Be careful what you do-- because the lie becomes the truth

One of the most important things I learned last year in China was about myself and about how I am motivated. I was used to being a good student. I was used to getting good grades because I did the reading and the work, because I was intelligent and ready for class every day, and perhaps most importantly: because I am mentally quick enough to keep up with professor lectures (many of which cater more to the professor's mind than the students').

I was not a good student in China. I struggled to make it through half of the reading for most of my classes. I did finish, but rarely. My Chinese ability was average for my classes-- meaning that I ended up with passing grades but was not ever the smart one in a class. I couldn't keep up with lectures, felt a fool many times a week when a professor asked a question in class and I couldn't answer.

I am embarrassed by how thoroughly feeling like a poor student threw me completely off track, even when I was getting through just fine, really. I was embarrassed to talk about how well I was understanding course material, and had trouble staying motivated to do reading because it took so long to look up the characters I didn't know, and even when I did my comprehension was low.

When I did actually talk to classmates about schoolwork, we were always in more or less the same place: struggling and embarassed about it. A friend who was in a different program in nanjing said she thought herself lucky she had already had so many experiences as a good student-- she remarked that if feeling this way had been her first experience in school at five years old, she would probably never have recovered and would have spent her whole life thinking of herself as a bad student. This put into clearer focus some thoughts about the way that my brother and I were treated and spoken of when we were both in elementary school, and about the education system in general that I will hopefully explore more fully in a later post.

It was definitely not my best year socially, either, and I'm still working on trying to figure out why. In some ways it was a product of my surroundings-- living in close quarters with large groups from different cultures left a lot of differences of understanding in the open, and it also underlined how much more comfortable people were overall with classmates with the same native language. There were many friendships across the Chinese-Foreigner line (and I'm happy to say some were mine!) but much of the time groups from one background or the other dominated people's social lives.

I know there is more I could have done, was capable of doing, to improve to social feeling in the Center. Trying to pick up the pieces and get more out of last year will, I think, be very important for how I feel about myself this year.

Title is from Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", which has been stuck in my head for the last few days because a friend of mine introduced me to this excellent cover by Aloe Blacc and The Grand Scheme.

Exploring the World Series Introduction

Writing goal number two!

Is to think about/research again something involving environmental science, different countries, education, economics... basically to try to organize my thoughts about what I have learned and experienced... um... while I have been alive. Mostly not involving China.

I have spent time as a homeschooler, which allowed me to spend a lot of time figuring out how I learned; experienced my parents' divorce, which allowed me to deeply examine how I thought and felt (as in, the processes that lead me to various thoughts and emotions, not just examining the thoughts and feelings I had then); gone through grades 7-12 in the Ames public school system; earned degrees in International Studies and Environmental Science at the University of Iowa; and been able to spend time in Germany, Egypt, Korea, and China, last year earning a graduate certificate in Chinese Studies.

Sometimes I'm happy with what I've done so far and where it seems to be taking me, but overall the last year or so I don't know what I want to do with this range of experience. My goal this year is to calm down and let myself figure that out (as my darling mother assures me is inevitable). I know that teaching will be stressful, especially at first, but I have always enjoyed working with kids and after a while I think I will be able to settle into a routine and relax. Especially since my contract involves working only 15 hours a week with comfortable-living's pay.

These posts will go up on Thursdays, as this one is, and I'm hoping that I'll find some answers about what my focus should be by what topics I am drawn to explore. I'll be starting out looking around where I am more in depth-- Jeju island geology and a little history, the Korean language. I've been looking for more music from China and from Germany, to better keep up my language skills, and I'm not sure if the things I find will just surface here as post titles and asides or if I'll find an idea to tie together a whole post or two. I would really appreciate comments and questions, as always, to help me root out all the corners of each topic. Thank you! Love!

China Series Introduction

Okay, here is my first writing goal for the next year.

Every Monday, I will post a China-centered article. I have a lot of China study and experience to process, and writing is my best hope.

I have been trying to figure out who I am as a traveler (I am almost resigned to the fact that I will be fervently trying to figure out who I am for the rest of my life, in one way or another). I am often unsure of how to talk about my experiences to others-- to Chinese people, to other foreigners in China, and especially to other Americans who haven't traveled, or have traveled only as tourists. I am realizing that much of the time what an outsider says about a country is about 90% a reflection of themselves and only 10% a reflection of the country they are describing.

I come back to the quote in "84, Charing Cross Road" (which I don't remember precisely and can't look up from the dorm room in Korea where I'm writing this) in which Helene Hanff tells Frank Doel that when she comes to London, she will be looking for the London of Classic English literature. Of Shakespeare and Austen and Dickens. He replies that if she looks for it, it is there.

This is a lovely moment in a sweet story, but outside of Helene's story, I am torn about what to think of it. It is very true, for just about any version of any country. If you go to China expecting to see a country ravaged by the evils of socialism, you will find evidence to support that and could easily come away with a renewed love for capitalism. If you go to China expecting to find a country where people value community and avoid the isolation and greed of the West, you will find it. If you come to China looking for an economic wonder, the next global superpower in the making, it is there.

Of course, if a traveler in China has meaningful conversation with anyone while in China, they will have some of their horizons broaden and some of there understandings deepened, but I don't think it's by any means necessary that they will come away with even the beginning of an accurate view of what China is, or what it feels like to live there.

I am hoping to put down on paper (or, well, the internet) what I experienced studying about and living in the Middle Kingdom, and in doing so begin to sort out what's me and what is China. I will choose a topic a week- a place, a concept, a tradition, a historical change.

Bonus Picture Saturday

First, here is a photo of one view from the westernmost beach in Hamdeok (a 15-20 minute walk from my place):

Next, here's one of the best shots I've taken so far. It's a picture of sunset over Jeju taken from Udo-- a very small island to the east of Jeju itself.
And last, here is the cereal I have been eating. I was drawn to it because it is 1) Cheap and 2) Terrifying. It is also Italian.


(If you click on the pictures, they'll get bigger)

It's the room the sun and the sky

Writing goal number three* for this year is the most informal. It's basically just to keep my pen on paper; not to let things I need to express pile up because I'm not sure how or when to say them. I've journaled to keep myself sane since I was about ten years old, I think. I have a paper journal for which this might often be more appropriate, but I'm going to try to just write down something about HOW my life is every week. This will also allow me to keep titling entries with song lyrics that probably only relate to the post's content in my head. Win all around, really.

To begin with, here's a bit about what it feels like to teach afterschool English at Hado Elementary School on Jeju Island:

The fifth and sixth grades are often the easiest to relate to, but also the classes where power struggles are most likely. I'm hoping this will continue getting better as I figure out what games they like and they feel they can trust me to have a point to what I want them to do ("point" here probably also being a game). Sixth grade was excited about the game "four corners" for about two solid weeks. I haven't played it in a little while because I want it to still be exciting. The only thing I've gotten the fifth grade excited about so far is telling scary stories. Which was awesome-- I said "What is a scary story?" and they immediately listed about twenty possible characters, starting with Dracula and kumiho. I've been using them to teach the past tense, and am hoping I can find some more things they'll be interested in so they don't get tired of them. They are the class that chose names like "Valkyrie," "Black Hole," and "Dark Knight," for which I can do nothing but congratulate them, but they are clearly too cool for school most of the time. There's hope for a future full of English practice involving video game characters and tales of violent death, but there will be rocks along the way.

Fourth grade is my smallest class and third grade is my largest (with 5 and 11 students, respectively. All my classes are beautifully small). Fourth grade has been the easiest so far-- they've been happy with the activities I've planned for them-- they've been feeling the power of being able to spell things by sounding them out phonetically, I think, and really like playing Uno even if they have to describe their cards in English to play each turn. The range of language level in my third grade class is challenging. There is one girl who has complained a number of times to my co-teacher that she ALWAYS raises her hand and ALWAYS knows the answer and I NEVER call on her. I do call on her, sometimes, but I know that she really does always know the answer very fast, and a few of her classmates generally need the question repeated and/or re-explained.

First and second grade have the most trouble finding value in sitting in a chair for forty minutes at a time, but they might still be my favorites. They are all young enough to just "know" that all adults understand everything they are saying all the time, so they speak to me in Korean all the time. I have them kind of fooled so far, by luck. I always have a Korean co-teacher in class who fields their relevant questions, and thus far the only questions they've asked me outside of class concern where I'm going-- one of the ten or so things I understand. Thus far they still believe that I respond in English to challenge them and make them keep practicing, and not because I only speak about twenty words of Korean.

Only a couple of the other teachers in my school have had real conversations with me. Most don't speak English well enough (or aren't confident, at least). But a couple of teachers who don't really speak English have brought me coffee a couple of friday afternoons while I lesson plan in the library, so overall it's nice to be there.

*er, goals one and two start next week. They're more scheduled. You'll be seeing them. Transmission ended.

Title is from "Lazy Eye" by the Silversun Pickups

Beginnings on Jeju Island

I am safe on Jeju, and apologize for not updating here sooner! Our first five days on the island were spent finishing out orientation at a hotel with no wifi, and my evenings were spent wandering around Jeju-si or sleeping.

I stayed with Christian for about a week, as his room at our "pension"* was open way before mine. First, though, he had to fly to Osaka at the last minute to get a new visa because of some poorly worded forms at the Consulate in Chicago.

Our rooms are right next to each other, the only ones in the building on this side of the cluster of structures that our landlord (who was introduced to us as "the Master") owns. There is a waterwheel and a gazebo in the middle, and a bench swing to the side of my window, next to the hole in the wall that houses our washing machine. My place consists of one large room-- kitchen, bedroom, and living room in one-- and a small bathroom. There are plenty of windows and we get a lovely breeze, so when it's not crazy hot outside they're open.

I've only taught one day so far, and will head to my second day of classes in a couple of hours. My intended first day was canceled by a typhoon, which in the end turned out to be just spotty gusts of wind and a few downpours. I definitely haven't gotten a good handle on my students' abilities yet. We've just made namecards (and picked English names!) and gone over class rules. My first graders think I'm super cool, my fourth graders may stage a revolt before too long.

It feels SO GOOD to have my own place, and now a cellphone and internet, and soon a desk and chair. I'm calming down from last year in China and from traveling all over the place this summer. I think it's gonna be a really good year.


*this is the first time I've heard the word 'pension' used to describe something not to do with money after retirement. Here it means "vacation house," something like "bed and breakfast" which is rented out by the day during tourist season, and much cheaper by the month in the off season.

Korea!

So, I know that I told friends and family about Korea and Jeju island, and confused them and myself about how big each population is.

There are a lot of people. Everywhere.

Korea is about the same size as the state of Indiana (100,000 square kilometers), with a population of 50 million. 50 million is one sixth of the population of the united states. Jeju itself is about 1.5 times the size of story county (an average sized county in Iowa), with a population of 565,000 people. It's a lot.

... more on other things later. I am getting a bit more nervous and much more excited about teaching with each lecture that we have during orientation.