I work for a Chinese school, albeit in a program designed for students who will be going to an English-speaking country for their university education. Many of my colleagues speak English--a few fluently--and one or two have been abroad as students themselves. However, this does not mean that the school is remotely Western in its pedagogy: in fact, the bulk of classes are still taught in Chinese language, with students required to memorize huge amounts of facts rather than engaging in higher-level or critical thinking. Pardon me, but how does memorizing a list of 2,000 vocabulary words for SAT spell success? Particularly when the word is translated incorrectly into Chinese? Why learn the word "fund" with only one meaning or definition and yet be totally unable to transfer the meaning to other forms of the word, such as "funds" or "funding" or "fundor"? Why recognize this one word and yet be unable to write it, speak it, use it in conversation?
Right now I am frankly pissed off at the mandatory attendance policy for school events. I dutifully show up at a potluck, two dishes in hand (neither very large) and am confronted with this: a large room, three rows of chairs pushed back tightly against one wall, two walls spread with a variety of Chinese food (kept hot in chafing dishes) and a large cleared space--about 90 % of the room--directly in front of the chairs where people are singing karaoke badly and loudly. (The two terms are not mutually exclusive over here.) What they lacked in talent was more than made up for in volume. Sometimes TWO different KTV tracks were played at the same time, which doesn't seem to bother the young or the Chinese but which I find unsettling. What is it about the way Chinese people's brains process sound that allows them to hear two different tracks blasted loudly without sending them into a schizophrenic panic? I certainly can't handle it: as the music got louder, and two, three, or even four songs were blasted simultaneously, I found myself getting crankier and crankier.
Oh, yes, the food: as usual, the Chinese hovered over the Western desserts, effectively blocking anyone else from reaching them, and as they shoveled in each piece of fudge, cake, or cookie, they complained loudly that everything was too sweet. Too sweet? Then stop eating it. When the dessert table was laid bare, they allowed foreigners access: my plate of Mocha Fudge Cake was barren except for a chicken bone someone had thoughtfully behind (because yes, at Christmas I WANT to clean up YOUR garbage) and the few peppermint fudge squares remaining had FINGERPRINTS all over. Ugh. Here's what the school offered as Christmas fare: sweet and sour pork which was made of ketchup and pineapple, about six meat dishes, three dishes of rice noodles with cabbage and dried shrimp, fried wonton skins, and about twenty different platters of sponge cake, fruit, steamed buns, and a cauldron of rice. As a meal, good, as you could pick and choose, but as Christmas fare, not quite what Western people new to China would expect. I am not stating that they were in the wrong--hell, the Australians would have expected rather different fare--it's just that a sweet gesture such as throwing a party for Christmas can easily set off a wave of homesickness and culture shock among the expats. Fortunately, I serve with a more hearty lot and they were very happy with party. (I have in the past taught with foreign teachers who would have turned up their noses and walked out haughtily.)
I had a headache and I was in a lousy mood following a phone conversation--more of a excoriation by phone--with my daughter Lulu who was in a pissy mood herself. What better way to deal with it than by phoning your mother and reminding her how she's failed you, eh?
Chinese potluck: expect Karaoke. Expect to be forced to sing or dance at some point. Expect the music to be very, very loud. Expect one person to sing beautifully--so beautifully you can't believe this person bothers with working any job except show business. This one person will sing once then melt into the background modestly. Then someone else who sings badly will sing a LOT and you will have the pleasure of seeing how the Chinese deal with subtly wrestling the microphone away from that person and giving someone else a turn--not quite as baldly as Mr. Bennett does in Pride and Prejudice but certainly as amusing. One foreigner at least will get very drunk and act disgracefully and only his colleagues will be embarrassed come Monday morning. Oh yes; there may be a speech. There may be several speeches by Very Important Personages who may have never seen before who turn out to be your bosses. At least one speech will be given to a soundtrack of stirring military marches, heavy on the strings. Expect everyone's eyes to dart nervously at you to see if you are showing the proper amount of respect at this powerful oration. Me? I cry prettily, so I let tears slide unchecked down my cheeks. It's probably the only reason I keep the job.
More notes: there will be a Christmas tree. There may or may not be a life-sized Santa, and if there is, it is likely that Santa will be flanked by two deer which the local taxidermist stuffed himself. If you choose to sing, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and you're drunk, do not use the life size Santa and his two deer companions to set up a tableaux illustrating the story: you will be canned, no matter how prettily you cry on cue. (Trust me on this.)
Right now I am frankly pissed off at the mandatory attendance policy for school events. I dutifully show up at a potluck, two dishes in hand (neither very large) and am confronted with this: a large room, three rows of chairs pushed back tightly against one wall, two walls spread with a variety of Chinese food (kept hot in chafing dishes) and a large cleared space--about 90 % of the room--directly in front of the chairs where people are singing karaoke badly and loudly. (The two terms are not mutually exclusive over here.) What they lacked in talent was more than made up for in volume. Sometimes TWO different KTV tracks were played at the same time, which doesn't seem to bother the young or the Chinese but which I find unsettling. What is it about the way Chinese people's brains process sound that allows them to hear two different tracks blasted loudly without sending them into a schizophrenic panic? I certainly can't handle it: as the music got louder, and two, three, or even four songs were blasted simultaneously, I found myself getting crankier and crankier.
Oh, yes, the food: as usual, the Chinese hovered over the Western desserts, effectively blocking anyone else from reaching them, and as they shoveled in each piece of fudge, cake, or cookie, they complained loudly that everything was too sweet. Too sweet? Then stop eating it. When the dessert table was laid bare, they allowed foreigners access: my plate of Mocha Fudge Cake was barren except for a chicken bone someone had thoughtfully behind (because yes, at Christmas I WANT to clean up YOUR garbage) and the few peppermint fudge squares remaining had FINGERPRINTS all over. Ugh. Here's what the school offered as Christmas fare: sweet and sour pork which was made of ketchup and pineapple, about six meat dishes, three dishes of rice noodles with cabbage and dried shrimp, fried wonton skins, and about twenty different platters of sponge cake, fruit, steamed buns, and a cauldron of rice. As a meal, good, as you could pick and choose, but as Christmas fare, not quite what Western people new to China would expect. I am not stating that they were in the wrong--hell, the Australians would have expected rather different fare--it's just that a sweet gesture such as throwing a party for Christmas can easily set off a wave of homesickness and culture shock among the expats. Fortunately, I serve with a more hearty lot and they were very happy with party. (I have in the past taught with foreign teachers who would have turned up their noses and walked out haughtily.)
I had a headache and I was in a lousy mood following a phone conversation--more of a excoriation by phone--with my daughter Lulu who was in a pissy mood herself. What better way to deal with it than by phoning your mother and reminding her how she's failed you, eh?
Chinese potluck: expect Karaoke. Expect to be forced to sing or dance at some point. Expect the music to be very, very loud. Expect one person to sing beautifully--so beautifully you can't believe this person bothers with working any job except show business. This one person will sing once then melt into the background modestly. Then someone else who sings badly will sing a LOT and you will have the pleasure of seeing how the Chinese deal with subtly wrestling the microphone away from that person and giving someone else a turn--not quite as baldly as Mr. Bennett does in Pride and Prejudice but certainly as amusing. One foreigner at least will get very drunk and act disgracefully and only his colleagues will be embarrassed come Monday morning. Oh yes; there may be a speech. There may be several speeches by Very Important Personages who may have never seen before who turn out to be your bosses. At least one speech will be given to a soundtrack of stirring military marches, heavy on the strings. Expect everyone's eyes to dart nervously at you to see if you are showing the proper amount of respect at this powerful oration. Me? I cry prettily, so I let tears slide unchecked down my cheeks. It's probably the only reason I keep the job.
More notes: there will be a Christmas tree. There may or may not be a life-sized Santa, and if there is, it is likely that Santa will be flanked by two deer which the local taxidermist stuffed himself. If you choose to sing, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and you're drunk, do not use the life size Santa and his two deer companions to set up a tableaux illustrating the story: you will be canned, no matter how prettily you cry on cue. (Trust me on this.)
I must mention this: it's all on camera. Why? Who looks at these things afterward? Is there anything worse than someone who insists you watch footage of people you don't know singing and eating? I once went to a dinner party where the man on my left made us watch a recording he had made on his new digital camera of FIREWORKS. Not even super-spectacular fireworks--just of fireworks...Why, God, why?
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