I've learned the most about life in China from talking to my many different students, who come from all walks of life and usually have something interesting to say! I teach people who wish to improve their spoken English, either for work, leisure or just wishing to learn more. The classes are pretty informal which leaves ample opportunity for going off the beaten-English path, and most of the tangents that we end up on in any class will give me a little more insight into the Chinese way of life, history, society and the way of thinking.
The biggest overall insight I've gotten into the national psyche is how accepting people are of the status quo. It's something that I notice more and more as I get used to life here. Things are accepted as they are without any questions being asked. This seems to provide more and less freedom in equal measure - on an individual level people seem more comfortable expressing their personalities, opinions and different interests, as explanations or self-analysis are not de riguer here. On the other hand this obviously takes place within a certain assumed set of behaviours, beliefs and boundaries, and obviously it means that people don't ask questions regarding authority, society and so on. Whether or not Chinese people desire social or political change this creates obvious limitations and stagnation in areas ranging from equal rights right along to innovation - when nobody asks how current or new technologies can be applied in different situations or used in different ways we miss out on a lot of the unexpected, high-impact stuff, and those kind of questions just aren't asked here, which seems like a huge loss to me as there's so much human potential in China. It would be easy to assume that this limitation comes from China's more recent history - but this is always the easiest assumption, and whilst Communism has had a profound impact on the national psyche, and accentuated a lot of these characteristics in almost all cases it's easy to trace things back much further than the Cultural Revolution.
All well and good, but what does it have to do with teaching? Finding conversation starters was a real problem at first - people don't respond well to questions, and never return questions any more complex than "what is your name?". Even in general conversation, people tend to make statements - they never, never ask questions. Asking how people are, something I automatically frame as a question whatever the language in Mandarin is a statement. Ni hao ma? You fine? My Chinese speaking friends tell me the no-questions thing is a prominent characteristic of the Chinese language. It's occasionallly forced me to find far more inventive ways of getting conversations started, but once you can ask things in the right way, people are very open, up to and including criticising the governement or government policy, although this is obviously in a private context and people still shy away from talking about any changes they would like to see. This kind of insight alone has made me really glad that I chose to teach English here - as I'm living in a very Westernised area the looking glass into China has been really valuable to my experience.
Of course, in addition to the life lessons and observations about Chinese life there are also many comedy moments the better ones of which I'll post up at a later date!
The biggest overall insight I've gotten into the national psyche is how accepting people are of the status quo. It's something that I notice more and more as I get used to life here. Things are accepted as they are without any questions being asked. This seems to provide more and less freedom in equal measure - on an individual level people seem more comfortable expressing their personalities, opinions and different interests, as explanations or self-analysis are not de riguer here. On the other hand this obviously takes place within a certain assumed set of behaviours, beliefs and boundaries, and obviously it means that people don't ask questions regarding authority, society and so on. Whether or not Chinese people desire social or political change this creates obvious limitations and stagnation in areas ranging from equal rights right along to innovation - when nobody asks how current or new technologies can be applied in different situations or used in different ways we miss out on a lot of the unexpected, high-impact stuff, and those kind of questions just aren't asked here, which seems like a huge loss to me as there's so much human potential in China. It would be easy to assume that this limitation comes from China's more recent history - but this is always the easiest assumption, and whilst Communism has had a profound impact on the national psyche, and accentuated a lot of these characteristics in almost all cases it's easy to trace things back much further than the Cultural Revolution.
All well and good, but what does it have to do with teaching? Finding conversation starters was a real problem at first - people don't respond well to questions, and never return questions any more complex than "what is your name?". Even in general conversation, people tend to make statements - they never, never ask questions. Asking how people are, something I automatically frame as a question whatever the language in Mandarin is a statement. Ni hao ma? You fine? My Chinese speaking friends tell me the no-questions thing is a prominent characteristic of the Chinese language. It's occasionallly forced me to find far more inventive ways of getting conversations started, but once you can ask things in the right way, people are very open, up to and including criticising the governement or government policy, although this is obviously in a private context and people still shy away from talking about any changes they would like to see. This kind of insight alone has made me really glad that I chose to teach English here - as I'm living in a very Westernised area the looking glass into China has been really valuable to my experience.
Of course, in addition to the life lessons and observations about Chinese life there are also many comedy moments the better ones of which I'll post up at a later date!
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