I feel like a zoo animal. No matter where I go I know people are looking at me. Looking at me because I’m different. Looking at me because I might adhere to some of their “beauty constructs.” (interesting that even with a language barrier I still can make out cat calls) Looking at me because I don’t belong.
Moving to Guan Shan has been more of a transition than Taitung City. The city was used to foreigners. The shop owners encouraged us to use Chinese, but when we couldn’t find the words, simple English would suffice. However, in Gaun Shan the English level is ten times lower, the likelihood of foreigners in this town thirty times lower, and the feelings of being a zoo animal exponentially higher. Today I got stared at so much from a group of what looked like teenage girls that I completely gave up on my plan to get a winter melon milk tea because I didn’t want to fumble over the words as I ordered in Chinese.
Sometimes looking foreign has its perks though I won't lie. We visited our schools for teacher in-service day because school starts tomorrow. Some ETAs attended school faculty meetings, got lost on the way to school, or in the case of Parker ended up watching their 3-year old son for a couple hours. I left my house a little early nervous to be late having never been to my school. I left 30 minutes for what google said was a 10 minute ride, a little bit of overkill I agree. I just wasn’t doing anything productive at home worrying about what my LET was like to sit and wait longer till I left. After driving the same section of the road a couple times I finally found the entrance and car park for Kan Ding Elementary, one of my schools for the next year. Upon parking my scooter I realized one thing, I never discussed with my LET where to meet her and with being 20 minutes early I highly doubted she was even there.
I walked around aimlessly for a little bit watching some kids running around, so at the very least I know this isn’t Trunchbel’s school from Matilda. It was because I wasn’t Asian that with my limited Chinese skills I made out that the kids were talking about me, but couldn’t make out enough to distinguish what it was that they were saying. As I tried to puzzle out what they were saying an adult walked out of a room, looked at me smiled, and disappeared without saying a word. Within a second the woman returned with my LET. She didn’t even need to ask me if I was an English teacher, just the way I looked helped me find where I was supposed to be. If it wasn’t for that woman, I’m not sure how long I would’ve wandered around till I got the courage to go into the teacher’s office.
My LET is so sweet. It is her first time ever teaching in a classroom. Similar to me, she has experienced quite the change of career. Only a year ago Irene was a flight attendant learning her English through her interactions with travelers. This will definitely be a learning experience for both of us. She seemed disappointed that I have never taught a class before. I’m a little optimistic of my teaching ability based on how our English Camp yesterday went. English Camp was a full day of alternating classrooms and the lessons my group pulled off with kids ranging from 2nd to 7th grade went well. My group was teaching food so we taught some vocabulary like noodles, seaweed, and tofu. One of our many games was a mystery bag where you felt the food inside a bag and tried to guess what it was without seeing it. We had dried noodles and you name it we had wet tofu. The faces on the kids were hilarious as they touched the wet tofu. We were the hit of the camp. This day gave me hope that I have potential to be a good teacher. I guess I find out tomorrow.
I bonded with my LET when I gave her a gift. In my very packed luggage I packed some Chicago Cubs T-shirts, something that represented where I came from and wasn’t food related. Finds out that my LET who is at least 5’10, was a basketball player growing up and loves sports. I think I found a good fit. Time will tell.
Bình luận