Buckland Weekly #26: If this ISN'T Kansas, where the hell is it?

As always..

opinion of the author...

not to be taken as official...

etc etc etc

Let me tell you about my first few weeks in China. I’d been a visitor to China on several previous trips and thought I had a pretty good idea of the place. That’s why I decided to teach here and not somewhere else.

So, I arrived in Yangshuo a few days before my orientation was due to start. I arrived here but my luggage didn’t. No one had told me that I needed to collect it and recheck it when I changed planes at Guangzhou. Still, no problem. It turned up a couple of days later. Meantime I wandered around the town, relaxed and recovered from my jet-lag.

It’s a nice place for a bit of a holiday but it’s very deceptive. It isn’t really much like anywhere else in China. There are hundreds of places to get western food, western beer and western conversation with the tourists who, at this time of year, seem to outnumber the locals. It’s easy.

Then we did the orientation which, because I was already a trained and experienced teacher in the UK was also easy.

Then we were allocated our cities and schools.

When that happens, unless it’s a school that Buckland is dealing with for the first time, you should see a write-up about it from the teacher who was previously there. I was allocated a school in Baiyin and the write-up made the place sound horrible. The previous teacher clearly hadn’t enjoyed it.

I loved the place. There were only five foreigners in the whole city – three of them working for Buckland – and almost no one spoke much English. It was dry and dusty and industrial. And I loved it. At the end of my first year there I didn’t take much persuading to stay. I only left at the end of three years because they city authorities had decided not have any more foreign teachers. I had found it friendly, and comfortable and I’d settled into a very nice way of life.

But the previous teacher hadn’t liked it, and I know other teachers who were sent there who grew to hate it passionately. So, how come there can be such a difference?  It is after all the same place. How can one person feel that they have, somehow, been cheated, while another thinks they have been given a perfect position?

First, let’s digress for a moment and talk about Chinese geography.

One thing that might cause confusion is that some of the terminology may be being used in ways that are different to the ways you have previously used them and that can lead to you thinking you have been misled. Let’s try to clear that up.

The country is divided into Provinces. (Some of them are not called Provinces, but that’s just for political reasons).

Below Provinces there is what is called the Prefecture level consisting of large cities. “City” is one of the words that may not be being used as you think it is. Cities can be huge administrative divisions encompassing many other smaller cities and counties. For example. Xi’An is a city but if you are thinking of comparing it to London or New York or Sydney then think about this. According to Wikipedia it has, within it, 106 sub-districts, 69 towns, 721 residential communities and 3025 villages. Its metropolitan area is a little over 3,800 square kilometres but its total area is a little under 10,000 square kilometers.

Below that level you have the County level. Counties are smaller than Prefectures but may include county level cities (remember you are already inside a prefecture level city) or various types of district.

Below that there are towns, which may be as big as some cities back home.

And below that there are villages. It can be very confusing. If you are in one of those villages or towns inside a county level city you may also, technically, still be inside the Prefecture level city for that area.

All of this, if not understood can lead you to think that you have been promised one thing and given another. If you are of a cynical turn of mind you might think you have been a bait-and-switch victim. You haven’t. You might find yourself in a city with a different name an hour and a half bus ride away from what you think of as Xi’An but you are still within the boundaries of what is politically designated as Xi’An. This can be a source of confusion if the office thinks “He asked for Xi’An. We placed him in Xi’An.” While the teacher thinks “I asked for Xi’An. This isn’t Xi’An.” AND BOTH OF THEM ARE RIGHT.

I think that kind of thing may be part of the issue with people liking or not liking where they end up teaching. It’s a matter of expectations. If you were expecting to be at the heart of a thriving metropolis with a fascinating multi-cultural night-life and a Starbucks on every corner then you are likely to be disappointed. Most of the schools are in smaller cities where it’s possible there may be a branch of KFC or McDonald’s but far more likely that there won’t be. There will be places to eat, drink and relax but it may not be what you were expecting.

People can sometimes let that disappointment lead to resentment and that’s when they stop noticing all the wonderful and interesting things around them and start seeing negatives everywhere. Other people, especially if they have left those expectations at home, will notice how different it all is but view that as a positive thing, a new experience to be enjoyed for what it is.

Of course, it’s possible that you might genuinely be placed somewhere where there isn’t much to do or many places to go and there isn’t a convenient way to get to anywhere larger for a break. It’s unlikely, but it’s possible that your reasons for disliking a place are perfectly valid but unless there are serious issues it isn’t likely that there is much to be done about it. If that happens you should try to make friends with as many teachers as possible at the school. Find out where they go and what they do to have a social life. They are, after all, in a similar situation to you even if they are local. Don’t wait for them to tell you things, try to be pro-active in asking them and finding things out.

And if it does start to get you down call up your friends in other parts of China or contact me. Talking about it can help. Just try not to let small, solvable problems build on each other until they snowball into a huge resentment.