint with one of my friends earlier that day. It all stank to me. This guy, faux-hawked, showed up out of the blue somewhere in the queue to get in, then followed our group — a “suspicious” mix of foreign and Chinese twentysomethings — for an entire day before calmly telling everyone that he’s the police.

“No worries. I’m just here for the music.” He stuffs his wallet back into his pocket. “I’ll catch you later.” He quickly signals to his friend, the fortune teller, who stiffens and walks toward the stage with him.

What Are You Doing Out Here?

You could mistake this festival for any other in China, MIDI or Strawberry or what have you, full of off-duty Lin Dans, students who have a few days off, square glasses and leopard print leggings, a sprinkled few who seem amazingly out of place, and about as many security guards to make sure things stay copacetic.

Then again, this festival is the first of its kind in a city where “music culture” usually implies white people with dreads selling bongos in Old Town.

Welcome to Dali.

While at MIDI you may split your time between an actual band and the Mountain Dew Mist Tent, Erhai’s distractions are minimal: a few food tents, a Converse-sponsored skate park, and a sedated BMW show with a few bored models and no customers. The single stage at the festival, blasting music toward the lake, draws people away from all else.

The three-day event was likely the best-organized rock festival Yunnan has ever seen. No big delays, only one technical fuck-up, a few ejections, Porta Potties cleaner than my own bathroom, cheap food, and multiple trash cans. What more to ask for?

Maybe a nastier crowd, for one. I’m used to dealing with complete jerks at music festivals in Chicago and North Carolina. The (mostly) students near the stage rarely pushed and shoved, and had a tendency to put their hands on each other’s shoulders and mimic a train snaking through the crowd during each set. The only palatable anger on display was directed at the guards, who were quick to push back the crowds or try to squash an aspiring moshpit. But most of the audience’s hands never gave the bird, only the heavy metal horns, which is international sign language for “I guess this is what we do at music festival.”

The Bands

Check out the Douban pages of the participating bands — Escape Plan, Shuangzi, Reflector — and you’ll likely conclude that they’re all rather stale. The songwriting is dynamic, but the recordings are flat and lifeless.

What they don’t reveal is how each band likely got its chops playing small shows in Beijing and Kunming. And every hour and a half at this festival, a band goes on stage and proves they’re meant to be heard live, not through the tinny speaker of a counterfeited Smartphone.

Escape Plan (逃跑计划) gives a reverb-laden performance that reminds me of both Keane and New Order. Their lead singer is one of the few frontmen who doesn’t feel the need to posture, and seems genuinely happy to perform. Miserable Faith (痛仰) has one of the largest fanbases there, a crowd full of logoed flags. Brain Damage (脑浊) performs a short, kinetic, and shirtless power-punk set.

There are also those who underwhelm.

The headliners — with the exception of Xu Wei and former Voice of China contestant Chu Qiao — have certainly seen better days. He Yong (何勇), the Godfather of Chinese Post-Punk, could’ve used a good nap, a sad thought considering his wacky and defiant past. Black Panther (黑豹), one of Beijing’s first metal bands, now with new singer Zhang Qiren, is likewise a big bowl of cheese dressed up like Ronnie James Dio. Smaller bands such as Tiantang (天堂) and the artist Shuangzi (爽子) sound like theme songs to Ed Hardy t-shirts.

But with the possible exception of He Yong, the bands all give off great vibes, and the crowd eagerly returns it (even lesser-known reggae bands like Path of the Dragon God (龙神道), who pushed back their set to fit crowd demand, had plenty of fans singing their lyrics by heart). Zhang Qiren runs laps around the stage, as well as off of it, inspiring about 400 local security men to scramble around him like Keystone Cops and block him off from the mob. Shuangzi calls out for audience participation during “I Don’t Give a Shit” (我不管) and has everyone off their feet in one of the most fun songs that week.

In the middle of “Your Request is Impossible” (你的要求我做不到) by Recycle, a pop-punk four-piece from Beijing, I push my way to the front, trying to get a good overhead of the moshpit. This is what I’m talking about.

“I Heard English”

It was common to look up at the Jumbotron on stage and see a close-up of one or two white faces, though there were maybe a dozen foreigners among the thousands. There are still some places in China where the presence of a foreigner is an Event, particularly for those of us expats who hide in the corners of Yunnan and are the laowai of our villages and cities. After my pale face makes the cut, my girlfriend mutters: “Foreigner approaching.”

“Hey, I just heard English and had to come over.”

The guy works in a smaller town outside of Kunming as a lawyer for US visas. He offers to help secure my girlfriend US citizenship.

“Well, we were thinking of a fake green card marri…”

“Everything I do is above board, man. So many misconceptions.”

He leaves us his card and fades back into the crowd.

“Ta Zuo Yi Ge Hen Bang De Kickflip”

Besides the drummer and guitarist in Xu Wei’s band, there’s only one other foreigner working at the festival, and boy does he work it. Converse, the main promoter, set up a small skate park which doubles as a shoe storage unit. I’m unsure whether they’ll find any promising young skaters, but not for lack of trying. Converse Man offers 100RMB, then 200RMB to the first skater to land a 180° kickflip, and we all wait in suspense. Boards fly into the crowd. I watch for about fifteen minutes before a young boy in dreads finally lands one.

But I mut give Converse Man credit, who’s nothing but positive as young guys fail and fail. If only we could have heard just his voice and not seen the skaters, we’d have assumed they were amazing. Converse Man, get a job at Huawei. You can do them some good.

Back at the Monkey

It’s midway through the second day, and I’ve had enough of reggae-infused aggro-rock and pop music, and leave in the middle of Miserable Faith’s set. Later that night, I run into Lin Dan at Bad Monkey, a popular bar in Dali Old Town. “How were the rest of the bands today?” I ask.

“Xu Wei, man. Xu Wei!” He gives me the metal horns.

“You going tomorrow?”

“No. Gotta go back to being a cop tomorrow.”

So it is. And the day after, Dali returns to a city of yuppies and tourists, towners and relocated urban dwellers who’ve found refuge in this backwater. A city of low clouds with a wall, a mountain, a lake, and an alright music scene — at least until next April.

[unapologetically-yellow-blog]

One of the fellows, for her internship, created amazing little books that are aligned to the content we need to teach. Her books are of professional quality, and that has some of the higher-ups talking about selling them to fund Training and Support.

Uhh…what?

1) I hope she’s okay-ed…

[shainagoesplaces]

1) I haven’t ever okayed the idea of selling these books for profit.

But since it wasn’t ever discussed with me, I just…assumed it was not happening.

2) BUUUT, just to make sure that I wasn’t being kept out of a very sudden and very new development in my project, I just directly asked said higher-ups about it, and no surprise, but it’s not gonna happen.  It was mentioned before, but as a joke.  Logistically speaking, even if TFC wanted to sell these books, it’d take a lot of extra effort and staff members are stretched thin as it is.  

So….no worries, all!  No selling of books or selling out will be occurring.

3) Insteaaaad (drumroll!), I’ve figured out how to post my handydandy Dropbox link to all these books, so now ANYONE (well, anyone who reads my blog…) can access them.  (Just, please don’t accidentally delete them!  Re-uploading them can be pretty time-consuming.  Er, don’t purposely delete them either.)

Teachers in China or Other Helpful 朋友: if you have awesome book scripts and ideas for these Unit books — feel free to pop into my ask box, OR just directly post a book script on the folder, and I’ll see what I can do! 

[myownprivatechina]

Shaina, these are amazing, and I’m bummed that I’m coming to find these a bit late! Likely you have less time on your hands, but if you plan to ever expand the series, I’d love to help out in any way (scripts?)

Regardless, your books are now part of Ximu Elementary’s English Library!

C 

[myownprivatechina]

[myownprivatechina]

Cancelled

Reposted from a piece I wrote for Beijing Cream:

For religious folk, shut-ins, and fans of Home Alone, a one-man Christmas sounds nice enough. It’s really touching how Kevin McAllister takes the time to set up a Christmas tree when no one is around to see his work. But the rest of us likely need others to validate these strange traditions. Does Christmas have meaning when you are the only one celebrating?

My fellow teachers in our isolated Yunnan school are not true holiday comrades; “Christmas” in Ximu means shaokao and overpriced apples. I obviously welcome any Yuletide wishes! But it works only as formality, like saying “good show!” to the violin virtuoso after his performance: one sees the product and the other sees the process, the endless hours of repetition in practice. My co-teachers can’t recall the Christmas mornings of their childhood, their sleepwalk through years of awkward family dinners, the mistletoe in the dorm hallway waiting for a willing couple. In this town, the holiday only exists because I exist.

The sort of material fascination with holiday culture found in China’s cities never made its way to the countryside. I guess I could walk outside drunkenly screaming shengdan kuaile, but most people would take my ramblings only as a reminder that yes, that weird Western holiday happens to be today. So that special festive feeling is confined to my teacher’s dorm: a Santa poster and a Charlie Brown-sized Christmas tree, covered in student-made ornaments. When Skyping with friends and family back home, I’ve made sure to place these things within view, giving off the illusion of globe-spanning Christmas cheer.

Early on I realized that one of my roles as teacher is as the Official Envoy for Western Culture. It’s the only way to keep the Yule log burning, so to speak. So began the month-long challenge of teaching my first- and second-graders a few Christmas songs. Yesterday afternoon, with the rest of the school looking on, the students put on their cardboard Santa hats and gave their interpretations of “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls.” Between songs, two students took out the Charlie Brown tree, stepped in front of the choir, and hung stockings on the branches. In teaching traditions to six- and seven-year olds, sometimes you have to cut a few corners.

The kids held hands and sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” maybe the only song they could fully understand. I’m no slouch in Chinese, but I’d like to see you try and explain the lines “boughs of holly” and “bells on bobtails ring” to your EFL students. Actually, I’d like to see you explain them to any adult. Their pageant was moving in the way most children’s choirs move. The kids screamed each syllable, attracting the attention of some of the elderly who were wandering around the school. To me, the spirit of Christmas continues in the busted vocal chords of my students.

When Anthony asked me to write about my Christmas experience in rural Yunnan, I made an ill-advised crack about BJ Cream’s exhaustive car accident coverage. But someone died today, and Christmas is to blame.

I’ll be brief. My principal was suspiciously absent during the pageant. At dinner, a car pulled up in front of the cafeteria. Everyone who stepped out of the car — our current principal and a few teachers — looked like they had aged a few years. Then I heard the story: while gathering food for the Christmas shaokao, Mr. Li, our school groundskeeper, hit and ran over our school’s former principal, a retired man from the nearest village. Under these circumstances, we effectively cancelled Christmas.

The shaokao planned for last night will have to wait until another day. My principal came to my door, shook my hand, and told me Merry Christmas. It’s just that sometimes there are more pressing concerns.

[unapologetically-yellow-blog]

It’s rather telling that the “lead for tomorrow” part is twice the size of “Teach for China.”

Teach for China’s main page boasts of a “student-centered approach to education.” When you click that link, it directs you to this page with the headline “Classroom Leadership” and it goes on to explain the three legs of TFC’s intended impact and how fellows execute them.

Am I the only one who sees how that’s an oxymoron?

[myownprivatechina]

As we figure out whether to champion our students or stand on their shoulders:

[myownprivatechina]

Mao, George, and Honest Abe, interpretation by a 1st Grader looking at dollar bills, 12.20.12