note: February 28 is my fourth anniversary of teaching English in China. At 8:25 am GMT +8, Feb. 28, 2005, I first walked into a Chinese classroom…

I didn’t sleep very well. I was still jet-lagged. Add to that I was in a new bed, in a new apartment, in a country I knew very little about. I went through my morning routine trying to come to grips with the strange shower configuration and attempting to shave in a nine-inch-square mirror. With bad instant coffee in my belly I waited for the knock on my door. It was February 28, 2005.

This was to be my first day of work as an oral ESL teacher at private school in Shenzhen (China). There was no training or school tour, I arrived a week later than the other new teachers. I was about to be launched, successfully or otherwise, on unsuspecting Chinese students.

Primary school students in China.

I sat at my desk with a growing sense of dread. I thought about vomiting but in the end managed to hold that bodily function in check. Forty students to teach for 40 minutes? I must have been mad. I decided that introducing myself would be the best course of action. I made some quick notes in a little notebook that became my best friend over the coming months.

I was late as I searched for grade 6, class 12 on the third and fourth floors of the north wing of building two. A teacher in the hall waved me in. After introductions she asked, “Would you like me to stay in the class?”

“Oh, no,” I replied like a seasoned pro, “I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. It must have been the nervous perspiration on my brow that gave my otherwise faux-confident persona away.

“Yes.”

I took a deep breath and walked into the class. There was a podium on a raised platform and a blackboard. I set down my bag and looked at the class. Forty young, smiling Asian faces stared at me. They were silent.

“Good morning.?!” I ventured.

“Good morning, teacher,” said the class in unison.

Shiny young faces with bodies clad in identical blue and white track suits. I was in over my head. Pressing ahead, I found a piece of chalk and with a shaky hand scrawled my name on the clean blackboard.

“My name is Steve,” I told them.

“Steve!” they called back at me.

“I am from Canada,” I said.

“Canada,” they replied en masse.

I learned next that sending the Chinese-English teacher out of the room had been a bad idea. Not only could she add some semblance of order to the proceedings, she could also translate if I ran into problems. After some explanation I had the students stand one by one and say, “My name is…, I am ____ years old.”

“How old am I?” I asked them.

I received a course of replies, most eight to 10 years younger than my actual age. I felt very young for a moment. A couple of jokers added their thoughts: My age was guessed by one student at 100 and by another at 1000.

Next was the phrase, “I like…”

“What do I like?” I asked the students. They were silent and stared at me. I looked around the room. No one moved a muscle, although every eye was fixated on me.

“I like,” I said, “Basketball.” I did my best charades impression of basketball and wrote it on the board.

“What else do I like?” I tried. A hesitant hand went up.

“Computer?” hesitantly asked a female student.

“Yes,” I said enthusiastically. “Computers.” I stressed the S.

“What else do I like?”

I took a couple of minutes to get the ball rolling, but in the end I had a din of voices shouting out all the sundry activities they new in English.

“Do you know what I like?” I asked again, “I like food.”

One boy in the front row said in a loud voice, “That is because you are fat.”

I tried not to laugh. He was right, of course. Again, they called out a list of foods that they thought I liked.

To wrap things up I had them each stand again and say, “I like…,” followed by a food, activity, etc.

Then the bell, which was not a bell at all, but a little musical ditty, sounded. It was over, I had survived 40 minutes relatively unscathed.

That class became my favourite. Of the 25 homerooms I visited each week, that class was the best and most receptive. The other varied from lukewarm to downright nasty. I didn’t have many rules. I drew the line when my worst class started playing volleyball with a rolled-up raincoat.

And so began a new life and career, in a nation that has only been really opened to outsiders for 25 year. There is a learning curve, but I think I have managed to make it over the first hurdle.

Today in history: On July 31, 2006 a slightly bitter expat English teacher married a gentle Chinese lass. In the registry office he couldn’t read the form or make the appropriate pledge. The frustrated official eventually gave up and allowed him to sign his name, skipping the pledge.

The newlyweds ate dinner at KFC and spent their wedding night in an unlicensed hotel.

Things improved.

Wo ai ni, Mrs. Stevo.

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One of the best things about traveling, about teaching ESL, is the things I see and the students I meet. Summer camp is a misnomer compared with North American summer camp. There are no tents, campfires, marshmallows, or canoes. There are English lessons, games, and contests.

After a day in the classroom the ESL teachers and students go for broke in an Olympic-style relay. What was lost in grace and finesse was made up for with intensity.

Teaching ESL is not an easy job. But the rewards, like seeing (and capturing) the above, are immense.

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The constant rain, that had me wondering how to build an ark, has passed. The sky over Shenzhen is now a bright seasonal blue and full of fluffy clouds. There is that evil ball of flame some call the sun, it’s only purpose to burn me to a crisp, to contend with. Better that than rain.

My 美国人朋友 (American friends) will be celebrating the 4th of July this weekend. My Canadian brethren celebrated Canada Day on July 1st. I have nothing to celebrate. There are no July holidays in China. National Day is October 1st.

I could celebrate the end of school. The students and teachers have scattered, blown to the four corners of the earth by a powerful wind called Summer Holidays. I could celebrate the start of a summer off. I could, if that were true.

Let’s look at The Stevo’s next few days:

Friday:
Human Resources Meeting
Summer Camp Planning Meeting

Saturday:
Business Teacher Interviews
English Teacher Interviews
Marking Business Teacher applications tests

(The interviews will involve me trying to decipher Chinese resumes, being part of the management panel and asking a question or two. I will listen to rapid-fire questions in Chinese, attempt to understand, get bored, and doodle on the HR forms.)

Sunday:
Course Consultant Interviews

All I really want to do is get a massage. Maybe Sunday evening. After a few drinks.

On the plus side: I’m buying a new camera next week, if my resident permit is complete and the government returns my passport. It’s hard to leave the country without a passport.

Question: What would the border guards do if I brought 20 Grade 1 students to vouch for my identity instead of the traditional passport?

Enjoy your national days of independence. Have a barbecue, watch fireworks and play merry. I’ll be sitting in an overly hot room on an uncomfortable chair.

I’ve had an incredible run of bad luck. It happens every few years, like the leap year.

Case in Point: Yesterday.

I thought the text message was informing me of a meeting on Friday at 10 am. The “don’t be late” was prophetic. (I’m never late, some genetic quirk has me 15 minutes early for every event).

After hitting the gym (yes, I go to the gym) I returned home to shower the slimy, tropical sweat from my body. As I dried, my cell phone rang (Mirror in the Bathroom by The English Beat is my ringtone).

“Did you get my message?”

“Yes.”

“The meeting has started.”

“The meeting is tomorrow.”

“No.”

“No!”

Read the full story

I don’t remember much about that Sunday, looking back after three years. It was cold, I recall, much colder than I thought it should be in a sub-tropical area. I huddled in my apartment, on the thin-padded wooden sofa. The television broadcast programs in an unintelligible language. I watched infomercials for breast enlargement creams and drank instant coffee.

My boss, an aged, chain-smoking, New Zealand crone, met with me twice and explained my schedule. I had arrived a week later than the other new teachers. They had had training, a welcome dinner, and a tour. I, on the other hand, was shown around the local area by a disbarred lawyer from New Orleans who talked about his adventures in Asia as a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, and the prices and etiquette related to prostitutes.

My boss was kind, she gave me local currency as I hadn’t converted any. In between drags on cigarettes so cheap even beggars wouldn’t accepted them she explained the times of each period. Her laugh reminded me of a rasp being dragged across a rusty piece of metal. There was no explanation as to what I should teach the following day, only a schedule. The phrase, “thrown to the lions,” echoed through my head.

I ate instant noodles and hot dogs, the only items I’d recognized in the grocery store. It was scary place: Tanks of live fish, eels and turtles filled a wet corner. Cages held chickens and rabbits, watched over by a man in a stained white coat, a giant cleaver in his hand. I could only identify foodstuffs by the photos on the labels. I hate instant noodles, the result of a long year at college and consuming them twice a day.

The Martha Stewart biography movie starring Cybil Sheppard was on the Hong Kong station that night. I watched it absently while thinking about returning to Canada. I would have called an airline if I’d known how to use the card-based telephone system.

On a precipice. And my footing was tenuous.