Handover

This is what I leave my successor:

A few words of advice and some snapshots.

Candle boats at Pheonix

Roofs . Night . Fenghuang (Pheonix)

Ducklings, man, Chenxi

Temple, Chenxi

Truktruk, Changsha

Fishers, Chenxi

Dear next-generation volunteer,

I’m writing this letter without the assurance that my position will even exist next year, but since my position is a pretty unique one and it’s never been held before in this location (which is the reason I wasn’t so lucky as to have any kind of handover letter or prior warning as to what I’d be doing), I think this will be valuable in aiding your hopefully smooth adjustment to this environment and this work. So without further a due…

The Apartment

Let’s see, where to begin… Well I’ll start with the living quarters, which are very simple and we can get out of the way immediately.

You’ll be living on the first floor of the “Foreign Teachers Building,” which houses you, one other foreign teacher, and basically the entire Chinese staff and faculty of Changjun middle school. Don’t ask me why it’s called what it is. My first strong warning to you is, since it is the first floor, and since most of the schools garbage is dumped directly outside the back entrance to the building, if you don’t keep your rooms clean and free of food waste, the rats will come. The rats keep to themselves mostly but, even so, it’s best you keep them out of your place—they are not clean houseguests. When you leave for spring festival, make sure you leave an immaculate house. I learned that lesson the hard way.  There are a couple of places where I believe they come from. The first is a basketball size whole where the piping from the sink in your washroom goes into the wall. The second is the same room’s squat toilet, which will be used as the run-off for your small and ineffectual washing machine. While I’m on the topic, there is no drier, so be prepared to wait three to four days for clothes to dry as they hang sopping and misshapen from a suspiciously high ‘drying pole’ (is the only way I can describe it).  There are also some ‘clothespin wheels with hooks’ (which is also the only way I can describe them) that I purchased and will be there for your use. The garbage is also the reason for the swarms of flies and mosquitoes that tend to linger in the hallways during the warmer months. That’s why I’m leaving you my trusty electrified tennis racket, but keep a can of Raid on you too.

You have two main rooms, one bathroom and a second bathroom, which was converted into a washroom. The school, realizing the apartments didn’t conform to Worldteach housing standards, clearly scrambled at the last minute and tore a whole in the wall between two separate apartments and put a door in. So you have a one bedroom and one bath and its mirror image. I have one room arranged as a bedroom and the other as a living area with TV, DVD player, two sofa seats and a coffee table. The floors are all tile and the walls are solid white, except for mosaics of splattered insects that the workmen left me (I did my best to remove as many as possible). The ceilings are probably 13 or 14 feet high, which means in winter there’s no hope for really heating the rooms with only the two small wall units that are there, and in summer they can get pretty hot (although the ACs do cool better than they heat). I would recommend getting additional heating for the rooms. What I did was purchase an electric blanket for about 180元, which is about 25 dollars American. This was by far the most intelligent purchase I made my entire time in China. The problem is, it doesn’t appear to be working to well right now, so you may need a new one. Anyways you’ll have an extra blanket to keep warm with. I purchased to medium sized rugs as well that should hopefully be there when you arrive. In the bedroom there is a desk, a bed that’s somewhere between a single and a twin, a desk (that’s actually quite nice) and chair, and a large closet. There is no kitchen and no counter-space, so what I did was I borrowed a couple of unused student desks and covered them with a cheap tablecloth. Although you have no kitchen you will have a decent-sized fridge, a microwave, a hotplate, a water dispenser (I would probably stick to bottled water), and I strangely useless contraption that does nothing more than superheat your dishes. Some volunteers got creative with these and were able to actually bake in them. Baked goods aren’t my specialty so I never tried, but it’s an idea. I will be leaving a very limited selection of kitchen supplies (as follows):

• Cutting board
• Butcher knife and a couple of other knives
• Two soup bowls and corresponding spoons
• Two plates
• Three glasses
• Set of wooden chopsticks
• Wok
• Shallow pot (for boiling water)
• Two metal stands for hot dishes
• Daisy Duck mug (purchased for me by my liaison for Christmas from the Disney Store)

On lazy summer afternoons, the workers will start trash fires out behind the building you will be living in. I suggest keeping your doors and windows closed at these times. Seriously though, its not all bad, you have all the privacy you want and at the same time you can open your door to students anytime. Just make sure they are aware that your space is your own. Sometimes a student, with a slightly different concept of what is and isn’t intrusion and harassment, will knock on your door ceaselessly at 7 am on a Saturday to go with him and his friends to an overcrowded theme park for his birthday. If this happens, politely make it understood that students are only allowed over when you give them permission and with prior agreement. Once this is clear, they are very respectful. Your neighbors can be a little loud at times also, but you only hear them when they are in the halls. Although the solid concrete walls are terrible at temperature regulation, they are good for one thing, and that’s keeping rooms relatively soundproof. Also, chances are they will be getting up far earlier and working far longer hours than you, so past 10:30 or 11 on weeknights, the building is silent.

You are surrounded by high-rise apartment building construction sights on three of four sides. They can be pretty noisy, but generally before too late, they quite down (although they never seem to stop working completely). And, whether or not you have your alarm set early, chances are at least a couple mornings a week, the tremendous explosions of fireworks that seem to be going off outside your window will start up (for some unknown reason) at 7 or 8 in the morning. These flares of pyromaniacal celebration can happen at anytime indiscriminately, so be wary.

The Neighborhood

Knowing China as well as an outsider who’s lived here for twelve months possibly can, this could very well change drastically between the time I leave and you arrive, but I will tell my experience. In terms of neighborhood, there really isn’t one. Not one you will be able to really explore well enough on foot. It is a very new area of the city with broad empty boulevards and construction sites springing up everywhere. There are still very few residents, it seems. If you go towards the river until you can go no further, make a right and then a left on a road that passages under a sort of archway, there is a nice farmers market where you can buy anything from fresh vegetables and fruits to dog meat and duck heads. I go there pretty often for fresh fruit and also a nice woman who sells a Chinese version of peanut brittle that will rot your teeth and leave you craving more. The end of the line for the 6 Bus is over one block from the school, and that bus will take you right into the heart of the city center for 1 or 2元. I had a second-hand electric scooter for most of my time in Changsha, so that made it convenient to explore the vast expanses of this area of town. If you don’t, it might feel a little bit distant and unwelcoming at times. On the upside, the air is markedly fresher at this distance from downtown, and the once you’ve been around the hustle and bustle of Walking Street long enough, you’ll appreciate the peace and quiet too.

The school provides you with free meals all week long and a card with 200元 every month that you can use at the school store. So even though your location is a bit out of the way, you can survive quite well without leaving until the weekend. But I still strongly urge that you get out as often as possible.

The School

You are going to get an earful about this during orientation also, but let me give you a little advanced notice. You need to be assertive about problems and needs with your liaisons. Song is delightful and always willing to help, but you perhaps will need to remind her several times before something is done. Hershey is perhaps quicker to answer the phone but less immediate and warm in personality. She is a beast though when it comes to getting forms through and passport/visa issues dealt with. Together I’d say they make a pretty good team. Just don’t expect them to come to you and ask you what you might need today or if you’ve been having any problems. As willing as they are to help, there are busy and they wont go out of their way to see if there’s an off chance that something is troubling you. Be vocal about what you need.

Most of my teaching effort is dedicated to the incredible small ‘International Department’ within Changjun Bilingual School. That means four days out of five I teach two classes worth of students (one group of Senior 1s and one group of Senior 2s). In addition, the groups are quite small. The senior 2s are only about 24 (it fluctuated) and the Senior 1s only nine. Next year, many if not all the senior 2s will have graduated and there will be (I assume) a new crop of senior 1s. This is as of yet unclear. At times my liaisons would speak of rumors that the international program would not continue after my year, but it’s impossible to say what will really happen. This means a lot more of my time goes towards lesson planning than actual teaching. I had about 14 hours a week at most points. About four to five hours for each group of seniors, and one day a week I would teach junior 1s in the normal school for four periods. That means that you have to plan a good eight lessons a week. So that I wasn’t overwhelmed, I’d often plan extended lessons for one group because many my classes were back-to-back periods. I would also usually ‘scaffold’ down or up one group’s lesson to meet the needs of the second, thereby reusing a lot of the material. Also, I would often teach from the IELTS Exam prep book on one or two days a week and then create my own lessons that tied into what they were practicing in IELTS on the other days. This also took off a lot of the weight of being continuously creative with lesson ideas eight times each week.

Now to the most important issue regarded the international department. The International Department is in almost all ways a complete misnomer. The ability of students in your classes will range from the most basic beginner to advanced levels of English knowledge. Some students are fantastic; others in the very same class seem to have just begun studying English. The idea behind this entire program is that this school will be sending all of these students to schools to English-speaking countries by the time they enter college. You will quickly realize that this will happen only for a very select few. This can be a huge challenge during both the lesson planning phase and the actual lesson time. I hope orientation will prepare you well enough for this, but chances are it won’t. All I can say is don’t let it get to you too much. Come to terms with it and find some way you can reach each kid at least once or twice during each lesson. The nice thing is you will have a lot (I mean a lot) of time with each student because of how the schedule is set up and how few of them there are. It will be overwhelming at first, but I have faith that you will adapt to it in no time.

Another important thing: You will realize eventually that most ways, this department has become largely a dumping ground for the children of very wealthy and influential people. Changjun has one if not the highest reputation of any school in Hunan. They know this, and they also know that many of their kids (who could care less about school) would never be admitted into the regular program. Somehow, as if by magic, they are admitted here for you to struggle with. If you feel at times that you are merely a piece of the façade that is this program, just relax and go with it.

There are some really good things about this placement, don’t get me wrong. One of the beautiful things about being the IELTS oral instructor for this program is you have a lot of say about what you teach and when you teach and you can really develop strong relationships with many of the students. Those students that I failed with time and time again in the classroom turned out to be tremendously friendly and generous outside of class. I found that it was in those moments outside of class (whether it was hotpot dinner or on the basketball court) that I really got through to those same students who would give me so much trouble in the classroom. You will have a handful of truly brilliant students also and it’s incredibly satisfying to have even a few who are right there with you the whole time during class. I couldn’t shake some of them if I tried.

One quick point: If you have a student that’s giving you a hard time (and undoubtedly you will at some point), take them to the teacher’s office and have one of the Chinese teachers duke it out with them. You will be dealing with some very spoiled kids. Chances are you wont have all of their attention at all times, and sometimes they may give you lip. Address it up to a certain point. Then, turn it over to their head teachers. Don’t let it get to you.

A Little on the City & Surroundings

You will have a tremendous amount of free time here. Spend it wisely. I had three-day weekends during the second part of the second semester. This allowed me to take a lot of memorable trips around the province and to neighboring ones. These were some of my best experiences and I strongly recommend that you do the same with any chance you get.

Changsha is a huge city and you will feel like you are on the remote outskirts of it. Don’t let this discourage you. It’s important to get into town as much as possible and the 6 Bus is perfect for that. There is a tremendous amount to do in this massive city, which is the reason I elected to be here. Live music at 4698 Bar is a great idea on weekend nights. The clubs, bars and restaurants of jiefangxilu, taipingjie, and hualongchi can also be a lot of fun. The computer market near the train station is a city of discounted hardware and software that costs next to nothing. Yuelu ‘mountain’ (foothill), which is relatively close to where you will be on the west side, is also a really pleasant (although often crowded) place to go on a stroll and to poke your head out of the smog for a couple hours. Really, I could go on and on about what there is to do, but the best way is for you to figure it out for yourself. I bought a second-hand electric bike for about 1400元 (about U.S. 200) soon after I arrived. Precisely because I am a ways out of the center—but not too far—this was absolutely crucial to me. I became dependent on it, and when it was stolen, I dreaded taking the bus. If you are brave (because it is pretty dangerous, you will soon realize, as you watch in awe the way people drive in this city), it is a blast and incredibly useful. With a scooter, traffic is no longer and obstacle, but the weather is doubly so. With the amount it rains in Changsha, be sure to bring plenty of rain gear.

To finish up, I’ll leave you with a quick list of things that I consider absolutely necessary to bring:

• Rain gear
• Deodorant
• Pepto
• Medicine you can read and understand (because you wont find it here)
• All the clothes you’ll wear while here
• Coffee (if you drink it. You can find it hear, but is uncommon and expensive.)
• BOOKS (no English-language books in Changsha)
• Trinkets from America for your students

The rest of the things will be in your orientation materials or is already fairly obvious.

I do wish you the best of luck. If you listen to anything at all in my letter, listen to this: for all I negativity I spewed on Changsha about and all the crap I gave my placement site, I absolutely loved the time I spent here. So will you.

All the best,

Leo B. Carter

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