Culture Shock?

I have been in China for a little over a month. In fact, I am one week shy of two months, and I don’t know what to say about it.

There are plenty of topics from which I can choose to write a story. I could write about the air pollution. I could write about the traffic and the driving. I could talk about the cultural differences in ideas surrounding education. I could write about visiting Shaolin and what it felt like to have my picture taken as many times as some of the stunningly rebuilt temples. I could talk about what it is like to be a teacher in a program filled with China’s second generation of wealth. There is the food, the water, the toilets, the westerners there are many topics.

Yet, when I face this computer screen and this blank page or when I hold a pen in my hand and stare down onto the blank sheets of paper in my journal, my mind is empty. I am unable to communicate into written word my experiences thus far. I’m certain I have been experiencing culture shock. There were days in my first week when I couldn’t go outside. I was like an agoraphobic unable to leave my apartment. It wasn’t only about how different it was, but how different I was in a crowd of thousands. I’ve never experienced these feelings before, and I am struggling to find the words to describe what I have been feeling, especially in the moments of paralysis.

Trouble with Words

Writing is the moment when I, an author, can be like the painter. When words translate impressions, observations, and feelings into verbal expressions. It is the time to recreate inner thoughts and experiences through figurative language in a way that guides others toward understanding those thoughts. Written words allow others to share in those experiences, maybe even pretend that they are the ones living vicariously through the words on the page. This is a particular type of writing. It is the type of writing I want to do. I have these words. I know I have these words. They are in my brain. I know it. I can feel them bubbling and rising to the surface of my mind, resting on the frontal lobe, and like water they soak in between the ropes of my brain. I sit up and grab a pen to write, but when I go to the desk they vanish.

I am left with a feeling of a wanting and an emptiness.

I Teach English. Students Memorize English.

“Use your English words.” I say this a lot in my classes.

“What does that mean?” I ask a student that is making a gesture with their hands. I think I know what they mean, by the gesture. I could easily say, “Yes, you are right that is the definition,” and let it go, but instead I say, “Use words. What do you mean by that gesture.” I push them because I have overestimated my understanding before, and communication has been lost. The point of our languages is to communicate. The student looks at me with a pensive look, “ummm… it is very hard. I do not know the words.”

My Chinese students are very good a memorizing. They are very good at taking tests. They are able to read a passage in English out loud, but when I ask them to explain what they have just read, they do not know. Reading skills are strong, but comprehension is low. The tests are not about comprehension, but recognition. They know the words in English, but they do not understand the words.

Language is complicated. It has four parts like a clover, yet within each part of learning a language there are deeper more complex units of understanding. It is beautiful. Multilingual people have a valuable gift. The gift of communication across nations. I don’t have this gift.

“Use your English words”. I suppose that is where I need to begin. I can follow the advice of Raymond Carver and write a word, and then another word until I have a sentence, and then when I finish that sentence I will write another one. It’s like walking Carver said, “you put one foot in front of the other.”

The Beginning is Sometimes at the End

And so, I can begin at the beginning.

I moved to Zhengzhou, pronounced Jengjo, China on the 25th of August. It is a large city in the largest province, in China; the Henan province. There are 80 million people living in Henan. There are 9 million people living in Zhengzhou. Those numbers are not exact, but they are close. There are 600 registered westerners living in Zhengzhou. I am one of those 600 westerners. 9 million Chinese citizens and 600 registered foreigners.

In my part of the city, the Central Business District, I have only seen foreigners who work at my school. Most days, I am the only non-Chinese. The only white person, and people stare and point, following me with their eyes. I am a foreigner. I can not hide this. Growing up white in a predominantly white town, and moving to a predominantly white city, I have never stood out. No, that isn’t right. Standing out can be fun, and positive, this is different. I am seen, yet invisible. All eyes are on me, but when I reach out for help eyes either turn away or turn blank, and some eyes scan me from head to toe, but somehow I am not seen, and my words are foreign.

I know other people have experienced this. People of color experience this even in their own country which must add another layer of otherness. You should be a part of the community because you were born there, but you are not, you are an outsider. The thought of that on top of what I currently am feeling wells up within me. I feel an empathy for others that I once only held as a sympathy. It’s lonely. It is a lonely feeling.

Few people speak English in my neighborhood. I do not speak Chinese. I do not even know the words. I am an alien in China. I am different. I am isolated. I am surrounded but alone. I don’t know the words. I don’t understand. I am alone without the language. My students they know my language, but they do not understand my language. So much is lost in the translation of gestures. It is just memorization without comprehension.

I am wrong. It is not lost in translation because there is no translation. I do not have the language to express to English readers these feelings of isolation within crowds. Yet, I teach English. My English fails me. What I wrote here today is the best I have to offer.