identity and anniversary
What does it mean to be Chinese-American in Hainan, China?My Uncle calls himself and I, yellow bananas meaning yellow on the outside but white on the inside. People here question my American identity almost daily, asking where am I from, where are my parents from and do I speak Chinese. They are befuddled that I look Chinese but am not like them, a China person.
Just yesterday, while talking with other foreign teachers as I waited for visa processing at the government office, a woman who had been watching me for a while from across the floor, came over and sat beside my colleagues and said to me in Chinese, that I looked like a girl from Sanya, not like someone from New York. This actually pleased me because my Mom's parents are from that area on the southern most part of the island where the beaches are famed to be white and the sea, sparkling blue.
Kimberley: what!
How did I first learn about this rampant disqualification of yellow bananas? Here's how one foreign teacher explained it when responding to my job application.
"In regard to education, it appears that you have experience teaching photographic principles to primary and secondary school children. Your work as an EFL teacher in mainland China would be a very different experience: One that involves excessive repetition of simple words and phrases, in a manner that is fundamentally different than serving as an English conversation partner to Chinese daycare workers. Do you sincerely think you would enjoy teaching English as a second language?
Second, I assume from your résumé that you are an American-born Chinese. In this context, I am curious as to what your long-term intentions are in regard to working and living in China. I ask because Hainan YuDa seeks teachers who are hoping to make a long-term commitment
to the school and the community, as opposed to those who are simply looking for a means of supporting themselves for six months to a year while they pursue other agendas.
Finally—in the role of an unsolicited mentor, and as someone who is married to an Asian EFL teacher himself—I must ask if you are aware of the terrible discrimination you will face as an American-born Chinese EFL teacher in China? 
As a rule, the role of foreign teachers in China is de-professionalized such that foreigners are usually hired far more so for their appearance and ability to attract new students than they are for their ability to speak English natively for the sole purpose of facilitating the practice of speaking and listening skills. The “real” teaching, for the most part, is delegated to the Chinese English teachers, who are viewed by the Chinese as being in a far better position to teach English to Chinese students than foreigners are (of course, this position has absolutely no pedagogical value whatsoever). They do so by excessively drilling the students on the rules of grammar, making them memorize long lists of words out of any real context, and by teaching the fundamentals of sentence construction entirely in Chinese—which leads to an entire population of former students who have “studied” English for no less than 12 years, and, quite predictably, have acquired not a single word of it in all that time.
My point is, if you have the possibility of a future as a teacher in New York, why would you want to forego that in exchange for EFL teaching in mainland China, particularly given the amount of discrimination you will face here from school owners, administrators, the Chinese teachers, parents and, no less so, the students?"
Vice Principal
Hainan YuDa Foreign Language Academy
Pretty soon it will be the 7th anniversary of Sept. 11th. What does that mean to Chinese people in Hainan?
Well, most are either too wrapped up in the Sichuan earthquake or more timely,the annual Mooncake festival this weekend when the harvest moon is paid homage too. Tonight I go to the beach to view the moon as part of mid-autumn festival and eat mooncake.
According to Jason Lee, an English teacher at Wenchang Middle School and real estate entrepreneur, there is a fairy who lives on the moon named Chang-Er. She got up there because she ate some bad food and floated up to the moon. Her husband tried to catch her but his fingers barely grazed her robes.
So they live separately, she on the moon, he on the earth.
Except, once a month when the moon is at it's fullest, he can see her face and they can talk to eachother. Now many people confess their innermost secrets, hopes and deepest desires to the moon in hopes that she will pass this message on to their loved ones. In China, the moon will be at its fullest on September 16th. They say this day is compared to Valentine's Day in western culture.
Comments