The Realities of Life in Wuxi

So when I say I'm going to post then I'm going to post. I mean business. This blog guarantees satisfaction, and I fully intend on delivering the goods. Anyway, this post was written my during my first week of teaching back in September and I found it pretty interesting since some of my impressions/thoughts still hold true, while others... not so much (see the last sentence or two and you'll know immediately what I mean). Anyway, without further ado, here is 'The Realities of Life in Wuxi' in its pure, unedited (is there any other way for me?) form:


So perhaps the title ‘the realities of Life in Wuxi’ makes this sound alot more dour than I’d anticipated (or at least that’s what I’ve been thinking since I titled this post...). Anyway, to expound upon the title for a moment, before I go into the main post, my life here isn’t hard. In fact, it’s pretty much the exact opposite. I’m paid a premium (or at least a Chinese premium. I know it America a salary of less than $1000 a month isn’t going far, but here that more than covers living expenses and should allow me to travel frequently (that is if one of two things would happen 1) I get the internet back so I can research places to go [Now I feel I should state I’m writing this before I’ve regained the internet, so it’s just a document in Pages until I find a way to get this online] or 2) I had a Chinese guide book. Yep, that’s right. I managed to come to China without a guide book. That, in itself sounds bad, but of course it gets worse [doesn’t it always?]. Not only did I forget my Lonely Planet that CET gave me, but I also managed to forget the Frommer’s guide I bought the week before I left. Yep, I managed to spend $30 on a guidebook that’s currently sitting back in Milton. I’m awesome. I know [after this, I think everyone who deals with me should know I’m a moron and should not get mad at me anymore for forgetting things. At this point, if you associate with me, you know what you’re getting into]. Ok back to the topic, I’m paid alot to do little. I thought I was going to have 20 class hours a week. Right now I have 14. The most I’ll have this semester (if I’ve counted correctly) is 16. Or maybe 18. I’m not sure. The schedule here is kinda fucked up. I’ll go into that later. Anyway, I’m basically paid to speak exaggerated English in front of a class of students who are either 1) completely indifferent (i.e. every single boy I teach) or 2) could do the work I ask, but prefer to speak Chinese. I’ve been given free reign in my classes, which makes no sense to me since I have no clue what I’m doing. I’m good at wasting class time, which is probably a bad thing, but there’s no one to call me out on it and I don’t write lesson plans out in advance (because they don’t ask me to. They also didn’t tell me I needed to write lesson plans until 3 days after classes started. It’s also been a week since classes started and I still don’t have an official roster for any of my classes, which makes it harder to call on people since I don’t really know their names...), so I can always cover for myself and pretend I didn’t intend to finish the lesson. I’m not required to be in the English teacher’s office at all and I was 10 minutes late to class on the second day and didn’t get in trouble (it wasn’t even my 8am class. It was my 1:30. I’m a moron and for some reason thought it started at 2 even though I wrote down 130 the day before. Embarrassing takes on a new definition when you enter a class of 29 Chinese kids telling you you’re late in English. Eesh.

Anyway, I’m going to get myself back on track with this post. So while little is expected of me, there are some things I face every day which I guess are somewhat interesting/weird/maybe some other adjectives. First off, today is Saturday. I have spoken less than 30 words today. 3 of those were English (when I told the waiter at the restaurant/bar I went to for dinner). I spend alot of time in my room here, which would be much better if I had internet. But I don’t. And I don’t really like the CCTV English station since it just has boring Chinese propaganda news. Maybe if I could compare it with Western sources, it’d be of more interest to me. So when I’m in my room, I watch DVDs (who already owns Tropic Thunder? O yea, this guy does), try and catch up on some Chinese, and I read (I’ve finished 2.5 books since I left America, almost my total over the past 4 years. I’m going to need more soon, I’m running out of material. Fast.). However, being alone in the room is weird (by the by, for those of you I spoke to before I lost internet, I did finally get AC, so I no longer sweat myself to sleep every night). It’s like being in a bubble, to the point where I forget I’m in China, which is bizarre, especially when I leave my room, and I only see Chinese people and they stare at me like I have 5 heads.

This brings me to another point, while Wuxi does have a Western district and it has lots of Western food and some Western people, I still get stares wherever I go. I hear people talking about me all the time. Whenever I go to a restaurant, I’m given a seat next to the door and in front of windows so more people can look at me. Even the kids on the campus here stare and talk about me, which confounds me since I’m not the first white foreign teacher here and I feel like they should’ve seen a freaking wai guo ren (foreigner) before. It gets a little annoying because I’m constantly self-conscious. No matter what I do, I always feel like people are looking at me. The other day it was raining. I wear a raincoat. Apparently no one in Asia likes raincoats. This happened in Seoul and it happened here. Everyone looks and points at me using a raincoat because they all have umbrellas. I’m sorry. I don’t like umbrellas. In Boston they often break because it’s so windy, so I’ve never bought one in my life. Bah.

Also, I am the only teacher here who speaks English as a first language (unless there’s someone I haven’t met yet). There are 5 teachers who live on campus, in the same wing of a dorm. Two Japanese girls, and two Korean girls and me. The two Japanese speak English very well to the point where I can forget they aren’t American, but the two Koreans have limited English, so I speak to them in Chinese. Last night we went out to a bar. At the bar, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and English were spoken. If I spoke a bastardized version of Chinese before, I have a feeling by the time I leave here, I’ll just be speaking my own jumble of four languages. I should note they all are great people though, and the language barrier rarely gets in the way, because even if someone can’t quite articulate something, usually someone can be used as a translator (sorry I’m watching the Paralympic opening ceremony right now, and there’s some Greek/Trojan dude who just looks creepy. Imagine the ‘lust’ sin in Se7en and you’ll get what I mean...).

I would also like to say I am not in the city of Wuxi itself, I am in a kinda suburb. I don’t really know how to describe it. The city itself is fucking massive. Like seriously, this place is fucking massive. I want to come back here in 5-10 years because there is so much construction going on here, I have a feeling the population could double from the 4.5 million it is now. Anyway, getting into the city is easier than I thought, but still not terribly convenient. There is a bus stop outside campus with a route that takes me into the center of the city. It’s cheap (like 30 cents) but the ride is kinda hellish. It’s around 30 or so minutes, and the driving here is terrible. I can’t believe I haven’t seen someone die on the road in the week I’ve been here. It’s ridiculous. I don’t often get carsick back in American, but every time I’m in a car here, I just want to vomit. It’s horrid.

The last point I would like to make (though I’m sure I’ll have more on this subject later...) is that I somehow have the biggest room even though I have no experience and I’m pretty sure they know it. Everyone else has a single room wit ha bathroom attached. I have a living room and my room is large enough that I have a double bed, which hardly seems fair. The Japanese teachers have each been here a year. I’m not sure if I get paid less because my room is larger (though I certainly hope everyone else makes more than me...), but I don’t understand why I get the big room. Anyway, I’m going to watch another bootleg DVD right now, but I’m to attempt to continue these posts so when I finally get the internet, I’ll have a ton of fresh material.

P.S. Since I just thought of this, I also go to bed earlier here. Alot earlier. Some of that may be in part due to the fact I don’t have internet but most nights I’m in bed and sleeping before midnight. It’s weird. I’ve become the anti-me. Even last night (a Friday nonetheless), I was in bed by 11 watching a movie. Tonight is Saturday, I’ve been home (still weird to call it that...) since 9, and, once again, I’m in bed, typing away, and about to watch a movie. I didn’t get drunk last night, and unless I decide to hit my baijiu bottle hard after I finish typing this, I won’t get drunk tonight. I don’t know what the hell has happened to me....