Tangled up in Red: Finally landing in China: Orientation in Beijing

Suffering all of the bureaucratic hurdles we had to face to get our Chinese working visa made arriving here on Sunday 14^th August all the more worth it. Ant and I began applying to come and work in China over two years ago; we were forced to withdraw last year due to delays in Beijing (where I had been placed) and so we were deliriously happy when we landed at Beijing Capital Airport after a smooth 10 hour flight, with our suitcases even rolling out early on the conveyor belt. I didn’t think that was even possible. We were brought back to reality when greeted with an astronomically long queue in front of a sign saying FOREIGNERS, which only reminded us how difficult it was to get there.

As we slept through lunch at the hotel, it was time to venture out for the first time. The hotel was in Shunyi District, just outside of Beijing. The main road outside the hotel complex was a death trap (to us foreigners, anyway). We literally had to look both ways at once, with the main road occupied mainly by people who had ‘no respect for life’ as we were told by our training leader on the first day of training. On top of this there is a separate lane for e-bikes. My technique was to just wait for a Chinese person to follow as they crossed over, they seemed to know what they were doing.

There were not many English speakers, which surprised me. We expected training camp to be a bit like an English-speaking bubble, especially being in Beijing. We stumbled into a food place just over the road and immediately had to use some of the little Chinese we knew. The lady serving us was very considerate and really tried to understand what we were trying to say. I managed ‘no spicy’ and ‘no meat’. I had been trying not to eat meat before arriving but realised soon into the training that it would be difficult to maintain. Ant managed ‘beef’ in Chinese, and so after this communication through terrible Chinese and some interpretive dance, we sat down without a clue what was coming. It turned out to be a noodle soup, mine not spicy and without meat and Ant’s included beef – success. I noticed how friendly the local people were immediately. We had been told quite intimidating things before arriving, such as that the police often ask foreigners for their passports, and if you can’t show it they can detain you. It’s easy to believe things like this when you don’t know a country very well, and maybe it is true in some parts, but the only policemen I have come across whilst here have been very warm and welcoming. Just on the way back to the hotel we were quite cautious about the police station next door, as we had just handed in our passports so that our company could buy our train tickets to Suzhou, but the policeman outside just waved and shouted ‘Ni hao!'.

Training in Beijing was intense. We arrived on the Sunday and work was due to start on the Tuesday. We were split up into groups of three (with people who were headed to the same province) and the groups were sent to different schools in the Shunyi district to practice teaching in the mornings from 8.30 to 12pm. We would then be driven back to the hotel, have an hour’s break and all head to another school for three hours of TEFL training. We would then have dinner in the hotel and spend the evening planning lessons. There were also a few days when Chinese lessons would be held, in which case dinner was held later. It was nerve wracking knowing that we would be teaching straight away without having had any training yet. I was thankful to have a partner in the beginning, as many people had to teach alone. From what I have heard from teacher friends in England, Chinese students in comparison to British students must be an absolute breeze. When preparing to move to China, I hadn’t thought much about the teaching, despite it being the whole point. Chinese students are culturally very respectful of teachers, and I was amazed everyday by how polite they were. Whilst at the school, we were followed around by an IT man with a camcorder which was pointed at us constantly. I did wonder what would happen with the videos/pictures. After the two weeks of training, the school held a closing ceremony for us. I didn’t realise how much the school and students valued our presence until a long montage of us teaching was played to the song ‘you raise me up’, which was both hilarious and very moving. We also sang a Chinese song in Chinese, using the lyrics printed out in pinyin. This wasn't as humiliating as we expected though as the teachers joined in with us. Chinese teaching is traditionally very teacher-focused, the students do not get much chance to be creative or expressive in any way. They also usually have 12 hour days of classes followed by homework at night. Being able to break that up with a different style of teaching and hopefully some fun was very rewarding. Despite not being able to see much of Beijing or the local culture, I learned a lot about China in the first two weeks.