Grabbing That Oxygen Mask

Today's weather:    High = 19  Low = 8

Severely polluted

 

Regretably, as mentioned in other posts, this is the worst time of the teaching year, hands down.   We're approaching the midpoint of the marathon stretch between the National Holiday and the Chinese New Year.  It also marks the point where we do midterm exams and prepare the marks for the 1^st term report cards which are due this Monday.   The official halfway point occurs next weekend.

 

To use the marathon analogy, this is the part where I'm about ready to collapse, though there is plenty more to go.   This week was a major round of preparing tests and now spending the entire weekend to get marks in order.  Not only that, but a colossal written assignment is due for my online masters program on Tuesday at noon, which I haven't even begun yet.  Somehow it will get done at the last minute.

 

To use another analogy, when ripple effects of chaotic waves accumulate in the air, they reach a 'crisis point' where they resonate with the airplane's frequency and cause the plane to undergo severe turbulence.   Sometimes the plane drops out of the sky and the oxygen masks come out.  That's how it has felt for me over the last two weeks.

Despite all this, I still took a Saturday out and went to the Global Leadership Summit which was happening in Pudong.  This is a major leadership event that takes place every year and it certainly was phenomenal and very practical.  I'll blog more about that in another post, as I'm still behind on several other posts for this month.

 

Going to the event felt like grabbing the oxygen mask in an impending plane crash.  The Leadership Summit was much needed inspirational relief.  I still have to ride out the worst of the turbulence, but it is clear that the plane is getting back on course.  In times like now, this is why I appreciate living in Shanghai so much.  The same kind of craziness, hectiness, and wanton busyness can also happen in other Chinese cities of course.  The culture here is famous for people acting like this, 7 days a week, as I mentioned in other posts.  

 

But here I've got a considerable network of contacts outside of my immediate work.  Most of them have jobs in the corporate world, which is mainly what the Leadership Summit was about.  At any rate I appreciate the wide range of contacts within the vast network of other expats in Shanghai who are doing something else besides teaching. 

 

On the other hand, it is very rare to find such an expat community in cities like Dalian and Wuhan where I used to live.  When faced with similar circumstances over there in past years, I am not sure how I managed to survive.   But clearly I will never go back to living in cities like that.   They say you can improve your Chinese, make Chinese friends and experience the "real China" in 2^nd tier cities such as the above.  Maybe you can do that if you teach ESL and work very few hours a week.  

 

But when you teach in BC offshore schools such as Maple Leaf and others located in the suburbs with enormous workloads, then the sad fact of the matter is that nobody has any time to learn Chinese, experience Chinese culture, or make Chinese friends,  let alone make friends with other expats. 

 

Instead what ends up happening is that teachers socialize and work together, and spend the bulk of the time with each other.  In Wuhan, this was the most extreme case, which nearly drove me to the brink.   There are even some instances of it happening here, but as mentioned above, the vast network of other expats makes it possible to get away from the school compound which, in general, may as well be a mental hospital.

 

One of the most difficult things I grapple with in China is how the culture works against people meeting new friends, mingling, socializing, networking, and so forth.  Due to the work unit mentality (literally:  mental hospital)  people spend the bulk of their time working, in closed networks, with the same people, living together, traveling together, staying in a small area, etc.  so there are few opportunities to meet new people.   People are also scared of meeting new friends due to understandable lack of trust of strangers.  The idea that a stranger is a "friend you haven't met yet" doesn't quite apply here.

 

I've expressed this quite openly with other Chinese friends and they usually come back with a quick little remark like "People have to work in life", with the implication being life suck, work sucks, we sit and suffer, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.   This kind of sad and nihilistic tone is all-too-common in modern China.  Yet when they talk like this, it's also a clear indication that the topic is sensitive and they don't want to elaborate.   

 

For these months in November and December, we spoiled and whiny teachers get to experience what Chinese people have to face their entire lives.   On average, they might get 10 holidays a year, including with the Spring Festival and other stat holidays.

 

Meanwhile, Shanghai is more progressive than most Chinese cities when it comes to this sort of thing.  It's  been a lot better year this time round.  At a time like this, I sure appreciate the chance to get out of the cabin fever and do some meeting and greeting.