Arrival in Dazhai

               I have arrived in Dazhai (大寨), the small town in Lincang, Yunnan where I will spend my next two years teaching at Dazhai Middle School. But much has passed between my arrival here and my last blog post, so I will back up briefly and describe what I have been up to over the past few weeks.

               When I last wrote, I was in Dayao, Chuxiong, Yunnan, China, where the Teach for China Summer Institute took place. My time in Dayao was mostly spent preparing to teach class, teaching, going to class myself, and spending time getting to know my co-fellows better.

My fourth grade students were a pleasure to teach. They were, for the most part, smart and eager to learn, though I certainly had to learn to manage the classroom effectively to keep them under control in their wilder moments. It was especially challenging (in a good way, as it is a skill that will undoubtedly be essential here at Dazhai) to manage a student while still keeping them involved and engaged with the lesson. In my less successful moments the result was the steely, fiery look of resolute resistance that I mastered in my own youth. However, my successes resulted in an orderly, fun classroom with students who were engaged and excited.

At the end of the teaching practicum (summer camp for the students), each of the classes put on a brief performance in front of the teachers and their peers. My class prepared a dance routine to a wildly popular Chinese song called 小苹果. I was really impressed by them because somehow they managed to prepare and organize the entire routine themselves (the girls did, that is – the boys were supposed to sing and stand behind the girls [separated by sex by choice of those who wanted to sing and those who wanted to dance – I would have preferred to force mixture if I had been completely in charge rather than working with my co-fellows] while they danced, but in the end they essentially just vaguely sang and awkwardly sat behind the girls as they danced). The best part was the outfit that three of the girls wore for the performance – red fake leather that was mildly reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange or some twisted, modern retelling of the Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution. I believe that one of the girls’ mother is a dance teacher and they were able to get the outfits from her. As Ida commented when she saw them though, that may have just been my mind looking for excuses for the ridiculous(ly awesome) outfits.

After Summer Institute officially ended, we were divided up depending on our region. Most all of us were given three or four days off before regional orientation, so a large group of us left Dayao and traveled to Dali for a weekend of rest, relaxation, and, most importantly, western food. It was a fun, expensive weekend full of good people and delicious food.

While in Dali, Ida and I stayed at the same hostel I had stayed at three years before when I first went to Dali, the Five Elements. It was strange to see how it and other places I remembered vividly had changed in the past years. The hostel had expanded and was now about two times the size it had been when I first visited. The bar that I had gone to with Michael during my first visit to Dali, while unchanged in name and atmosphere, had moved several blocks over, completely throwing off my sense of direction.

The changes made me realize how much I had changed since then. When I first arrived in Dali in the summer of 2011, I had taken only one year of Chinese and could barely communicate. I had had one scoliosis surgery, was in regular pain, and was preparing for another surgery once I got back to the US. I was enamored with the idea of meeting people as I traveled (I had Couchsurfed in most of the cities I had stayed in previously), but I had little idea of how to actually do it. I was a student researcher getting my first taste of China.

Now I have taken Chinese for four years. I have lived in Beijing for a year and traveled around more of China than the majority of Chinese people I have met. I am able to hold a passable conversation in Chinese about just about any topic. I have had three surgeries for scoliosis and am essentially pain-free. I have friends from around the world who I have met while traveling (though I still don’t really know how that happened). I am a college graduate preparing for two years of teaching in rural China. Both Dali and I have changed.

Once we got back to Dayao, we had just two short days before my region, Lincang, would leave for the region’s main city, Lincang City, for regional orientation and meeting our principals. It was strange saying goodbye to the middle school that had become home and the people that had become family. The hotel staff (and for that matter, the owners of all the establishments we had supported during our time in Dayao) were sad to see us go, and we were sad to go.

We took a large bus and a truck packed with luggage and rode about nine hours to our hotel in Lincang City. Lincang City is slightly larger than Dayao, but still not a large city by Chinese standards. Teach for China fellows (and, for that matter, local teachers) will often spend weekends in the city. While it does not have a Walmart (unlike Xiaguan in the Dali region) or a KFC (unlike Baoshan City in the Baoshan region), it does have a Salvador’s, a restaurant especially beloved by American fellows for its western food and good coffee.

We had time to relax and get to know Lincang City that evening. The following day was also free apart from a short presentation on the region (mostly repeated or unnecessary information) and a scavenger hunt designed to introduce us to important places in the city (like the supermarket, the best place to get bubble tea, and Salvador’s). Mostly we just relaxed and enjoyed one of our last days together before separating further to our individual regions.

The next day (Friday, August 22) was Principal Day, the day we would all meet our principals to get to know each other and discuss their expectations, the school, our living situation, and the classes we would teach over the next year. The day started early with everyone meeting together in an auditorium in a local middle school across the street from the hotel, where we were told to sit with the principal and the other fellows from our schools. My Chinese co-fellow, Hanxiong, and I found our principal and a local teacher who came with him and began one of the longest, most tiring days of Teach for China thus far.

The first day and a half of meeting with Principal Li, the principal of Dazhai Middle School, were difficult. It seemed like he was interested in Teach for China solely for the benefits it could provide for him. However, it ended up that he would actually be leaving Dazhai for another middle school within a week or two to be replaced by another principal, so we did not have to deal with him long.

After two days of getting to know Dazhai with Hanxiong, I finally had the opportunity to meet the new principal. Feng Xiaozhang (Principal Feng) seems to be, in many ways, the opposite of Li Xiaozhang. They are both similar ages (40 and around 45-ish respectively), similar heights, and similarly balding, but the similarity stops there. Feng Xiaozhang wears glasses over somewhat watery eyes that, along with his voice, betray his emotion as he discusses students. His face is genuine, and he asks and answers questions in a straight-forward, sincere manner.

Principal Feng seemed eager not only to get the most out of having us at the school, but also in ensuring that we would be content as we did it. In discussing classes, he arranged for Hanxiong to teach only three rather than six classes on politics and changed it so I would be teaching Oral English to only the six classes of seventh grade rather than seventh and eighth grade. He asked if I thought I could teach them twice a week (a total of only twelve classes a week) without being too tired. I said yes, and he responded by saying if I did find it to be too much, they could lessen the load.

He went on to say that Hanxiong and I could live together if we wanted to, having our own rooms along with a common area where we could cook. We couldn’t move in yet because it was the old principal’s room, so we would have to wait for him to move out. We will see whether we actually end up being given those rooms, but the change in tone was substantial and meaningful.

Beyond the very positive developments in our class schedules and our living arrangements, Feng Xiaozhang was in general much more receptive of having us there. He was eager for us to start programs and extracurriculars with the students (we were told by the previous fellow that under the previous principal, there were generally only extracurriculars when government officials visited). He wanted us to give suggestions about management and teaching style. He spoke about trying to help connect our students, many of whom have never been outside of Dazhai, with the outside world.

An interesting point of the conversation came up when Feng Xiaozhang began talking about how he wanted us to make sure we paid attention to the worst students. He said that if we did not take care of them, they would drop out of school and become burdens to society. For me, my instinct would be first and foremost to consider the individual student. I would want to help even the worst students realize their potential. While that was my first instinct, I imagine Feng Xiaozhang’s focus on the bad students’ negative impact on society would work well in securing both teacher and government support for those students (teachers in China often focus on the best students with the thought that the bottom will fail out anyway, so they should focus on the students that want to be taught and who can improve their test scores). Also, I imagine that it would help to remind teachers that every student matters even when they are teaching more than three hundred students a week.

All in all, the meeting with the new principal was an overwhelmingly positive experience. I felt like there was a lot of room for me to learn and grow as well as a lot of aspects where I could contribute positively. Here was the sort of relationship I was looking for with my principal. Whereas Li Xiaozhang made me feel like I had to be careful of what I said in any conversation with him, Feng Xiaozhang made me feel empowered, like I wanted to do everything I could for the school. Two very different methods of leadership (one seemingly with an eye up the promotion ladder and the other with all his attention on the students) and two very different responses in me. I hope that my future interactions with Feng Xiaozhang will prove him to be the compassionate, genuine man he appears to be.

For now, I wait, I relax, I walk around Dazhai, I try to get to know locals and teachers, I prepare, and, very rarely, I blog.

Note: My internet is too slow at the moment to upload pictures - they will follow when I have better internet.