An English boy in China

In February 2009, age nineteen, I travelled to China to teach English. China appealed to me as it is the meeting of East and West, as well as of the modern and traditional. I was excited to understanding this vast country’s culture and the experience would prove humbling.
Culture shock is a very real phenomenon. Standing on the twelfth floor of a residential tower block, unable to contact home or communicate with the locals, I began to feel very much alone. No less than a week later, I would realize that this opportunity was the greatest experience of my life. A new culture and environment is something we must adapt to, in order to experience life outside our comfort zones and appreciate the world around us.
After an initial fortnight of training, I began to teach. The first time I entered a classroom, forty small faces gazed up in excitement and expectation. What I experienced, I assume, is a similar feeling to that of an actor suffering from stage fright. Soon after introducing myself, terrified, I fled out of the door, making some pitiful excuse that I must be elsewhere. It truly was a baptism of fire. Initially my lessons were badly organised and poorly delivered. I was unable to control the large classes and it became very difficult to communicate with students. Those who struggled would revert back to their mother tongue; dismissing their new English teacher immediately.
Over the following months I learnt to control them, improve their pronunciation and help shy students read their ‘Harry Potter’ novels to their classmates. I began to use games that even the most despondent of students could enjoy. Some students began to excel. The most memorable of which had taught herself English from a tape and was no older than fourteen. She had never left Zhengzhou and yet had flawless English. Teaching abroad is something I recommend to those who wish to immerse themselves in another culture. I was able to make friends with locals and visit restaurants, bars and markets off the ‘beaten track’. One of these was Julia. She had never left China due to her commitments but wished to live in the UK.She had a vision of England, shaped by Richard Curtis movies, which made for great chat. Another was Roger. One evening, he ordered dinner without consulting me. We were served a variety of raw offal, including spinal cord, eyeballs and intestines. These were then dropped into a vat of boiling sauce, and once cooked, the offal would rise to the surface.