Going, Going... Guan!!!

This has been an incredibly busy week for me.  Classes started for the freshmen this past weekend and the majority of my time has been spent preparing for the coming semester.  I met with four classes of new students this week.  Two of the classes were held on the Langfang campus and the other two classes were held on the Guan campus.  It’s an easy commute to the classes in Langfang.  All I need to do is hop on my bike and I can be at building #10 within 5 minutes.  However, the commute to Guan is a bit more.

The commute to Guan requires taking a 45 minute bus ride through the remote areas of China down small roads used primarily by logging industries and their slow-moving overloaded logging trucks.  Langfang may be a modernized city but Guan is the middle of nowhere.  It doesn't take very long on the bus ride before modern civilizations gives way to a third-world country.  It was raining the day I went so I don’t have any good pictures but I’ll get some next time.  Mainly the countryside of Guan is nothing more than remotely placed 12’x10’ tin-wall cabins that serve as single family dwellings.  It’s a real eye opener to see how people in the countryside of China still live in abject poverty.

The Guan campus is rather small in size and houses only 2500 students.  However, the campus is surrounded by a beautiful Cyprus forest.  It's very peaceful and serene.  Living in the city of Langfang has gotten me rather used to living with constant noise.  Guan, on the other hand, is almost eerily quiet.  All you can hear is the wind in the trees.

The first time I arrived in Guan I had a bit of trouble with campus security.  I was scheduled to address the general assembly and I was told to meet the Deputy Dean in building #1.  However, the police office at the door wouldn’t let me in the building.  I explained to the guard, “Wo shì loshī,” which means, “I am a teacher.”

The guard just put up his hand and replied in a rather demeaning tone, “No shì bùshì yīgè loshī (You’re not a teacher)!”

I was shocked.  Part of me couldn’t believe the nerve of this police officer and the other part of me couldn’t believe I was actually arguing with a communist police office in Chinese.  All-in-all it didn’t matter as I was still escorted out of the building.  Thankfully, the Deputy Dean texted me only a couple of minutes afterwards to tell me I’m late and I responded telling him that the police wouldn’t let me into the building.  The Deputy Dean then bolted down four flights of stairs and out the front door within seconds.  He profusely apologized and then quickly brought me into the building.  The officer then moved to stop my entry once again but this time I was with the Deputy Dean.  The Deputy Dean let this guard have it!  I don’t know what he was saying but I felt rather sorry for the guard.  The officer then started apologizing to me and I told him that it was nothing to worry about.  I was only ten minutes late to the general assembly, anyway, so no worries.  The students were all very happy to see me and they were greatly surprised.  Many of them had never seen a foreigner before and there were quite a few gawking stares.  It’s a strange feeling going to a remote part of China and realizing that I’m the “exotic” one.

My first class with the Guan students was a lot of fun.  I started out the class with helping the students select English names.  I had a list of 200 names to choose from and I said that they could come up with their own name if they didn’t find one on the list that they wanted.  A few of them choose not to use the list so now I have a Sky, a Lemon, and a female Gary in my classes.  We then went through the meanings of all the names and the students really enjoyed picking out their own name.  They were all very happy to get an English name and now many of them are going around campus telling the other students about their new English name.  It was a lot of fun.

The second part of class was the interview and presentation.  This is where I had pairs of students interview each other for random facts.  Then they would stand in front of the class and introduce their partner.  It was very similar to the class in Langfang and I’m happy to report that the students are on an early intermediate level.  There is a lot of potential here.

The return trip from Guan was rather interesting.  It was raining really heavily and, like a fool, I left both my coat and umbrella at home.  I got soaked running from the school to the bus but thankfully it was not too cold.  However, the bus driver was having problems with the bus and at one point in the journey home we even had to pull over and stop.  There, in the rain, the bus driver turned off the bus, got out, and started banging on the engine with his shoe.  It must have worked as it got the bus going again!  It took almost an hour and twenty minutes before we got back to Langfang and I was not looking forward to walking home in the rain.  However, to my surprise, my IECS teammates were waiting for me at the bus stop with umbrellas in hand.  They had even purchased for me my very own separate umbrella.  It was super nice.

It’s a lot of fun being a teacher in China and it’s great to just be able to help the students.  Now, let’s hope I don’t get into any more arguments with police officers!