First Shot

Hello from China . This is my first post despite my presence in China for almost a week as I had very limited access to the Internet. I arrived last Friday the 26th, and I have had a shockingly busy time. The pictures to the left of of the lovely view from my hotel room in Xiamen. I arrived with two other Americans, and we were promptly deposited at a local hotel. The picture to the left is the view from my balcony. We quickly determined that we were being quarantined to ensure that none of use had the dreaded swine-flu. Luckily, as appears to be the case with many bureaucratic issues, quarantine didn't really mean quarantine. My hosts at Xiamen School #6 proceeded over the next few days to take me on tour after tour of the beautiful city of Xiamen...so if I had the swine-flu, I am sure that I passed it to everyone in Xiamen. My "quarantine" ended up only lasting a few days as an alum of #6 (who is on summer break from Michigan State...yeah, he said it was a tad too cold for him) invited me to live at his house. The other two Americans who are teaching in Xiamen have not been as lucky; they are still at the hotel as their school hosts (they are both teaching a different school than me) have wanted their quarantine to last the full seven days. I have now been living at this spectacular locale for four days. My new space is on the twelfth floor of a beautiful apartment building (I call it a condo) with gorgeous views and luxurious accommodations.

I started teaching "senior one" students (9th graders) at Xiamen on Monday (see the picture of the very well-behaved and well-dressed youngsters below). Luckily they seem to have gotten over their tendency to clap spontaneously and ask for my autograph whenever I am around them. Such unwarranted hero worship is quite unnerving. It seems that the reaction comes from the rarity of their exposure to Americans. They have had some native English speakers in the past, but apparently I am the first white American many of them have had as a teacher. I have also been teaching the English teachers at #6--all of whom are, obviously, Chinese. There are approximately 50 English teachers (all but three are women). I have been spending about an hour and a half each day talking about American culture, literature, history, etc. They have been sharing some very intriguing Chinese perspectives on these subjects which I will go into in greater detail on future posts.

I must admit I am suffering from both "foreign language fatigue" and "hospitality overload" (both terms I have coined). Mandarin is distressingly difficult to pronounce. I think I have finally mastered my tongue position when saying "yes". Hmmm. The fact that Mandarin is not a Latin or Germanic based language has hit home. My hosts at #6 are incredibly helpful and gracious, but I am experiencing the need to be a tad more independent. I plan to sneak out and take the bus from my "home" to the school tomorrow...which my hosts seem to think may indeed be an impossible task for me. Hopefully, a little more independence will make me feel more settled. We Americans like our independence.

There are many more things that I could write, but I have spent the last few hours creating a PowerPoint of American history (all of it) that I need to present to the English teachers tomorrow. I will try to write daily entries from now one. And hopefully they will not be written in a sweltering, Mandarin induced headache blur that I find myself in right now.

Senior One Students at #6

Xiamen, China