The running joke here at Culture Gateway is that if you ever know what is going on, and things are going as you expected, you’re not in China anymore. For example, if a school needs someone to teach a class on Monday morning, you’re lucky to hear about it on Sunday afternoon. You’re luckier still if you receive a textbook to go with your class. The luckiest of all get to teach a class where the students also possess a textbook.

            China is different from what we know. I came here with as few expectations as possible, and they were all far off. Despite living in the capital city, I am stared at constantly. Blue-collar workers look me up and down as I pass by, their mouths open as they chew dumplings from the corner restaurant. If I try to stare back at them, they take no notice. They have no shame. But if I say, “Nihao,” they suddenly come alive and react. It took me a few weeks to figure this out.

            You see, I am a zoo animal. It makes sense. When you go to the zoo and stare at a panda, you don’t really notice when the panda stares back at you. But if the panda were to say, “Good morning, sir!” it would blow your mind. That’s me. I’m the panda.

            I could go on and on about the stares, the public restrooms, and the ongoing haggle-wars to receive a decent price on items as basic as toilet-paper, but I won’t. These are the miniscule challenges of living abroad. Mostly, I love it, here. I’m challenged and frequently frustrated, but that’s life in the real world. The difference is that right now I’m living up to my potential.

In the classroom. there is not a single hour that goes according to plan. If I spend 30 minutes preparing a lesson the night before, I know that half of what I plan will be thrown out the window, and I’ll have to improvise something that’s of greater help to my students. And I do. As the weeks roll on, I get closer to the mark in my lesson plans, but I honestly hope I never have a class that goes entirely according to plan. My best classroom moments are when I’m forced to just react to my students and create a new lesson on the spot. Without fail, these are the most popular activities, the ones that stay with my students a month later, hopefully years later. Before coming here, I often joked that my greatest asset is my willingness to make a complete fool of myself. I put that asset into good use every day in China.

Last week, the term ended for one of my classes. My favorite class. After our final lesson, the entire class treated me to lunch. This was not planned (we are in China, after all) and I was touched that every last student came along. As we sat around the table, they were amazed to see me competently feeding myself with chopsticks. They were even more amazed to learn that I was only 24 years old, and in fact younger than all of my students. I think they were also surprised to learn that they meant as much to me as the giant waiguoren teacher meant to them. I was surprised to find I had become less of a novelty, and more of a friend. And as their friend, I was invited out to Party World for a crazy night of karaoke.

It was perhaps my favorite Chinese adventure to date. It was my first night out as the only American with a group of Chinese people. They showed me around the massive facilities, and dragged me through the buffet. For song choices, they began picking random English-language songs, with the assumption that I would know them all. “No, I am not a fan of Boyzone. I do not know that song.” The English-language selection was odd at best. Hardly any Beatles or Sinatra, but a plethora of John Denver, for reasons I can’t fathom. Anyway, I did my duty and sang a few songs: “Eyes on Me,” a Chinese pop song that I knew from a Japanese video game, and “La Bamba.” They particularly loved “La Bamba.” As the night drew to a close we turned off the music and passed the microphones around. I was asked to give a speech. I thanked them briefly. Then every student made a speech, most of them praising me as a teacher and a friend. Then one student spoke at length, offering a toast to every person in the room. Not the type to be outdone, I requested another turn at the microphone, and got particularly misty as I said that I was proud to have made friends with such an amazing group of people, and that in the end, this was why I came to China. I wanted to meet these people. I wanted to get to the moment where the last barrier has come down, and we aren’t teacher and student, Chinese and American, but just a group of people enjoying each other’s company. I admit, it was pretty corny and sentimental, but I meant every word.

It was my first night out with my Chinese friends. I’m glad to say it won’t be the last. I’m sitting here with a photo of us, taken during our last lesson. Later this week, I’m going to go shopping for a picture frame. As John, our program director, told me: “It’ll be like a new store putting their first dollar bill in a frame and hanging it on the wall.” I really like that idea. Damn John for coming up with it first.

-Dave