Okay. I'm a bad blogger. This is undeniable, since it's been....oh...about four months since the last post. My apologies. See, the thing is, I've grown accustomed to life in China. There's not that much that surprises me or makes for blogging-worthy stories, because it's routine now. Open bathroom stalls where people watch you pee? No biggie. Being crushed in the pressing crowd to get on a bus? Mundane. Spitting, gawking, the ever-lasting chorus of 'hello' followed by giggles every time you step foot out the door? Please. That's newbie stuff.
But today was a blog-worthy day. Mostly this morning. Let me give you some background.
As you know, last winter we studied Chinese in another city (due to the ridiculous weather up here in the frigid north). This summer, to save on money, we decided to try staying here and trekking across the river (easily a full hour on a crowded, non-air-conditioned bus with people who have never heard of deoderant) to go to class. We weighed our options and decided to take classes separately with private tutors. We contacted the school that Ryan and Rachel have been attending, and got things all lined up. Justin was going to be studying with their teacher, and I was going to have someone different. I actually requested this, as their teacher is a man, and I'm absolutely not comfortable taking one-on-one classes with a man. Besides appearances (sketchy) it is said in China that every man between, oh, thirty and sixty is a pervert. Something like that. It's a wide age range -- basically, every adult male.
So. I was to get a female teacher. Hurrah.
Yesterday was Justin's first class. He liked the guy fine, everything was hunky-dory. My class was this morning.
Okay. Now, the thing is, I'm a fairly nervous person about doing something alone for the first time. Especially in China. I like to know exactly where I'm going, have a back-up plan in case something goes amiss, and generally carry just about everything you could ever need in my bag, just in case. I do not enjoy taking an early bus, changing buses, then going down to a bus stop I've never been to before and am not familiar with the landmarks thereof, to meet a person I don't know and have no way of identifying (how do you describe a Chinese person as to him pick out of a crowd?). But that's exactly what I had to do.
At first, it was fine. I only had to wait five minutes for the first bus, I changed buses easily enough (you'd think that would always be easy, but bus routes here have a tendency to randomly change without warning), and off I went. Justin had told me to look for a big red building across from a huge circular sculpture at a big intersection and to get off the bus at the next stop. His teacher had met him at that bus stop, and when Ryan and Rachel had first started class, their teacher met them at the hotel a block down the street. I also had the name of the bus stop, so there should have been no problem with disembarking correctly.
Ha. Should have been.
I got the first indication of trouble when I realized, two stops after getting on the bus, that the nice speaker-voice that announces stops was broken on this bus.
Great.
So, I anxiously watched for the big red building and the circle sculpture. I kept checking my watch, worried about being late for the first class.
Aha! Red building! Circle sculpture!
Just past the intersection, the bus stops. I jump off with two other people. I look around.
This isn't a bus stop. The bus had stopped, who knows why, in a random place with no signs or people. So I walked. I slowed down at the next bus stop, where I could see my bus's number. I checked around for my female teacher, but didn't see anyone in the crowd who looked like they were looking for me.
Ah, thought I, she must be waiting in front of the hotel. I'll keep going.
Nope. I waited in front of the hotel for what felt like ages. After a reasonable amount of time, I pulled out my phone.
*Sidebar -- my old phone here was a hand-me-down from the couple before us. Oddly enough, it's a Chinese phone that doesn't give me Chinese texting abilities without converting everything to Chinese. So, we found a super cheap deal on TaoBao, the Chinese version of Ebay. This phone had arrived the day before, and I was still learning the ins and outs. Okay, to continue.
Now, I'm in a part of the city I'm not familiar with, don't see anyone looking for me, have no contact information for the school, and am feeling progressively stupider and hotter as the sun rises and people stare. I pull out my phone to call Justin. He, at least, has their email address.
My phone is not working.
I send multiple text messages, increasing in urgency. No response.
I try to call Rachel, who is notorious about not having her phone on or within earshot. No answer. I scroll through my address book for Ryan's number, but somehow his information didn't copy over from my old phone.
I am frantic. Class should have begun five minutes ago.
Rachel, bless her, calls me back. Within a few minutes, she has called their teacher, who apparently is the one meeting me, and says he's at the bus stop but heading my way.
I thank her and wait. And wait. And wait. I'm standing in full view, way out front, keeping half an eye on the direction he should be coming from and half an eye on the strangers passing me. I don't see him.
After a solid ten minutes, I pull out my phone to call Rachel back and discover that I've received a message I hadn't heard. He's waiting for me up by the door.
I have no idea how he didn't see me out here.
I walk up, and there are several men standing around. After a few minutes, a Chinese man whose hair reminds me forcibly of a poodle asks if I am Shannon. As I am the only woman (and a foreign woman to boot) this should've been rather obvious.
I follow him to the school, which is down a couple of streets and a few turns, and go up to the apartment. My female Chinese teacher greets us. Silently. The teachers have a rapid Chinese discussion, in which they ask me a few questions in Chinese that I answer, then he leaves us and she smiles at me.
Nervously. She is obviously very, very nervous. The Chinese have a smile that they use for embarrassing situations. This was that smile.
Great, I think, I've got a newbie. I wonder how much experience she's had teaching foreigners.
By this point, by the way, I'm a half hour late for class, I'm parched and sweating, and we're sitting in a sunny room that has no air-conditioning, no fan, no breeze through an open window. I'm feeling sicker and sicker by the minute.
Class begins. At first, I think she's just testing out my Chinese level by speaking only in Chinese. This is good, I think to myself, she's going to stretch me, really make me work.
After a few minutes, though, I realize she doesn't speak any English. At all. This becomes increasingly apparent as class progresses, because every time I try to ask a question about grammar or usage in English or ask how to say an English word in Chinese, she gets that same embarrassed smile and tells me (in Chinese, of course) that she doesn't understand. By halfway through the class, she's drawing pictures and miming to get her points across. It's at this point I'm ready to puke from the lack of circulation and refreshment and ask for some water. I feel marginally better for having a small coffee mug of warm water.
By the end of class, I'm beyond frustrated. If I had upper-level language skills, it would be one thing, but we told the school that we were still beginners, really. The book we were using was not the same format as the series we'd been studying all semester, so the vocabulary and usage was different, my teacher couldn't understand a single English word I said when I couldn't express myself in Chinese, getting to the school had been a nightmare, and I was still feeling sick.
I've decided on getting one of our Chinese friends to tutor me instead of going back. Perhaps they have a better female teacher, but I've lost faith in their judgment and abilities, and frankly, it's a hefty fee to pay for someone who can't explain when and how to use the words she's teaching you.
Oh, I forgot -- she did know one English phrase. When I was leaving, she smiled big and said "It is very easy!"
Right.
No comments:
Post a Comment