It’s just after 7:30am on an inexplicably cool morning. Shanghai is invisible under the fog. It’s just as well as I’m still in bed, under several layers of duvet, strong, lightly milked coffee in hand. I may or may not be staring at the wall opposite . I’m freaking tired.
I just spent four days in a small, windowless room in a nondescript office block in the decidedly untouristy end of Hangzhou, interviewing 60 or so people, mostly university students wanting to study abroad. After about the third day, it becomes a bit surreal. Following the exam script becomes a meditative chant. Out of body experiences are not uncommon. Nor is forgetting your own name. Words start to lose their meaning and become a wall of sound. Kind of like Phil Spector for the linguistic set.
The spartan view from my chair in my tiny, windowless room. I appreciated the minimalist greenery.
I’ll be revisiting that sitting meditation this coming weekend, with two more days of interviews booked here in Shanghai. In between, every single day is crammed so full that I’m not sure how I’ll manage. The workload is already spilling over into the following week. I’m not quite sure if I’ll have a day off before I fly home in mid-June. Seriously.
You know how I was technically unemployed for most of the past year? How I alternated sporadic jaunts to exotic locales like, um, Zhengzhou or Hefei or Hangzhou or Dalian with long mornings of lazy, experimental cookery and languid protests of aimlessness? Yeah, well, that’s done.
Sometime in late April, I was unexpectedly headhunted. The good kind, not the one where you don’t get to keep your skull and its contents. Apparently my guanxi was positively humming with superpower vibes. People who knew people who knew people high up in my old job (the one that vanished last June) contacted me and the next thing I knew, I was in wholly charge of setting up a brand new alternative after-school program and summer camp for 6-12 year olds.
I believe the title I was given is Co-Dean (not to be confused with Codeine), working in conjunction with a quietly pleasant retired college headmaster/ex-Red Army soldier who speaks as much English as I do Chinese (though he’s reportedly fluent in Russian, which could come in handy). I’m in charge of academics and teachers; he’s in charge of everything else. They’re hiring a translator to be our go-between.
The last time I taught kids full time, this is what happened
To be honest, it’s incredibly exciting.
Over endless refills of pu’er tea and sunflower seeds in a teahouse cubicle (do those little rooms have a name? the ones with a curtain drawn across the front for privacy?), I was informed that this brand new start-up program was mine to mold and shape and tweak as I see fit.
They wanted an English immersion creative community, they said, a place where the neighbourhood kids could go after school and not just be stuck in their high rise apartments doing homework and playing video games alone while their parents were at work. Learning English would be a pleasant, natural afterthought, as the main focus was to be to counteract the deadening effects of the rote-learning at school. My suggestions of organic gardening, art, story telling, crafts and creative journalling were all met with enthusiastic nods.
And then they said, go to it. Can the summer’s curriculum be ready by the 25th of May? I nodded, my awareness of time and space being rather hazy at best.
Also, they said, we would like you to hand-pick the staff so you only work with people who share your vision. Again, I nodded. That would be nice, I thought, conveniently forgetting that this would involve days of interviewing dozens of applicants.
Also, we would need you to train that staff, to make sure they’re up to your standards, they added. I smiled and nodded again, bobbing like a Weeble who wobbled but didn’t have the sense to fall down.
Training teachers– not so hard. Preparing 3 days of workshop materials from scratch– hmmm.
Also, they added, can this all be done by June?
I nodded, smiled, and got to work. That was at the beginning of May, when I signed my contract.
I should also note that when I enthusiastically agreed to take on the commitments of this more-than-full-time gig, I still had about a dozen other prior commitments on my plate: 6 days of intense interviewing in May alone (mostly away in Hangzhou); unknown quantities of weekly essays to be marked, the last bits of my third and final walking tour that needed to be researched, written and photographed; an out-of-the-blue commissioned blather piece on a previous tour I wrote (now available on iTunes! Link coming soon!) for a local magazine; and one last blast of high school language expert fame leading a writing workshop down in Qibao (a command performance, I’ve been told).
In a moment of sheer lunacy, I very nearly signed up for a month of early morning Chinese classes, thinking it’d be handy when attempting to communicate with my lovely Codeine. I mean, co-dean. Doug, thankfully, talked me out of that one.
Although I’ve got more work to do than I can even fathom right now, I feel strangely okay. To be honest, I’m actually kind of happy. The aimlessness and low-level depression I’d been plagued with during my year of underemployment has retreated and I feel excited and inspired. I loved teaching my university-aged students (and am actually still tutoring one of them a few hours a week– add that to the work pile!) but I can’t say I ever felt excited about teaching academic or business English. The last time I felt this excited about researching and plotting out curriculum was…hmmm… back in Turkey when I taught kids. Hey, coincidence. Go figure.
See how happy (and thin! and young! My god!) I looked back then?
This is what grade 7 looks like in the wilds of central Anatolia
Let’s get a close up on all that enthusiasm!
Shall I introduce Chinese kids to the wonders of sprouting garlic?
18 Responses
Wow, sounds intense, but also so exciting! Soon it will be too hot and humid and/or rainy season so going outdoors will be overrated anyway! 😉
Erica recently posted..16 Things to Know Before you Live Abroad
Totally! And that new school I’m working for will be air conditioned! Bonus!
I’m exhausted for you, but this is so exciting! Way to go, headhunted-lady!
That term always makes me think I’m walking around with just a stumpy neck with a bit of spinal column jutting out… 😉
wow! the program you are creating sounds awesome! what a great challenge. i like the “counteract the deadening effects of the rote-learning at school” angle. (is all the hiring done? . . )
i hope you sneak in a nap somewhere.
those pics of the turkish kids are really heartwarming, too. thanks for sharing!
j
I think we’re still hiring (summer camp followed by a year round after school/weekend program)… are you looking? Email me if interested- koangirl at hotmail dot com.
And yeah, those Turkish kids- totally sweet but totally bonkers! Now, they had energy!
Congrats! And a büyük bir kolay gelsin too. Must be super-stressful right now but the new gig sounds really exciting and invigorating. Absolutely empathize on the mire of aimlessness; it *seems* great to not have many responsibilities, especially after doing a difficult job for while, but life isn’t too interesting without challenge and purpose.
And how cute are your Turkish students?!
The Turkish Life recently posted..Seeing the light
They are cute, aren’t they? The crazy thing is, I’m still FB friends with a lot of them and wow, those little orta okul girls are crazy glam uni students now and some of the boys are absolute hunks. Very disconcerting when your 10 year olds who fed you cookies at break time and declared their undying love are now adults…
And yeah, I’m not a good freelancer. I need to be overbooked or I waffle about aimlessly.
Now that DOES sound intense! My month of hell shall be coming up in August, where I’ll be working from 9am to either 9pm or 10pm several days a week during intensive classes. My head is hurting just typing this.
Maybe buy a pair of those glasses with eyes drawn on them and just sit in the corner and sleep as you “observe” the other teachers teaching class, once the program (programme?) starts?
And yes to your comment above about it being disconcerting about adult students. I saw a high school boy I taught a couple of years ago in the street, and thought to myself “wow he’s fiiiine” as I checked him out. He smiled and, “Hi Tom Teacher!” came out of his mouth.
I still feel icky even though he was 20 at the time.
Waegook Tom recently posted..Six Ways to Survive Your English Teaching Job in Korea
9am to 10pm? Reminds me of my last year in Turkey (as DoS AND ADoS AND head teacher, as everyone tended to be away on one form of leave or another so I routinely wore 2 or 3 hats at a time, figuratively speaking). Bloody exhausting.
And yeah, the kids. One boy used to have a huge crush on me. Super sweet. And now he’s practically pin up material. Very disconcerting!
Good gawd, you are one busy lady now! I’ll be sure to schedule in an appointment to see you sometime in…er….August?
Maybe next week? I think I might possibly have 3 spare minutes to pop over to Yongkang lu for a coffee and petit four…
The new gig sounds fab… if totally exhausting. I have to agree that doing something creative and different and enriching with kids sounds so much more fulfilling than teaching academic English to university students. Most of my students are great and all, but I always feel like they consider my classes some kind of forced torture.
We must get together before you leave & I leave! I have a feeling margaritas will be in order…
Sally recently posted..Weeklyish Challengey Thingie: Buy Some Lady Shoes
Totally! When are you leaving? I’m out of here June 14th!
I have been having a lot of fun reading your blog, particularly because I am in the deciding stages for a job offer in Shanghai. Any advice? While I have been abroad before, this would be my first time in China. I am not sure what to expect, from living to work expectations, but I know I want to pursue an educational job abroad. Im fuzzy on all the details as there is a lot to take in. Im trying to decide if I can see myself being happy living in Shanghai for a year and (well, the real reason behind this message…) will I be able to communicate with my friends/family back home via facebook, skype, and email.
Hi! So much to think about here…. not sure where to begin. Shanghai is a really mixed bag when it comes to personal happiness. A lot depends on external factors, like job, commute, housing. Seriously! My first 2.5 years here were a struggle for precisely those reasons. I had an absurdly long commute for the first 6 months (but loved my job, way out in the middle of nowhere) and was insanely exhausted from having to leave the flat at 5:30am everyday. That allowed me no social life, because I was slowly going nuts from sleep deprivation. Then I changed jobs, got a shorter commute… but the job was very lonely (no colleagues! I ran a program all alone in a rather empty uni building…). Then our flat started to slowly fall apart…. Do you get my drift? I hated this city but stuck it out, realizing it was the external things that were doing my head in.
We’ve had a nice flat for 2 years now (yay!) and I have a much nicer job now (yay!) and I’m more involved in things locally because I have more time and energy to do so. Seriously, those are key things to consider when taking a job here. It’s a HUGE city, hard to fathom at times.
If you want to email me with details and questions, feel free— koangirl at hotmail dot com
As for communication, buy yourself a vpn before you go and get it installed on your laptop/smartphone. Essential for jumping the firewall. About $60/year but worth it.
I just discovered your blog via your Tumblr and I’m loving it! I live in Shanghai too and can identify on so many levels – glad you found a job you love, it sounds amazing!! I would love to be in a position to teach kids in a more creative and less regimented environment! I’ve been a little low about mine, but reading your blog has really made me feel better and more hopeful, THANKS!
Tumi
Aw, thanks! And thanks for finding me here- always nice to hear from others here in Shanghai! Nice to know you’re not alone in this city of 20 million… Anyway, there is hope! I think things are changing slowing but surely in the education sector. Crossing fingers for more creativity!