So here I am in Pingdingshan, Henan province. Modern English sent me here to be the foriegner teacher as they set up a new franchise school. I would like to think that I got the job because of my public speaking experience, but in all likelyhood I got it because I am the only experienced teacher who is not very busy. Adam, my boss also suggested that I bring Rae along with me. Again, while I would like to think that he wanted us to have a romantic vacation in the provinces together, in reality it is more likely that he knew that I would be much better off going with someone who spoke Chinese. He was right.
Pingdingshan (flat-peaked mountain) is an industrial town of about 600000. Apparantly it is famous in China for it's coal deposits, but I had certainly never heard of it. It is not in any guidebook and the only hits it gets on google are either for sending flowers or are about some Christians who got arrested for being Christian. Although I can not be entirely sure about this, I think I am the only white person in this city. I guess for this reason, I am treated like a celeberty or an honoured guest. People stare at me on the street and everyone at work is especially nice to me.
The work here is pretty boring... it more or less involves getting up in the morning to go to a school to give a few demonstration lessons, then going to a different school or different schools to give more demonstrations in the afternoon. Unlike in Beijing where Modern English is a school for adults, here in Pingdingshan, the only market is kids. Adults have no use for English as there are no foreign companies. I do not particularly like teaching kids, but when there is no goal to teach them anything, and when just being a yellow-haired long-nosed foreigner is enough to impress them, the work is easy enough.
Another major difference between here and Beijing is that the quality of the teachers is much much lower. In Beijing, most of the Chinese teachers are quite good at English. Even if they have an accent, they are easy to understand and can, of course, have a real conversation with a foreigner. Here it is not the case. Many of the teachers can barely understand me (even though I speak a standard Canadian English) and I have a hard time understanding them too. They, along with the school management, justify this by saying that the level required to teach children is lower than that for adults. While this may be generally true, the kids who learn from some of these teachers are not going to know English as a coherent and complete foreign language that can be used for communication.... and that does not even begin to describe the accent that these kids will learn.
It is a good thing that Rae came here with me because she speaks English and is a much more experienced teacher than anyone else they have here. She is very happy because she is going to get paid for this which means that she is actually doing real work in China.
The boss of the school, Mr Zhang (Sean) is a really nice guy. He is tall and has a friendly face. Like all Chinese business men, he likes to wear golf shirts with fancy (hahaha) colours and patterns. He is also very worldly for a Chinese person, especially from the interior. Apparantly he works at the local TV station in the marketing department, but there is always so much ambiguity surrounding everything here. The surprising thing, however, is that he can not speak even a little bit of English. It seems as if he just saw how well the other English schools in town were doing and decided that he wanted a piece of the action. Mr Zhang is very very nice to me and Rae. He has taken us out to many nice and expensive meals, pays for all of our taxi rides, and is always very friendly. The flip side of that is that he is sure to make as much use of ome as he can while I am here. As the only foreigner in the city, he has been showing me off as many places as possible to get publicity for the school including two local TV appearances. For now, I am happy to whore myself out like this becuase he is a nice guy, and the whole thing is kinda fun.
Back in Beijing, I feel a little bit guilty for abandoning Gabe alone in Beijing. He does not speak any Chinese and does not really know anyone. It is a good thing that he has work and does not cook for himself or else I don't know that he would ever leave the house. However, maybe by making him navigate the city alone for one week he will get a better sense of the place and get adjusted more quickly... or at least that is what I am telling myself.
Well, still having fun for now... tonight we will eat yang rou chuan and drink beer so I am happy！
Pingdingshan (flat-peaked mountain) is an industrial town of about 600000. Apparantly it is famous in China for it's coal deposits, but I had certainly never heard of it. It is not in any guidebook and the only hits it gets on google are either for sending flowers or are about some Christians who got arrested for being Christian. Although I can not be entirely sure about this, I think I am the only white person in this city. I guess for this reason, I am treated like a celeberty or an honoured guest. People stare at me on the street and everyone at work is especially nice to me.
The work here is pretty boring... it more or less involves getting up in the morning to go to a school to give a few demonstration lessons, then going to a different school or different schools to give more demonstrations in the afternoon. Unlike in Beijing where Modern English is a school for adults, here in Pingdingshan, the only market is kids. Adults have no use for English as there are no foreign companies. I do not particularly like teaching kids, but when there is no goal to teach them anything, and when just being a yellow-haired long-nosed foreigner is enough to impress them, the work is easy enough.
Another major difference between here and Beijing is that the quality of the teachers is much much lower. In Beijing, most of the Chinese teachers are quite good at English. Even if they have an accent, they are easy to understand and can, of course, have a real conversation with a foreigner. Here it is not the case. Many of the teachers can barely understand me (even though I speak a standard Canadian English) and I have a hard time understanding them too. They, along with the school management, justify this by saying that the level required to teach children is lower than that for adults. While this may be generally true, the kids who learn from some of these teachers are not going to know English as a coherent and complete foreign language that can be used for communication.... and that does not even begin to describe the accent that these kids will learn.
It is a good thing that Rae came here with me because she speaks English and is a much more experienced teacher than anyone else they have here. She is very happy because she is going to get paid for this which means that she is actually doing real work in China.
The boss of the school, Mr Zhang (Sean) is a really nice guy. He is tall and has a friendly face. Like all Chinese business men, he likes to wear golf shirts with fancy (hahaha) colours and patterns. He is also very worldly for a Chinese person, especially from the interior. Apparantly he works at the local TV station in the marketing department, but there is always so much ambiguity surrounding everything here. The surprising thing, however, is that he can not speak even a little bit of English. It seems as if he just saw how well the other English schools in town were doing and decided that he wanted a piece of the action. Mr Zhang is very very nice to me and Rae. He has taken us out to many nice and expensive meals, pays for all of our taxi rides, and is always very friendly. The flip side of that is that he is sure to make as much use of ome as he can while I am here. As the only foreigner in the city, he has been showing me off as many places as possible to get publicity for the school including two local TV appearances. For now, I am happy to whore myself out like this becuase he is a nice guy, and the whole thing is kinda fun.
Back in Beijing, I feel a little bit guilty for abandoning Gabe alone in Beijing. He does not speak any Chinese and does not really know anyone. It is a good thing that he has work and does not cook for himself or else I don't know that he would ever leave the house. However, maybe by making him navigate the city alone for one week he will get a better sense of the place and get adjusted more quickly... or at least that is what I am telling myself.
Well, still having fun for now... tonight we will eat yang rou chuan and drink beer so I am happy！
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