I Begin Teaching
I had been in China for one week and this was my first day of teaching, actually the class was in the evening. The students who were able to leave for Spring Festival had not returned to campus and regular university classes were not in session. But, two nights each week I had been asked to teach the University teachers Spoken English. Most of the teachers had stayed in town for the Holiday, so we could hold class. I felt that there were some high expectations of me to be teaching the teachers, but I also felt honored and very excited to meet the challenge. I looked forward to having a peer group to not just teach, but to learn from.
The head of the Engineering Department had selected about 20 teachers who were most likely to go over-seas to be in the class. I later found out that 3 of them were going to be studying in the Fall in Holland and the class was especially to help them. Most of the teachers had studied English for at least 15 years. They could read it very well, having an excellent vocabulary and they could write very well, knowing grammar probably better than I did. But, they could not speak English well at all.
I later found out that this relates to two very specific problems with being Chinese. First, there are sounds in the English language that are not made in Chinese and these strange sounds were very difficult for the Chinese to learn. Of course, there are many more sounds that are in Chinese that are not in English and they seemed even stranger and harder for me to learn. Before I had left China I must have been corrected thousands of times and still am, each time I try certain sounds. There is just nothing to attach or connect these sounds to in English. Fortunately, my students did better with English sounds than I did with Chinese.
The biggest problem of all that the Chinese have has to do with the Chinese culture. The people are so shy. They have little confidence and were afraid to speak and make a mistake. If they said something wrong they might “lose face” which, was apparently a fate worse than death. I had so much fun dealing with this problem because I thought it was so ridiculous. I had been a very fearful child and I have been on a one-woman crusade my whole life to overcome my fears and, of course, to help others to over-come their fears. To me, saying something wrong seemed like a small mistake to make. My greatest fun was modeling for them, how to make a mistake and laugh about it. They loved to hear about my latest lesson in the Chinese language and all the mistakes that I made. I, so often, said that the only failure was in not trying. My guess is that for some reason Confucius never thought of that.
I soon discovered also that the American President, Bill Clinton, was the best role model of all. These people loved talking about him and they could not understand why he had not resigned as soon as embarrassing allegations were made. According to the Chinese, he had lost so much face with the detailed descriptions of his sexual behavior that he should have died of embarrassment. He actually taught them the best lesson. Not only did he survive the personal embarrassment, but he also remained the President of our great country. Maybe losing face would not kill you and was not as bad as they had imagined. He had survived and they could survive too, making some small speaking errors and then learning from them.
One of the techniques that I wanted to use to teach spoken English was teaching them to sing songs in English. When I was about 25 years old I had worked at a mission in Mexico. I now could speak few words in Spanish, but I can perfectly sing the songs we had taught the Mexican children. My memory of those songs was flawless and I could apply the vocabulary from those songs to actually knowing many Spanish words.
So on our first night of class toward the end, we sang along with Kenny Rogers, “You Light Up My Life.” I would not say it went over well. We had to sing it several times before they got all the words, even though I had printed a copy for each person and read the song first out-loud several times and explained the meaning of certain words. Most of the men were too dignified to sing along, but many people enjoyed it. It got their mouths open and forced them to voice words in English with some volume and fluency. I just wish that I could have tried out my teaching ideas on the regular college students rather than having this group of university teachers as my so to speak—guinea pigs.
There was a student whose English name was Martin who had the responsibility each evening of coming to my apartment and walking me to class and then returning me safely home after class. He was one of the teachers who was to go to Holland the next two years to work on a degree and then return to Hohai to teach. When he walked me home he was very encouraging of how class had gone. I had printed out an information sheet telling about myself: my education, my experiences, my family and some of my interests. I had gone over it in class as a way of introducing myself. The teachers were to use it as a model for the next class when they each had an opportunity to tell about themselves. He thought that it was a good assignment. He liked the singing. He was a fairly positive person.
The next day shortly after I had eaten lunch I came down with a full-blown head cold. It came on so rapidly that I could hardly believe it. I was fine when I had eaten my lunch in the cafeteria and then walked over to the English department to send some e-mail. At the computer I suddenly started sneezing like I was allergic to something, but I also became instantly congested. Within minutes I went from feeling fine to having a miserable head cold. I went back to my apartment to drink lots of water, take vitamin C and take some of the cold medicine that I had successfully used in the US. On Thursday I stayed home all day to rest up and try to get my cold under control before class at 7:00 PM. It was strange because the cold medicine had worked perfectly for me in the past and now it seemed to do absolutely nothing. Yang said that we could cancel the class, but I said that I’m not going to cancel my second class in China.
The class went pretty well. The teachers each had a presentation to make so I didn’t have to do much talking. Not everyone showed up because many did not want to have to speak in front of the class. I do not remember much what each person said because I was not feeling well. There was one man who made a special impression on me. Most of the teachers were in their twenties or thirties, some in their early forties. This man was much older, like in his seventies and he said that he was retired from teaching at Hohai. He had a young girl with him who he introduced to me as his daughter. She looked about 15. He must have married or had a child quite late in life. His English was much better than the other teachers’ English. He seemed more formal and proper, but yet very kind and warm-hearted. I was hoping that I would get to talk with him more because he seemed so interesting.
Martin had gotten speakers for my computer and that made the singing sound better tonight. I made the comment that my American cold medicine did not seem to be working and everyone laughed and agreed that was because I had a Chinese cold. When Martin walked me home he asked if I was going to go to bed immediately. I said that I thought I might watch the news in English, which came on between 10:00 and 10:30. About 15 minutes later there was a knock on my door and it was Martin. He gave me Chinese medicine for my Chinese cold. I didn’t take it that night. I wasn’t convinced that there was such a difference. But, after my second day of suffering as if I wasn’t doing anything, I took the Chinese medicine for the Chinese cold and guess what, IT WORKED!!!
This was my first weekend in China that I was awake during the day and had a normal sleeping schedule. My cold got better quickly, so I walked around campus and took some pictures.
I also did a lot of studying about China:
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JOAN’S BRIEF HISTORY OF CHINA—PART II
The history of China during the 1900’s is increasingly interesting and volatile. China was so weakened by civil unrest and the inability of the Qing Dynasty to reform ancient institutions that rebellions to overthrow the Qing’s were inevitable.
The Empress Dowager died in 1908 and the 2-year-old Emperor Puyi ascended to the throne.
Sun Yatsen lead an “accidental, piecemeal, and erratic” uprising with disaffected Chinese troops. The three principles which Sun established were Nationalism, Authority for the People and Livelihood for the People. Nationalism meant a national identity for the Chinese people with freedom from oppression by foreign powers including both the Manchus and the more recent European powers. Authority for the People meant a republican democracy with a constitution based on that of the United States. It was questionable to many realists that this might not work in China due to past extreme selfishness of men of power and the severe apathy among the peasants. Livelihood for the People included major economic reform of both agriculture and industry specifically excluding theories of Marx, which Sun Yatsen considered irrelevant to the problems of China. Sun also favored emancipation for women and ending the torturous foot binding.
The uprising could be called somewhat successful and a Provisional Republican Government was set up in late 1911 with representatives from 17 provinces gathered in Nanjing and electing Sun Yatsen as the first temporary president.
The new government was not strong enough to force a Manchu abdication and so Yuan Shikai, head of the imperial army was called upon for assistance and support. Instead of helping, Yuan dissolved the new government, filled all political positions with his friends and supporters and made himself “president for life.” Because of Yuan’s long history of military power, Sun and his colleagues had no choice but to accept the terms Yuan offered. It had long been Yuan’s dream to destroy the Manchu dynasty and replace it with his own. The problem was that he had few ideas to reform China. He had no ambitions beside his own power and glory. After time his imperial pretensions became a joke among the people. In humiliation and disappointment after less than 4 years, Yuan died and what followed was a period of warlords, none of whom were strong enough to nor wanted to bring the country together. “Based as it was on bribery, trickery and a show of force, a warlord regime by its very nature was short-lived.” In addition, Sun Yatsen, until he died from cancer in 1925, continued to try to set up a republican government in the South.
During this very chaotic time two political powers did grow stronger, but the serious fighting with each other continually weakened them and the country. The Kuomintang or Nationalist Party finally established a government in 1928, which was lead by Chiang Kaishek who had, at times, worked as a personal agent of Sun Yatsen. Chiang, at the time was the only leader who knew what he wanted for China and was willing to do what he needed to do to gain popularity and success. He married the youngest sister of Madame Sun Yatsen and he was baptized in the Christian Methodist Church. The years from the late 1920’s to the early 1930’s were a period of prosperity and hope for some. Although for the vast majority of the people the constant problem was feeding themselves and no farming family could feel secure from one year to the next due to the numerous natural disasters that happened during this time including earthquakes, major flooding and famine. Chiang, emphasizing his Christian principles and admiration of the United States, obtained general support in America, which increased and became invaluable with time.
It was one of the greatest weaknesses of the Nationalist Party that it was unable to produce policies and inspiration to obtain support for its programs. This is something that the Communists made use of. The Communist forces by 1930 had become an army of 40,000, but they had too many weak leaders. By 1934 the army had increased to 100,000, but they were experiencing a grave defeat against Nationalist forces in south central China. Mao Zedong created unbelievable inspiration and legendary status during his Long March from 1934 to 1935. It began with a series of disasters and ended with a grim struggle against odds, with feats of heroism, hardship and ultimate survival. Great raging rivers were crossed as well as mountain peaks covered with snow and marshes of treacherous quicksand. Peace was achieved with non-Chinese tribes and respect was gained from all people by the honest dealings and ready payment for goods with silver dollars. Mao composed one of his most famous poems. The Long March has been acclaimed as a triumph for Communism even though less than a tenth of the people reached the northwest. But greatest help of all for Communism was Japan.