A Year Working for the People's Republic of China | The People are the Heroes Now
I’m teaching two sections of 9th-grade World Music. I’m astoundingly white, and studied the whitest sort of music that there is: academic composition is a tradition of men in powdered wigs writing music for like flutes and shit, and then other men in the 1960s haranguing each other about the nature of art in drafty … Continue reading The Internet Speaks Chinese
Finally, it’s time: On my second Thursday in China, Green Tea — one of the music teachers — sends me a text: I’m to meet with Ms. Music at the music department. The music department is just past the main gate of the school: a compound of three squat, drab rectangles. I don’t know what’s … Continue reading The Deep End
A little over halfway through orientation week, I am summoned from the nothingness of Groupless existence: all the foreign teachers are routed to the main hall for a series of informational sessions. The first piece of information nestled in the informational sessions is that we don’t actually have Chinese visas. We might think that we … Continue reading You’re Going to Lose Your Passport, Then Die in the Street
And on the fifth day, there was Orientation. None of that preliminary bullshit; the genuine article. Granted, the differences between Pre-Orientation and Orientation are apparent only to the discerning orientation connoisseur: we arrive our first Monday in Shanghai at the same auditorium at the same time in the morning. Red Tea takes the mic. Her … Continue reading Full Pads Practice
After we sign our contracts (again), we are routed to an auditorium in the corner of campus. There’s a large stage, rounded at the lip, and rows of red folding seats. The curtains are also red. IK-12 is strangely built. Most of the structures are drab, hulking, inartful, and run down; and the classrooms are … Continue reading Are Our Kids Tough Enough to Be Dead Poets?
