Outside of the classroom, however, there were problems. For one thing, Craig and I were living out of our suitcases in a very cramped hotel room. The hotel that the school had chosen for us had no dressers and, in fact, no furniture other than two twin beds. Another issue was the meal situation. Scott of cheapchinavolunteering.com (or whatever it was called), had promised that all of our meals would be covered - in fact, that the school would be feeding us three meals a day. I believe the Compound in Yangzhou had its own dining hall (which I'm sure served some stellar gruel), but once we were fired, we apparently forfeited our right to be fed. Now that we were in Nanjing, we were told to hang onto our receipts so that the program could reimburse us later. I was skeptical. For one thing, given the way things had gone so far, I couldn't help but question Scott's reliability. For another thing, many of the less formal restaurants in China didn't even provide receipts. Truth be told, you can eat for pretty cheap in China, but still, we had been promised meals and the fact that the company seemed to be reneging on this promise did not bode well.
And then there was the nagging feeling that Big Brother was always watching. Periodically, the representatives from the school would turn up at the doors of our hotel rooms "to check up on us" (i.e., spy on us, or make sure we hadn't run away), which was disconcerting, to say the least. One day, Lisa, the Brit, woke up with a fever and called to tell the school she wouldn't be able to teach. The sympathetic response, she told us later, was "Find another foreign teacher." Within minutes, the phone rang in my room. It was one of the representatives pleading, more than a little desperately, for me to cover her class. It was my day off and I had already made plans so I declined. I showered and got dressed and when I opened the door to leave, there was the guy from the school, standing in the doorway.
"You teach today?" he said. I couldn't tell if he was asking me or telling me. It was as though we had never spoken on the phone.
"No..." I said again, trying to be polite to the man who was, in a sense, my employer, but getting increasingly frustrated, "I'm sorry but I've already made plans."
He stood his ground. "Please!" he begged.
I finally had to push past him, murmuring apologies as I hustled down the stairs and into the street, feeling like Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.
I got on a bus to the center of the city and for the first time, I started to seriously consider the possibility of leaving the volunteer program.
There were lots of arguments in favor of leaving: in terms of housing, food, work and general quality of life, the program hadn't delivered anything close to what they had offered. Again, I hadn't expected luxury, and I had to admit that the hotel, however lackluster, was a step up from the Compound in Yangzhou. Still though, it was cramped and uncomfortable - all the more so given that I had to share it - and it was hard to imagine living there for the next month. Even more upsetting was the lack of appreciation or even acknowledgment from the school itself. The students were lovely, but it was a little weird to slip in and out of the building on teaching days without so much as speaking to another adult. My only interactions with school representatives had involved them inexplicably moving us in and out of four or five different hotels and, more recently, a series of increasingly creepy in-person visits. I was starting to feel more like an indentured servant than a volunteer.
Still, a few issues gave me pause: 1 - There was the vague threat of legal action from Scott and his shady organization. We had signed a contract with the company, after all, even if it was for no pay. But surely anyone could see that the company had violated their side of the agreement; it would have been wildly hypocritical for Scott to accuse me of doing the same. 2 - I had been granted a 90-day work visa on the condition that I would be teaching English during that time. If I didn't teach, would I be technically breaking Chinese law? And didn't bad things happen when you did that? The idea was worrisome, but I rationalized (however rightly or wrongly) that the authorities wouldn't kill themselves to bring one twenty-something white American to justice. 3 - I knew that I would feel guilty if I abandoned the students. They hadn't done anything wrong after all, and what would happen to their classes if their foreign teachers just up and left? But then again, they hadn't even expected to have any foreign teachers until a week ago. These were kids from upper-middle-class families, and they already spoke excellent English. Leaving them would be a mildly crappy thing to do, but I felt confident that they would survive.
It so happened that my friend Marc was also spending the summer of 2007 in China. Marc was, and still is, an extremely savvy traveler who, in the ten years since this trip, has worked for the U.S. Foreign Service in China, Thailand, and Turkey. His goal for the summer had been to learn Mandarin, and in an attempt to achieve it, he had flown solo to the southwestern city of Kunming. Once there, he settled in a hostel, advertising his services to local families as an English tutor. It had taken less than a week before an affluent family had snatched him up and all but adopted him. He was now living with the family in their comfortable apartment in the city, soaking in all the Mandarin he could in exchange for a tiny monthly rent. I learned all of this via e-mail, which I checked at a local internet cafe filled to the brim with teenagers playing World of Warcraft. Marc invited me to join him in Kunming. The family was about to take him on vacation with them, he told me, and I was welcome to come along.
In the end, it turned out to be a no-brainer. After my earlier tense encounter with the school's representative, it seemed wise to be as stealthy as possible. I taught one more class and afterward, I returned to the hotel, hurriedly packed my bags and - after quickly scanning the halls and lobby for Big Brother - left without checking out. In two hours, I was on a cross-country flight from Nanjing to Chongqing, and then from Chongqing to Kunming. I was the only white person on both flights.
When I think back on my trip to China, I mostly focus on the final two weeks, which I spent with Marc and his family. The first four weeks had had its thrilling and fascinating moments but had also been fraught with frustration and even the threat of danger. The end of the trip, though, was a guided romp through some relatively obscure locales that most westerners never get to see - all with the guidance of Marc's kind and incredibly generous host family. He had really hit the jackpot with them.
"You teach today?" he said. I couldn't tell if he was asking me or telling me. It was as though we had never spoken on the phone.
"No..." I said again, trying to be polite to the man who was, in a sense, my employer, but getting increasingly frustrated, "I'm sorry but I've already made plans."
He stood his ground. "Please!" he begged.
I finally had to push past him, murmuring apologies as I hustled down the stairs and into the street, feeling like Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.
I got on a bus to the center of the city and for the first time, I started to seriously consider the possibility of leaving the volunteer program.
There were lots of arguments in favor of leaving: in terms of housing, food, work and general quality of life, the program hadn't delivered anything close to what they had offered. Again, I hadn't expected luxury, and I had to admit that the hotel, however lackluster, was a step up from the Compound in Yangzhou. Still though, it was cramped and uncomfortable - all the more so given that I had to share it - and it was hard to imagine living there for the next month. Even more upsetting was the lack of appreciation or even acknowledgment from the school itself. The students were lovely, but it was a little weird to slip in and out of the building on teaching days without so much as speaking to another adult. My only interactions with school representatives had involved them inexplicably moving us in and out of four or five different hotels and, more recently, a series of increasingly creepy in-person visits. I was starting to feel more like an indentured servant than a volunteer.
Still, a few issues gave me pause: 1 - There was the vague threat of legal action from Scott and his shady organization. We had signed a contract with the company, after all, even if it was for no pay. But surely anyone could see that the company had violated their side of the agreement; it would have been wildly hypocritical for Scott to accuse me of doing the same. 2 - I had been granted a 90-day work visa on the condition that I would be teaching English during that time. If I didn't teach, would I be technically breaking Chinese law? And didn't bad things happen when you did that? The idea was worrisome, but I rationalized (however rightly or wrongly) that the authorities wouldn't kill themselves to bring one twenty-something white American to justice. 3 - I knew that I would feel guilty if I abandoned the students. They hadn't done anything wrong after all, and what would happen to their classes if their foreign teachers just up and left? But then again, they hadn't even expected to have any foreign teachers until a week ago. These were kids from upper-middle-class families, and they already spoke excellent English. Leaving them would be a mildly crappy thing to do, but I felt confident that they would survive.
 |
| Kunming is called "The Spring City" because the weather stays at around 70 degrees year-round. It's actually much cooler than Beijing, even though it's further south. An all-around lovely place. |
It so happened that my friend Marc was also spending the summer of 2007 in China. Marc was, and still is, an extremely savvy traveler who, in the ten years since this trip, has worked for the U.S. Foreign Service in China, Thailand, and Turkey. His goal for the summer had been to learn Mandarin, and in an attempt to achieve it, he had flown solo to the southwestern city of Kunming. Once there, he settled in a hostel, advertising his services to local families as an English tutor. It had taken less than a week before an affluent family had snatched him up and all but adopted him. He was now living with the family in their comfortable apartment in the city, soaking in all the Mandarin he could in exchange for a tiny monthly rent. I learned all of this via e-mail, which I checked at a local internet cafe filled to the brim with teenagers playing World of Warcraft. Marc invited me to join him in Kunming. The family was about to take him on vacation with them, he told me, and I was welcome to come along.
In the end, it turned out to be a no-brainer. After my earlier tense encounter with the school's representative, it seemed wise to be as stealthy as possible. I taught one more class and afterward, I returned to the hotel, hurriedly packed my bags and - after quickly scanning the halls and lobby for Big Brother - left without checking out. In two hours, I was on a cross-country flight from Nanjing to Chongqing, and then from Chongqing to Kunming. I was the only white person on both flights.
 |
| My plan laid over for a half hour in Chongqing, so I can't really say I've been there. But I did have a fantastic view of the city as we flew in. It has one hell of a skyline. It's hard to believe I had never even heard of the city before the trip and probably still wouldn't if my plane hadn't laid over there. |
When I think back on my trip to China, I mostly focus on the final two weeks, which I spent with Marc and his family. The first four weeks had had its thrilling and fascinating moments but had also been fraught with frustration and even the threat of danger. The end of the trip, though, was a guided romp through some relatively obscure locales that most westerners never get to see - all with the guidance of Marc's kind and incredibly generous host family. He had really hit the jackpot with them.
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