Adventures in Asia

I married my happy, hardworking, handsome husband 10 months ago, and I didn’t take his last name. Naturally, many people back home asked, “WHY?” My marriage certificate is a little red book! There are two main reasons: paperwork nightmare and my husband’s Chinese culture. Here's what a normal American woman does to legally change her name: provide her marriage certificate at the bank, change her social security card, and update her drivers license, all in person. But I live in China. So I would need to go to the nearest American consulate (2 hours away by train) to renew my passport (which costs $120 US). I would then have to make another trip to pick up my new passport (train tickets totaling to another $120 US). Then I would have to fly home ($1,000 US round trip – if I’m blessed with a good deal) to complete all of the things normal women do… Only hiccup being my marriage certificate is in Chinese. Like, the only English word on that entire document is my ...

“So, when are you moving back home?” I get this question fairly frequently, and people ask my parents a lot! I think the motivation behind it is mostly innocent curiosity, so I’d like to share a bit here about my life in China and how this particular inquiry comes across.   Shanghai Skyline with Slight Smog   “When are you moving back home?” reflects an American approval of the gap-year (living abroad for a year, usually between high school and college), but a strong, strange feeling towards long-term life abroad. When I (or my parents) answer with a brief comment about me living in China for a long time, it’s usually followed by, “I could never do it! That would be so hard!” Sure, long-term living abroad is hard. Especially the first year, though the experience is largely determined by the amount of local language you know going in and what kind of community you’re going into. For me, I’m approaching 4 years in China and I’ve built up the support systems ...

Even though my particular teaching placement right now isn’t ideal (Ha! That’s an understatement), I’ve come to realize I love this thing called teaching a foreign language in a foreign country. Here are some of the reasons why. Teaching is so satisfying. There are many helping professions where you don’t get to see the results of your efforts, where you put in countless hours on faith and hope that it’s worth it and someone, somewhere, has a better life because of your sweat and tears. Though we probably don’t truly realize the full repercussions of our good deeds in general, at least as a teacher I get to see some of the results of my investment. At the end of a unit / term / year, I watch my students use more language than before. On top of learning stuff, students write me notes, draw me pictures, give me gifts, and smile when I walk in the room. Teaching is fulfilling.   The best part of this job: the students. As a teacher, I get to plan, organize and be creati...

“We all have the same dream.” “No, we all have the same job.” I laughed. I was having coffee with some fellow foreigners and our Chinese friends, the Idealist and the Realist. Later that same evening, I asked, “What’s the most important thing to a Chinese person?” “Making money.” On a different coffee date with a different Chinese friend, I heard a similar statement: “Money controls my life.” Making money is important to us Americans, too. The U.S. is pretty much the capital of materialism. But the way my Chinese friends say it, it’s different. And the more I hear their stories, the more I understand what they mean. China has a collectivist culture, where the group is more important than the individual, and the family is the most important of all. Which is really beautiful to see. Each of my students have their two parents and four grandparents all looking out for them, investing in them, concerned about their wellbeing. There’s only one child, ...

Moving from Midwest America to Northern China, experiencing my first year out of college and teaching English as a foreign language, I’m learning a lot. Lately I’ve been thinking about how there are two sides to everything. I just finished my first semester of real teaching, and I quickly realized there are two sides to this job. One side is what happens in the classroom, the teaching part. Lessons, students, tests, games, classroom management. I came in somewhat prepared for that side. Then there’s the second side, outside of the classroom. Working relationships, politics, contracts, parents. The side I’m trying to navigate. There are two sides to everything. There are two sides to travelling/living abroad. There’s the side you post about online: the fun, the yummy, the glamorous, the lucky, the bragging-worthy. On the other side of being abroad are the difficulties: culture shock, confusion, getting lost, being taken advantage of, miscommun...