The Rumble Pack

“Hello.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you, and you?”

As an English teacher at the Hutchin English School, I hear this exchange roughly 100 times a day, maybe more. It really doesn’t get much more difficult than that. I just wish I had this knowledge a few months ago. Before making the trek across the globe, my biggest concern was the teaching. As a total introvert (borderline hermit), I’ve always had a difficult time speaking in front of large groups, and although I knew I would be dealing with little kids, I still had reservations. When my students’ parents are paying considerable sums for my expertise, I don’t want to disappoint. Luckily, the curriculum has turned out to be much more structured than I had been led to believe, and the awkwardness of standing in front of a pack of noisy, nose-picking children has subsided.

Though I doubt I’ll be seeking a teaching position as a long term career in the States, it’s surprising how much fun I’ve had in the classrooms. It’s hard to remember so far back, but I don’t recall any of my middle school peers years ago being nearly as enthusiastic as these students, who seem to be just as eager to correct homework as they are to play Hangman or Simon Says. There have been a handful of moments at Hutchin that I’d like to forget (the bathroom without running water is one of them), but this has absolutely been a worthwhile experience. If you’ve recently graduated or are just looking for some temporary adventures, you could definitely do worse. Plus, you get three kilograms of eggs every two months.

However, I have one word of advice for prospective teachers: you may think it’s funny when you’re assigning English names like Hamburger, Dragon, or Four, but just know that your hilarious actions will eventually have grave consequences. Maybe.

Work may be going better than expected, but the commute back and forth between public schools has been the stuff of nightmares. Though Shijiazhuang has designated bicycle paths pointing in designated directions, the general public has chosen to make up its own road rules instead. I’ve witnessed so many near-collisions that could have been easily avoided if people used just an iota of common sense, but I guess it’s easier to blare your horn incessantly. On the other hand, my bicycle here grants me the same kind of freedom that a car would have done back home, so it’s not as if I could avoid this mess for the next ten months. If only I could find a helmet to protect my defenseless cranium.

And since I can’t end a blog entry without a little bit of video game nerdiness, let me introduce you to the EZ2 Dancer SuperChina, a diabolical Korean DDR rip-off that simultaneously requires both fancy footwork and an insane amount of manual dexterity. The machine has the standard dance pad as well as motions sensors for your hands. As a result, EZ2 seems impossible to master. I don’t think the results would be very rewarding either; whereas DDR pros actually look as if they’re dancing (almost), a passerby might confuse an EZ2 participant for someone having a violent seizure. Dancing game fans seeking an insurmountable challenge would get a kick out of the EZ2, but a wall-hugger such as myself has no business on this oddity.