Overall, I found my time overseas stressful. I know some people go abroad and it changes their life for the better which makes me feel bitter. I've had people tell me that I am not grateful enough for my time overseas and, "So-and-so had a great time. Why didn't you?" It makes me feel frustrated because I WISH I did have a good time so much! I met people who met the love of their lives in China and have lived there for 10+years. That just wasn't me. Truly I tried to blend in with the culture, learn the language, and only eat Chinese meals. Then Christmas happened.
I had a Christmas party at my house with my co-workers and one of them asked me if it was hard to be away from family during such a big holiday. She lived in America during Lunar New Year and told me it was really hard for her. I expressed that I was sad that I was missing out on the holiday and another person looked me in the eye and say, "It's not that bad. Why can't you get over it?" This phrase sunk my heart to my guts and had a flood of realizations. I realized that the girl who said that would never be my friend. I realized I was the only American in my school. I was one of 200 foreigners who lived in my city of 4 million. I was going to miss out on weddings, baby showers, birthdays, and major holidays. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal and could handle it but at this moment I got incredibly homesick after being in China for 5 months.
Lucky me I signed a two year contract with the school.
Food
As mentioned in a previous post, the FDA in China is seriously lacking. In fact, the wet markets in China are the supposed place where Corona Virus started. (The virus struck a few months after I returned to the states.)
I remember seeing piles of meat stacked up and people using their bare hands to dig through the bloody meat piles. There was a pig disease that came through China which pigs had to be culled for. My dad couldn't visit due to fears he could accidently bring this pig disease back to the US. Also the number of times I got food poisoning in China due to people not washing their tools or hands was high. I only chose packaged meat and used a meat thermometer at all times. I chose meals that did not require people to use their hands to handle or that I knew could be heated to safety measures. The amount of hot pot I had in China was ridiculous. Restaurant meals were not a fun time, but a point of anxiety.
Cultural Revolution
Going back to America I see the wide open fields, the national parks, and the small little forest behind my apartments and I feel peace. I can feel my soul sigh in relief that we have preserved wildness in the states, the same can't be said about China.
China has a 3000 year old history. It's incredibly fascinating but Americans don't learn a lot about it. Imagine my disappointment every time I went to a historic area to learn that in the 1950s-1960s Mao had it destroyed and only in the 2000s was it rebuilt. I went to a Buddhist temple out in the middle of the nowhere and saw most of the Buddhist statues had the faces and heads hacked off due to the revolution. Went to Jing 'an Temple, which states is 1,000 years old, only to see a plaque that said it was destroyed and rebuilt later. There was a national park area that had communist slogans hewn and painted into the side of the mountains. The trees were replanted. The rocks were placed *just so* around the park. When I say everything was fake I truly mean EVERYTHING was fake. It was hard not to feel jaded.
Work
Teaching overseas had its ups and downs. Mostly, I liked my co-workers and students and teaching wasn't too bad. However, if you are good at your job you are then given more work to do which is true of any job in any country. My second year of teaching I was asked to teach the idea of meta-cognition and reading comprehension. A college level class is what I was to teach to EVERYONE in my SECOND year of teaching ever. It was stressful. It was above my pay grade. It was something I wasn't trained to teach. Did I take those classes in college? Of course! Did I know how to teach this concept to others in two months? No. Thankfully a specialist was brought it to go over it more which I appreciated.
Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. I was asked to create curriculum for the school which I also had no training on. I worked with one other woman to do this but it was stressful. We were then asked to fill the library with English books which I was glad to do, but then the librarian said she said she didn't want to sort them. Guess who got that job too? The English team all worked on categorizing books but I once again sat there thinking, "Why am I doing a job I didn't sign up to do?"
On top of that, there were two people I worked with that only had TEFL certificates and not education degrees. I had to teach those people how to write a lesson and unit plans, what backwards design was, Marzano, Maslow, you name it I basically taught these adults how to be teachers...while they were teaching. In two months one of these teachers was fired for refusing to work with me and with the school's guidelines. He was an American man who had a doctorate in music. I am not sure if he refused to work with me because I was a woman, or I 'only had a Bachelor's degree,' or if it was because I was younger with him, but he sucked. Straight up sucked.
The other teacher I worked with is the same woman who said the rude phrase at Christmas. She was a pathological liar. She told me she had an education degree but when we renewed our work visas I found out she lied. She told me she was student body president of her college, it was a lie. When the school put on a concert she sent a letter to the entire school staff on how the local music teacher was horrible at her job. At that point the rest of the school hated her as much as I did. They called her 'lotus' behind her back which was a Chinese insult about people who complain about nothing. She left for a funeral but posted pictures of her and a boyfriend hanging out and later told us her family disowned her. Gee, I wonder why? So even when I did work with fellow foreigners, they were in a word...garbage.
Now, I did work with good foreigners who did have TEFLs who were awesome so I don't want to slander everyone but the fact that I had to work with the bad ones left a bad taste in my mouth.
Trade Wars and Revenge
The trade war began between China and America in 2018. The Chinese citizens I talked to didn't seem to care but I did because that meant American items like turkey tripled in price. Pieces of home for me just got more expensive and made me feel more isolated.
In 2018, Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou for bank fraud related to violations of US sanctions against Iran. The US wanted to extradite her to their country to face trial. This ticked off the Chinese. How did they retaliate? They started arresting Canadians and Americans willy nilly. Every time I left my apartment I felt afraid. The US Embassy sent a message out saying that American shouldn't travel to China and those who were already there needed to always carry their passport. If Americans did get arrested, not to speak until an ambassador could represent them. When the police drove past me I covered my blonde hair. I kept my eyes down when going past security guards. I studied Chinese laws before I came to the country but brushed up on them once again so I didn't accidently break any. The level of anxiety went up another level.
Being Watched
There are so many cameras in China. They are in classrooms, on roads, and can apparently recognize your face. I sat in my classroom wondering where the cameras were. I sent out emails but knew the government can read whatever I post on their wifi. When using my VPN my wifi would cut out, and I wondered if the government could tell I was on a VPN and shorted out my service. My brother once sent me an email slandering the Chinese government and I chose to never reply to it. Once I got home, I told him how he could have gotten me in trouble. I once went to an American wedding and described my sense of paranoia to my table and had an aunt roll her eyes at me. At that moment I felt like those people wearing tin hats spouting nonsense. How do I describe this level of 1984 insanity to people who could never relate? People in China almost never post selfies with their faces in it for this reason. That felt silly to me as each Chinese citizen is required to have a photo ID, their cars are registered into the system, and AI is constantly watching them. What is a selfie in this country of surveillance?!
The Breaking Point
You may have heard about the Chinese Muslims being kept in concentration camps. It is a major humanitarian crisis that started just when I got there. My second year of living in China, I had Muslim neighbors. They owned some restaurants near the mall. An old Uighur man and I had the habit of nodding to each other when I walked to the gym. I left one morning for work and when I came back, everyone of the Uighurs that lived on my block was gone. Just...gone. To this day I don't know if they heard the police were coming and got out of town or if they were rounded up.
At this point my mental health is at an all time low. My paranoia is at an all time high. I thought of the poem by Martin Niemöller.
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
It creeps into my mind that first they came for the Uighurs...when would they come for me? I teach the Uighur 'relocation program' to my current students. I try to talk about this problem as much as I can. I donate to programs I think can help. It makes me sick and it makes me afraid for those people. It was my final breaking point.
Reflection
When I came back to the states I had people say they were surprised at how my attitude changed. I seemed more pessimistic. To a point, I say I have to agree. Being in China, I felt all I saw was bad. In this post, I didn't even touch on the pollution in the area, or how the country is not built for those who are differently abled, or the racism and colorism in the country. Not to mention the broken glass that seemed to be on every sidewalk in the country. I've had people say, "If you only researched more you would have known not to go there." Here's the thing, I did research. A lot of research. Travel blogs talk about the fun cool stuff when they go overseas. Overall, when I researched I only saw the positives. You also just think that you can handle home sickness but it's different when you are 20 hour flight from home. You also don't know what can happen when you go overseas. How was I supposed to know about the trade war to happen in 2018? How was I going to know that the Uighurs were going to be rounded up when I got there? There are many unknowns when going abroad.
However, this experience did make me realize how lucky I was to live in the states. Is America perfect? Absolutely NOT! But the ability to vote, the FDA, religious freedom, the ability to debate and defame our leaders if we want, work unions, national parks...it makes me so glad to live here.
I can go to the library and check out any book I want. I can go to the internet and see anything I choose. I can put a sign on my car saying my political beliefs and won't get arrested. I can pray in a public place and won't be dragged away.
Living in China wasn't great however I learned so much at the same time. I'm actually glad I lived overseas. The reason I left was to gain perspective. To learn another culture and language. I gained all of those skills, just not in a fun adventurous way that I planned. Would I recommend living overseas? Yes, I would. My only advice, maybe don't pick China.
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