Friday, June 11, 2004
Culture Shock III: Getting annoyed at stuff I should be used to by now
Today I met Xiu Li who is a friend of one of my teachers and who wanted someone to help her with a report or something. She turned up with three of her friends so I brought Lily along to ease the pressure and we sat in the cafe for three hours chatting and working on her recording of an English conversation. Today I realised that it's the same everytime - they are just so excited to be with a foreigner and it's not always obvious that they are paying attention to what kind of a person you actually are, only that you're a foreigner. I know it's not their fault but I just wish there was less face involved. It gets tiresome. It was so tiresome in fact that afterwards I felt like the next time I have to live through this again, I will charge by the hour: Sit in cafe with foreigner for $200/hour.
In this punk magazine from New York I was reading the other day, this chick was asked what she wants to do for a living. She said "Get paid to be alive". I take it noone has suggested she come to Taiwan.
Anyway, when she asked me to teach her a bit of English, I got all bitter and p/ssed off and thought to myself, soooo, she thinks she can get some free English lessons off me then, eh? and felt like telling her I will if she pays me. (I have to admit it was good practise for Chinese because they can't speak any English). I should be used to it by now but today seemed to be the first time I really acknowledged the routine. So three hours of excitement was followed by a photo shoot around campus. Once again I had to use my "I've known these people for longer than five minutes" photo-shoot smile. Then I waved them off and had a good old whinge to Lily. "Oh Lily!" I cried, "why, why, why," I continued crying, "it's excruciating" and she's like "get used to it man," and I'm like "yeah I totally know, seeing as though I've been here for eight months etc". But actually I think what got to me was when my private student's friend 'accidentally' turned up half way through the lesson I was giving her at Starbucks the other night so she could come and have her own turn at feeding the animals. But then again I think I was pissed off anyway because it was our first lesson, and she said she wanted to learn conversation, so I CONVERSED WITH HER, and then when her friend accidentally turned up she said it was 'hardly even a class', in Chinese, expecting me not to understand. I think I was majorly offended because I had spent all day stressing about it, browsing and buying books about How To Teach English, spending two hours at the campus computer centre mucking around with the staff trying to figure out why my password didn't work so that I could print out the Why Do You Want to Learn English questionnaire that I had typed up straight after I came out of Chinese class which she hardly even filled out and then kept at the end...
well that gets a few things off my chest. I didn't charge her because she wasn't satisfied and told her it was just an intro class to find out her level and what I should prepare but on second thoughts I should have charged her just for coming within one metre of her.
¶ 20:13
Today I met Xiu Li who is a friend of one of my teachers and who wanted someone to help her with a report or something. She turned up with three of her friends so I brought Lily along to ease the pressure and we sat in the cafe for three hours chatting and working on her recording of an English conversation. Today I realised that it's the same everytime - they are just so excited to be with a foreigner and it's not always obvious that they are paying attention to what kind of a person you actually are, only that you're a foreigner. I know it's not their fault but I just wish there was less face involved. It gets tiresome. It was so tiresome in fact that afterwards I felt like the next time I have to live through this again, I will charge by the hour: Sit in cafe with foreigner for $200/hour.
In this punk magazine from New York I was reading the other day, this chick was asked what she wants to do for a living. She said "Get paid to be alive". I take it noone has suggested she come to Taiwan.
Anyway, when she asked me to teach her a bit of English, I got all bitter and p/ssed off and thought to myself, soooo, she thinks she can get some free English lessons off me then, eh? and felt like telling her I will if she pays me. (I have to admit it was good practise for Chinese because they can't speak any English). I should be used to it by now but today seemed to be the first time I really acknowledged the routine. So three hours of excitement was followed by a photo shoot around campus. Once again I had to use my "I've known these people for longer than five minutes" photo-shoot smile. Then I waved them off and had a good old whinge to Lily. "Oh Lily!" I cried, "why, why, why," I continued crying, "it's excruciating" and she's like "get used to it man," and I'm like "yeah I totally know, seeing as though I've been here for eight months etc". But actually I think what got to me was when my private student's friend 'accidentally' turned up half way through the lesson I was giving her at Starbucks the other night so she could come and have her own turn at feeding the animals. But then again I think I was pissed off anyway because it was our first lesson, and she said she wanted to learn conversation, so I CONVERSED WITH HER, and then when her friend accidentally turned up she said it was 'hardly even a class', in Chinese, expecting me not to understand. I think I was majorly offended because I had spent all day stressing about it, browsing and buying books about How To Teach English, spending two hours at the campus computer centre mucking around with the staff trying to figure out why my password didn't work so that I could print out the Why Do You Want to Learn English questionnaire that I had typed up straight after I came out of Chinese class which she hardly even filled out and then kept at the end...
well that gets a few things off my chest. I didn't charge her because she wasn't satisfied and told her it was just an intro class to find out her level and what I should prepare but on second thoughts I should have charged her just for coming within one metre of her.
¶ 20:13
