That Kind of Thing

Today someone I really care about let me down a little.  We had made plans that were cancelled for very, very good reasons, but I was left waiting for an hour without knowing what was going on.  I knew that my friend's business was MUCH more important than my feelings, and that voicing my feelings would be a great unkindness given the circumstances.  My hurt was legitimate, but airing it would have been damaging to my friend.

But still - it was there.  Feeling taken for granted, a little neglected, and just....sad.

So I prayed about it.  For me, prayer often takes the form of letter-writing, usually for pages on end.  I sort out my feelings and often come to some kind of conclusion or perspective change.  This time I knew my perspective was good, but this nagging feeling...which made me feel a little silly.  About a paragraph into my writing, I said, "I just don't want this feeling anymore.  Could you take it away?  Do you do that kind of thing?"

Apparently He does.

I literally felt the sadness lift off of me, replaced, with peace and quiet joy.  I suppose I commonly associate sadness and disappointment with incorrect thinking, so instead of asking for release, I "work on" my perspective.  Sometimes sadness, disappointment, bad stuff just happen in spite of correct perspective and attitude.

This was a little thing, a simple thing, really.  I wanted to share it with all of you because it was a simple, pure gift from God given merely because I asked.  No prayer war, no soul-searching, or spiritual travail.  It was quiet and sweet.  And I'm glad.

Culture-Win

The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a friend a couple weeks ago after an incredibly successful evening out with my students.


"I had a major 'culture-win' tonight.

Compared to the stories I hear from other teachers, I am incredibly blessed with amazing students. At the beginning of the year, skill and work ethic levels were all across the board. At this point of the year, all of my students follow me, almost all of them respect me, and many (maybe most?) of them like me. Except for ONE.

In my largest class, there are two stink butts*. One of them is completely disengaged 90% of the time, but she's respectful about it. The other one is AWFUL - heaving heavy sighs, rollings his eyes, laying his head on the desk, looking straight into my eyes and keeping his mouth closed when he's supposed to be practicing new sounds or words. Every student has a day when they're not learning well, but he's consistently a disrespectful jerk that I want to kick in the shins.** I've worked really hard to handle it in ways that don't make him lose face, because 1) if he's embarrassed, he'll shut me out. 2) If the class feels bad for him, they will ALL shut me out. After months of covert effort with moderate success, I finally hit a point yesterday where I felt like I was the one losing face by allowing him to treat me the way he does.

The way to handle conflict in China is to use a mediator to soften the blow. The way Americans (especially me) handle conflict is swift, clear confrontation. See the problem there? I hate involving a third party. Why make more drama than necessary? But my first goal is to create an environment that will help my students learn - their culture, their rules. So after class I invited my monitor (class leader) out to dinner tonight, told her vaguely that I wanted to discuss a couple of problems and invited her to bring a friend she trusted along. I didn't want her to feel too isolated. Chinese business meetings are 90% social exchanges, then a 10% business, usually at the end of a full meal. When I met my student that night, I saw she brought not one, but NINE STUDENTS from my class! I thought, 'Well....nevermind then. We'll just have fun.' Following tradition, we got a private room in a nice little restaurant, they gave me the honor seat (such a subtle, lovely nicety), and ate fantastic food. It was really fun to swap girl-talk with my students!

After we had finished, the monitor asked me what it was that I wanted to talk about. Then I realized that they were all aware of and completely ready to talk through the issues. I never mentioned the problem-student by name, but when described the problems, it it was obvious they knew who I was talking about. I said over and over that as a CLASS I was very pleased with them, but that I felt loss of face because of this one person's disrespect. What followed was an excellent and open conversation.

These 10 women are all committed, consistent students, and there are only 35 students in the whole class. I talked through my problem, described how I would approach it in America and my concern with the cultural conflict if I used the same tactics in China. They appeared to respect and appreciate the consideration, and they gave excellent feedback. I cannot explain how affected I was by the riveted attention and serious expressions on their faces. They were concerned WITH me about the problem, displaying an amazing level of maturity and invested care. I felt respected on a very deep level.

We exchanged ideas, and they laughed when they told me, "Back in the dorms, we talk about how smart you are about how you respond to people who don't listen very well and how you rearrange the classroom!" They also mentioned the overall positive change in attitude about class since the beginning of the year. We talked about activities that did and didn't work well. Luckily they were most critical about stupid activities that I was REQUIRED to teach! So I told them, "Yeah, I thought that was dumb too. My boss told me I had to teach this idea this way." We all laughed, and had a wonderful conversation about learning theory and how an activity that isn't helpful for one person can be very important for the learning of another person. I could see their worlds exploding a little bit - I love it when that happens!

An unrelated but meaningful part of the night were a couple of short, powerful conversations about how to recognize the difference between good and bad men. (Chinese college-aged girls have a reputation among the foreigners for being idealistic, naive, and uneducated about relationships. They idealize traditional male-female roles and they have no sex education. Many of my college-age students are sexually active, but they don't know how babies are made or what STD's are because it's taboo to talk about.) Many Chinese women are victims of physical abuse. We talked about the personality traits of good men, how to see them, which kinds of men to avoid. They were so attentive - I could see that some of them had only talked about it once or twice, and many of them not at all.

After dinner we took a walk through the park holding hands (yes, I've expanded my cultural comfort-bubble to accept holding hands with a woman), learning words in Chinese and telling stories. We made plans to go to KTV (a karaoke chain), ride bikes to the mountain, and go pick strawberries.

I feel like this was an all-around complete "culture win." I had a problem, stepped out of my cultural comfort-zone, followed Chinese protocol, and won the respect of my students. They felt empowered to speak openly and wholly considered a perspective very different from their own. Now all I have to do is show that I've truly heard their feedback, which won't be difficult at all. Even if the stinker student completely flies off the handle, I know that a third of my class made of the best, most vocal students will see it as a temper tantrum instead of a reaction to an "offensive foreigner." They will be supporting ME. There was so much potential for things to go badly tonight, but I took the time, did it right, and it really paid off.

It was such a rich, rewarding experience. It was one of those times that remind me just how much my students matter to me."

I still prefer direct communication, but I'm proud that I was able to relate with my students in the way they needed me to.

*Stink-butt is a technical teacher-term

**I've never actually tried this

In the Eye

When I was in college, I took a conducting class where my classmates and I took turns teaching and conducting.  My most vivid memory of this class was the discussion following one of my teaching segments.  The lesson had gone well, and my teacher joined me at the front of the room.  He looked intensely and powerfully into my eyes, and said"Nicole*, your power is right here," as he put his finger firmly against my temple, pointing at my eyes.  My expression didn't change, but all I could think at that moment was,

'My teacher is touching my face.'

My classmates started to giggle as my teacher removed the illustrative finger and explained.  "Your power is right there, in your eyes.  This is your best classroom management tool.  I'd be really afraid to cross those eyes."  Some of my classmates were still giggling, so I immediately shot them a really intense teacher-look (which is sisters with "the mom-look") and burst out laughing when they immediately jumped back and stopped laughing.

I keep this little insight in the back of my mind as I experiment with different classroom management techniques.  He was absolutely right; 90% of the time I manage my class solely with my eyeballs.  It's especially true in China, where my eyes are 21/2 times larger than everyone else's and a strikingly different color.  Sometimes I shoot a look at my class and they gasp out loud, or switch from distracted talking to pin-drop silence in seconds, and all I want to do is laugh and yell "RAWR!!"

And sometimes I do.  My students laugh with me, but they're still just a liiiiiittle bit afraid.  Just enough for the LOOK to be effective.  I guess it just proves that 'the power is in the eye of the teacher.'




*At the time, we had an indecent number of girls named Emily in the music department, so I went by my middle name, Nicole.                                                                                                                                                

Not Dead

Hello friends and family!  First of all, I want to take a moment and assure you,

I AM NOT DEAD.

Secondly, I apologize for the gigantic pause I took between posts.  There are a few reasons.  Wait wait - here, lists are more impressive:

• I took a vacation.  For a month.  Worth every second.
• We started a new term of school, and working legitimately eats up a fair amount of time.
• God and I had a couple things to talk through.
• I had to decide whether or not to return to China, and my thoughts were all over the board.  It was consuming a lot of my thinking, and I decided that it was a private process.
• I still haven't settled on what my plan for next year is.  I feel like a high school senior who hasn't picked a college or made a plan yet - in that awkward phase when every friendly person asks you what you're going to do next year, and you struggle to come up with something more eloquent than, "Uhhh...."
• During my vacation, I met a friend who loves writing as much as I do.  Correspondence became my primary writing outlet.  Basically I've been cheating on my blog with my pen-pal. I apologize.  It's nothing personal.
• I felt guilty about my failure to blog, so I avoided it even more.  Then my mom told me that my Papa put in a personal request that I start writing again.  (Sorry Papa!!)
• Expressing 'in-the-moment' feelings of culture shock isn't always constructive.
• I've been lazy.

If you were to flip through a lifetime of my journals (please don't) you'd see that every time I stop writing for a few months, I have to explain why.  This is the first time that OTHER people have cared! I have to admit, the fact that people read this still feels a little unreal.  If you bother to follow my life and times,* send me a comment every once in a while so I know you're real!  It's so encouraging when I hear from you.

I have so many stories to tell, stories about my vacation, about students, pollution storms, acupuncture, haggling wars...  I'm sorry for being a lame blogger lately.  More to come soon!

*I was typing fast when I wrote this sentence, and my typos read 'lies and ties,' which is really funny!!  ...and not at all reflective of a secret agenda. =)

Return to Xinzheng

It's February 11th in General Santos, and it's time for my trip to end....

The Philippines: GES

Today my lovely Lucy and I say goodbye to Thailand and fly from Phuket (near Ao Nang) to General Santos (GES) on the south eastern side of the main islands. Technically we stop in Singapore and Manila on the way - hopefully long enough to snap a few photos out the airport windows.

We're excited to stay with our friends Amy and Gary in their home, which is about 5 hours away from Davao, where Typhoon Bopha hit the hardest. We plan to help the relief effort in whatever way we can. Please pray that we find an effective way to help the people in Davao!

*** I'm selfishly extremely excited to add to my sea shell collection.  I've been collecting them since I was 2 or three years old.  Every year it gets harder and harder to find shells I don't already have.  Most of the best shells come from the coasts of the Philippines - which I now get to walk myself!  Expect overly detailed posts about my shell conquests sometime late February. =D

Thailand Travels: Ao Nang

There was a lot of friendly confusion about whether we were going to Phuket, Krabi, Ao Nang, or Railay.  The answer is, 'Yeah, sure.'  I think it was similar to picking between Cannon Beach, Manzanita, or Lincoln City.  The verdict: Ao Nang!  Looking forward to beaches, mangoes and kayaks.  I can't wait!

*** I'm aware that I'm not REALLY Mrs. Anna, but I'm more than a little excited to be a teacher in Siam!

Thailand Travels: Chiang Mai

This is where we hope to see gardens and meet elephants!

Funny New Habits...

• Hometown:  I've never used the word 'hometown' so often.  It's SO COMMON here.
• Avoiding contractions:  Expats naturally stop using contractions when talking to the Chinese.
• "It's okay":  Hao hao hao....everything is okay, always, no matter what....
• Na li?:  If someone pays me a compliment, the polite response is 'Where?' as if I didn't know the compliment were aimed at me.  I like it a lot.
• Shuffling feet: Confident, planted strides are a good way to slip on wet marble and die.
• Blocking/pushing:  Lines? What are those for? Everyone just pushes to where they need to go, like salmon jumping up a fish ladder*
• Passport 24/7:  ID-checking is a common occurrence, so I carry my passport all the time.
• The many uses of packing tape:  Hanging decorations? Broken radiator? Leaky sink? Irritating neighbor?  Packing tape.
• Walking in tandem:  Gal-pals are more physically affectionate here, more demonstrative.  You become really good at walking in sync with one another.
• Lame handshakes:  A firm handshake in China is perceived as brash, commanding, or suggestive.  Some men still have a hard time shaking a woman's hand.  My handshake has adapted to the climate (all things, to all people, right?).  My grasp is currently settled somewhere between "My fingers don't really work" and "Eew, I don't want to touch you."
• We've been told that 'laowai' means 'good old foreigner.'  Rumor has it that 'laowai' could possibly mean 'foreign devil' instead. =D

* The crowds of people always makes me think of salmon because everyone is always bumping into one another.

Thailand Travels: Bangkok

It's currently 2:45am in Xinzheng.  In just four short hours, I'll be headed out with a group of amazing women to go to Thailand!  For the past week I've been sleeping curled up in the fetal position around my space heater.  But in Thailand - there is SUN.  And beaches! Elephants! Orchids! Mangoes! Pineapple! Rice!  Oh wait a minute...

The only bummer is that the amazing powerpoint I made about this trip refuses to be posted.  Bummer.  Instead, I have a really great MAP for you:

In case it isn't clear, I'll be traveling from XinZheng (Shin-jung) to Bangkok.  Soon.  Very soon.  I could sleep.  I will blog as much as I am able!