Tangent on train shenanigans: Aside from the familiar crowded, hot, personal space-deprived Beijing subway mayhem we are all familiar with, on the way to 王府井 I encountered one young guy who got on the train and grabbed the rail above my head, leaving his armpit resting right in front of my nose. That afternoon, I learned that many Chinese don’t wear deodorant. As a matter of fact, our ACC program handbook advised us to bring our own deodorant because “it is every expensive and difficult to find in China.” Maybe that’s why this guy’s armpits smelled terribly…for ten minutes. I guess this is my newest question I want answered: “Why don’t that many Chinese people wear deodorant?”
Immediately after exiting the subway station, we walked through 王府井 and came to a pretty short three-story building squashed between other small shops selling all sorts of traditional Chinese art and electronics and snacks. We followed a sign that read “Food Court on the bottom floor.” We ended up finding a food court there, but there were no teachers. “What?!” This actually made no sense to us since the title they’d given us on the instruction sheet matched the name of this place. We asked the service staff there, and they said 王府井 was full of food courts. “Eh...?” What were we to do?
My partner, Harry, and I followed their instructions to the nearest food court. Our instructions sheet said this food court mainly sold Chinese snacks—by Chinese snacks they meant things like 龙虾 和 青蛙 (scorpion and frog). The first spot only sold fast food. This second food court was outdoors and was just across the street from the first one. They sold Chinese snacks, but not the strange snacks like frog and scorpion. They sold candy, yogurt milk (which is delish-us by the way), and tons of fruit and vegetables. This food court was more like a local market than the typical American-style food court. But Harry and I thought this market was the right place, since we had run into two other groups from our class who also thought this food court was the right one. We still had one problem: no teacher. The other two groups waited for our teachers to show up. Harry and I thought our teachers should be much easier to find, so we tried another mall called 东方新天. We went there, scanned all three floors, even the basement floor containing a food court, yet still no teachers. While down there, we did see a store selling strange snacks like scorpion and frog, but we scanned the outside of the store and still didn’t see them. At this point, we were two hours into this scavenger hunt, anticipating the sun would show us no mercy when we stepped outside, we wandered out the doors of 东方新天 feeling defeated. How were we supposed to find our teachers? And if none of our classmates could find this food court, why did they give us this assignment?
As we stood at the center of the square, staring back at the entrance of 东方新天 bewildered, a nice group of Chinese people offered to help us. “Ex-cuse-a me, where are you go-ing?” We replied that we actually had no idea because we had literally been to all of the food courts in this area. We were hungry, we were tired, it was hot...but we still needed to find the food court in order to complete the assignment. (And to get free lunch from our teachers. J) Somehow we conjured the strength to head to the fifth floor of a mall about a ten-minute walk away. Ten minutes walking in the scourging Beijing sun felt like hours and hours and hours to me by that point.
Once we arrived at this huge mall, Harry had some doubts about whether its food court was the right location. I told him that we should still try it though, then I dragged him up five escalators until we reached “The Food Republic.” It appeared to be the right place because just like the first location, the name of this food court in Chinese was 美食代广场. However, the problem was that they didn’t sell snacks cooked from weird animals. All the food looked like delicious, authentic Chinese FAST food, not SNACKS. We looked around on this floor for our teachers and ended up encountering all of our classmates sitting at a table together. We were the last ones to arrive, but anyway...SUCCESS! I mean...FAIL! Our teachers weren’t here either. Everyone just ended up at the wrong spot together. LOL.
We waited for them to arrive and tried calling them, but they didn’t answer. We finally got a hold of them; they returned one of my classmate’s calls. Apparently, they were at the 美食代广场 on the basement floor of 东方新天. Harry and I looked at each other, both of us now in exasperation because we had already been there. It was certainly our mistake though because they said they were waiting for us at a table INSIDE the food court. We figured they would be waiting for us outside the mall entrance or outside the food court. COMMON SENSE FAIL! But I don’t know whom to blame: ourselves or our teachers. Either way, the language practicum turned out really well. It was certainly a fun learning experience.
Our teachers spoke to us, figured out where we were, and rushed to come eat with us. They let us order whatever we wanted, especially if it was a traditional Chinese dish. We spent a good hour and a half talking amongst one another with our teachers, getting to know them and them getting to know us. It was a really warm, sappy moment for me. You know that really awkward feeling when you cross the line from just that teacher-student relationship to teacher/friend-student/friend relationship? Yeah, that’s what I felt. Our Chinese teachers are real people. They’re young and at the prime of their lives. For many of them, teaching foreigners, especially American students, at such a highly selective program like ACC is an honor for them. (It also looks good on their resumes, especially in China. Teachers are more highly respected in China than in the United States.) But I’ve discovered this experience is so much more than that for them.
When I picked up my first test grade from my box yesterday evening, I surprisingly encountered a small piece of notebook paper folded neatly into four even squares nestled beneath my test. I nervously unraveled it; I didn’t know who it was from or what it said. It was a letter from one of my Chinese teachers letting me know she was leaving the program because she had a “more successful opportunity” elsewhere. After only one week, I’ve built a close relationship with this teacher, and I will be really sad to see her leave this Tuesday. This is an example of how highly ambitious and motivated ACC teachers are. They not only care about us learning Chinese, but they care about us as people as well. I think having a support system that stems from new friends made at ACC along with support from your Chinese teachers is important as well. Both have helped me successfully take advantage of this awesome opportunity. Sorry, another sappy tangent...She ended the letter giving me her cell and her personal email; she told me to contact her anytime.
My main point is that studying abroad in China is just as rewarding for these teachers as it is for us. I’ve realized that they spend tons of time studying how to teach foreigners. It’s not as simple as them learning English. They also need to have some understanding of the culture. I think knowing that they put in so much effort just pushes me to work even harder here. Stephanie Rocio mentioned in a recent blog post how HBA teachers skipped their graduations to work at HBA. That’s amazing. I feel our Chinese teachers—regardless of the program—are looking for more than work experience and higher credentials. The letter I got from one of my teachers, Gao Laoshi, shows the same display of downright kindness. And no matter how cheesy or cliché it sounds, they have good hearts.
I look forward to getting to know my teachers even more now—not only through scavenger hunts and other language practicum activities, but through making even more of an effort to become fluent in Chinese. When I do, I can fully express myself to them, showing my gratitude for their kindness and their generosity thus far. I think it’s the least I can do, and I think it’s the least other Light Fellows can do, to return the favor.
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