 Teaching
English in China:
Are you an Average Person
or a
Celebrity?
(Written by an
Experienced Teacher in Beijing)
I
have always been treated as a foreigner here, no wonder,
I am a foreigner here. That doesn’t mean that you are
mistreated, but I have been noticing people staring at
me all the time and everywhere I go from the moment I
came to China till now. Nothing has changed for two
years.
The
first stage of my interaction with Chinese made me feel
as if I was a famous person, a celebrity, as I was
getting so much attention from people around me. I never
had so much attention before. Even at work, in the
classroom, be ready to pose in front of the camera,
because Chinese like to take pictures of you.
And
sometimes they will make videos of some parts of your
classes or even the whole class. Sometimes it
could be very annoying, especially if you don’t just get
used to it.
Then
the next stage to get used to was the enormous feeling
of frustration and irritation every time a Chinese
person stared at me or said “Hello”, because it’s the
only word of English that people in the street can say,
and I’ve understood that they did it just for fun. If
you start communicating with people in the street, in
the shop or elsewhere, they will always ask you the same
questions like: “Where are you from?”, “Can you speak
Chinese?”, “What are you doing in China?”, “How much
money do you get every month?” Here’s the most
interesting fact about Chinese, people in China think,
it’s not very polite to ask a Chinese stranger personal
questions about person’s age or salary, but when they
see a foreigner, they forget about it at once and can
easily ask you about such things. Shall we consider this
to be disrespect from their side? Or just true
curiosity.
Well, it took me time to realize (the third stage) that
most local people have never seen a foreigner in their
life (even in huge cities, like Beijing, Shanghai, etc.
and even after Olympic games, though there were millions
of visitors in Beijing at that time), so consequently
this is normal behavior from their perspective.
Once
you have made up your mind to come to China, get ready
for this!
I’m
sure after a while you will manage to good friends with
Chinese people. There are many young Chinese who have
been studying English for a long time and have been
exposed to Western culture to such an extent that while
communicating with such a person, you will not often
feel any cultural difference, as you usually do when you
are communicating with people on the street.
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"Twenty
years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things that you didn't do than by the
ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the
trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.
Discover." -- Mark Twain |
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