That Day I Was Treated Like a Celebrity

I'm a 'foreign consultant' here in China which pretty much translates to a glorified English teacher. But one of my responsibilities is traveling with my company to recruit students to join our flight attendant training program. About a week ago, I had the experience of going on my first recruiting trip for the company that I work for. Here is the story....

Translation: You won't be abel to see your dear New Yorker today, study hard!

Everything started off normally. I was traveling with my
supervisor, Maggie, and an intern that Alexis (the other American in my office) and I named Christy because she just looked like a Christy if you know what I mean. A van arrived outside our office around 8:00am to take us, I was told, an hour north of the city to a district (county) called Hechuan. The first bump in road came about half an hour into our journey while we were still in the city proper. Traffic.

Our driver having a smoke during the traffic jam

Now, we're talking about China here people so if you're thinking, oh I've sat in frustrating traffic before, Jared. I know exactly how horrible that is. Stop. Just stop. You think bumper to bumper molasses crawl on a road is traffic? Try literally four hours of not moving. At the beginning of the trip I was having a great time just looking out the window and seeing the city go by. When we came to a stop, that activity quickly died. But I didn't realize anything was wrong until our driver decided he was going to 'go for a walk' and just left the car running in the middle of the road. So I decide to nap, when I wake up almost TWO HOURS LATER we still haven't moved and our driver is enjoying a cigarette outside. At this time I panic just a little and envision myself emerging from this van/jail with a cast-away-like beard and squinting at the first daylight I've seen in days. But I tend to overreact and after about another hour, things finally start to move. Let me tell you, after sitting there for that long, the jogging pace that our car reached felt like we were flying. Then there were other small adventures during the car ride.

The Great White Whale

Photo courtesy of Kristin Mark, check out her blog too

One of the most bizarre experiences I've had here so far is what I'd call 'foreign privilege'. Think of the old saying, "A big fish in a small pond". Although China is anything but a 'small pond', being a foreigner here makes me quite a 'big fish', a veritable white whale if you will. And they're doubly shocked when I can speak Chinese. This privilege manifests in many different ways, sometimes flatteringly, sometimes annoyingly, sometimes frustratingly, but always interestingly.

In small ways, it's an open stare in public. Sometimes I overhear people shouting "Look! A foreigner. A white guy!" and I want to turn around and use my broken Chinese to tell them, "Yes, I understand what you're saying. No I won't take a picture with you. No I won't teach you English". Often people will shout 'hello!' or 'Hollywood!' or (my favorite) 'I love you!' while they pass me on the street or in the subway. Then there are those people who unabashedly snap pictures of me right in my face, flash and all, no 'hello'. At first, it was pretty unsettling. Sure I like attention sometimes, but the constant paparazzi-like demand to interact with random people would exhaust anyone. Considering the fact that I can hardly stand being social more than two days in a row, for me it's down right overwhelming.

Aggressive Chinese Romance

Here is a short video from class last week. I did a lesson about American dating and after they learned about pick-up lines, how to approach someone, what to talk about, how to get a phone number, and how to turn someone down, we all did presentations where one person had to ask the other person out on a date in English. This was the result. These girls have some serious game. 

Home Sweet Home

I apologize for not posting in so long. I don't have a great excuse, suffice to say that things have been busy while settling in!

Life in China is finally beginning to take shape though as I establish a regular routine at work and home. After work everyday, I come home to my little apartment a few blocks away on the 28th floor and unwind with a book in my bed or TV.

Here it is!

It's one loft-style open floor plan with a kitchen and bathroom off the main room. It came pretty much furnished with a coffee table, bed frame, dresser, night stand, desk, refrigerator, and washing machine. Many of the things here are not quite the same though...


Night one was pretty rough; when we moved in there was no padding at all on the bed and I didn't realize that my 'air conditioner', as they called it, also doubled as a heater. So the first night I huddled under my covers on a pretty uncomfortable wooden frame, but I was just happy to finally be in China and it didn't damper my spirits at all.