Culure Shock

When I decided to come to China, I knew that I would have to learn to be accepting to a different culture and a different method behind doing things.  However, I didn’t realize how difficult this might be.  Let me explain.  I have become very close to our two Chinese assistants (Pat and Candy).  I work with these lovely girls everyday, and they are always so patient and understanding with me.  They also are willing to share any and every aspect of their culture, if I am willing to learn.  These are the girls that have made China a home for me.  They are the ones that show their love and care for me with simple things such as grabbing my arm when we cross the street to make sure I stay safe. 

We have plenty of down time between our classes for us to talk and discuss things.  I knew the Chinese girls made considerably lower wages than the foreign instructors, but I was curious to find out exactly how much lower.  So, once I felt comfortable enough, I simply asked what their wages were.  These girls make only 15% of what I make in one month.  Along with that, I have my rent paid and they don’t.  Also, Pat has a two hour bus ride for a commute every day to work.  And to top it off, they only have one day for their weekend.  This was very hard to accept after I have seen that they work just as hard as we do, and could probably teach the classes better than we can, because they have put so much practice into it.

To make things even more difficult, I found out another little piece of the puzzle.  Come to find out, if anything goes wrong in our class and the parents bring it up to administration, it is automatically considered our assistants fault.  For example, we forgot to put a book in our story bag one day and only the assistants were talked to about this.  Nothing was ever said to either of us foreign instructors. 

We come to work thirty minutes early, so that we can add those thirty minutes to our lunch break.  In China, they love to take a thirty-minute nap after lunch.  However, typically we won’t leave for lunch right at twelve if there are still kids around.  We will play with them until they leave or until a little after twelve at times.  One day, our assistants were taking a nap and they slept until 1:35 instead of 1:30.  The manager over all the instructors came up and fussed at them and told them their pay would be cut for doing this.  When the girls told me, I said did you explain that every day you play with the kids well into your lunch break?  They started giggling and said they simply don’t have the courage to do this.  They also told me that if they were to say something, their pay would be cut even more or they could possibly lose their jobs all together. 

This all was very hard for me to take in and not say something about it all.  I have grown very close to these girls, and it hurts to know they are being treated unfairly.  However, I had to remind myself that I can’t change these things.  It is not my place to even try.  I have to remember that I am here to experience the culture, and this is simply part of it.     

Fun with the New Roommate

One of the first places I got to visit here in Wuhan is their famous snack street.  People come from all over the city and outside to see Wuhan’s snack street.  Snack street is a long street, and alleys surrounding, filled with all kinds of unique Chinese cuisine.  The place is so jammed packed that people are walking shoulder to shoulder in some places.  You can find all kinds of grilled meats, snails, oysters, and many other unique foods.  As we were walking away from snack street, we happened to walk upon a Chinese play.  It was so neat, because everyone was dressed up and had painted faces.  Check out the pics below. 

After snack street, we went to see the Yangtze River (yellow river).  The Yangtze river is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world.  This river also divides North and South China.   

We were lucky enough to come across another American, from Georgia, while walking home on this day.  Patsy invited us out for church the next day, and we were able to meet even more expats.  We went to lunch with several of them, and we made friends with two Swedish girls.  The Swedish girls have only been here for a month as well, so we plan to see some tourist’s sites with them.

The next night we were able to meet up with another American from Boston, and his friends, to listen to a free concert and have some dinner.  The music was decent and the dinner was amazing.  Wuhan has wonderful and spicy food!  We walked to a “whole in the wall” restaurant down an alleyway.  Our new friends ordered chicken feet, mushrooms, potatoes, pork, and cucumber.  Each of these foods were brought out on skewers after being seasoned and grilled.  My chopstick skills were put to the test!

The concert was at an open mall, so Leslie (my new roommate) and I decided to go back the next night to actually tour the stores within the mall.  However, we got side tracked and walked on down to the river.  There were people everywhere walking beside the river and in the park there.  I have noticed that people love to come out at night, even after working all day and enjoy the fresh air at night.   We heard some Chinese music, so we began to walk to the source.  Come to find out, there was Chinese karaoke under the bridge!  It was a traditional type of Chinese music.  We had a blast listening and my roommate was even asked to come up and dance for the crowd with a scarf!  We loved it!

Below are some pics of my new apartment!