First Semester in Beibei (北碚)

Upon arriving in Beibei I was truly of clear mind and purpose.  My goal was above all else to take my oral Chinese from conversant to fluency.  Upon my arrival in town I first had a meal with another foreign teaching colleague.  In conversation I shared with my colleague my defined goals which turned out to be quite the humbling experience for me in the end.  In my colleague eyes this stated goal was something less than a long shot but more difficult than I could have previously imagined it being. 

 

                                It turned out that fluency in Mandarin Chinese had eluded my colleague even with more than six years spent living in China.  On top of that reality, my colleague had also taken two years off of teaching English to exclusively study Chinese as a foreign student at Southwest University.  Hearing the bitter harshness of reality actually had a stimulating effect on my constitution.  Instead of getting disenchanted with the enormity of my pre-stated goals I decided that I was going to work harder than I ever had in my life to prove everyone else wrong. 

 

                                Clearly, my admission of wanting to prove other people wrong may seem extremely foolish, even childish when considering the extent of the obstacles in my way.  Why waste so much time and effort just to prove other people wrong?  It truly is a fruitless endeavor which will leave a person feeling isolated, dividing from self, and above all else frustrated. 

 

                                My remonstrance against doing something for the wrong reason is truly apropos unless one finds that along the way towards achieving one's predetermined goals they find intrinsic happiness.  In my case, I know that I really enjoyed and had a talent for speaking foreign languages; therefore, my desire for fluency did not seem like some holy quest to prove to everyone else that my Chinese was quite fluent.

 

Actually, my desire and sense of determination came from my longing to be able to communicate more with people in Chinese.  I scorned myself for my lack of knowledge of the language, and I always dreaded the occasional point in the conversation where I was unable to understand every detail in the response of the opposite person. 

 

                                I was also excited during those first few days in Beibei to meet my new teaching colleagues at the university.  After meeting each individual I truly was encouraged by what I saw.  Indeed I had never been around a more eclectic or diversely assembled group in my life.   With that being said, I was surprised to see how well the group seemed to co-exist together throughout the vicissitudes of life.  A visitor from another country truly would have felt at home in our small "United Nations" which was the smallest level of association we could attach ourselves to.

 

                                I was also encouraged by the more rigorous English curriculum and the discipline of the students I was fortunate enough to work with at Southwest University (西南大学).  Likewise, I became aware of the many differences between teaching English at the college of foreign languages in Beibei in comparison to teaching elective courses in Rongchang.  Clearly the Ethos at Beibei was different from Rongchang as the students were expected to perform well in my class, attending class was mandatory, and my teaching was going to be evaluated by a group of teaching peers at the university.

 

                                In accordance with these changes I worked harder at preparing the materials which we were going to be using in the classroom.  However, it quickly became apparent to me that a looming crisis of identity was in front of me as well.  As is the case in many crisis I have faced in my life this one was more of a psychological nature as opposed to the physical collision with a transparent leviathan of sorts.  Obviously, I wanted to spent my free time studying Chinese; however, as my extra responsibilities teaching English would definitely cut into my extra free-time I had planned on having devoted to studying Chinese.

 

                                Fortunately for me I quickly learned that my students did not have a real taste for the lecture based approach that I had planned for them; rather, they preferred to be actively engaging in discourse revolving around speaking scenarios crafted out of a specific theme presented in class.  This truly eased the burden of preparing lengthy lectures on topics which I had assumed students were to have some interest in learning about.  I was also lucky in the fact that I had a really enthusiastic supervisor who was supportive of trying out a new teaching model in the classroom.  This flexibility in the curriculum allowed for a diverse and innovative classroom experience.

 

                                At the same time that my own quest for greater understanding of the Chinese language was taking off so to was the journey of another colleague of mine.  This colleague's work ethic and desire to learn Chinese really knew no boundaries as they took the task of learning Chinese on with full-force.  Watching my friend's maturation and development presented a question and a challenge for me.  I honestly felt a little threatened in the knowledge that I had another competitor out there who was learning Chinese as well as I was. 

 

                                When I first started speaking Chinese it seemed that it was an innate special skill which I alone had the power to craft.  In my case, the small town environment of Rongchang definitely helped to promote that myth.  After seeing other foreigners improving their Chinese in a linear manner with the help of trained Chinese language teachers I decided that a new approach towards language acquisition was the most prudent course of action for me to take.

 

                                After the second week of the fall semester, I started attending classes weekly with some of the international students learning Chinese at Southwest University.  It soon became apparent to me that I actually really needed to take the time to study Chinese in a classroom setting.  The group dynamics and planned lessons really helped me to improve my Chinese in a short period of time.

 

                                After couple of classes, I found that my practical knowledge learned from experience did not always help to prepare me for the rigors of the classroom.  At the time this admission really seemed to hurt my ego.  Likewise, it even had the consequence of driving a wedge between me and my fellow students as I struggled with the fact that I needed to keep working on my Chinese if I wanted to match their understanding. 

 

                                To my credit my oral Chinese was much better than my peers; however, when it came to the classroom material I was clearly at a disadvantage.  This stemmed mainly from the fact that as teachers our schedules precluded us from being able to attend much of the coursework offered at Southwest University.  In hindsight my shame at not being an equal with my peers as well my own obstinacy both propelled me to continue learning Chinese primarily on my own that first semester in Beibei.