Expat Carousel

So I’m sitting here right now in this stifling midsummer Beijing heat on my day off having done my chores of washing the dishes, sending a few emails and playing a couple of well deserved games on Pro Evolution Soccer. Monday afternoon is my peak chill out time after the intense working weekend, and it’s not until around 6pm that my trough of laziness begins to escape me and I start to want to do things. A person can only drink so much green tea and aimlessly surf the net whilst basking in their own sweat for a certain amount of time it seems.

It’s now officially the height of summer, and as a result most of my weekend classes are slowly disappearing as the little buggers get whisked away to various exotic locations or are sent to partake in intensive English summer camps for their holidays. It’s nice, though my own school’s summer courses are looming and having had a teacher leave last week leaving his classes teacher-less, my schedule hasn’t seen much respite. Ah well.

Expat life can be funny. I’ve found that the westerners, or westies, as a friend of mine affectionately calls them, are all by and large subconscious of the fact that we’re all in the same boat living and pressing on in a strange country, and are therefore pretty easy to strike a chord with and become your friends. Of course there are many exceptions, with archetypes ranging from the “I hate everything about China” moaners, to the “I’ve been here 10 years and am better than you” wannabe princes and princesses. It’s relatively easy to identify people like that and the majority the expat community here are all like-minded and easy to get on with. Due to the similarities of your situation and experiences, friendships with fellow expats are easy to forge and develop pretty quickly, and there is even the notion that the group you hang around with become your second family. This makes it weird when you are presented with another typical aspect of expat life, whereby the carousel of people coming and going constantly has people hopping on and off. It requires a lot of flexibility from those who still remain, as they have to push themselves to make new friendships whilst accepting the fact that a good mate who you go down to the pub with every week after work could be packing up and leaving at the drop of a hat. Some are better accustomed to it than others, and it certainly takes a good few heartfelt goodbyes to become used to the pattern.

It's a fun ride y'all!!

After 3 years living abroad and dealing with the sporadic departures of good friends over long periods of time, this summer sees a large flux of those near and dear to me either heading home to study, work, or get married. As someone who at 25 is considered relatively young when looking at the average age of long term expats I guess it’s pretty normal for me to experience this. Obviously, there’s the comforting thought of having decent friends from all the corners of the globe, though I guess this ever changing environment is what I bargained for when I chose to up sticks and find myself a home in a strange place. It’s funny when a large make up of your apparently stable social life for the past 2 years disappears, but change is a key element to life, and I’ll keep trotting on as long as theirs interesting people to meet - such as a music video maker who has worked with Dr. Dre and 50 Cent at the bar last night. Apparently Dre is a bit of a philosopher.

Syringes and Strange Drivers

There are many ways in which as an expat you could be sceptical towards the education system here in China. One being the sheer the difference in the approach of learning in China, with it being more exam focused rather than focusing on practical life skills. During my time here, I’ve seen a wide range of different teaching styles, from ruthless, robotic rote teaching to the more open “let’s try and educate our students to question things” approach. Unfortunately the latter is harder to come by due to many reasons that I presume mainly stem from politics or traditional Chinese hierarchal ways of thinking, particularly in the north of the country.

In spite of this, this morning saw my first ever direct experience of the use of a syringe (minus the needle) to maintain order and discipline in the classroom. I had been having trouble with a class that features in my three time a week newly acquired kindergarten gig, and asked one of the senior Chinese teachers for some advice on discipline. This was mainly concerning one particularly disruptive kid with the ability to cause domino effect patterns of chaos to what is normally a reasonably well behaved class. I explained to the Chinese teacher that the kid was causing problems in the class, and she responded by stating “he is really naughty, but he’s afraid of injections”. She then proceeded to find a syringe, (which I presume was not stored for medical purposes but for last gasp disciplinary measures) then filled it up with water, and finally squirted the naughty toddler with projectile aqua (which is French for water). After its apparent effectiveness, she continued to be on syringe standby should he, or any other daring preschooler dare to misbehave in any way deemed unfit for this lady with an interesting passion for using primitive water fight techniques to bring order to a class. If any of the must haves of the 90s was needed now, it’s surely the Super Soaker 500. I don’t claim to be a child psychologist or anything, though I can see how methods drawing on a kids fear of injections to gain short term control of an unruly attitude could be detrimental to their mental well being. Though I can say, as a novice in controlling mental kids that frequently run recklessly into a particularly precious area, I’m still open to suggestions. Anyone familiar with such experiences, suggestions are welcome should you be reading this.

Sit down or I'll vaccinate you

After the fun is over, I usually feel pretty fresh from my work out of being paid to jump around with 4 year olds (yes Daily Mail, it’s what I do and surprisingly I’m not a paedophile), and can enjoy the rest of the day off in the lovely warm weather than Beijing is currently having. The driver who drives me to and from the Kindergarten always holds interesting conversations however, mostly maintaining an interest in Western practices and customs, questions which I’ve answered countless times since being in China though he can’t be blamed for his curiosity. We entered into controversial waters the other day though, as he brought up the topic of the British Empire by stating that British people look down upon other countries in an arrogant manner, and love to bully weaker countries. Although I’m usually pretty switched off and looking forward to getting home at this time, I was a bit shocked. I went to say that although Britain had committed some pretty despicable acts during the days of the Empire, some countries did benefit from the introduction of democracy, economic development and social welfare. I pointed out Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong as examples. He then retorted with “that’s your Imperialist education teaching you those things, but all you did was bully weak countries!”

My inclination was to go down the route of either saying “open your eyes” and look at the above mentioned countries current situations, or responding with “what about China bullying others with it’s claims over The Philippines/Taiwan/Tibet?” I perhaps rather foolishly choose the latter, though luckily my risk of offending him deeply was met with a simple “Eh?” as if such to question such matters was a completely alien concept. I stopped there and didn’t want to get into that can of worms, though it was certainly the first time I’ve experienced this kind of opinion in such a direct manner, though I was aware of its existence prior to this. Chinese people are generally pretty humble, though there is a theory that a key element to some of the Chinese people’s psyche is the idea of 弱者心态, which basically translates as inferiority complex or small man syndrome. This attitude stems from centuries of China being invaded, raped and pillaged by numerous other nations, though now, with China finding its way in the world, many want to prove its not weak anymore and will actively stand up against such foreign oppression, be it legit or not.  After swallowing my pride and trying not to get too offended by his claims, he went on a wild America bashing rant, mentioning some recent football match between the US and China where an American player refused to shake the hand of a Chinese player after being fouled. All I had to do then was be the typical foreigner in China nod and smile as he barked away, simultaneously meandering around the Beijing traffic as the cotton seeds that dominate the Beijing skies at present floated romantically around our surroundings, under a beautiful blue smog free spring sky.

Let's just all be friends shall we?