Voice of Will: Back in China

2005-09-19 - 11:39 p.m.
Hello all. This is from a letter to my father.I haven't written lately things are just going very quickly. Too much to do and never enough time.
Lets see.
Seeing you was one of the few highlights in our trip. It was so bad at one point, criss and I looked at each other and stated, "I wish I was back at home, in china."

We made our flight to beijing very easily, it was smooth with only 2 or three instances of turburlence, but mostly it was very smooth, and professionally flown. The flight out of beijing the next morning was a real pain, we were shaking so badly people were spilling their drinks, and there were 40 new SIAS teachers on the plane that had not had the opportunity to rest like we did. (We landed in beijing, and had a 12 hour layover, so we went to a hotel and slept for 7 hours. we were freshly dressed, showered, and relaxed before getting on the flight to zhengzhou).

We got back to our apartment to find that there were workmen in our place while we were gone. There were actually 3 work crews so no one knows who to blame. But while replacing the showers, rebuilding larger shwers, adn replacing the door trim a whole boat load of foreign teachrs were ripped off. Missing from our home were all the double a/triple a batteries for all the remote controls, all the light bulbs. wall hangers were ripped off the walls, most of our hoarded western food was missing, my water distiller was used for making coffee and it was broken, our rug was covered in water/spill stains, and they took 100 rmb from each of the kids piggy banks. They also shoved their garbage under our couch (it appears taht most people dont' actually move their furnature ever because you find the most disgusting things under furnature in china.

We started teaching 2 weeks ago, and did 2 weeks of orientation before that. The orientation was a joke, but it was much better than last years orientation for teachers. Classes are like always, hectic. Nothing seems to be working, and classes change and get reorganized almost on a whim of the gods. Though this eyar only 6 teachers had their schedules changed, as opposed to last year when only 6 didn't have their schedules rearranged. The vast majority of our teacher have textbooks for their classes at the end of the first couple of days, and their classes had books by the end of the first week. Criss and I are lucky in that we get our schedules done first and with priority because we have kids. So her schedule is that she teaches 8 hours straight (not counting lunch) on Monday and wednesday, and I teach 6 straight hours (not counting lunch) on tuesday and thursday. We both have friday off. Not too bad all things considering.

The group of incoming teachers is the best I have seen, and I think it is the best/most professional/most qualified to ever teach here. SIAS has been a bastion for the ultra conservative born again evangelical christians for its existence. At the end of last year, only criss and I were left of the "open minded" teachers group we had. I was very scared it would be 50 new bible thumping teachers to combine with the 40 returning bible thumpers. I was incredibly surprised. Of the new teachers only 5 seem like they are missionaires, while the other 35 seem to be very agnostic, or of other religions (3 jews, 3 catholics, a bahai, someone with their personal guru, and about 15 agnostics, adn 15 or so relaxed/lapsed christians.)


Will